Ep.1 - The Silver Chain
Listen to full episode :
Newsletters from an abandoned safe deposit box set host Paul Ditty on an investigation to learn all he can about The Silver Chain – a suburban Minnesota swing club from the 1970s – and its members.
Paul attempts to reach several of the club's members. No one will talk until finally he reaches Carol, one of the club’s founders who eventually agrees to talk. But just as Paul is on his way to Modesto, an email from Carol's daughter changes his course.
Episode 1 Transcript
A QUICK WARNING: THIS EPISODE CONTAINS MATERIAL NOT SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN
When I was a kid growing up in Northern Minnesota, I started my very own detective agency.
There were just a few obstacles. We lived in the woods, ten miles from the nearest town. Also,I made this decision in the dead of winter.
And my neighbors – many who lived miles away – were a) annoyed by my unannounced housecalls and b) let’s say unamused by the big announcement that I, a nine-year-old, was available for hire.
But that didn’t stop my pitch: Missing valuable family jewels, searching for a long lost spinster aunt? I’m your guy!
Gradually – after more than a few slammed doors – I realized that people who live in the woods reside there for a reason. They want to be left alone. And after all that literal legwork – and frostbite – I had zero clients.
Little did I know, decades later…I’d have another shot at my dream.
In the early 1990s, a safe deposit box at First Bloomington Lake National Bank in Minneapolis went unclaimed. For months, the rent had not been paid and per the bank’s policy, the contents would be sent to the Minnesota Department of Commerce.
Inside this slim metal box in a nondescript bank, the employees found something… that caught their attention.
I’m Paul Ditty, and this is Time Capsule. The Silver Chain.
(Theme Music Plays)
This story begins with a text message from my friend April Shih.
(Text Message Sound Effect)
April’s a writer for TV and film, and co-founder of her own production company, Diversity Hire Limited. We’ve been friends for ten years and even formed our own writers group because I’m also a TV writer.
(Text Message Sound Effect)
April (Paul Texting April): Have you heard of the Silver Chain Social Club?
Paul (Paul Texting April): I have not.
Immediately after my reply, April sends me a link to a 2017 GQ article about The Silver Chain Social Club titled “The 70s Swingers Club and the Secret Archive it Left Behind.”
Jack El-Hai: In the early seventies four satiated but dissatisfied couples on their way home to Minnesota from a social event in a distant state, reignited a conversation they'd been having about their gripe. Having to pack up and travel to meet like minded people was a big bother. Surely there was a way to meet more people like them close to home. Other swingers. So they made a plan. If they combined efforts, they thought they could start their own swingers club and create a scene right in their own town. They could swing more often and with more people. These couples call themselves the executive committee of their new outfit.
The article, written and read here by Minnesota journalist Jack El-Hai, pieces together a story about this club called The Silver Chain from a collection of eighteen of their newsletters dating from October 1976 to June 1978, newsletters that found their way from a safe deposit box, to the Minnesota Department of Commerce until finally becoming part of the collections at the Minnesota Historical Society Library.
In the article, Jack El-Hai shares what he knows about The Silver Chain: it was a couples-only swing club that held the majority of their monthly dances at the faux-Indian-themed Thunderbird Motel in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington. New members were allowed in by referral only. And club sponsored events like dances, picnics and sports leagues were for socializing only. As in NO SEX, which means the members were left responsible for partner swapping and sex on their own time.
And then there’s the name The Silver Chain itself, which originated from the idea that members could identify one another by wearing a silver chain with a distinctive round pendant containing the number 77. The meaning behind the number 77? As one clubgoer explains: it’s like 69 only get ate – that’s A-T-E – more. Try forgetting that one.
But within the article: El-Hai also shares what he doesn’t know: Was the final newsletter is an indication of the club’s demise? Who it was that placed these newsletters in a safe deposit box. Only to abandon them. And when why and even if the club ended at all.
Finding the answers to these questions is especially challenging for El-Hai because, in The Silver Chain’s effort to preserve anonymity, members are identified both in the newsletter and at the monthly dances by first name and last name initial only.
As I read Jack El-Hai’s article, my world stops. April totally knows me. This article checks all the boxes: My home state. The 1970s – my favorite decade. And most of all the real-life mystery within those newsletters. The idea of a swing club holding monthly events out in the open in conservative Bloomington, Minnesota sounds so preposterous that I’m instantly hooked.
April tells me she has plans to partner with actor producer Jack Huston and develop the article into a TV series. But the best part of all is that she wants me on board.
So over the next couple of weeks, we work on a pitch and then set up a meeting with Jack Huston to discuss.
April Shih: Yeah. Oh, well, everyone's here.
Paul: I know. Finally, this is so great. May I? Jack Paull to finally meet you.
Jack Huston: Oh, it's so good. So good to meet you, too.
Paul: I'm just really honored that you both shared this with me. And I'm just really curious, like, how did you come across this article?
Jack Huston: I always have an eye out for things just sort of, you know, being in the business as sort of an actor, writer, director and that kind of thing. So I love to read everything from all sort of walks of life, I just was fascinated at this idea about, you know, Minnesota back in the sort of seventies.
Paul: I'm very fascinated by it because I feel like for suburban, you know, Minnesota life. This is such a progressive stance for these people to take.
Jack Huston: You realize that they were young, they were exactly like us, and they were excited and wanted to explore and do fun things. So I think with something like this, it opens up such a such a new understanding of who our grandparents and parents really were.
April Shih: I like how it's like both sexy and like unsexy at the same time.
Paul: I think we each walk away with, like, an idea of what swinging is. Yeah, but I feel like what we're missing is we don't really like we can glean things from the newsletters and, and from what we understand, the swinging lifestyle, to be, but we don't really know what it was like.
All we have to go by is like our preconceived notions of what swinging is.
Jack Huston: My preconceived notion of swinging is it must be incredibly messy. I do it to myself. I'm like, You think of these rather prim and proper and, you know, like the ideals of the day, but like, it's there's something rather messy about it.
April Shih: I wish I was the type of person that could participate in something like this, but I'm way too prudish and like, feel like I would get jealous, Like I wish I was the type of person that was more progressive, you know what I mean?
Paul: I'm trying to imagine, like, first of all, how did they have time to do all of this fucking like who has time?
April Shih: Yeah, I barely have enough time to like get coffee in the morning.
Jack Huston: Yeah, by the way. But I think that's brilliant. Just that question. How did they have time to do all this?
April Shih: Like kids. They have children, these people.
Paul: So I know I can't even keep a plant alive and I don't have sex. So how do you do it.
Part of our collective curiosity during this call is that in recent years, phrases like open relationship, polyamory and ethical non-monogamy have gradually woven their way into the conversation.
News Clip: “In our recent survey, we actually found that 52% of Americans and majorities that they tried something new in the bedroom during the pandemic.”
News Clip 2: “I'm looking for Saturday night orgies and white picket fences.”
News Clip 3: “Like, how we define ethical, non monogamy for us is that we are romantically monogamous and sexually non monogamous. You look at the calendar like, oh tomorrow. Uh So and so is coming over and Bridget is hosting, that means that I need to find something to do, this is far more than just about sex or just about casual sex. These people who are actually committed, they have agreed that they will have multiple partners. And I know it sounds like a lot from the outside looking in. But at the end of the day, ethical, non monogamy is what makes us happy.”
So does swinging as we know it even exist today? Or has it gone the way of the rotary dial phone or the VHS tape? Something so archaic that we find it entertaining but inaccessible. Like that key party scene in Ang Lee’s film “The Ice Storm”:
Clip from Ang Lee’s The Ice Storm: “Oh, my own husband. Isn't that against the rules again? No, no, no, no, that's fine.”
Or those late night ads I used to see on cable TV.
Clip from Plato’s Retreat Ad: Plato's Retreat located in the Ansonia Hotel is a unique club open to free thinking adult couples. We offer a relaxing no pressure environment complete with heated swimming pool and that great disco beat Plato's may not be for everyone.
But it turns out that, yes, swingers still do exist.
Dan: Hey there, pineapple people. And welcome to the Swing Nation podcast. We are your hosts, Northern Guy.
Lacy: And Southern Girl.
Dan and Lacy AKA Northern Guy and Southern Girl, are the married hosts of The Swing Nation podcast and are two of the most prominent voices in the swinging community today.
Dan: I found this community of people that kind of looked at, you know, life and sex and relationships in a slightly different manner. And I was like, that's really cool that that couples can be open with each other and can kind of, you know, explore sexuality together or experiment together. I'm like, that's a really cool thing.
Lacy: I started doing research into the lifestyle. Like, what is this? I started listening to podcasts and googling and found SLS, which is Swing Lifestyle Dot Com, which is one of the biggest platforms and made a profile. And the next thing I know, I had couples messaging me.
Okay, Lacy gets buried in messages because she’s a unicorn. That’s swing code for a single female swinger.
Paul: Was it overwhelming to be a unicorn?
Lacy: Very much so.
Truthfully, the options were endless. I could just open my inbox at any rate of tab and just scroll down and pick one.
You're a single female in the lifestyle, people just flock to you.
And Dan, being a single male, is a bull.
Dan: I went out and met a bunch of couples as a single man, which was coming out of a long term monogamous relationship, was an interesting way to explore my sexuality and and to have some experiences. And for me it was very positive. And then I met this one.
Dan is on a work trip in Lacy’s hometown when she messages him and they hit it off.
From that point on, they meet up every time Dan’s in town, and it’s kind of perfect.
Dan: It's just such a refreshing change of pace for me. It's it's very rewarding, you know? It's, you know. You just feel like you're not you're not weird, you're not strange. You know, you feel like you fit in and that it's more normal than what you think.
And with that comes an exploration of how to navigate their sexually adventurous sides with a growing emotional bond.
Dan: We were like, Oh, we're both swingers and we've been, you know, having sex with all these other couples and stuff. Like, we're going to be in an open relationship. We're going to have no rules and no boundaries. And and you do what you want to do. I'll do it. We want to do them. We're together. We'll be together. No, it's all going to be great.
Lacy: It was terrible.
Dan: And that was a nightmare, you know? I mean, it was just it just was crazy was we had to deal with jealousy. We had to deal with insecurities. We had, you know, we fought and bickered. And, you know, I think we knew we couldn't be monogamous, but we weren't sure how to, you know, how to kind of manage this non-monogamy and what were the rules were and where the lines were, where the boundaries were.
Okay, so an open relationship is not the same thing as swinging. This is news to me. Until this point, I considered open relationships, polyamory, and ethical non-monogamy the same thing as swinging. But the difference with swinging is that the couple is on this journey together. And this ultimately is what works for Dan and Lacy. In fact, they only play with others when both of them are in the same room.
In talking with Dan and Lacy. I find out they host swingers weekends all around the country and even publish a magazine about the lifestyle, which is how this community refers to their way of life. And the lifestyle is now their full time job. Which gets me thinking even more about their predecessors. Like how does Dan and Lacy’s experience compare to what it was like to be one of the four founding couples organizing The Silver Chain? I mean, if you think about it, their newsletter was, in a way, the 1970s version of a podcast.
Jack (GQ Article P1): The early seventies were free love, suburban suffocation and feminism on the rise. All over America, people were reexamining relationships and marriage. Swinging might have spun out of the organized partner swapping of U.S. military pilots who flew in World War Two and the Korean conflict that blossomed during the decade along with communal living, gay liberation and extralegal domestic partnerships. All attempts to break the numbing shackles of buttoned down lifestyles.
That’s Jack El-Hai, once again reading from his GQ article about The Silver Chain.
In the mid-1990s, Jack was working on a book titled “Minnesota Collects”, detailing the Minnesota Historical Society’s vast collection when he asked one of the curators a question:
Jack El-Hai: What are some of the most interesting things you know of in your collections and maybe things that aren't access as much as they should be. And this reference librarian immediately mentioned the club's records.
Paul: What did you think when you first saw the newsletters?
Jack El-Hai: It's a feeling I've had when I come across something and it's like an egg cracks open and I see a yolk that is of a different color than I've ever seen the yolk before. it's mainly a feeling of, “Oh, my God. What have I gotten myself into?”
What Jack gets himself into takes 20 years to get out of his head and onto the page for GQ .
He’d go back to the newsletters from time to time, looking at the pixelated black and white photos of the club’s members, …wondering… who are these people? Why did they join the group? What is the real story here?
Paul: Were you able to reach were you able to contact anyone that was in the group? I can't remember if you were able to or not.
Jack El-Hai: The only one I tried to reach was the the Treasurer. Because her name was given in full in some of the newsletters and hers was the only one. So I tracked her down to the senior residence where she was living. I called there, asked for her, was put in touch with her daughter, who said that SHE was not in a condition to speak.
Paul: And did you tell her that it was because the daughter that it was because of the silver chain?
Jack El-Hai: Yes. I think I know I mentioned to her the name Silver Chain and I but I didn't say Swingers Club. And I noticed when I was talking to her on the phone that she didn't flinch or even ask, what's the silver chain? But I didn't take it any further with her then.
After we hang up, Jack sends me a PDF of the newsletters – ranging in date from October 1976 to June 1978, along with a copy of the group’s by-laws. And these newsletters – they’re like a total time capsule. Giving me a glimpse into a world I’d never know anything about without their existence.
On the surface, they look like they could be any community newsletter. There’s a heartfelt, ingrained earnestness that prevails despite the club’s after-hours practices.
There are surveys, announcements –
A recurring feature on The Silver Chain’s Personality of the Month – which is always a woman who is typically gorgeous and – most importantly – never misses a dance.
And tons of admin, like tersely delivered details on why it takes so dang long to get your membership card and a somewhat desperate article titled “Do You Really Want or Read Your Newsletter?” And my answer to that question is a resounding HELL YES.
But somehow, having copies of the newsletters does little to quell my curiosity. In fact, it completely tips the scales. I’ve officially become a Silver Chain fanatic.
The more I read the newsletters, the more I want to know:
What did people WANT from this group, aside from the obvious?
Are the newsletters an accurate representation of what it was like to be in the Silver Chain?
Also: when did The Silver Chain end – was it in June 1978, the date of the last newsletter on record? And why did it end?
These are questions that reveal the newsletter’s limitations. Or maybe the limitations of any time capsule. Without context…these are just artifacts.
The only way I can answer these questions is to do the impossible. Fifty years after the club’s inception, I have to track down The Silver Chain’s members.
—
The one thing I forgot to mention about that ZOOM development call with April and Jack, and TV development in general is that you never really know how it will work out. You pitch projects that never see the light of a television screen and toil over scripts that end up in your trash can.
But once I decide to locate The Silver Chain’s members, that uncertainty morphs into determination. I mean there has to be a story here that goes beyond anything I can dream up, right? And April agrees. We have lunch and think…what if this project is a podcast?
So I start recording everything. And I pick up where Jack El-Hai left off. Just a couple issues: first, the group was anonymous. The newsletters only identify members by first name and last initial. Secondly, five years after his article’s publication, these people aren’t getting any younger. They have to be in their 70s, 80s, 90s. Even pushing 100 if still alive.
And a lot of them aren’t. The treasurer Jack El-Hai mentioned, the one who wasn’t in a condition to speak in 2017.
She’s dead.
But she does have a Facebook account. With 33 friends For someone who headed a social club of over 100 couples, this friend count is a bit underwhelming.
Nonetheless, I get to work.
Actually before I get started, one quick note. As the newest self-appointed, honorary member of The Silver Chain, I’ll be sticking to their code of ethics for the duration of this series. Members will be identified by first name only. And in some cases, I’ll use an alias if requested.
Okay, back to it.
I cross-reference the names of the treasurer's Facebook friends with names from the newsletters on the off chance these relationships survived the past 50 years.
Paul: I just started making a list like I would section each one up by a couples name. And then when I found something, I would like paste it there. I had like I think three different times where I thought I found Sharon and Don. I'm like, “This is the Sharon and Don. I know it!” And then I realized it wasn't.
The first person they found was, a guy named Michael. And I looked and I and I thought I looked at his profile. And then I saw his wife's name was Mary. And I'm like, well, there's a mike and Mary in the group. So then I looked at, you know, I looked at Mary's and then I saw Mary's mutual friends and I saw I kept seeing like a pattern of familiar names as I would look at people, people that I hadn't even discovered their names in the newsletter yet.
A search turns up yet another obituary. This time for Mike, barely a year earlier. My only hope is to speak with Mary.
As the phone rings, my heart starts to race. I’m nervous. I’m actually a little relieved when the call goes to voicemail. Mary’s kept her husband’s name in the greeting. I don’t even know them, but that just breaks my heart.
Paul: Hi, Mary. My name is Paul Diddy. I'm a writer based in Southern California, and I'm reaching out because I'm doing some research on documents I received from the Minnesota Historical Society. And I believe that you may help answer some questions I have related to them. If you could please give me a call back, that would be great. I know that this is really an unusual call, but I would appreciate your time. Thank you so much. Have a great day.
I place additional calls to other potential Silver Chain members
and what I receive are…
Refusals to talk…
A LOT of disconnected Phone Numbers…
And even get catfished by a bored teen pretending to be an octogenarian named Bruce.
This is not going well. I wait a few days. And try again.
April Shih: Hello?
Paul: April. Hey, is now a good time to talk?
April Shih: Yeah, totally.
Paul: I just. I. I just needed someone to, like, share my excitement because I actually talked to a Silver Chain member.
April Shih: Wait what? Oh my God, tell me everything.
I tell April about my entire process so far: all the dead ends, all the hang ups…and how Mary finally answered.
Paul: And then when I say the name of the group, the Silver Chain, she lets out this really, like, audible gasp. And I was like, okay, this is the right person, obviously, right?
April Shih: She was totally caught. Yeah.
Paul: She was very, very nice, but also made it really clear that this is something that she did not want to discuss.
Yet – in true Minnesota fashion – we stay on the phone for thirty minutes. She tells me she and Mike were founding members -- one of those couples Jack El-Hai wrote about -- and mostly because it was something Mike wanted, and she loved Mike.
She tells me they stayed in The Silver Chain until Mary was pregnant with their second child…and their five year old son started asking questions about what was going on in the basement during their parties…
But again, Mary doesn’t want to talk about it.
Paul : She says that if anyone's going to give me information, that it's Carol.
Carol. The same name I see as a by-line in every single newsletter. More than any other contributor, it’s Carol's words that paint the picture of The Silver Chain as a warm, loving and progressive group.
Carol and her husband George are one of the four founding couples of the The Silver Chain. Carol leads the group’s monthly discussion panel called New Horizons – where the topics range from Proper Consent to the Dynamics of an Open Marriage – and is the sole member to attend an international swinging conference – the Lifestyles 77 Convention in San Diego.
It’s Carol more than anyone who makes her presence known in these newsletters. Something about Carol’s writing – and the topics she chooses to write about – provides a heartfelt yet cerebral approach to the lifestyle. Through Carol’s contributions to the newsletters, you can sense her excitement. Not for partner swapping necessarily. But in the fact that she’s found a way to express and expand herself.
Carol’s husband George is no longer alive. But Carol is.
Paul: I I feel like Carol will definitely shed some light on on things. She's very. I have I have no doubt in my mind that she'll give me a very thorough discussion.
I call every Carol in Minnesota. And there’s a lot of ‘em. Until I realize: Carol’s not in Minnesota. She’s in California. Where there are even more Carols. But that won’t stop me. And guess what?
After seven weeks and thousands of phone calls, I think I found her.
Carol: Hello. [This call is being recorded.]
Paul: Hi, Carol?
[hang up sound]
Carol – the one person who holds the answers to all my questions – hangs up on me.
Paul: this is a major setback for me and I'm really disappointed. I kind of feel honestly, I'm feeling right now like this is just a lost cause.. I feel like I'm having a lot of drama right now and I feel really fucking discouraged. But at the same time, you know, this is this person's life. And I don't want to be someone that's going to. Violate someone's privacy. I always went into this thinking that I would reach people that would say, Oh, yes, I did that and would talk about it. Like, I just I thought that I would find people that would be open to having discussions with me and maybe even be proud, for lack of a better word about it. And man, I'm just not finding most people. I don't know if they're in existence. And if they were I don't know if they're still alive. I just. Oh, this is rough.
—
Paul: Maybe this was it. Like, maybe this was all the story that I was going to get from living people and that I just had to accept that what could be there is just not something that I can retrieve.
And yet, there’s a part of me that just can’t leave this time capsule alone without getting answers.
But why? Why am I so obsessed with this?
It’s a combination of things. The time. The place. And the element I’m most drawn to: the act of leading a secret life.
As a gay kid growing up in the late 1970s and 80s, I can relate to this need to keep a part of myself secret.
Leading a double life to keep judgment at bay was crucial to my survival in Bemidji, Minnesota, the small town I grew up in. A small town that felt worlds away from the excitement and promise of the Twin Cities.
There’s something I’ve learned as an adult about nine-year-old me: my obsession wasn’t really with mysteries. I went door to door to these homes in the woods because I wanted to be welcomed in. I wanted to see how others lived. Because a part of my life at the time didn’t feel right. And I wondered if there was a world that I fit into.
I believed that a life in the Twin Cities held the key to happiness. And now, decades later, I’m seeing that many of its inhabitants were also seeking a sense of belonging and still harboring their own secrets.
It was a notion I hadn’t considered at the time: that we all feel disconnected in some way. We’re all looking for connection, to feel seen and heard and known.
This is the part I can’t let go of.
So I call Carol again. And while this time she doesn’t hang up, she keeps it brief. She sounds a bit like a stern, mildly irritated school teacher, explaining a lesson for a third time. Total Mrs. Thompson from 2nd grade vibes.
Then, she tells me she’s having medical issues and I should call back in a few weeks.
Kimmer: I don't trust a whole lot of what's going on at her house right now.
That’s Kimmer, Carol’s neighbor. And daughter.
After Carol’s initial hang-up, I expanded my search beyond The Silver Chain and reached out to Kimmer.
To my surprise, Kimmer was well aware of her parents’ involvement in The Silver Chain. She even encourages Carol to talk to me.
Kimmer: I was excited. I'm like, oh look, somebody wants to talk to you about something you've done and isn't this cool?
Kimmer: a couple of days later I got a text. I think that said, when you have a chance, would you come over and talk? Cause I really need to talk. I'm like, okay. So when I got over there and talked to her, um, she wanted to tell me about how squeaky clean the silver chain was. And that it was just a dance club.
Squeaky clean. The exact words Carol said to me.
Paul: Carol picked up and it's been two weeks. She's feeling better, but still has a lot of doctor's appointments. And in talking with her, we spoke about 10 minutes. She let me know that was set. This organization, the silver chain, apart from other groups like it is that they kept it squeaky clean. And the second time she said squeaky clean or the third time, I asked her what she meant by that. And she said she said no drugs, no violence, and no club sponsored interactions of any kind. So we can assume what that means, right?
I’m totally confused. This is not what I was expecting. At all.
Is the same Carol who wrote about Alternative Lifestyles, Consent, Sensual Touching and Female Empowerment - the woman I believed to be so open minded and ahead of her time – now clutching her pearls and denying her participation in the group she co-founded?
Maybe it’s her participation in another group that’s holding her back – one that’s given her a newfound sense of belonging, with a whole other set of by-laws.
Kimmer: To be very honest, I think the Christian thing is why mom is dodging you because she's the last God knows how many years of their lives. Mom and dad had been totally into listening to gospel music and going to gospel things. And it's like, uh, and now that dad's gone. Um, I think she's still in that phase. So it doesn't really fit with swinging.
And then, finally, Carol agrees to meet with me. Carol’s daughter, Kimmer, also arranges to give me some of her time. I book a flight to Sacramento and a rental car to complete the drive to Modesto.
A few days before the trip, I call Carol’s number to see if I can bring lunch for our meeting. Carol’s grandson – who is also her caregiver and Kimmer’s son – picks up the phone. They tell me they’d like Arby’s. Roast beef sandwiches. Gotta admit, I do love their curly fries.
So my bags are packed. I’m in front of my computer with the team, doing a final run-through of the questions for Carol, when I hear the ping of an incoming email.
Paul: You guys aren't going to believe that this. But just while we were talking, I got an email from Kim's. Kim, Carol's daughter.
Nora: Yeah.
Paul: And she just let me know that Carol was taken to the hospital on Sunday night, and they found it necessary to put her on a respirator.
Nora: No.
Paul: It says she's currently stable, but the nurse says she has a hard road to recovery. Oh, yeah, sure. And I'm sorry that you won't get to chat with her, and I'm not sure that she will recover enough that you will ever be able to.
This season on Time Capsule, we’ll find out what happens when an archive that was never meant to be found is discovered. And while I learn that many people don’t want to talk…
Linda: you guys do not realize you're playing with fire.
There are also plenty of others who do…
Judi (Judi King Interview 7.30.22 P1): It was very odd the first time I went because my parents were there.
Bill (Henry): You know, ecstasy is. There is a little bit of that floating around back down.
Paul [Bill (Henry)]: This is a real party.
Karen: He just had to fuck everything. He probably would fuck a snake if you held it still.
