BONUS Ask Marc Anything #9
Here we go.
It's time for Ask Mark Anything.
Got a lot of questions.
A lot.
And I'm going to save some of them for future installments, but I appreciate you sending them.
Let's get into it.
I just saw two Leslie and I enjoyed your performance.
How did you arrive at the regional accent your character had in that movie?
Well, I think I discussed this on the podcast proper as opposed to the bonus episodes here, but...
When I got the role, I was nervous about the accent and I talked to the director about it who had to cajole me into doing the role.
And I said, look, man, I don't know about the accent.
You know, I don't know if I can do it.
And he said, it doesn't matter.
Don't worry about it.
But then I thought about it and I thought, well, if I'm going to try acting and I'm going to continue to act and I'm going to continue to make it interesting.
I should try the accent.
So I met with a dialect coach and we talked about Texan accents.
And she said some people don't have any.
Some have extreme that are more Southern.
But she said that we should go with Lubbock, a Lubbock accent.
And I'm like, OK.
And basically, she sent me some videos to watch.
And for some reason, they were just videos of an older Mac Davis being interviewed as an example of the Lubbock accent.
And then she gave me a phonetic guide to vowel and consonant and how things fit together in the accent.
And I used that as a key.
But I would say it was primarily a...
It definitely had a twang to it.
There was an accent there, but it was not extreme.
And it wasn't one that was going to make me look foolish and trying to do.
Maybe it did.
I thought I did OK with it.
I definitely committed.
But that's that story.
Back when Chris Rock's newest special aired, you alluded to the fact that you didn't plan on watching it.
Why not?
Well, you know, to be honest with you, I don't watch that many comedy specials.
I don't know.
I really think I just lost interest, and I have a lot to do, really, and a lot to watch.
And I've got nothing personal against Chris, and I think he's a great comic, but I didn't find myself interested.
And also, all the hype that went around it, the live element of it, I just wasn't interested.
What would you say was the birthplace of alternative comedy?
Did alternative comedy take off at roughly the same time across the U.S.?
Or did it start on the West Coast and move over to the East with Luna?
My recollection is that it started here in Los Angeles at a couple of places.
one called The Uncabaret.
Beth Lapidus had a show that was really the beginning of that kind of storytelling day of stuff.
And there was also, I believe, a show at BookSoup or one of the bookstores that was also sort of getting attention.
And then Largo, the original Largo, started up.
So I would say that those three places in particular, in my memory, were really ahead of New York.
And then
Me and some other comics got together with the support of Michael O'Brien and Dave Becky to start doing it in New York or some version of it.
It was originally at, we did like two shows that I don't even remember where.
And then we were at a place called Rebar, which was probably the worst place to do anything.
There was no chairs.
It was in a back room, kind of.
A lot of people were sitting on the floor.
But that was where it started.
It was exciting.
And then it moved over to the Luna Lounge.
That's how that went.
I was at the Largo show and Zach Galifianakis showed up.
How does that happen?
Did you know he had some jokes he wanted to workshop?
Did he reach out to you or the booker to get him on the show?
Well, Zach, if he's around, has a relationship with Flanagan, who runs Largo.
And Flanagan said, hey, do you mind if Zach comes by?
He doesn't have to, but he's around.
And I'm like, yeah, of course.
That's how that goes.
I was also at Willie Nelson's 90th birthday concert at the Hollywood Bowl, and I listened to your recap of the concert the following Monday.
I agreed with you on what the highlights were, especially Dave Matthews' moving rendition of Willie's Funny How Time Slips Away.
But you prefaced your comments about Dave with how you've always been a little derisive of him.
Is there a reason why?
It seems like you're not the only one who feels that way.
I don't know.
He's just sort of charismatically boring to me.
I never really gave the guy a chance.
I find something annoying about him, annoying about the people that like him.
It just feels like very... And I know they're all talented musicians, but it just seems very mediocre and ill-defined.
I put them in there with other jam bands that I'm too old to get into anymore, like Fish.
I don't know.
I just find him annoying, and I'm just not interested.
But he's clearly a talented guy.
I did a whole bit on him on one of the specials.
It was probably...
It was either more later.
I think it was more later.
And there's an entire Dave Matthews bit on there, maybe too real.
I can't remember.
What is your favorite Paul Thomas Anderson film?
What is your favorite Wes Anderson film?
Good questions.
For Paul Thomas Anderson, I would have to say The Master and There Will Be Blood are probably my two favorites.
I watch them the most, trying to glean more meaning out of them.
I like all of his movies.
Magnolia and Boogie Nights were obviously more entertaining and more kind of plot-driven.
But I would say The Master and There Will Be Blood.
Wes Anderson, I have to say, and I haven't seen all his movies, but I've seen a lot of them.
I would have to say still...
The Tenenbaums, even after watching other movies.
I do like the... I liked The French Dispatch, but I think The Royal Tenenbaums is probably my favorite there.
For Pride Month, is there any chance you could rename the Elliot Page episode so it no longer deadnames him?
Well, look...
When Elliot came out as trans, we reached out and asked about the episode in our archives.
And we were told it was fine to leave it as was at that time.
And we asked pretty quickly after he came out as trans.
When this question came in, we asked again, figuring something might have changed.
And his representative said, yes, renaming the episode would be appreciated.
So we did.
No problem.
But we reached out immediately.
Yeah.
How many hours of preparation do you have before your interviews, screen time, reading?
Do you have a research assistant?
I don't.
And it really depends.
I definitely start poking around the day before.
Brendan McDonald, my producer, will do a breakdown of some guests with some bio information and also some things that he finds might be areas of conversation.
I have been pretty diligent about watching whatever they're here to promote so I can have a way in and sometimes catch up on stuff that I hadn't seen before.
So I would say, depending on who it is, like two days to a week here and there, not too crazy.
Do you take the picture with your guest before or after the interview?
After, always after.
I always assumed the character Josh Brenner plays in the show Maren was based on Brendan, even though that character was more of an intern assistant and there really isn't a producer character on the show.
Did the character Kyle draw on your relationship with Brendan in any way?
And does he have thoughts or feelings on how the podcast production process was depicted in the show?
Josh Brenner is a completely made-up character on Marin.
Kyle is completely made-up.
I did not have that kind of relationship with my assistants when I had them.
I certainly don't have that kind of relationship with Brendan.
And Brendan...
When I talked to him about it, he said it never once occurred to him that the show was depicting the production process of WTF.
And also, oddly, in the initial pilot presentation, which was a like a 20 minute piece, Seth Morris was playing an actual producer character who was who was closer to having the dynamic that Brendan and I have.
which I think was not as funny as creating Kyle.
But no, I mean, you know, what Brendan does for this show is expansive, and there's many different jobs that he does on his side of this undertaking.
But it wasn't really depicted, no.
And yeah, that was a comedy team, me and Kyle.
I would not say that me and Brendan are a comedy team in life.
But certainly...
um we've been working together a long time i recently asked him i texted him because i'm going over my will and i'm making changes and i wanted to switch out the default person for uh for for the unplugging for for if i if i go out and i'm not coming back uh to take me off life support that the the guy who i i have in the first position is my brother and i asked brendan
if he would take second position on the unplugging.
And he very quickly texted back, yes, exclamation point.
So we have some funny moments.
I think it was supposed to be funny.
With some distance from the Sam Elliott episode, what are your thoughts on that whole exchange and his response afterwards?
Look, I really, with Sam Elliott, when I asked him about Power of the Dog, I was hoping we'd have a nice conversation about a new Western.
I was really, there was no sandbagging intent.
I just wanted to have a conversation about a movie in the genre that he is known for and one that I liked.
And he just did what he did.
And what came back at him, look, he said it in a candid moment.
I didn't try to get anything out of him.
His sort of dismissal of my podcast because of it, which I don't think he really did.
I think he just said, don't do a podcast called WTF.
I don't think he was mad at me.
There was no reason for him to be.
I don't think he anticipated it would blow up like that.
I don't think I did either.
I think Brendan might have had an inkling.
But, you know, we chose to leave the conversation in.
So I'm just sorry, ultimately, that the people that represent him got mad, that the publicists that represent him will no longer give us guests because I guess they feel like they should have protected him.
But I really don't.
I don't know.
I think that, you know, it's not that he had it coming, but, you know, his comments were pretty old manny.
A long time ago, I sent an email with a list of guest suggestions.
Matt Sweeney, Jay Mascus, Kat Power, Kim Gordon.
To my surprise, all of them appeared on the show later on.
So do you guys look at guest suggestions?
And what happened to Mark's budding friendship with Sweeney?
I see guest suggestions here and there.
If they come through the email, sometimes I look at them.
I don't pay attention to them too much on Instagram.
But I don't know if they work as a reminder to me.
then I usually will follow up.
Yeah, but I definitely see them
I don't know what happened to my budding friendship with Sweeney.
It just didn't just fizzled out.
Pat Cooper is clearly someone Mark had a lot of respect for and would have been an ideal WTF guest.
Is there a story behind why he never appeared on the show?
He just wasn't out here that much.
And he wasn't really in New York.
And I really didn't know where he was.
Every time I think about him, I think I got to get him on.
But I didn't really know where he was.
And it just it was probably on me to sort of pursue it harder.
There was no real story there.
Do you like your hair?
How often do you get it cut?
Do you use any hair products?
I do like my hair.
It's getting a little long now.
I'm kind of thinking about cutting it short again.
I do have someone who cuts my hair.
It's the same woman who used to cut my hair on my show, Maren Laney, and she comes over here and cuts it.
I don't get it cut that often, and I usually wait too long.
It's very long.
So I get it cut every four to six months, it seems like right now.
I don't use any hair products.
What are your favorite memories with your grandmother, Goldie?
Well, my grandmother Goldie is the one person that early on fully adored me to the core and just loved me and was thrilled about me.
I was her first grandson.
I have a lot of memories about my grandmother.
One that keeps coming up is that she used to like, what are those called?
Those buckwheat cereal, the buckwheat flakes.
What were those called?
I don't know.
She always did this thing.
There used to be this non-dairy creamer.
I think it was called Perk.
And she used to pour it a little bit on top of her cereal and it made it taste better.
And I think about that sometimes.
I don't know why.
I did everything with my grandma.
I used to like when she made chicken soup.
I used to like when we'd go to the mall.
I used to like when we'd go.
I remember when they built the Paramus Park Mall.
she lived in New Jersey, and I was there a lot.
I was there every year, certainly, for at least a month.
And it was one of the first food courts was at the Paramus Park Mall.
And my grandma and I, and my brother, I'm sure, used to go to Willowbrook Mall in New Jersey.
But Paramus Park, they promoted this food court.
And I remember my grandmother being so excited.
She said, upstairs, they have food from all over the world.
And I used to like her taste in comedy.
I remember she used to like watching stand-up.
I remember she told me about Don Rickles.
She'd go see Don Rickles in Vegas.
And she said, you know, he's very nasty, but he apologizes very nicely to everyone after the show.
She used to say that Buddy Hackett was very funny but very filthy.
And and sadly, when she watched my first half hour special, I guess she brought a bunch of her old lady friends over to her house in Florida to watch it.
And I talked to her afterwards and all she she could say is like, it was so filthy.
But I guess not as funny as Buddy Hackett.
I don't know.
All my memories of my grandma Goldie were pretty great.
My 85-year-old dad has recently been diagnosed with Parkinson's and has major short-term memory problems.
I've heard you speak of similar symptoms that your dad has, and I was wondering what his diagnosis is.
I believe my father has dementia or Alzheimer's.
I don't know.
It's not clear.
It's somewhere in that zone.
To the best of your knowledge, what are the demographics of your audience?
Have they shifted at all throughout your career?
Do you have thoughts on why your audience is who it is?
Well, early on, I didn't have an audience.
And after the podcast, I had some people who were kind of left over from my political radio show on Air America, and they were still around.
But then a new group of people, podcast fans came, and they didn't really know me as a stand-up.
And they used to say they would come to support me, which I didn't need.
But I've noticed that my fans are either sort of sensitive and intelligent younger people who kind of get where I'm coming from.
people my age, couples and men.
I used to see a lot of men coming to my shows alone just because I imagine that their friends didn't know who I was.
I think those two groups are still with me.
But it's usually intelligent people, like-minded people, grown-ups who tip well and behave.
It's a real blessing.
I'm very grateful for the audience that I've built over the years since I started the podcast.
I'm curious what your relapse back into drugs and alcohol many decades ago was like and what precipitated it.
I know you have 20 plus years of sobriety now, but you've been in the recovery community for a long time.
I just think your answer might be helpful to the newcomer.
Well, I don't know what if there was a precipitating factor.
I think that when I first got sober, oh, very early on, when I got sober after the first time I got sober was 1988.
You know, and I'm coming up on 24 years, and it's, what is it, 2023.
So do the math.
You know, it took me a long time to put together the years in a row.
But the first time I got sober, I went into rehab because I was, you know, psychotic from sweep deprivation and cocaine abuse.
And, you know, just to get out of the—I got into rehab and—
Afterwards, I didn't really lock into the program.
I went to a few meetings when I went back to New York and then I just kind of didn't do anything.
And I stayed sober for about a year and a half.
And then and then that was sort of the pattern.
You know, I'd go out for a year or two and then I'd stay sober for a year and a half.
But it wasn't until the last time I got sober, really, in ninety nine.
that I really learned how to take in the program, understand the program, use the program, understand powerlessness, work the steps.
It wasn't until 99 that I really did that.
And within that year or two, upon getting sober in the late 90s, I was in and out a bit, but not much and not for very long.
I didn't really relapse.
Once 99 came along, that was it.
And I just did what I was supposed to do.
I listened to the suggestions.
I went to meetings at least once a day for years.
I got sponsors.
And it was just a matter of doing the work.
And also, it was helpful that I met a lot of people in the program.
The woman who became my second wife in a disastrous marriage got me sober.
And I think a lot of...
Getting me into the program was driven by me wanting to be with her, even though that didn't work out.
I'm still grateful for that.
Have you healed from your attachment trauma from childhood?
Now, this is a big question.
I have never heard...
of the condition of attachment trauma.
So I had to look it up.
And I definitely have that.
I'll read you the definition here from the internet.
Attachment trauma is considered to be a traumatic experience an infant or child has when a primary caregiver does not or cannot provide adequate care, affection, and comfort.
So...
That is the core of my emotional foundation is that both of my parents were not really capable at any type of safe selflessness or nurturing type of care.
My mother was very self-involved.
My father was completely self-involved and neither one of them really kind of lived up to the emotional responsibility of being parents.
My mother, I believe, resented my brother and I. There are incidents with my brother where, you know, he was crying and she would just, you know, lock him in a bedroom because she couldn't handle it.
Turns out he had a milk allergy and there are just a lot of different stories.
And I've talked about this with my mother.
So, but seeing it written out like this, attachment trauma, and looking at it, is attachment trauma PTSD is a question here on the internet.
Attachment disorders are nearly always a symptom of C-PTSD, complex post-traumatic stress disorder, oftentimes looks like
Looks like this attachment issues and relationship struggles, intimacy issues, flashbacks, mood swings, anxiety, depression, addiction issues, eating disorders, personality disorder traits.
That sounds to me a lot like borderline.
And I think that would also probably fall under the umbrella of this.
But I have certainly had a lot of these.
Relationship struggles, intimacy issues, flashbacks, mood swings, anxiety, depression, addiction issues, eating disorders, personality disorder traits.
Yes.
Check, check, check, check, check.
this is all relative to attachment trauma.
I imagine there's degrees of it.
My parents were present, but they just saw me as extensions of themselves and their own sort of concern, panic, worry, anger.
And it really left me emotionally crippled in some respects.
And you're asking me,
I've had to break this down.
I like that you gave me this new term, this new language, attachment trauma.
But I've dealt with it in a lot of different ways.
I am hyper aware of it.
You know, I found the fantasy bond by Robert Firestone very helpful.
I found sobriety very helpful.
But but the truth of the matter is, no, I don't think I have healed.
I don't know if I will.
You know, I've worked hard on accepting who I am and I've certainly worked hard on awareness around it.
And certainly my addiction issues are not the drugs that I used to do, but I do go on very compulsive about caffeine.
And now I'm sort of back on nicotine a bit with the lozenges.
You know, I've had, you know, sexual compulsion.
I've had very certainly an eating disorder and certainly anxiety in like I don't know.
You know, sadly, you know, the people that you attract and that you're connected to when you have trauma are going to be people with trauma in various forms of recovery or unrecovery as you are.
And a lot of that, you know, kind of leads to relationship issues.
My intimacy issues, my intimacy issues, I'm aware of.
I'm aware of that I have a hard time receiving love because I can't really fundamentally trust it.
I have a hard time.
I don't have a hard time showing up for people or being supportive or being there for them.
But to really sort of let myself love people is tricky.
And I've sort of taken the path of least resistance forward.
In some cases, I'm not I'm getting old and I'm not wired for the drama of like minded people, even though the emotions can be strong.
And I don't know if I'm ever going to heal.
I think I've healed, but I don't know if I'm ever going to overcome them and become a functioning emotional person.
You know, what comes with acceptance is also the idea that I'm old or older.
And I don't know if I want to go through what it would take to sort of try to, you know, learn how to be loved and learn how to love, you know, with a full open heart, even though people say it's amazing.
I don't know.
Maybe it is, but I don't know.
I don't seem to be doing the work.
That would get me there, but I do seem to have a certain amount of self-acceptance.
I don't know.
So, yes, I have healed...
to a degree, but I've also become a bit callous, I guess, or not callous, a bit shut down maybe, or a bit sort of, I've surrendered to maybe not doing the work, but I think I've healed in the way of self-awareness and behavior for the most part, but I don't know if I got back what I lost or what I never had.
Now that you are vegan, are you no longer using the Traeger Grill to grill or smoke anything?
I am not.
I keep looking at it.
I got to get it set up again.
I mean, I could still entertain.
I guess there's a way to do vegetables out there.
I just haven't gotten it back up.
You seem to derive a lot of pleasure from cooking.
How did you develop your interest in it?
Well, look, I've always been interested in cooking.
And, you know, one of my first jobs...
was sort of a short order cook at a restaurant.
And I did that in college.
I would cook at delis.
I had a professor in college who was in love with me and he would have these dinner parties and he was sort of a self-taught gourmet.
And like, I think I owe it to him
To the, I believe, late Gary Orgel, who, you know, among other things, was a bit predatory.
But on the on the good side, he did make me aspire to a lot of things.
Being gay was not one of them, but being a good cook was.
He tried.
But.
But yeah, I mean, he sort of was my template for that, that you can learn how to cook.
You don't have to go to cooking school, but if you're interested and you're able to follow a recipe and you learn techniques, you can learn how to cook.
And I find it very rewarding.
And I think it's a real, I think it's a grownup responsibility to really know
to be able to prepare food for four to 12 people, you know, within a day, to be able to conceive of menus, to be able to visualize recipes, to be able to know what you can and can't cook, what you like to cook, what you don't like to cook, to sort of take risks.
You know, there's, it's a never ending kind of source of creativity.
If you want to try something, you can, you know, there's a million things you can try to cook if you enjoy cooking.
So yeah,
But I would have to track it back to, I like the idea of working in delis, but to learning to actually cook, I got to give that to Gary as being the inspiration.
Have you ever dated a fan?
Have I ever not?
As in somebody that you only knew as a fan and then eventually dated?
Yes.
I would say on some level, like I would say that my first, my second wife was really a fan, though she was a comic.
Yeah.
I would say that I think some of my other girlfriends were definitely fans first.
Do you mean a fan that I knew?
Well, look, I have definitely been in the position where I have dated fans.
I think Lynn Shelton, she wasn't really a fan, but she became a very big fan, a very persistent big fan.
But, you know, we loved each other.
But, yes, I've dated fans.
I've... Yes.
Yes.
I believe my current girlfriend was a fan.
I don't know.
Yes.
Yes.
What can I tell you?
I don't have any, I don't think it needs to be judged.
But I used to do a joke about that.
The one thing that I know about dating fans is that it's a surefire way to lose fans.
Yeah.
One at a time or many if they see it a certain way.
What is your retirement plan?
Will you ever retire?
I seem to think I will.
I do feel like I could.
I don't know if that's real.
My retirement plan right now is to get permanent residency in Canada, which is like a green card where if I spend two out of five years up there, I can get health care and also work.
And there's a lot to work up there.
I don't see it as giving up my citizenship, but in my mind, it's a fantasy.
It's a retirement fantasy.
And yeah, I do feel like I would like to wind down.
I feel like I would like to detach from show business entirely sometimes if I could, if I had the willpower.
What will you do for your 60th birthday?
I have no plans.
I have no idea.
I kind of let them kind of blow by generally, but I guess I should do something.
Maybe someone will do something for me.
How do you cope with getting older?
You interviewed a bunch of older folks and they seemed at peace with their age.
Did you take away any useful advice?
I seem to acknowledge that I'm getting older.
I can see that I'm getting older.
I'm kind of fascinated with the idea that I'm getting older.
I do feel my body...
Getting beat up because of my compulsive nature around exercise.
I think I'm coping okay.
I'm a little afraid of what may happen to my body, my brain, inside my body.
I think the mortality fear, it's there.
And if I let myself do it, it gets me anxious.
But in terms of the actual aging and being the age I am, I'm okay with it now.
Do you have any phobias?
Doesn't need to be clinically recognized.
Just anything that particularly scares you or creeps you out.
I don't like being scared by things in the moment, but there's very few things that I'm scared of in a way that is sort of ongoing.
I don't like being startled by, you know, wild animals, insects, humans.
But that's not really a phobia.
I would say that my longest and sort of pronounced phobia is of water I cannot see the bottom of.
large bodies of water, or even smaller bodies of water that are too deep for me to assess.
I think I have a fear of that.
I don't love flying.
I'm afraid of it, but I've had to accept and live with that one.
I love the idea of plummeting out of the air.
I have a terrible fear of being T-boned in my car.
There was an accident that happened in Albuquerque where a drunk driver was barreling down a side street,
So fast, ran a stop sign and struck, broadsided another car, but drove right through it.
It hit it and soared over it and decapitated four people in it.
Being T-boned in a car is really my day-to-day most active fear because I'm not out on the ocean all the time.
I don't like flying over water either.
That's a double whammy.
I'm so afraid the combination of flying and flying over large bodies of water is just horrifying to me.
The idea of crashing into the water and just being strapped into a seat at the bottom of the ocean is probably metaphorically the loneliest image I can possibly even think of.
Even though I'll be dead.
But that one really gets me.
I got to do a lot of fucking be in the moment kind of stuff.
A lot of self-talk flying over those large bodies of water.
At your May Dynasty typewriter show, you were interacting with someone filming and talked briefly about a documentary.
Is there a documentary happening?
I sure hope so.
That guy's been following me around for two years.
Apparently, we just got funding and he's going to put it together.
It started as sort of like, you know, doing comedy after Lynn passing and after COVID and just getting back into it, moving towards the special.
And now I don't even know what it is.
All I know is that guy's got a lot of footage on me.
That's Stephen Feinhart's.
And he directed my special, too.
I had to.
I mean, I had to just give him the job.
He's been shooting me forever.
Which room do you normally work in at the comedy store, the OR, the original room or the main room?
I generally work both.
She seems to put me a lot in the in the main room on weekends.
That's the big showroom.
But sometimes she'll give me both rooms in one night and I go back and forth.
I like the original room.
It's smaller.
It's more intimate.
You can get a different kind of groove going.
It's easier to riff in there.
But I'll work either one.
I like the main room, too.
You know, it's taken me a lifetime to feel comfortable in there.
because the whole place had such an impact on me when I was younger.
Talk about trauma in my 20s.
But yeah, I mean, I work both of them pretty frequently, but I bet I'm in the main room more.
There you go.
That's this particular episode of Ask Me Anything.
Ask Mark Anything.
You did.
I hope you got the answers you wanted.
Thank you.
Thank you.