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Speaker 1: Hey, this is James Buckley up in North Louisiana. When

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I have a raging fever for eighties and nineties nostalgia

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that I can't even cure with more cow bell, I

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turned to the experts Jason Coffin and d Graves on

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the Shirley You Can't Be Serious Podcast.

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Speaker 2: Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Surely you Can't

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Be Serious Podcast Special Edition five Minutes of Fire. We're

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here talking about the lyrics of We Didn't Start the

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Fire by Billy Joel. We're covering only five minutes at

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a time, which is about to link for the song,

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so it works out kind of nicely. So please join

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us as we dive into some new lyrics today.

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Speaker 3: All right, guys, so here are the topics that we're

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going to be covering today. Crack Bernie gets.

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Speaker 2: Epodermics on the shore on the shot, all right, d

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tell me about crack. Okay, Jason, Americans love their cocaine,

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Yes to do. In the nineteen eighties, that was huge.

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It was the biggest drugg around. The majority of cocaine

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was being shipped into the US, landing in Miami, originally

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through Columbia. Check out the movie Narcos if you like

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traffic through the Bahamas. Soon, however, because of the love

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for cocaine by Americans, there was a huge glut of

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cocaine powder on these islands, which caused the price to

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drop by as much as eighty percent. So faced with

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the prices of their illegal product dropping, the drug dealers decided, Hey,

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let's convert some of this powder to crack, which is

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a solid, smokeable form of cocaine made by the method

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of freebasing, which makes it more pure. It was cheap,

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simple to produce, ready to use, highly profitable to dealers,

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and as early as nineteen eighty one, reports of crack

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were appearing in La Oakland, New York, Miami, Houston, and

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in the Caribbean. The word crack may have first appeared

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in a Rolling Stone article from May first, nineteen eighty

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titled Freebase a Treacherous Obsession, The Rise of crack Cocaine

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and the fall of Attics destroyed by the drug. The

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problem was is that it was most used as a

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recreational drug in impoverished neighborhoods New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington,

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d C, LA and San Francisco, and Miami in late

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nineteen eighty four and nineteen eighty five. This resulted in

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what they refer to now as the crack epidemic, which

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ultimately they got under control by the nineteen nineties. The

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only problem was around nineteen ninety people started developing methamphetamine,

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and you had a whole new problem. All right, Tell

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me about Bernie Gets.

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Speaker 3: On December twenty second, nineteen eighty four, a man named

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Bernie Gets shot four young black men on a New

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York City subway train after they tried to rob him.

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All four survived, although Darryl Caby was paralyzed and had

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brain damage. The four had approached Gets on a train, asking,

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some say, demanding money. He pulled out a gun, fired

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four shots, wounding all but Kby. Gets stated that when

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he saw Kby cowering in a corner, he bent down

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and said, you don't look so bad. Here's another and

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shot him once injuring his spine. He fled to Vermont

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and hit out for a while before turning himself into authorities.

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Supporters of Getz point to a public frustration with crime

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in New York City. Detractors note that he was known

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for racist language. He was sentenced to one year incarceration

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in a five thousand dollars fine. He served eight months,

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and he is also one of the few people who

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are still alive.

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Speaker 2: Tried to drive him with the screwdriver. That was an

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incredibly bad idea. Okay, do you tell me about hyperdermics

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on the shore. I can remember seeing the news on this.

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This is hyperdermic needles washing up on the shores of

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various beaches. It was called the syringe Tide, and it

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occurred during nineteen eighty seven and eighty eight in Connecticut,

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New Jersey, and New York where there was significant amounts

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of medical waste, including the hypodermic syringes, that washed up

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onto the beaches on the Jersey Shore and in New

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York City and in Long Island. It forced the closing

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of these beaches on the Atlantic Coast. Reports of the

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medical waste and sewage spills drove away hundreds of thousands

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of vacationers, costing the seven point seven billion dollar a

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year tourism industry on the Jersey Shore more than one

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billion dollars in lost revenue that summer. The reason that

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this was such a big concern is one you've already

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mentioned in a past episode. HIV and AIDS was known

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to be passed through hypodermic needles and was epidemic at

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that time. The officials finally traced the source of the

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waste to the Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island. New

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York City was required to pay one million dollars for

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pass pollution damages as well as pay for the cleanup.

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No money was paid to the business owners on the

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Jersey Shore for the revenues that they lost during the

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months of inactivity. They ultimately developed a plan to keep

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this from happening in the future, called the Short Term

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Floatables Action Plan. It was ultimately successful. The closures declined

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from over seventy miles in nineteen eighty eight to fewer

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than four miles in nineteen eighty nine, and closures have

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remained at a low level since that time. Okay, guys,

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that does it for today's episode. Join us next time

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for five minutes of fire.