Still the Place with Laura Layton, Courtney thorn Smith.
And daphnews Aniga and iHeartRadio podcast.
Hey everyone, Hello, back at thend Melrose minute.
It should be called well, well it doesn't have the same ring, but Melrose more than a minute.
Yeah, that's the Melrose chunk.
Of let's not make the quick thing longer in the title, do you guys, this is total non separatter, But do you notice how long our opening credits are, Like there was so much more time. Like now advertising anything takes up like twenty minutes of the hour. But we had so much money, our credits were like two minutes longer.
So long, yeah, like watching what it was in the nineties.
Opening credit Yeah, like people were willing to sit through long credits.
Now you think that they were like very iconic those credits, all those shots on Melrose.
And well it's been fun also to see like reminded, oh my gosh, soon so was guest starring.
Oh look there's Mitchell Anderson.
Oh look there's you know, Wulkins, And that has been really fun to like see him pop up that way.
Yeah, and special guest star Heather Lockler. She kept that credit when she was a regular yep.
Yeah, he's a smart one that Heather.
Well, that was a super fun episode seeing her her first appearance, and it also brought up some subjects with us that we thought of along the way. We were we were talking about blind dates, and like, it sounds like Daphne has some blind dates of her own.
I can't wait to hear Daphne's story.
Had a good blind date, which is rare. I had a.
Very excellent blind date.
You want to hear about that?
Well, I'm well, we were. I met him in New York. I was set up with a guy, a man who lived in New York while outside of New York, and I thought, I have nothing in common with him? What am What am I going to do with a devorcee in Connecticut?
What part of your life? How old are you?
Like?
Where are you in your life eighteen years ago?
However old I was then? Okay, twenty's with twenty.
You know you're old when, like the joke is thirty or forty.
I like that kind of math though it's like eighteen years ago.
But I'm not telling you how whatever it wasn't in my you know, youth and childhood.
But I'm going to keep this short, because I want to hear about your dates.
I need you guys to divulge.
But at any rate, the date started in New York City one weekend and ended a week later in Miami South Beach, and I am now married to him.
So good.
You know, so they do buy the cow when they get the milk for Hey.
What's the cow with the sausage for free?
Such a feminist, I am. Yeah, what a beautiful, like blind date story. I love that?
And set you up? Did you tell us?
I didn't tell you, just a friend, irrelevant, but someone who knew him for a long time. And I was it's funny because I said, what does he do? And he said he works at the Bronx Zoo. And instantly like a like an elephant someone shoveling elephant pool.
Picture, like a maintenance man who set me up with?
Yeah, And he's like, no, he does PR press and PR for publicity and branding for the zoo.
Yeah.
And then I didn't meet him for three weeks before we had the date. We were on the phone and email a lot, and what was so refreshing and so wonderful was just how honest you don't play games at that age? I was in my mid forties, and I didn't think it was going to work because he lived way over in Connecticut, and you know what I mean, he had a kid at home, and I just didn't think it was going to work. So I had nothing to lose. I wasn't trying to be anything, and he
wasn't trying to do either. So we were just very honest with each other, and it really really created a trust and a circle of you know, just friendship and trust and it was and other stuff. It was just really great. So I love We were long distance for the first three years until moved out here once his son was Wow left.
You did not have like the Claire problem and the like the opposite taste problem that Billy had with his Blain date.
I did not have that problem at all. Yeah, I mean we were We're very different. This guy is East Coast, grew up in private schools, you know, very proper mannered. I, as I told you before, was very scrappy kid in Berkeley, California, you know what I mean, like my public schools the whole way. So we were very opposite. But again it was something about he wasn't playing games. He called me right away and his voice and was like, A man, I don't know, there was just something I could tell
in his voice. And then we just really trust each other because we opened up to each other before we even met, and we were very honest about being nervous about meeting. I was like, and then I just go, can we just make a deal that if it just doesn't work for whatever reason for either one of us, we can just call it a day and call it quits and no hard feelings. And he's like, yes, please, okay, okay, good. So it was we had that kind of understanding, so
a fun as opposed to like pressure. And he didn't live here, so I think, like Billy and Ol, when you do a blind date, you usually live in the same town and you just kind of feel like, oh, if you don't like it, how am I going to extract myself from it? But he lives so far away. I was like, it doesn't work, I'll never see him again, you know, so, but it did.
That was eighteen years.
Ago, very happy ending to that story.
Yeah, he's a great guy. I'm very very smart. So, uh, what about you guys? Any blind dates that were great or horrible?
Horrible? I never married a blind date. No, wait did I? How did you meet your husband?
I love that you genuinely had to double think that. Wait, wait, let me double check my memory.
Yeah, my son's dad and I met on an airplane plane.
But I I don't like blind dates.
Because I think they're so much pressure before you meet, and there is so much about It's not about like someone looking a specific way, but but chemistry and attraction, that something that you can't really put a name on.
It's important. So I'm not a fan.
I just find that I find there's so much anxiety around a blind date and it rarely works out.
What do you think, Laura, Well.
I've never been on one.
I've never really been on a blind date, so I'm fascinated. I want to hear all about your back.
We, Doug, understand if we set you up on a blind date, so you its timing.
I think it's maybe not a good idea right now. This is just not a good time for Listen.
She's happily married, but she's gorgeous and she's funny.
So it's a blind and really bad idea date. Yeah, no, let's not do it. But daph I'd like to hear about some that were really bad. Let's I want to hear some like really well, I mean, I'm prepare to tell. I mean, I just remember once in I think maybe it was college or shortly after. There's just no no chemistry, you know what I mean, Like I remember that. But I've met most of my people not through blind dates. This was rare because I never, you know, met a
blind date. I never tried online or anything. I was always through a friend or work or something.
You know.
So but my friend said, actually I had two blind dates in New York. That's so funny. And I, you know, I started talking to David right away on emails, and then you know, I emailed the other guy who waited a long time to get to me, and I was like, oh, I gotta be honest with you. There's another guy that I was set up on it. I was totally honest with him. So if I don't meet you, that's because I had a really great time Saturday night. I don't
meet you. And he's like, oh, man, I waited too long, and I've looked him up since he's married, has kids, he's very happily married. But I didn't meet with the guy. I told him I'm not gonna meet him because time with David.
Oh you already liked him and that's very sweet.
Yeah. Yeah, So I was wondering while we were thinking about this question, like, isn't so many people meet online?
Now?
Isn't that kind of a blond?
Yeah, that's a whole thing that we kind of in our youth we never had to contend with, right we But now that's I guess.
I mean it's kind of blind whether the thing.
Yeah, but none of it is because you have social media and you can actually look them up. It's not blind as in like a visual you can look and see what this person presents themselves to look like.
But it's also curated, right, so it's not like you're actually knowing them. But I think what I know from the kids, the kids, I know they want to get back to a more organic way of meeting because all of this online stuff, like I said, it's curated. They're putting forth their best, this image, this idea they have of themselves. But people are wanting to meet in person again, They're wanting to go out, they're doing meetups. They're all
these apps that are about like meeting in groups. I just saw something about there's like it was a it was a like a walking club.
For people to meet, and it's got hundreds of people.
Now I go and they meet each other because they're ready for something more.
Or mm hmmm. Yeah, I think that sounds like a better way to do it, right, I mean back to kind of like what it's supposed to be.
You meet.
Yeah, it's what we did. Apparently you have to leave the house though, that's the hard part.
Oh there's.
Always something you should be able to, like delivery. I guess you can, but that would be an escort.
So you Okay, we've just gone a firefield.
We have some fan questions. I think we've been Oh good, let's trying to get back to right.
Sometimes we forget and we get off on a tangent. But there were some fan questions about well, right on the heels of our episode about a photo shoot. We had some fan questions about photoshoots.
We've done a lot of them for the show.
Yeah, like if we if we remembered any in particular, and what are our memories about our photoshoots that we did.
We've talked about the one for I think it was was it interview magazine where we were all out in the desert somewhere and it was an entire weekend from like six am to eight pm both days.
Do you remember that? And you and Grant were on a motorcycle?
Oh my god, do.
You remember that one?
I don't think I do.
I bet I have that somewhere in mine. I should go look for some.
If it was first season, then I don't remember it. I didn't. I wasn't in any in the first season.
You know. It came to my mind.
Remember the one we did for Entertainment Weekly, the reunion one.
The reunion shoot is fresher in our memory.
Yeah, And then we all had cell phones and that's where we all exchange numbers.
It was so nice to reach out.
I were connected today, isn't that sweet?
Yeah?
That was a great one. That's when we were all in black and we had a right and we have a fig picture of the three of.
Us kind of like it was such a it was such a nice experience, sort of like older grown ups, like, yes, you know, being that like because our photo shoots when we were on this show, and it was crazy and we were already exhausted and we were shooting these things
on our weekends. You know, and there's just kind of like a lot of stress and pressure around it trying to have eight nine, you know, ten people in a photo shoot, or sometimes when it was just the women, even like it's just a lot of women and five women or whatever.
But there it's just a little bit stressful.
There's a high pressure and getting everybody you know, into the right wardrobe, and there's a time crunch and everything.
They're a little bit stressful. And for some reason, the.
One that was a reunion shoot in two thousand and whatever, that was twelve two thousand and nine something like that, whatever, the twenty fifth reunion issue was, it was we were just not as pressured.
It just felt a lot more relaxed.
Were grown up.
Yeah, but that that iconic the Rolling Stone cover the.
And that was like time.
Yeah, that was the five women on that And that's a photograph that kind of reappears a lot. Is like it was a really cool thing to be on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine And the headline or that or that caption for the photo was Melrose Place bod Squad.
Remember that, the bod Squad?
Yeah, I remember I said this last time, and you said, let's wait with Courtney here. It was so stressful. Do you remember that, court I do. It was very horrible, and it was horrible. It was so stressful. There's a true story behind it. I don't know if I'm going to out it here or not, but at any rate, we got to do a lot of different shots and I thought it was fun and creative, but there was.
And there were shots on the insight some inside photos too, right, Yeah, it.
Just felt I think as we were so young, it just felt so intense. And when we met again as adults, Yeah, it's all in perspective, like there was so much attention on us.
There was so much pressure on us.
Now it's like, oh, you know, you wish you could go back and just do it with the lightness we have now right that we know we have a better sense of what's important.
Then there was so much intensity.
Yeah, honest, at that time, I have it in a much better place, you know.
I think also, you guys, that intensity didn't come from us necessarily. It came from the people behind us. It came from like our representatives and like you know, your publicists were there and your managers are there, and everyone has like an agenda that you are just doing a shoot and working with like, you know, your friends that you like, all of us got along, all of us
really liked each other. And then I just felt like the soup got so mixed with the photographer and they have an ego and the magazine wants a certain thing, and the costumer and this and that and.
The other thing, and I just thought like, yeah, and I can't think about how different it was when we did our photo shoot for this podcast, and how late it was, and it's just us and we're making our own calls, we're driving ourselves, we're exchanging clothes, Like how fun that was?
You guys, We've gone from being the bod Squad to now being the pod Squad. I love it, Aura, I like the Pod Squad. It's super like happy, relaxing and super not streff. But you're right, daffl Like there was always kind of an agenda from people in the shoot, like people's managers or whatever that we weren't necessarily even
aware of that. It's just all kind of being orchestrated behind us, and we don't even know all this stuff that's going on, and so that that sort of stressful feeling is just kind of behind you going on in the background, and we're just like, I just want to, you know, have this look good, and I just want to do what I'm told and whatever. But there's kind of these agendas that are you're not even always aware of what's going on.
Courtney and I were was a fold over cover, and Corty and I were on the back side of the fold over when it came out, except I said for years. I said, well, my elbow is on the actual cover, but I am on the cover almost. And then I remember it was because the three of you, you, Josie and Laura, You, Josie and Amanda all were like wearing very skimpy white things and we will like had more a little more fabric or something. So maybe it was that,
or maybe it was your manager or whatever. And then I remember Mark Seliger coming up to me afterwards, are calling me we saw each other somewhere, the photographer and just saying, you know, we always have this, he said, there were there were, you know, agendas, but he's like, I had this with you too. I had this with like Bruce Fringstein in the East Street band. We do this, you know, this is always an.
Issue, Like he had like a group.
He sees the photograph as a cover period and he shoots these iconic you know, Rolling Stone, these these band members all the time, and it always is a little funky because you can't fit them all on like this. You know, you'd all have to be like this or something.
Yeah, you have all these like all these voices. It's important. It's important, it's important.
And now I get a perspective to go it's not important, right, Like it was so long, but we remember most people don't remember it, and you look at it now to have this perspective of that's not what's important. Like, what's important to me about this podcast is it the three of us get to get together and hang out all the time, Like it's so much fun. I have such a better perspective on what's important. And even then it's
like in a used to joys. It's not brain surgery, but it felt like it in that moment it was. There was so much intensity put on it.
And when we were young, all those we think that all these are the powers that be, and the stakes are so high, and they're really we're ponds. They're kind of just telling us where to go and do this, and you know, you're just doing it because you're selling the show, and you know, and.
I think we all have a framed copy of the entire photo, which to me, like my memory of it is the photo which is all five of us just in a line.
Right.
The problem with the magazine cover is it's not big enough to fit all five, so somebody got folded in the in the inside. But like I like, I have that rolling stone picture which is the five of us. It's a photo just it's the framed thing that they gave us, you know, which I think is the way I remember it now, is just like it's the photo of all five of us, and I love it.
You would you were in the middle on the cover, but I'm seeing the photo on the wall.
It's like a whole thing.
I'm totally fair, Like you have a different experience of That's totally fair.
But like I love that.
Photo itself as like all five, like the photo.
Is, Daphne says it full. Daphne has it folded the other way.
You guys looking very love lovingly at each other, Do you remember that, Like they were just like drape over each other.
It was all about well, that's.
What I'm saying, Like it was this intensity.
Now you look at you go, oh that I that I gave any of my life force to worrying about that seems so insane today, but I remember how intense it felt and how competitive it felt. Now it's like, I love, but I'm just saying I love the dichotomy of that yeah podcast shoot, and how loving and fun and light and easy it was.
How different we are today, how much was grown up.
We can we can drape ourselves over each other now it will just be the and it's just the.
For next season, We're gonna have a new photo. It's gonna, yeah, dripping all over each other. I liked the Vanity Fair shoot that we did. We did a two page spread with Annie Leebowitz. I really loved that.
Is that a poker one?
No poker was poker, Rolling Stone on the poker was inside rolling Stone.
Yeah, this was We're all on a bed because that's what they did with the Yeah.
Yeah, it's for the entire decade.
And we all squeezed in.
Yeah, I think we all squeezed in. But I just liked her Annie Leebowitz, and was felt so.
Honored to be Yeah, but a special experience to be able to shoot with her and do some of those things.
Got a lot of cool things, right, Like I remember going to the super Bowl super bowls coming up. I remember going on a private plane, yeah, the super Bowl.
Because they just like, do you want to go?
And I was like all right, like yeah, I didn't have the idea how special it was. Like I'm like, I wish some would do that now when I have a kid, right, Like, it would be so much fun to take my kid on that. But he missed that whole. Yeah, yeah, he says, I know, I know you're big in the nineties.
It doesn't matter with the super Bowl.
Doesn't matter how much you tell them, and like haul out the photos and the magazines that are all browned around the edges. It just doesn't matter.
They do, I know, like.
Old timey newsprint, because the nineties were two decades before.
Yeah.
So for those of you just coming to Still the Place, the pod squad here, we were a really big deal.
Just in case, and if you forget, we'll tell you again.
We never shut up about it, so get so photographs out there.
We're just we're just happy that you're coming and that you're listening to Still the Place and We're always going to be here to make fun of ourselves, and we're so grateful that you're coming and listening to our episodes every week, and we'll be back next week with more silliness the best.
All right, guys, love, thank you everybody for listening.
Okay, I see you guys as always, be soon.
Bye,