Episode 74 - Tracy McMillan / Dr. Barry Maron

Episode 74 • Released May 19, 2010 • Speakers detected

00:00:00Guest:Lock the gates!

00:00:07Guest:Are we doing this?

00:00:08Guest:Really?

00:00:08Guest:Wait for it.

00:00:09Guest:Are we doing this?

00:00:10Guest:Wait for it.

00:00:12Guest:Pow!

00:00:12Guest:What the fuck?

00:00:14Guest:And it's also, eh, what the fuck?

00:00:16Guest:What's wrong with me?

00:00:17Guest:It's time for WTF!

00:00:19Guest:What the fuck?

00:00:20Guest:With Mark Maron.

00:00:24Marc:Okay, let's do this, what-the-fuckers, what-the-fuck-buddies, what-the-fuck-aneers, what-the-fuck-nicks.

00:00:29Marc:How are you?

00:00:30Marc:Hope everything's all right.

00:00:31Marc:I am Mark Maron.

00:00:32Marc:This is WTF, the podcast.

00:00:35Marc:Welcome aboard if you're new.

00:00:36Marc:And to all of you old-timey what-the-fuckers, happy to have you.

00:00:43Marc:Before I get started with the show proper, I would like to say that tomorrow night, that's May 21st at 8 p.m.

00:00:48Marc:at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, we will be doing a live WTF taping.

00:00:53Marc:That's with Laura Keitlinger, Moshe Kasher, Brendan Walsh, Jim Earl, and Eddie Pepitone.

00:00:58Marc:If you can come down, go to UCB Theater with an R-E at the end, T-H-E-A-T-R-E.com.

00:01:05Marc:For information and reservations, love to see you there.

00:01:08Marc:Toronto, Canada, May 27th through 29th.

00:01:11Marc:I will be at Yuck Yucks.

00:01:13Marc:I'd love to see you up there.

00:01:15Marc:I know I got a lot of new fans up in Canada.

00:01:17Marc:You can go to yuckyucks.com for reservations and information on that.

00:01:21Marc:And hold on.

00:01:22Marc:Here we go.

00:01:23Marc:Wait for it.

00:01:26Marc:Pow!

00:01:27Marc:Oh, God, I just shit my pants.

00:01:29Marc:JustCoffee.coop.

00:01:31Marc:Or you can go to WTFPod.com for JustCoffee.coop.

00:01:35Marc:It's worth it.

00:01:36Marc:I'm jacked.

00:01:38Marc:You know, I'm a little weird today.

00:01:40Marc:I'm a little pensive.

00:01:41Marc:I'm a little... I don't know how to handle this monologue because I'm going to talk about my father.

00:01:48Marc:And I know some of you think that...

00:01:50Marc:Why is Mark talking about his problems or talking about that?

00:01:53Marc:Why is he so goddamn personal all the time?

00:01:55Marc:I don't know.

00:01:56Marc:I don't know how else to do it.

00:01:57Marc:And my guest today, Tracy McMillan, who wrote a book called I Love You and I'm Leaving You Anyway.

00:02:03Marc:It has a lot to do with her father and her relationship with her father, who was a pimp.

00:02:07Marc:Her mother was a prostitute.

00:02:09Marc:She was brought up in foster homes.

00:02:11Marc:And we're going to talk about fathers.

00:02:13Marc:Some of you guys know my dad.

00:02:16Marc:I mean, he's nuts.

00:02:18Marc:I mean, he's really nuts.

00:02:20Marc:And I know a lot of you have difficult relationships with your fathers.

00:02:23Marc:And at some point, you've got to get over it.

00:02:25Marc:And I believe that I'm over mine.

00:02:27Marc:And I just have to accept that that's the way my dad is if he's not...

00:02:30Marc:Too dangerous or too driving me too crazy.

00:02:33Marc:You know, I got to love him because he's my dad.

00:02:35Marc:But let me tell you, man, it was no easy bit of business.

00:02:39Marc:He was nuts and he's still nuts.

00:02:42Marc:He's a little more endearing now as he gets older.

00:02:44Marc:The great thing about about crazy, no matter how dangerous it may be.

00:02:50Marc:And as I said before, he was a functioning crazy person.

00:02:53Marc:He still is.

00:02:54Marc:is that as they get older, it's not as menacing as it used to be.

00:02:58Marc:And I think he did a lot of things for effect.

00:03:00Marc:I think, as I've said before, and we'll address it a little now, I think that all father-son relationships on some level are battles to the death in a very weird and historic way.

00:03:12Marc:Maybe it's metaphorical.

00:03:13Marc:Sometimes, sometimes it isn't.

00:03:15Marc:Sometimes things get ugly, but I've, I've taken my dad on.

00:03:19Marc:I know some of you guys know what that feels like, where you have that moment where you're like, this is it enough of that shit.

00:03:25Marc:I didn't do it physically, but I remember one time, you know, he was sending me emails that were offensive and provocative.

00:03:31Marc:And I started going back on the emails with him and, you know, you know, hitting him on his points.

00:03:35Marc:Cause he wired me.

00:03:36Marc:So he knows how to hit my button.

00:03:38Marc:So I started hitting his back.

00:03:39Marc:And I remember we, you know, I finally got on the phone and I literally was like, what the fuck is the matter with you?

00:03:44Marc:What the fuck is the matter with you?

00:03:46Marc:What does this mean?

00:03:47Marc:What does that mean?

00:03:48Marc:I just kept pushing and pushing and pushing.

00:03:50Marc:And he finally broke.

00:03:52Marc:And you know what it was at the core of all that shit?

00:03:54Marc:When my dad finally broke down and I got the upper hand, all he could say was, fuck you.

00:04:00Marc:Fuck you.

00:04:02Marc:That was at the bottom of all of it.

00:04:05Marc:Fuck you.

00:04:06Marc:And I got to just say, you know, that's my dad.

00:04:10Marc:Huh?

00:04:11Marc:I'm trying to get past that because I'm assuming there is another level beneath the fuck you like help me or I'm sad.

00:04:19Marc:Yeah, I'm sure that that's there.

00:04:22Marc:My memories of my father later in life are in.

00:04:24Marc:He's still around.

00:04:25Marc:Obviously, we're going to talk to him today.

00:04:27Marc:I remember one time when he was living in Phoenix for a few months.

00:04:31Marc:My brother lived in Phoenix.

00:04:32Marc:We hadn't seen his new apartment.

00:04:34Marc:My dad invited me and my brother over.

00:04:35Marc:So we drove over to this apartment.

00:04:37Marc:We walk in.

00:04:37Marc:The door was wide open.

00:04:38Marc:We walk in and we're like, hello.

00:04:40Marc:And we hear my dad go, come upstairs.

00:04:44Marc:So my brother and I walk upstairs not knowing what to expect because he is our dad.

00:04:48Marc:And we walk into his bedroom and he's sitting on a bed and he's got about 10 or 15 guns sitting on the bed.

00:04:55Marc:And he's just sitting there and he's like, how you guys doing?

00:04:58Marc:And he starts laughing.

00:04:59Marc:And me and my brother look at each other.

00:05:01Marc:And again, you know, at some point you just got to go, ah, yeah, that's my dad.

00:05:07Marc:He's sitting on a bed with a bunch of guns laughing.

00:05:11Marc:Okie doke.

00:05:13Marc:And then I think the most profound moment I ever had with my father, and I don't even know why.

00:05:18Marc:I wish it was playing ball.

00:05:20Marc:I really do.

00:05:21Marc:But, you know, I'm dealing with a guy that, you know, is a little bipolar.

00:05:24Marc:He's doing better now.

00:05:26Marc:But you don't know what's going to come out of a manic brain.

00:05:29Marc:You don't know how they're going to behave.

00:05:31Marc:You sort of spend your entire life going, yeah, in social situations going, oh, God, I hope this doesn't get weird.

00:05:37Marc:I really hope it doesn't get weird and inappropriate.

00:05:40Marc:Oh, please, please help me, please.

00:05:42Marc:A lot of that.

00:05:45Marc:Well, here's the story, and I don't even know what to do with it, and I don't think I've ever really told it.

00:05:50Marc:My grandfather passed away.

00:05:52Marc:My father's father, Ben, passed away.

00:05:56Marc:So I remember, I can't remember, it was probably about 15, 20 years ago, maybe 15 years ago.

00:06:00Marc:Yeah, probably 20 years ago.

00:06:02Marc:I don't know.

00:06:03Marc:But we had to meet in New Jersey for the funeral, so I go out there with my brother and

00:06:08Marc:And my dad's a little manic.

00:06:12Marc:He's a little too chipper for a funeral, especially his dad's.

00:06:18Marc:And the other family's there.

00:06:19Marc:My dad's walking around like, hey, how you doing?

00:06:21Marc:What's going on?

00:06:22Marc:How's everything?

00:06:23Marc:It's a little disconcerting.

00:06:26Marc:But it is what it is.

00:06:27Marc:It's my dad.

00:06:28Marc:Yeah.

00:06:28Marc:So, you know, the funeral is going on.

00:06:31Marc:You know, people are meeting.

00:06:32Marc:And then, you know, in the room where the service is, there's the plain pine box closed.

00:06:37Marc:Jews do a plain pine box closed casket.

00:06:43Marc:And my dad says, you know, walks up to the funeral director, a woman, and says, I'd like to take a look at the body.

00:06:52Marc:And I, in that moment, I was standing there.

00:06:54Marc:I'm like, you want to do that, Pop?

00:06:56Marc:And he's like, yeah, I'd like to see the body.

00:06:59Marc:And Jews don't do that.

00:07:01Marc:But I was like, all right, well, you know, okay.

00:07:03Marc:And why don't I go in with you so I can be there for you?

00:07:10Marc:So we walk into this sanctuary where the casket is.

00:07:14Marc:And this woman, who is the funeral director, opens up the top part of the casket.

00:07:20Marc:And then there's a, you know, my grandfather is in there and he's got the, they have the tallest, the prayer shawl over, you know, kind of wrapped around him over his face.

00:07:28Marc:So she opens up the prayer shawl and there's my, my grandpa's, you know, a little dead face there.

00:07:34Marc:And my father and I are standing there and he looks at me and then he, he, he, he pries open my dead grandpa's mouth with his finger, you know, to look at his mouth and,

00:07:49Marc:And I look at the funeral director and she looks at me.

00:07:52Marc:This is clearly unorthodox.

00:07:53Marc:But, you know, in my mind, I'm thinking, well, my dad's a doctor.

00:07:55Marc:You know, he's used to dealing with this.

00:07:57Marc:But this is a little odd.

00:08:00Marc:And the funeral director says, is everything OK with the mouth?

00:08:06Marc:And my father goes, yeah, yeah, it's him.

00:08:09Marc:I'm like, what?

00:08:10Marc:He's like, I just want to make sure it was him.

00:08:11Marc:Those are his teeth.

00:08:14Marc:And I go, okay.

00:08:16Marc:Okay, we good here?

00:08:18Marc:And my dad goes, yep, we're good.

00:08:20Marc:All right, close it up.

00:08:23Marc:And it's one of those moments where you don't quite forget it and you don't know what to say.

00:08:26Marc:But, you know, all I can do is go, yeah, that's my dad.

00:08:30Marc:I don't know, man.

00:08:33Marc:I don't know.

00:08:33Marc:And this Mother's Day letter, you know, every once in a while he'll surprise you.

00:08:38Marc:He's a pretty charming, funny guy.

00:08:40Marc:But then there's just moments where he sent out this Mother's Day card to my brother's wife.

00:08:45Marc:My brother forwarded it to me because we tend to forward each other our dad's insanity when it is documented.

00:08:53Marc:So it's got I got to tell you, it's laid out like a card.

00:08:57Marc:It's got a little owl on the upper left hand side.

00:08:59Marc:It's one of those, you know, the format.

00:09:02Marc:I don't know what you do when you want to send an email.

00:09:04Marc:That's fun.

00:09:04Marc:And we'll card.

00:09:05Marc:So it's got a little owl on a branch and some wood grain.

00:09:08Marc:And it says, happy Mother's Day and grandmother's day.

00:09:13Marc:Checked out a few quotations.

00:09:15Marc:Quote, I used to think it a pity that her mother, rather than she, had not thought of birth control.

00:09:21Marc:Unquote.

00:09:22Marc:Muriel Spark.

00:09:25Marc:A daily life treating iatrogenic and street trading drug dependent hard heroin addicts and lackluster, unenthusiastic, sad specimens of society bring validity to that quote.

00:09:37Marc:Human pollution is the drug world, legal and illegal.

00:09:41Marc:Couple that with the industrial pollutants destroying our food chain, the GEO genetically engineered crops and creatures and improving our capitalism profit margin in italics.

00:09:52Marc:Add the threat of Muslim domination of Europe and Bawala modern society takes on a beauty all its own.

00:09:59Marc:I don't even know what Bawala means.

00:10:01Marc:If you've forgotten, this is a Mother's Day card.

00:10:04Marc:Quote, the doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest his patients in the care of the human body, in diet and in the cause and prevention of disease.

00:10:14Marc:Unquote.

00:10:15Marc:Thomas Alva Edison.

00:10:17Marc:Reassures me that my hobby practice of wellness and ideal immunity, that's in quotations as if someone has accused him of only having a hobby, pass through at least one genuine genius mind.

00:10:28Marc:Have a good and growing following in that area alone.

00:10:31Marc:The stumbling block is poverty of the masses making CHO, carbs, the stable of all diets, severely low vitamin D, inadequate other vitamins, few omega-3s, especially during pregnancy, lowers IQ of baby 8 to 10 points.

00:10:45Marc:Due to impecunious existence and severe family ignorance, coupled with wrong social choices and denial that a radio, TV news and newspaper exist, even World Wide Web only news would be welcome.

00:10:57Marc:Again, if you'd forgotten, this is a Mother's Day card.

00:11:01Marc:Quote, thinking out of the box is a learned process that should be next to godliness in the priorities of what to teach your children.

00:11:08Marc:The trick is to recognize when the box itself is faulty and deserving change, unquote.

00:11:13Marc:Barry Marin, while watching and hearing a jury of 12 peers in Oklahoma make a decision in an Oklahoma medical malpractice case against a loser doctor.

00:11:24Marc:Shades of the OJ jury nullification.

00:11:27Marc:Now, if you're not paying attention, he just he just quoted himself.

00:11:33Marc:Mother's Day card, if you forgot.

00:11:35Marc:Enjoy the late great United States of America as it morphs into the socialist USA.

00:11:40Marc:Words cannot help if all reasonable actions have failed.

00:11:43Marc:The Uzi and Magnum are the must-have entities.

00:11:46Marc:Own one, learn to use it, and carry it.

00:11:49Marc:You and your children will, with reasonable probability, need them sooner than later.

00:11:55Marc:Barry.

00:11:57Marc:It's a Mother's Day card.

00:11:58Marc:So my brother sent that to me so I could enjoy one of these brain skids of weirdness.

00:12:06Marc:And all I could write back to my brother was, that's my dad.

00:12:14Whew.

00:12:16Marc:Yeah, you're going to have to accept your father at some point.

00:12:20Marc:Might as well get it done sooner than later.

00:12:22Marc:.

00:12:35Marc:My guest in the garage is Tracy McMillan.

00:12:38Marc:She is the author of I Love You and I'm Leaving You Anyway.

00:12:41Guest:And I used to work on United States of Tarot, which is a great show.

00:12:44Marc:Yeah, she's very talented.

00:12:46Marc:I've never watched the show, but the posters make me believe that she's very talented.

00:12:49Marc:All the advertising indicates that she can do a lot of things.

00:12:52Guest:She pays it off, too.

00:12:54Guest:Good.

00:12:54Marc:She delivers.

00:12:55Marc:I know people like it.

00:12:56Marc:I just don't seem to have the time to watch things.

00:12:59Marc:I don't know where the fuck people get time to do anything.

00:13:03Marc:So this book now coming to this book is interesting for me because I know you socially.

00:13:07Marc:I have respect for you as a person.

00:13:10Marc:I know we have common friends to the point where, you know, my ex-wife is thanked in the book and she has written her own book.

00:13:16Marc:And, you know, my feelings about what happened with all that in a very interesting way.

00:13:22Marc:The way you talk about your side of these situations, your relationship with your father, your relationship in your three marriages, your relationship with your son, with drugs, with alcohol, was a tremendous revelation to me.

00:13:35Guest:Interesting.

00:13:36Marc:I never hear women talk about what's going on.

00:13:39Marc:And when they do, I'm not sure I'm listening.

00:13:42Marc:But this is very honest stuff.

00:13:44Marc:And it comes from a deep place.

00:13:45Guest:And usually they probably are talking about it like they want you to change and they want something from you.

00:13:49Guest:And so it's hard to hear when somebody's coming at you with something and here's somebody who wants someone else to change.

00:13:55Guest:Right, exactly.

00:13:56Guest:Who wants something from someone else.

00:13:57Guest:So you're like, oh, okay.

00:13:58Guest:It was probably voyeuristic.

00:14:00Marc:This book is about you.

00:14:02Marc:The narrative alternates between your childhood with a father who was in prison...

00:14:10Marc:A mother who was a prostitute but didn't play a big part in your life early on.

00:14:16Marc:A series of foster care situations, one with a Minnesotan, were they Lutheran family?

00:14:22Marc:Yeah, Lutheran.

00:14:23Guest:Minister and his wife.

00:14:24Marc:You lucked out there, huh?

00:14:25Guest:Totally.

00:14:26Guest:I lucked out being born in Minnesota.

00:14:27Marc:No kidding.

00:14:29Marc:I like Minnesota.

00:14:30Marc:They're decent people, as they say.

00:14:33Marc:And then, you know, sort of interspersing the idea of moving through this relationship that you had with the emotional bonds in your life as a child.

00:14:41Marc:And then, you know, sort of comparing that to your relationships with men as an adult and ultimately, you know, resolving some of these issues around having the father that you had and among other things.

00:14:51Marc:Mm hmm.

00:14:51Marc:And here I'm talking too much of my own.

00:14:54Guest:You got it.

00:14:55Guest:No, you get an A. That's it.

00:14:56Marc:Oh, thank God.

00:14:58Marc:Well, I cramped.

00:14:59Marc:I bought the book a week ago and I've been reading it, but I got home, I got busy.

00:15:03Marc:I was in Portland where you lived.

00:15:05Marc:The amazing thing you did here, and for the first two thirds of the book,

00:15:08Marc:I was getting a little frustrated.

00:15:10Marc:Uh-oh.

00:15:11Marc:No, no, no, no, no.

00:15:11Marc:It wasn't that.

00:15:12Marc:It was beautifully written.

00:15:14Marc:But when you depict a childhood where you grow up in this element, and we're about the same age, so I really liked all the references to big cars, to certain recording technology and things.

00:15:26Marc:It was definitely, I grew up in New Mexico, which is a small city, so driving, but I didn't grow up with a pimp for a dad.

00:15:32Marc:Mm-hmm.

00:15:32Marc:But that there were two things you did that I found to be fairly great, which was you somehow managed to not at all throughout the book, even when you acknowledge at the end that you had this childhood that could have been seen as such.

00:15:47Marc:You weren't a victim.

00:15:48Marc:Right.

00:15:48Marc:And I sense that was very conscious choice that it wasn't that you kept it light, but you were careful not to bring that weight to it.

00:15:56Guest:I don't think I feel like a victim.

00:15:58Guest:Ever?

00:16:00Guest:I think victimhood is one stage of a person's evolution.

00:16:05Guest:Okay.

00:16:05Guest:It's the beginning stage, you know, where you're like, this is all happening to me and life fucking sucks.

00:16:10Guest:You know, I quickly moved out of that to realize like, oh, there's another way to look at this.

00:16:15Guest:I cast myself in the...

00:16:18Guest:in the hero's position right sometimes i look at my life this one way i look around and i go oh yeah i was put in foster care at a really young age but it was maybe maybe it was this part of myself that knew in a very sort of like i got a stick and i got a bandana and i got my shit and i said guess what we can do better than this because these people are fucking crazy so let's get out of here because there's a whole world out there let's get in it

00:16:45Guest:And when I look at it like that, I think, you know what, that was a good thing.

00:16:48Guest:That was the best fucking thing that ever happened to me is that my mom gave me up.

00:16:52Marc:Well, that's an amazing story that you should tell, that your father, you know, your love for your father and, you know, that evolves over the course of the book.

00:17:01Marc:And then obviously the, you know, fuck him.

00:17:03Marc:And then, you know, the reengagement is pretty fascinating because I don't think anybody has that intimate a relationship and is so eloquent about it with a pimp.

00:17:12Marc:So what was that like, essentially, in your recollection of the impact he had on you in terms of charm and emotional possession?

00:17:20Guest:Wow, that's really interesting.

00:17:21Guest:Well, I think if you look at the photographic record from when I was a very small child, my mother was completely incapacitated very early on.

00:17:28Guest:So my dad was like Mr. Mom.

00:17:30Guest:And I do think that my dad has a highly developed feminine sense.

00:17:33Guest:It's like the part of him that can put together an outfit.

00:17:36Guest:And he's really...

00:17:37Guest:kind of have to in that line of work yeah definitely and you know the thing about being a pimp is like very few guys stop at pimping it's like pimping is like part of a whole it's like saying you're a cigarette smoker it's like you're smoking all the time right you know what i mean you're smoking in the morning you're smoking at night even when you're not working yeah you know so he's like pimping pimping is like a state of mind it's like an it's a state of mind where you exploit

00:18:00Guest:anywhere that you can.

00:18:04Guest:And so I think the thing with my dad was twofold.

00:18:09Guest:One, I was like his talisman.

00:18:10Guest:He carried me around.

00:18:11Guest:And if you've ever carried a baby around, you realize they are up in your face.

00:18:15Guest:It's like sitting in the front row of a movie theater.

00:18:17Guest:So I imagine that here I was around this guy.

00:18:19Guest:He's carrying me around.

00:18:20Guest:He's dressing me really cute.

00:18:22Guest:He's doing all these things in his life.

00:18:24Guest:He's taking me to drug deals.

00:18:25Guest:He's driving around in his car.

00:18:27Guest:He's in that energy all the time of like, ooh, there's a hot girl.

00:18:31Guest:Because my dad's real thing is women.

00:18:33Guest:Yeah.

00:18:33Guest:That's his real thing.

00:18:35Guest:Yeah.

00:18:35Guest:I think he did the crimes and all that other stuff just so he could get some power so he could have women want him.

00:18:41Guest:Yeah.

00:18:41Guest:I think people commit crimes for different reasons.

00:18:44Guest:Some people want to get back at somebody.

00:18:46Guest:Some people want to do violence or express rage.

00:18:49Guest:My dad wanted love of women.

00:18:51Guest:He wanted to be regarded by women and be wanted.

00:18:55Guest:And I think that goes back to his relationship with his mother.

00:18:58Marc:Sure.

00:18:58Marc:Well, now, the interesting thing that I didn't see in it because, you know, you keep it fairly personal was that there is this this conception that that is based in reality that, you know, what pimps have to do to keep women in line in their work is fairly violent.

00:19:16Guest:And I feel like my dad was is not a violent person.

00:19:19Marc:So he didn't have to do that.

00:19:20Marc:He was that good.

00:19:21Guest:I don't know, maybe, or maybe it's not the, that's just one version of it.

00:19:26Guest:I mean, his story that he tells is that every single one of these women came to him.

00:19:32Guest:Okay.

00:19:33Guest:That they came to him.

00:19:34Guest:Yeah.

00:19:34Guest:And they said, I need a man.

00:19:35Guest:Will you be him?

00:19:37Guest:And he's like, well, I guess so.

00:19:39Guest:Yeah.

00:19:40Guest:You know?

00:19:40Guest:Yeah.

00:19:40Guest:Now, you got to always take everything my dad says with just a little bit of like, okay, well, maybe that's the story.

00:19:46Guest:You don't get around my dad and feel violence.

00:19:50Guest:That's not the thing.

00:19:51Guest:And he also was like...

00:19:53Guest:He was like a lot of a grifter.

00:19:55Guest:You know what I mean?

00:19:55Guest:Like they were doing hustles also.

00:19:57Guest:So what they would do is they would send out like my biological mom.

00:20:01Guest:They would send her out there.

00:20:02Guest:And then she would involve herself with some guy.

00:20:05Guest:And then maybe they would get some money from him.

00:20:08Guest:Maybe a large sum of money.

00:20:09Guest:And it's all based on like that she's very sexually desirable.

00:20:13Guest:And then they would run away with it.

00:20:14Guest:And then the guy can't do anything because there was all the sex involved.

00:20:17Guest:As much that kind of thing.

00:20:20Guest:And then there were other times where they would like, you know, put women, you know, like women out there for like very high end call girl situations.

00:20:30Guest:You know, I don't know that he really had streetwalkers as much as he was like.

00:20:35Marc:Working a bunch of angles.

00:20:36Guest:Yeah, he was working a lot of angles.

00:20:38Marc:And the women that he had and his wife were partners.

00:20:41Guest:Yes.

00:20:42Marc:And they knew what was up.

00:20:43Guest:Well, I don't know if all of them were.

00:20:44Guest:Right.

00:20:45Guest:But, you know, I don't know that all of them were.

00:20:47Marc:But your mom.

00:20:47Guest:I'm not saying all of them were.

00:20:48Guest:But my biological mother, because I want to be very careful to distinguish between the mother who gave birth to me and the other mothers that I had, you know, because I had other mothers.

00:20:57Guest:Yeah.

00:20:58Guest:And they were not involved in this, to my knowledge.

00:20:59Marc:Right.

00:21:00Marc:But your biological mother, you didn't spend that much time with her.

00:21:04Guest:No, not really.

00:21:05Guest:About three years.

00:21:06Marc:And it turns out that she was relatively unstable.

00:21:09Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:21:09Guest:Very unstable.

00:21:10Guest:Very early.

00:21:10Marc:Was that your father's first real?

00:21:13Guest:You know, he was 29 when I was born and she was 20.

00:21:18Guest:So he was a lot older than her, but he loved her.

00:21:22Guest:And to this day, when he talks about her, he gets a faraway look in his eye.

00:21:26Marc:So then after all this, and I like that this was part of the way, because a story like this could be fairly menacing and not as sort of buoyant and entertaining as you allow your older self to recapture this stuff, that the energy that you say sort of stays with you throughout your life that you have to assume you were absorbing in this environment was what exactly?

00:21:51Guest:um i think it's like a it's like a schmoozy charm like my dad's just super charming i'm trying to imagine like but the sexuality too oh my god yeah like this really powerful sexuality because like when i came into my own sexuality around seventh grade or whatever i started realizing like this was very familiar to me and i talk in the book about how i found some pornography on the bus when i was 12 years old

00:22:14Guest:And I read I looked at that thing and it wasn't unfamiliar.

00:22:18Guest:It was shocking, but it was totally familiar.

00:22:20Guest:There was something about the energy of let's call it addictive sex.

00:22:25Guest:Right.

00:22:25Guest:Where sex is like the drug.

00:22:27Guest:Right.

00:22:28Guest:That was extremely familiar to me.

00:22:31Guest:And it super scared me, meaning like sex on down on the ground, like with just like a cute boy.

00:22:37Guest:Yeah, that was scary.

00:22:39Guest:Yeah.

00:22:39Guest:But sex, the big picture sex, I was very familiar with that, and I knew that I could tap into its power.

00:22:45Guest:It was just also frightening to me.

00:22:47Guest:Like, I think I had some trauma around it, and I don't know exactly what happened or when or where, but clearly I either witnessed too much or, you know, when you're a foster child, like, things happen to you because the people who are supposed to be your linebackers or whatever...

00:23:01Guest:They're not there.

00:23:02Guest:Right.

00:23:02Guest:So I don't know all the details, but all I know is that was really familiar to me and still is to this day.

00:23:09Guest:It's not even that I'm attracted to it as much as I respond to it.

00:23:14Guest:Right.

00:23:14Guest:And I say respond like, you know, like a person might, like an involuntary response.

00:23:20Marc:You feel the juice.

00:23:21Guest:I feel it.

00:23:22Marc:Yeah.

00:23:22Guest:Yeah.

00:23:23Guest:And I've learned how to do that, but I've actually backed away from it because I see that it did not actually bring into my life what I wanted.

00:23:30Marc:yeah it took a while though it took a while it took me a while to come into it too like i'm like a person who didn't even i'm like a person who um who had two alcoholics for parents who didn't have a drink until she was like 34. so there's something well i mean i don't think that's uncommon for for children who grow up in that kind of chaos is that sort of control right you know at the core of your being yes you know that there's this chaos around and you insulate yourself yeah

00:23:56Marc:So when you first saw pornography, it probably just blew your mind.

00:23:59Guest:It did.

00:24:00Marc:I mean, I remember that experience the first time I saw it.

00:24:02Marc:Because you know those feelings are somewhere there.

00:24:05Marc:There's equipment here meant to do this.

00:24:06Marc:And there's a lot of desire and feelings attached to it.

00:24:09Marc:But when you see it that graphically, it's sort of like your whole body just kind of...

00:24:13Guest:shuts down and goes weird yeah I mean it's true I think that's true about pornography I think it goes straight to your brain it's like it's like a hit of something you know that's why it's like the most addictive substance on the planet well I don't think anybody says that I don't hear anybody saying pornography is the most addictive substance on the planet I hear people saying pornography is awesome yeah well

00:24:32Marc:Yeah, I you know, I've had conversations with with sex workers, a porn star and my own sort of trying to assess this that in my mind that I know on some level it can't be healthy for culture or individuals to have this much access as we do.

00:24:48Marc:But the one thing that Dennis Miller ever said that I thought was interesting was that that Internet porn was going to make crack look like Sanka.

00:24:55Guest:Oh, that's interesting.

00:24:56Guest:Because I feel like porn, I don't know if I think it's like crack, but what I do think it's like is cigarettes.

00:25:01Guest:I think it's like a thing that in 20 years or 40 or however long it'll take, it'll be like how we think of smoking in the 40s.

00:25:08Guest:Everybody did it.

00:25:09Guest:It was super clean.

00:25:10Guest:We liked it.

00:25:11Guest:It was fine.

00:25:12Guest:We didn't think it was anything about it.

00:25:13Guest:We didn't realize that it was possibly causing harm.

00:25:17Guest:I'm starting to think it's harmful.

00:25:18Marc:Well, I talked to a guy I have on this show, Almost Dr. Steve.

00:25:22Marc:You might know him, Steve Danziger.

00:25:24Marc:And, you know, he deals primarily with sex addiction.

00:25:28Marc:And he says that what we're risking is really the sensitivity to other people.

00:25:34Guest:Yeah, that's what it is.

00:25:35Guest:You know, my dad, as a pimp, as a grown-up, he's really taught me, Tracy, once you start trading sex for money, you can never go back.

00:25:43Marc:And you never did that.

00:25:44Marc:You're very clear.

00:25:44Guest:I never did that.

00:25:45Guest:I never did it.

00:25:46Marc:You made this statement in the book where it's like, I didn't do that.

00:25:49Marc:I didn't strip.

00:25:50Marc:Which are fairly common repercussions of living in the environment that you came in?

00:25:54Guest:I think that would be the most normal thing in the whole world if I had become a stripper.

00:25:58Marc:Were there junctures where you considered it?

00:26:00Marc:No.

00:26:00Guest:It's just not my temperament.

00:26:02Guest:I'm really cautious.

00:26:04Guest:Of all the wild and crazy people, I'm the super cautious one.

00:26:07Guest:And of all the cautious people, I'm the wild and crazy one.

00:26:11Guest:But it's just something like, I think this is where my trauma came in.

00:26:15Guest:I think whatever went on my particular imprint was that it was scarier than it was fabulous.

00:26:23Marc:Yeah.

00:26:23Guest:right and i also had i don't know there was just a part of me that was like you know what i'm going straight like i just made a decision fairly early on in my life like i come from all this but i don't want that life i know what it is i'm gonna go straight i know it's gonna take a lot longer i know it's not gonna be any easy money i know i'm gonna have to work at starbucks i know it's gonna fucking suck but it's okay yeah because i've seen what it does

00:26:49Marc:Yeah.

00:26:49Marc:Well, that's that's an amazing insight and fortitude, because I think that some people in those lines of work use sex to insulate them as well.

00:26:56Marc:That, you know, they become like this is this and I don't have to engage.

00:27:01Guest:Right.

00:27:02Marc:Emotionally.

00:27:03Guest:Oh, definitely.

00:27:04Guest:Definitely.

00:27:04Guest:But what my dad was telling me and fairly early on.

00:27:08Guest:Not so much about sex work, but in every way is like, Tracy, you don't ever... I remember him telling me, you don't have anything to hide.

00:27:15Guest:Keep that.

00:27:17Guest:It's a precious commodity to be able to move through the world without any secrets.

00:27:23Guest:Yeah.

00:27:23Guest:And I'm like, oh, that's interesting.

00:27:26Guest:I was probably 21, 22 when he told me that.

00:27:29Guest:And I really took it to heart.

00:27:30Guest:My dad's very wise.

00:27:31Guest:And I was like, wow, I want to live a life where I don't have to be in the criminal mindset.

00:27:36Guest:I don't want to be in that other world, even though there's a lot of power over there.

00:27:41Guest:It's just, I don't know, for whatever reason, it just wasn't my path.

00:27:45Guest:Well, that's great.

00:27:46Guest:I mean, I feel lucky.

00:27:47Guest:I don't take any personal credit for it.

00:27:49Guest:I don't really think like, oh, I'm so awesome.

00:27:51Guest:I did it all by myself.

00:27:52Guest:I don't think that.

00:27:53Guest:I just think it wasn't my path.

00:27:56Marc:So now the title comes from a moment that you acknowledge later in the book, but it comes from what happened when your father went into prison for the first time.

00:28:06Marc:And that was...

00:28:06Guest:Well, oh, he went in for the first time when I was about three and a half or four.

00:28:10Guest:I think the title comes from realizing, I don't know, it's hard to say exactly where the title comes from, but I know there's that moment when I first met my natural mother and I realized that she loved me and she left me anyway.

00:28:25Guest:Like it was never that these people didn't love me.

00:28:28Marc:Right.

00:28:28Marc:And she had put you up for your father's girlfriend at the time he married and legally adopted.

00:28:34Marc:His wife adopted you when he went into prison.

00:28:38Marc:Yes.

00:28:38Marc:Because your mother, in retrospect, realized she couldn't handle it?

00:28:42Guest:Yeah.

00:28:43Guest:Well, she could not deal with it.

00:28:45Guest:In fact, my dad says that she never wanted a baby.

00:28:47Guest:He basically locked her in a room until the baby came.

00:28:50Guest:Me.

00:28:51Guest:Well, that's a little violent.

00:28:53Guest:I mean, you know, it's funny.

00:28:54Guest:I mean, that's what he says.

00:28:55Guest:I'm sure that's like the literary version.

00:28:58Guest:But, you know, she ended up having five kids, my mother.

00:29:03Guest:She had five children.

00:29:04Guest:And, you know, various, she raised them in all, you know, I don't think all of them did she raise from beginning to end.

00:29:11Guest:I think each of us spent some time with somebody else.

00:29:13Guest:One of them was given up.

00:29:15Guest:I had a sister at the time I was given up, a half-sister.

00:29:17Guest:She was nine months old, so she got adopted.

00:29:20Marc:Well, the great thing about the book in terms of how people see themselves or how they see expectations, cultural expectations, is that the way your family worked and what you had been through put you in a position that seems chaotic.

00:29:36Marc:But, you know, especially within the black community, when you went down south to sort of track down your family.

00:29:43Marc:Mm hmm.

00:29:43Marc:is that when there is a community, the community seems to step up, and you realize that you have all these relatives that you didn't really realize you had, and even in the foster care, you had people that loved you there, but that even in all this chaos, the bonds that keep people together are deep and real.

00:30:01Marc:And a lot of people don't have that in any sort of eccentric way or way that you had.

00:30:07Marc:But it's interesting to me that the human spirit, when it comes to children and even in this criminal element, that in some ways the bonds are almost stronger and deeper than regular or normal things that we consider that.

00:30:19Guest:Yeah, I think that's true.

00:30:21Guest:I think people in like communities where there's a lot of risk, you know, they learn to keep their bonds no matter what.

00:30:30Guest:Like certain like my cousins are much more bonded in some ways to my dad.

00:30:35Guest:when I was younger than I was because I had absorbed like the dominant cultures idea of what fatherhood was.

00:30:41Guest:A good father is somebody who, you know, fixes the chain on your bike and is there, you know, at your high school graduation or whatever.

00:30:49Guest:He's like doing things for you and it's whatever.

00:30:50Guest:And you accord respect based on what he's doing for you currently.

00:30:54Guest:Well, in my dad's family, you accord respect because he's your dad, period.

00:30:58Guest:It doesn't matter if he's gone.

00:31:00Guest:Doesn't matter if he doesn't, doesn't matter.

00:31:02Guest:Yeah.

00:31:02Guest:So it's not based on what he's doing.

00:31:04Marc:Right.

00:31:05Guest:And that's a really different whole, you know, but I quickly was put at a very young age into the other culture.

00:31:12Guest:And so those became my values.

00:31:14Guest:And that caused me to turn away from my dad for a long time.

00:31:17Marc:And then in this book also, I want to make sure that people understand the texture of this life.

00:31:24Right.

00:31:24Marc:is that so you you move in with your father's wife because he's got to go to prison and she adopted you and that that relationship is difficult because she's selfish and crazy and has an idea of the way things should be well and you know like she's a guy who or she's a girl whose husband you know wants to be with a guy who's in prison yeah

00:31:41Guest:You know what I mean?

00:31:42Guest:One of those girls.

00:31:43Guest:One of those women.

00:31:45Guest:I don't want to say anything bad at all.

00:31:47Guest:I very much appreciate what she has been in my life.

00:31:50Guest:And let me just put that on the record.

00:31:53Guest:But at the same time, if you and I had a girlfriend, just a chick we knew, and she had a boyfriend who was in prison, we'd be worried about her.

00:32:01Guest:And she was like, oh, I'm going to take his daughter.

00:32:04Guest:And you'd be like, you are?

00:32:05Guest:Yeah.

00:32:06Marc:yeah what does that indicate how is that healthy how old is she she's eight oh my gosh that girl's gonna have some problems this might not be what you know a happy ending but that girl will have problems in the same way that you had problems and and i think we all judge along those lines and you know reading enough books about this stuff and trying to assess why people do what they do but in the same way that you had all these marriages and your relationship with your father was what it was you can't

00:32:29Marc:there's some things you can't love is is pathological when you deconstruct yeah it's true but there's nothing you can do in any given moment to tell somebody you look you got problems you love a guy in jail you want to take his kid what the fuck is wrong with you yeah what are they gonna hear that right no

00:32:46Guest:No one's going to hear that because people are on their path.

00:32:48Guest:I don't even think they're supposed to hear it.

00:32:50Guest:I mean, let's get real.

00:32:50Guest:Like life is pathological.

00:32:52Guest:Yeah.

00:32:53Guest:It's a mess.

00:32:54Guest:Life is going to kill us.

00:32:54Guest:Yeah.

00:32:55Guest:No one's getting out of here alive.

00:32:56Guest:That's right.

00:32:57Guest:And I say, you know, at the end of the book, like if you're supposed to have a perfect life, it's like you're here as a daisy or a house cat.

00:33:03Guest:You know what I mean?

00:33:04Guest:Human beings, it's a mess.

00:33:06Guest:We do messy things.

00:33:07Guest:It's like, that's how it is.

00:33:08Guest:And you've got to kind of embrace it, find the humor in it and the folly in it and to forgive yourself and to move on.

00:33:14Marc:And you've got to know when you've been beaten.

00:33:16Guest:Yeah.

00:33:17Guest:And then once you let go, that same thing that was like this quote unquote bad thing becomes like this good thing.

00:33:23Marc:Yeah.

00:33:24Marc:Right.

00:33:24Marc:If you get the wisdom.

00:33:25Guest:If you get the wisdom.

00:33:26Guest:But that's and that's the free will part of it is that you get to choose.

00:33:29Marc:Well, I think that's interesting about your relationship with your father throughout these years where it was really a series of you visiting him in prison.

00:33:37Marc:And at some point, you have these expectations for him to take responsibility for what he did or how he behaved and what it did to you.

00:33:46Marc:And that's one of those moments where this dude may never change.

00:33:50Guest:He probably will never change.

00:33:52Guest:And even so, he read the book.

00:33:53Guest:He called me from prison and he said, I read the book.

00:33:56Guest:And I don't know that he said, oh, wow, I really got it.

00:33:59Guest:No, he didn't say that.

00:34:01Marc:But even if they said that, what do we think that's going to do?

00:34:04Marc:Yeah, right.

00:34:05Marc:They're not going to be able to make up for the time that that's that realization that comes along with the same thing about the inner child that we, you know, we, we abandon or we just let cry and we don't integrate is that, you know, the opportunity for them to parent us is behind us.

00:34:23Marc:It's there's nothing they can do.

00:34:25Guest:That's true.

00:34:26Marc:So either you walk around like an unparented child for your life or you get that kid to grow the fuck up.

00:34:32Guest:Yeah, or you start parenting that person.

00:34:35Guest:And you go, wait a minute, I'm the grown-up here.

00:34:36Guest:And that's like a huge paradigm shift when you go from moving through life as a child who's looking for stuff from everybody.

00:34:43Guest:And I think that's what happened with me with men is that I realized after becoming a mother, my relationship to men changed.

00:34:51Guest:I became...

00:34:52Guest:Because I was growing this baby man, you know, from infancy, and he's now 13.

00:34:58Guest:I started to realize like, oh, there are more relationships to have with men than do you like me?

00:35:07Guest:Am I pretty?

00:35:08Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:35:09Guest:Am I hot?

00:35:10Guest:Am I hot?

00:35:11Guest:Am I hot?

00:35:12Guest:Am I hot?

00:35:13Guest:It's like there are other relationships to have.

00:35:16Guest:And actually, they really appreciate that.

00:35:18Guest:Because that question, am I hot, does not bring out the best in a man.

00:35:22Guest:And I would say like marrying that third husband was one of the best things I ever did.

00:35:27Guest:Not only was I supposed to marry, I had the feeling, it's like, things get confusing when you have two feelings.

00:35:32Guest:One, I'm totally supposed to do this.

00:35:35Guest:And two, this is totally not going to work.

00:35:37Guest:That's where things get interesting.

00:35:40Guest:That's where you have a real character.

00:35:41Guest:That's like the start of the episode as a TV writer.

00:35:44Guest:That's the beginning of the movie.

00:35:46Guest:But I think that I was supposed to do it.

00:35:50Guest:And it wasn't supposed to work.

00:35:52Guest:I just think the happy endings dream or the utopian idea that...

00:35:57Guest:Not in every situation was I'm supposed to do this mean it's supposed to work.

00:36:02Guest:It means that for some people.

00:36:03Guest:But now I look at the people who like one of my best friends, oldest best friends who's in the book.

00:36:08Guest:She's called Diane in the book.

00:36:10Guest:She married her high school sweetheart.

00:36:13Guest:I look at that as somebody who like.

00:36:15Guest:knows that they're supposed to be a doctor when they're 10 years old or somebody who's born with 50 zillion dollars or some other sort of state of being in the world that you are not necessarily responsible for, but that just seems to happen.

00:36:29Guest:I think that's her life path to marry her high school sweetheart and stay married for 30 years.

00:36:35Guest:Actually, it's going to be a lot longer than that.

00:36:38Guest:It's not my life path.

00:36:40Guest:She was supposed to do that.

00:36:43Guest:I was supposed to do this.

00:36:44Marc:But don't you, I mean, isn't it hard not to... Judge yourself?

00:36:49Marc:Well, of course, judge ourselves.

00:36:51Marc:But to say, like, well, they must be hiding something.

00:36:55Marc:I mean, the compromise that they made.

00:36:57Marc:I mean, they must have turned something off.

00:36:58Guest:I just saw them last weekend.

00:37:01Guest:And I really believe, like, I don't think so.

00:37:03Guest:I know a lot of people want to say that, but I don't know.

00:37:07Guest:I don't actually think so.

00:37:09Guest:I mean, it doesn't mean that they don't have all kinds of shit going on.

00:37:12Guest:Everybody does, right?

00:37:13Marc:Yeah.

00:37:14Guest:It's just that their stuff doesn't threaten the marriage.

00:37:17Marc:Because they must have something about their wiring that enables them to maintain intimacy with enough trust not to get paranoid, angry, or feel abandoned.

00:37:28Guest:Yeah.

00:37:29Guest:All right.

00:37:29Guest:Now I'm going to have to work my way there.

00:37:31Guest:I know.

00:37:32Yeah.

00:37:32Guest:I mean, I'm going to have to work my way there.

00:37:35Guest:I think I don't know.

00:37:37Guest:I don't have the answer.

00:37:38Guest:Like, does this mean that now I can stay married?

00:37:41Marc:Well, let's talk about the through line of the book that, you know, what you ultimately realized in this last marriage and in the, you know, alternating.

00:37:48Marc:A narrative that takes you your life post foster home took you to San Francisco, to Portland, to New York, to Los Angeles, to Salt Lake City.

00:37:59Marc:Of all places.

00:38:00Marc:With a man?

00:38:01Marc:Right.

00:38:01Marc:I mean, you must have thought that was going to work out.

00:38:03Marc:Who the fuck would go to Salt Lake City?

00:38:05Guest:Well, it's so funny because I was like, oh, this is going to be great.

00:38:07Marc:How the hell is that even possible?

00:38:09Marc:It's like a theocracy.

00:38:10Marc:It's a theocracy.

00:38:11Marc:When you wrote about it, I was like, where did she find bars there?

00:38:13Guest:Oh, there's tons of bars.

00:38:14Guest:In fact, the counterculture there is so strong.

00:38:17Guest:I would have to be.

00:38:18Guest:Because the dominant culture, it's like the rebellion there, those are the wildest people I've ever met in my life, some of them.

00:38:24Guest:No kidding.

00:38:25Guest:Yeah.

00:38:25Guest:It's like a very kind of almost Burning Man-y vibe.

00:38:27Guest:Oh, really?

00:38:28Guest:Yeah, because the dominant culture is so...

00:38:32Guest:that they have to work harder yeah and in one way it's easier because all you have to do is swear or light a cigarette and you're like in a rebellion but on the and on the other hand it's like um it's so complete the um the dominant culture is so completely oppressive that you you spend a lot of time reacting to that well it and you have to react as big as it is

00:38:55Marc:Sure, you have to match the equal and opposite reaction.

00:38:58Marc:The history of the Mormon church.

00:38:59Marc:I mean, that's what you're fighting.

00:39:01Guest:Mormons are a trip.

00:39:01Marc:Yeah, they are.

00:39:03Marc:I'll have them in the house and let them talk for a while.

00:39:05Guest:Oh, you will?

00:39:06Guest:Oh, that's awesome.

00:39:07Guest:I have.

00:39:07Guest:Yeah.

00:39:08Marc:I mean, that tried to upset them, but it's been a while.

00:39:09Guest:You know what?

00:39:10Guest:No one ever tried to convert me.

00:39:11Guest:Yeah.

00:39:11Guest:I think they just looked at me and went, not to pass on her.

00:39:14Guest:Yeah.

00:39:14Guest:You don't want her.

00:39:16Marc:I guess that's one of the reasons where you're happy you weren't attractive to them.

00:39:19Guest:Yeah.

00:39:20Guest:I'm not saying physically attractive.

00:39:20Guest:Although I found some Mormon dudes really attractive, I have to say.

00:39:23Guest:I know, you wrote that.

00:39:23Guest:I did, because they have like this repressed, like, mmm, that is kind of hot.

00:39:28Marc:Yeah, like if you pop that open.

00:39:29Guest:They're kind of hot.

00:39:30Marc:Mm-hmm.

00:39:31Guest:There's some Mormon guys who are hot.

00:39:32Marc:Okay.

00:39:33Marc:I'll take your word for it.

00:39:34Marc:Yeah.

00:39:34Marc:I haven't met too many Mormons.

00:39:36Guest:Yeah.

00:39:36Marc:The ones I've met were lapsed.

00:39:37Guest:The thing about hotness, though, I mean, I don't want to say that, like, I shouldn't say that because it's kind of something I'm trying to unsubscribe from.

00:39:45Guest:Like, to objectify a person in that way is not really, it's not really where I want to be right now.

00:39:52Marc:Yeah.

00:39:52Marc:Okay.

00:39:52Guest:Because I don't think, it's like, you can go for hot, but what's hot really going to get you?

00:39:56Guest:What I think hot is- It's going to get you hot for a while.

00:39:58Guest:Yeah, but like you can't separate the hot from the disaster.

00:40:03Guest:That's where I came to.

00:40:04Marc:Your third marriage.

00:40:05Guest:Yeah.

00:40:06Guest:It's like what they say.

00:40:08Guest:It's like you can't separate.

00:40:11Guest:Let's see.

00:40:11Guest:What's a good analogy for that?

00:40:13Guest:Like the very first thing.

00:40:14Guest:You can't separate pulling of the trigger from the death from the bullet.

00:40:18Guest:You know what I'm saying?

00:40:18Guest:they're one in the same sure you know so now i look at hot and i'm like okay well i know where i know that that's the first scene in the hot movie and i know what the last scene in the hot movie is and i don't want the last scene and my only choice is over the first scene so i'm gonna make a choice to back away from the hot uh-huh well that's actually well yeah i think you say that in the in the beginning of the book what what is the three letters that you use for nice ung and ultra nice guy

00:40:41Marc:Ultra nice guy.

00:40:42Guest:And that doesn't mean I have to go to an ultra nice guy.

00:40:44Guest:It just means I need to go to a place where I'm not treating people like objects.

00:40:49Marc:There's also a self-image thing about where you come from and how that made you feel and how you see yourself.

00:40:56Marc:I thought that the catharsis around Gwyneth Paltrow initially was interesting.

00:41:00Marc:What was that about?

00:41:01Guest:I think a lot of people hate her because she's so privileged.

00:41:04Guest:But you had a visceral reaction to her.

00:41:07Marc:You were working at your news job.

00:41:09Guest:Yeah, I think a lot of people... Okay, well, the story of Gwyneth is... Actually, I read that at my readings.

00:41:14Guest:You want to read it?

00:41:15Guest:Sure.

00:41:17Guest:So this comes at the time right after I had a baby.

00:41:21Guest:And becoming a mother really brought a lot of stuff to the surface for me.

00:41:25Guest:And one of the things that happened is that I became really obsessed with the power lines at the end of my street.

00:41:30Guest:which is just the setup for this little paragraph.

00:41:34Guest:When I'm not obsessing about the power lines, I'm thinking about Gwyneth Paltrow, of all people.

00:41:40Guest:I saw her once at the Sundance Film Festival back when she was dating Brad Pitt.

00:41:44Guest:She was tall and blonde and rich looking, exactly like an Us Weekly.

00:41:48Guest:At the time, I didn't think much of her one way or the other.

00:41:51Guest:But motherhood has forced my own daughterhood to the surface, and that is making me have all kinds of feelings toward Gwyneth, like a kind of hater.

00:41:59Guest:not actual hate hate i'm too minnesotan for that more like middle school hate the special type of hate for tall blond rich girls who date brad pitt that is experienced by the rest of us less fortunates which is to say the vast majority of vagina having americans

00:42:17Guest:I know right when it started.

00:42:18Guest:Oscar night, 1997.

00:42:20Guest:I'm sitting there watching Gwyneth sashay to the podium in her pink Ralph Lauren gown when this intense feeling arises in me.

00:42:27Guest:The word envy comes to mind, but it's really more than that.

00:42:30Guest:It's more like injustice.

00:42:33Guest:Not wrongly convicted of murder and justice, but close.

00:42:37Guest:This is so, so, so unfair, my mind screams.

00:42:41Guest:How is it that one girl, Gwynny, can pretty much get born, go shopping, date movie stars, sail around on Valentino's yacht, then collect an Oscar all before the age of 27?

00:42:51Guest:How does that happen?

00:42:53Guest:Of course, I already know how, and that's precisely what's got me so upset.

00:42:57Guest:There's even a special term for it.

00:42:59Guest:Gwyneth is a daddy's girl.

00:43:01Guest:Apparently, when you have a father who takes excellent care of you, who is dedicated to giving you what you need and what you want, and not just pixie sticks between prison sentences, you grow up feeling like you should be treated very, very well.

00:43:14Guest:You feel deserving.

00:43:15Guest:And other people just naturally feel like you deserve stuff too.

00:43:18Guest:So they give it to you.

00:43:21Guest:This is obviously not quite what happened to me.

00:43:23Guest:But rather than mourn that, I've just decided to middle school hate Gwyneth.

00:43:28Guest:My whole Gwyneth daddy obsession culminates a few years later at work.

00:43:31Guest:I'm supposed to be writing something for the 5 o'clock newscast when Gwyneth's lovely face pops up on the 12-inch TV that sits on my desk.

00:43:39Guest:She's on Oprah.

00:43:40Guest:I have to watch.

00:43:42Guest:I turn up the sound just as Gwyneth is sharing a story about how her dad surprised her with a father-daughter trip to Paris when she was 10.

00:43:48Guest:They stayed at the Ritz or something five-star like that, just the two of them.

00:43:52Guest:What kills me is the part where Gwyneth tells Oprah her dad's reason for the trip.

00:43:56Guest:I wanted you to see Paris for the first time with a man who will always love you, he said.

00:44:00Guest:That's a quote.

00:44:03Guest:My first reaction is white-hot anger.

00:44:05Guest:A man who will always love me?

00:44:06Guest:No man will always love me.

00:44:08Guest:Tolerate me, maybe.

00:44:10Guest:Marry me if I beg him to or if I'm pregnant.

00:44:12Guest:But love me so much he'll whisk me off to Paris?

00:44:15Guest:Stop it.

00:44:16Guest:Then, and this surprises me, I begin to cry.

00:44:21Guest:Right there at my desk in the newsroom where everyone can see me.

00:44:24Guest:Big clean tears like summery white cotton.

00:44:27Guest:The kind good for halter tops and elephant bells.

00:44:30Guest:Because Gwyneth was loved like that.

00:44:33Guest:And because I wasn't, but I wanted to be.

00:44:37Marc:Yeah.

00:44:39Marc:Good, deep, well-articulated resentment.

00:44:44Guest:Well, you know, if you keep reading the book, you'll see that that story resolves itself in a really beautiful way.

00:44:49Marc:It does.

00:44:50Marc:That resolves itself.

00:44:51Marc:And the moment that you realize that you have been exercised of your father's power over your wiring resolves itself because of your third divorce.

00:45:02Marc:Right.

00:45:02Right.

00:45:02Marc:And also, at the end of the book, you start to explore your deeper understanding of men because of your relationship with your son.

00:45:13Marc:Right.

00:45:14Marc:And it's very uplifting.

00:45:17Marc:I literally, when you walked up...

00:45:19Marc:I was cramming to finish it, and then we're sitting there, and you're like, finish it, and you're working, and I'm reading, and you're right there, and I'm reading about you.

00:45:26Marc:And I got emotional, and I had to run into the house, because there's just no way I'm going to start crying over your book in front of you.

00:45:34Guest:Oh, that's sweet.

00:45:35Guest:We're not that close.

00:45:36Guest:I know, we're not that close, but we're going to be after this.

00:45:38Marc:It seems like it.

00:45:39Marc:I'm going to have to give you my book.

00:45:41Marc:uh-huh it's yeah it's uh you know it's it's a collector's item so it'd be nice if you had it you can't get it anymore that easy oh really uh-huh well it's my memoir was different i i i extracted my parents from it oh very consciously interesting uh i said this is nothing to do with them this is my life and it's very specific well that's a stage

00:46:01Marc:Is it?

00:46:02Marc:Yeah, I think it's over now on my stage.

00:46:03Guest:Yeah.

00:46:04Marc:So what's up with your dad now?

00:46:05Guest:Well, he's in prison, and he thinks he's getting out in October, actually.

00:46:12Guest:There's this law.

00:46:12Guest:It's called the Second Chance Act.

00:46:14Guest:And if you're over 65 and you've served two-thirds of your sentence, you're eligible for home detention.

00:46:21Guest:And he thinks he's going to get out in October 1st.

00:46:25Marc:Do you think he's going to get out?

00:46:26Guest:I don't know.

00:46:27Guest:I really don't know.

00:46:28Guest:But if I had a Chapter 18, it would be, I love you, but you're not coming to live here.

00:46:31Guest:I did tell him.

00:46:36Guest:I mean, I have really good boundaries with him.

00:46:38Guest:It's like, yeah, does he want to move to California and live with me?

00:46:42Guest:Hell yeah.

00:46:44Marc:He would, right?

00:46:44Guest:Oh, sure, but he's not going to.

00:46:46Marc:And you told him that?

00:46:47Guest:Yeah, I did.

00:46:50Guest:You know, he understands.

00:46:51Guest:It's like, I have a whole life.

00:46:52Guest:I have a young son.

00:46:53Guest:I can't really be having any kind of element like that in my life.

00:46:58Marc:Even at 65?

00:46:59Marc:Yeah.

00:46:59Guest:Oh, he's 70.

00:47:01Guest:He'll be 75.

00:47:01Marc:And you still think he's dangerous?

00:47:03Guest:No, but I want to make sure that he's not.

00:47:06Guest:I want to make sure that he's not.

00:47:07Guest:I actually think he would be great to have around.

00:47:09Guest:Yeah, be good times.

00:47:10Guest:Yeah, he's great.

00:47:12Marc:Your son would get a kick out of him.

00:47:13Marc:How old's your son now?

00:47:13Guest:13.

00:47:13Guest:Oh, man.

00:47:14Guest:Yeah, he would get a kick out of him.

00:47:16Guest:He would charm him to death.

00:47:16Guest:And, you know, you can't hustle a hustler.

00:47:19Guest:So I think he would be great to have around.

00:47:22Guest:He's perfectly willing or welcome to come live with us, but he's going to have to show that he can kind of stay out of prison.

00:47:29Marc:Uh-huh.

00:47:30Marc:That's just the deal.

00:47:31Marc:At that age, he's still got the juice to... I don't know.

00:47:34Guest:I don't know.

00:47:35Guest:I wouldn't know.

00:47:36Guest:I mean, his last conviction was at 57.

00:47:39Guest:You'd think that was old enough.

00:47:40Guest:I don't think it has to do with age.

00:47:41Marc:I also like that your father, not unlike most narcissistic, selfish people, has these big ideas.

00:47:46Guest:Oh, he's got big ideas.

00:47:48Guest:In fact, one of the things that he was mad at me about in the book is that I said the thing about the earthworms.

00:47:53Guest:Because he said he wanted to be an earthworm farmer when he got out.

00:47:55Guest:Sure, that's a good idea.

00:47:56Guest:I know.

00:47:57Guest:I'm like, earthworms, right?

00:47:58Guest:And I kind of a little bit, you know, to me, that's sort of emblematic of the whole, that kind of sums it up in a nutshell.

00:48:04Guest:And he was like, you make me sound like I'm not very ambitious.

00:48:07Guest:Oh, that was an ambition problem.

00:48:09Guest:I know.

00:48:09Guest:And I was like, wow, that's really interesting that that's one of your few, like, you know, comments about the book is this earthworms thing.

00:48:17Guest:And I'm like, okay, whatever.

00:48:19Guest:He said he liked it.

00:48:20Guest:And now it's making the rounds.

00:48:22Guest:The book is making the rounds.

00:48:23Guest:To the family.

00:48:23Guest:No, in the prison.

00:48:24Guest:Oh, God.

00:48:25Guest:Yeah, all the dudes want to read it, and now there's some guys who really want to know me.

00:48:29Marc:Oh, so maybe you haven't missed your opportunity to be one of those women who has a boyfriend in prison.

00:48:34Guest:I know, and I've never been very interested in that.

00:48:36Guest:It's scary.

00:48:37Guest:Yeah, I mean, I have a dad in prison.

00:48:40Guest:I don't need a boyfriend in prison.

00:48:41Marc:Well, that's the one thing you don't need, apparently, in your relationship that's relative to your father.

00:48:46Guest:Yeah, I've had all kinds of everything out there, but not that.

00:48:49Marc:And the crucial, the real core thing in understanding your relation with your father and how it relates to the men that you've had in your life was what?

00:49:00Marc:Oh, gosh.

00:49:02Marc:What is it in that moment with Paul where you realized that you had transcended it?

00:49:07Marc:That you always date or marry men for what?

00:49:10Guest:I'll tell you.

00:49:11Guest:Well, I mean, I had the two marriages, which were one thing, and then there was the... You know, it's like I had the...

00:49:16Guest:I knew what to do, and I did it, but it never felt right.

00:49:21Guest:Then I did the thing that felt right, and it was a disaster.

00:49:24Guest:Because what felt right was my dad.

00:49:26Guest:Which is basically someone who... Who's going to have... It's not like lying and cheating.

00:49:32Guest:It's like he's going to have problems with the truth.

00:49:35Guest:You know what I mean?

00:49:35Guest:He's going to have a hard time.

00:49:37Guest:He's going to have like...

00:49:39Guest:how do you even say what that is it's like a guy who first of all has a really a deep deep deep overriding need for the attention of women for love and attention from women and I don't see it as even being like cheater I don't see that there's no judgment it's not that stinging it's more like there was a mom thing that happened there and there's a deep need to get that approval and love

00:50:07Guest:and um they could get it anywhere and and and because partly partly men experience love through sexuality it necessarily has a sexuality vector with it yeah but um it's there's no moralizing about it for me you know so what it was for me was to need um

00:50:29Guest:love from that man right my thing was to get that man to stop needing that right if he loved me he would stop needing and chasing that which would be ultimately to actually be able to love right in a way that was just a little selfless

00:50:50Guest:I guess.

00:50:51Guest:I mean, well, to be able to love in a way that didn't hurt me.

00:50:56Guest:Right.

00:50:56Guest:Because like these men, it's like they couldn't, they would need my love and want my love, but they would also need and want love from all these other women.

00:51:03Guest:And they would especially need and want love from women who were in a certain type of sexual energy.

00:51:09Guest:Yeah.

00:51:10Guest:Because that's their thing.

00:51:11Guest:Yeah.

00:51:11Guest:And there's no judgments on it.

00:51:13Guest:It just is what it is.

00:51:15Guest:I'm just reporting, okay, the men I want to love me necessarily want this other thing.

00:51:21Guest:And then I'm like, well, what's the nature of that other thing?

00:51:24Guest:Well, it's something that I can't provide for them because it has to be one.

00:51:28Marc:Disconnected from a narrative or a story or a person.

00:51:32Guest:Totally.

00:51:32Guest:There has to be a power thing going on there.

00:51:35Marc:Sure.

00:51:35Marc:Well, I say that you should definitely read this book because it'll take you a lot of places, a lot of cities.

00:51:41Marc:You go to India.

00:51:42Marc:It'll take you through several different relationships, motherhood, prison, family members.

00:51:47Marc:Again, there was a couple of instances in the book where you had family members from your father's side that dealt with some pretty heavy shit in a very nonjudgmental way.

00:51:57Marc:Mm-hmm.

00:51:57Marc:And there's no foreboding, dark, sordid energy throughout what could seemingly be that type of experience.

00:52:06Marc:And it's a real way to look into that from a way of strength as opposed to, you know, I'm fuckness.

00:52:13Marc:Mm-hmm.

00:52:13Marc:You did a good job, Tracy.

00:52:15Guest:Thank you.

00:52:16Guest:Thank you for having me.

00:52:17Marc:Thanks for talking.

00:52:26All right.

00:52:37Guest:Hello.

00:52:38Marc:Hey, Dad.

00:52:39Guest:How you doing, man?

00:52:40Marc:Good, what's up?

00:52:40Guest:What are you, California?

00:52:42Marc:Yeah.

00:52:43Guest:Everything's good here.

00:52:44Guest:Figured out, going out to get a little ribs, I think, over at Chili's.

00:52:49Guest:They got some new sauce.

00:52:50Marc:Good.

00:52:51Marc:Craig forwarded me some Mother's Day greeting that you sent out.

00:52:55Marc:That was kind of interesting.

00:52:57Guest:Yeah, I thought it was.

00:53:00Marc:I didn't know that you should mention Uzis and Magnums in a Mother's Day greeting.

00:53:05Guest:Okay.

00:53:06Guest:That was the way my head was running at the moment.

00:53:08Marc:Right.

00:53:09Marc:Do you have loaded guns at the ready?

00:53:12Guest:I got 15 or 20 guns, I think.

00:53:15Guest:I don't shoot them, really.

00:53:18Guest:I just have them.

00:53:19Guest:I collected them.

00:53:20Guest:I got one at the ready, yeah.

00:53:21Marc:Do you have one in your car still?

00:53:23Guest:No, I carry it with me when I have to, when I'm going out.

00:53:25Guest:I'm going out in the evening, and I pack it.

00:53:29Marc:Really?

00:53:29Marc:What, in a holster?

00:53:31Guest:Yeah, no, in a sort of a shoulder bag.

00:53:36Guest:so you'd have to say hold on a second let me get my gun no no no it's ready yeah I got robbed once I'm not gonna I don't want that to happen again but you don't go practice with the guns no when I'm gonna use it's gonna be within five or six feet and you're ready to drop a guy

00:53:54Guest:Yep, I'm ready to use it.

00:53:56Marc:Well, I was thinking about with all the guns you have that I realized that the competition, if we ever get to a point where we could just have a duel,

00:54:08Marc:Who do you think would win in a duel?

00:54:10Guest:Me.

00:54:11Marc:No, you didn't even think about that one.

00:54:17Guest:Nope.

00:54:20Marc:All right.

00:54:21Marc:So hopefully it won't come to that because I'd have to come over and borrow one of your guns.

00:54:26Marc:to have a duel with you yeah and you're now the chili ribs you're going out to get the you're going out to get ribs of chilies so this this does is this uh this doesn't see this seems to go against the health plan to me well it does and it doesn't you know i just like yes last night we got four autichokes i'm into autichokes big time now as long as they're in season i guess you can eat them all the time

00:54:54Guest:Artichoke is great.

00:54:55Guest:For me, it's great.

00:54:57Guest:And I would rather eat artichokes and artichoke hearts than a lot of other things.

00:55:02Guest:I've almost stopped eating seafood, and I love seafood.

00:55:06Marc:Just artichokes?

00:55:08Guest:I'll eat artichokes, and I'll eat thin sliced beef, I guess, and I'll eat some chicken.

00:55:16Guest:And fish and stuff is just sort of difficult for me to tolerate anymore.

00:55:20Guest:Take a look on Google.

00:55:22Guest:Google up salmon lice.

00:55:25Marc:Salmon life?

00:55:27Guest:Lice.

00:55:28Guest:L-I-C-E.

00:55:28Guest:Like lice in the hair.

00:55:29Marc:Salmon lice.

00:55:30Marc:Okay.

00:55:31Guest:You look at the salmon lice, you won't want to eat salmon again.

00:55:33Marc:I ate salmon last night.

00:55:35Guest:But you don't know where it came from.

00:55:37Marc:It came from the ocean.

00:55:39Guest:I know.

00:55:39Guest:You don't know which part, whether it was farmed.

00:55:41Guest:whether it was natural or, you know, some guy jobbed it to a restaurant who served it, and you ate it.

00:55:47Guest:That kind of annoys me, bothers me.

00:55:49Marc:So the idea of food exchanging hands before preparation bothers you?

00:55:56Guest:Unless I know the source.

00:55:57Guest:I want wild, deep-sea salmon.

00:56:01Guest:I don't want these canned, farm-fed salmon, because all the Omega-3s are screwed up.

00:56:06Guest:You know, your Omega-3s and 6s are...

00:56:08Guest:are backward because they're feeding them corn.

00:56:12Guest:Oh.

00:56:12Guest:And lice are being bred in these pens.

00:56:15Guest:Lice?

00:56:17Guest:Lice.

00:56:18Guest:L-I-C-E.

00:56:18Guest:These are salmon lice.

00:56:20Guest:Sea lice?

00:56:21Guest:Sea lice.

00:56:22Marc:And what do they do to us?

00:56:24Guest:I don't know what they do to us, but it sure doesn't look good to know that I'm eating something that they've been eating.

00:56:28Guest:But that's a big... It's a huge thing, Mark.

00:56:32Guest:Huge.

00:56:32Marc:But are they in the meat of the salmon?

00:56:34Guest:No, they're on the salmon.

00:56:35Guest:They're eating the surface of the salmon.

00:56:38Marc:Oh.

00:56:39Guest:And then I guess they must put suckers inside to suck out what's there.

00:56:44Guest:I don't think you can catch lice from the salmon, but just thinking of them being that sick a condition to be vulnerable to sea lice annoys me.

00:56:53Marc:And does artichoke fight this in any way?

00:56:56Guest:No.

00:56:57Guest:Oh.

00:56:58Guest:But I don't have to worry about it because I'm not eating salmon anymore.

00:57:01Guest:Got it.

00:57:02Guest:I'm just eating stuff maybe.

00:57:03Guest:I don't know what I want to eat.

00:57:05Guest:I might eat occasionally a shrimp.

00:57:07Guest:I might eat occasionally some oysters.

00:57:10Guest:Occasionally, and that's about it.

00:57:12Marc:All right, a lot to think about.

00:57:15Guest:So what are you doing now, otherwise?

00:57:16Marc:Well, I've been touring a lot, and I've been doing the podcast twice a week, and I've been going out and performing a lot.

00:57:23Marc:I'm going to go to Canada and Ireland.

00:57:26Marc:I'm going to go to London.

00:57:28Marc:New management's working out, and people are coming to the shows because they hear the podcast.

00:57:34Guest:These trips abroad, are your new management paying for that?

00:57:39Guest:Is that part of the promotion?

00:57:42Marc:Well, usually the person that's bringing you out pays for the travel or at least a part of it.

00:57:48Guest:Oh, I see.

00:57:49Guest:Okay.

00:57:49Marc:It's part of the booking.

00:57:51Guest:So you're being booked on separate events, separate productions, one-man shows type of thing?

00:57:57Marc:Yeah, I go do stand-up in these places for money.

00:57:59Marc:That's good.

00:58:00Marc:It's my job.

00:58:01Guest:That's your job.

00:58:04Guest:Good.

00:58:04Guest:Well, you're good at it.

00:58:05Guest:Enjoy it.

00:58:06Marc:All right, Dad.

00:58:06Marc:I love you.

00:58:08Guest:Love you too, babe.

00:58:09Guest:Bye.

00:58:09Guest:Thanks for calling.

00:58:09Guest:Yep.

00:58:10Guest:Bye.

00:58:15Marc:All right, so now I got three emails about salmon and vitamins.

00:58:19Marc:I got to call him back.

00:58:22Marc:I got to call him back.

00:58:29Marc:Hey.

00:58:30Marc:Hey, Dad.

00:58:31Guest:Yeah, hold on.

00:58:32Guest:Hold on one second.

00:58:35Guest:Just dry my hands, man.

00:58:36Guest:Hang in here.

00:58:37Marc:I'll be all right, Pop.

00:58:38Guest:What's going on, kid?

00:58:39Marc:Not much.

00:58:40Marc:I got your emails.

00:58:41Guest:Good.

00:58:42Marc:So let's talk about this.

00:58:43Marc:I don't know, it seems all your emails now are in a greeting card format.

00:58:46Marc:Do you know that?

00:58:47Guest:I don't know.

00:58:48Guest:It appeared on my screen, so I hit them, and it jumps onto my email.

00:58:53Marc:So everything's presented like it's going to be a fun thing.

00:58:56Guest:Right, right, right, right.

00:58:58Marc:So the first one is about a diet particularly large fish is a major source of methylmercury, contaminant damages or destroys nerve tissues and affects the visual cortex and the cerebellum, the part of the brain that controls complex movements and balance.

00:59:11Guest:Right.

00:59:12Guest:And memory.

00:59:13Guest:And memory.

00:59:14Marc:Right.

00:59:14Marc:In a study research examined that the effects of long-term exposure to small amounts of metromercury in adults, bad.

00:59:21Marc:So like this is, all right, so this was off the, yeah, the salmon discussion.

00:59:25Guest:Right.

00:59:26Marc:And then in bold with a purple highlight, stop seafood, it's not safe, love, Dad.

00:59:32Guest:That's what I believe.

00:59:34Marc:All right, now here comes the topper.

00:59:36Marc:Okay, this is the subject heading idea.

00:59:40Marc:The ideal seafood restaurant.

00:59:42Marc:Start one.

00:59:43Marc:Properly presented and ideally based in New Zealand or Arkansas.

00:59:49Guest:No, no, Alaska.

00:59:51Marc:Okay, New Zealand or Alaska, young fish, big winner, soon only such fish will be edible, Dad.

00:59:57Marc:So you see me operating a salmon restaurant in New Zealand?

01:00:03Guest:No, no, using New Zealand basis for fish and the Alaska basis of young fish, any young salmon type of fish,

01:00:12Guest:Line up, you know, really align yourself with a quality place that's bringing in quality fish, like Vital Choice out of Alaska, for example.

01:00:19Guest:Right.

01:00:20Guest:You know, and a place in New Zealand like this place that I'm getting this New Zealand green lip mussel oil, which is, you know, another omega-3.

01:00:29Guest:And set up a menu and advertise it and have a big, you know, have a, you know, your kitchen opened up so people sitting at the bar, a nice looking bar, sitting there can look in and see you, you know, preparing the fish and get all the quality stuff so you're not dealing with all this shit that you don't know what day you're selling.

01:00:46Marc:So just open a restaurant with an open kitchen where people can see me cook their salmon.

01:00:52Marc:Right.

01:00:53Marc:And get a couple of fish connections in either New Zealand or Alaska, possibly both.

01:00:59Marc:Right.

01:01:00Marc:And that's it.

01:01:01Marc:It's a done deal.

01:01:03Guest:That would be a fun restaurant.

01:01:04Marc:Yeah.

01:01:04Marc:Yeah, okay.

01:01:05Marc:Well, I'll make note of that.

01:01:07Marc:I'll put it on a to-do list.

01:01:09Marc:Where do you think I should start, getting the money for the restaurant or hooking up with some good seafood connections in New Zealand?

01:01:16Guest:Both.

01:01:18Guest:I think the money for the restaurant would come easy.

01:01:20Guest:I bet you could get four of your celebrity colleagues to open up a restaurant, a quality restaurant.

01:01:26Guest:Should they open up these other crap world places that people love to go to, these big trendy places?

01:01:31Marc:So you think that the...

01:01:33Marc:The pitches that, like, look, I know there's a lot of other restaurants out there, but this one's special.

01:01:40Marc:We're only going to sell salmon and mussels from Alaska and New Zealand.

01:01:45Marc:I mean, my dad says it's a no-brainer.

01:01:48Marc:You think the money will come rolling in?

01:01:52Guest:You know, you get the right people who are interested in that kind of thing.

01:01:55Guest:I think it'd be good.

01:01:58Guest:I would love to go sit in New York and have quality seafood, but now that I know what I know about this shit, I want stuff that I can say, well, where's it coming from?

01:02:06Guest:Here he is.

01:02:07Guest:Here's Peter New Zealander.

01:02:09Guest:He's shipping it in just for me.

01:02:11Marc:So you would like to have perhaps a waiter come over with a representative from New Zealand

01:02:16Marc:Who presents you with the fish.

01:02:19Guest:Yeah, that'd be great.

01:02:23Guest:All right.

01:02:24Guest:Mark, you know, I see on the news today, on the web, I just looked at it, you know, five minutes ago.

01:02:29Guest:They're talking about that the fish...

01:02:32Guest:There might not be fish in the ocean in whatever year.

01:02:35Marc:That would solve all our problems, wouldn't it?

01:02:37Marc:Then we wouldn't have to worry about salmon lice or where it comes from.

01:02:40Guest:That's right, man.

01:02:42Guest:They just got the red space lice.

01:02:44Marc:Do you just get like the shitty news?

01:02:46Marc:Do you have a special channel where it's just a shitty news that they pipe into your house?

01:02:51Marc:Or do you just choose to focus on that?

01:02:55Marc:I don't know what cable system you have.

01:02:59Marc:All right, well, I'll take that as good sound advice, and I will definitely do more research in my salmon.

01:03:08Marc:So if I do that, everything will be okay, and you're willing to say the world will be okay if we just... Eat the right salmon?

01:03:14Guest:Yeah.

01:03:15Guest:Unbelievable the pollution out there, Mark.

01:03:17Guest:Unbelievable.

01:03:18Marc:I know.

01:03:19Marc:All right, well, I love you, Pop.

01:03:20Marc:I love you.

01:03:21Guest:Bye.

01:03:21Guest:Take care, man.

01:03:22Guest:Bye.

01:03:24Marc:Okay, that's our show.

01:03:29Marc:I hope you enjoyed that.

01:03:31Marc:We learned a little bit about dads.

01:03:34Marc:I should have dropped this on Father's Day.

01:03:36Marc:Let's look at this show as an early Father's Day show.

01:03:43Marc:If you have any WTFPod needs, or even if you don't, please go to WTFPod.com.

01:03:48Marc:You can get on the mailing list, which is fun, and I'm doing it, and I'm keeping up with it weekly, and I'm writing things for you and sending pictures and links and little things about the guests and other stuff.

01:03:57Marc:Also, a reminder, tomorrow night, May 21st, 8 p.m., at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in Los Angeles, we will be doing a live What the Fuck with Brendan Walsh, Moshe Kasher,

01:04:08Marc:Laura Keitlinger, Eddie Pepitone, and Jim Earl.

01:04:11Marc:They're always fun.

01:04:12Marc:Come on down.

01:04:12Marc:I'll bring a few Nerdcock shirts and some JustCoffee.coop, which you can get at WTFPod.com as well.

01:04:20Marc:Also, Canada, May 27th through 29th.

01:04:23Marc:In Toronto, I will be at YuckYucks.

01:04:26Marc:Go to YuckYucks.com for information.

01:04:28Marc:And please support our show if you can afford it.

01:04:31Marc:We are listener supported and you can do that at WTF pod dot com.

01:04:34Marc:And as always, punchline magazine dot com.

01:04:36Marc:If you want any up to date comedy news and if you're interested in stand up, stand up records dot com has a great catalog of comedy.

01:04:44Marc:Many of the people that I've had on the show are are available on stand up records and love your dad.

01:04:50Marc:If it's at all possible.

01:04:52Marc:Thanks a lot, you guys.

01:04:57you