Creativity as Redemption with Prison Memoirist Mark Olmsted

In this episode, author Mark Olmsted shares his remarkable journey from incarceration to rehabilitation, highlighting the therapeutic power of storytelling throughout his recovery. We explore how unexamined trauma can lead to mood regulation and self-medication in the form of substance abuse and how an outlet for creative expression can free us from self-destructive cycles that limit our growth. In the same spirit, we discuss how the rigid norms  of  prison culture and the politics therein echo those of social conditioning at large, and the irony that both are directly at odds with the manifestation of our greatest potential and capacity. Mark shares what he has learned about the mechanics of redemption, as well as the role creative expression plays in that journey. 

Learn more about Mark Olmsted at

https://www.amazon.com/Ink-Pen-Prison-Mark-Olmsted/dp/0692784144

https://markolmsted.substack.com/

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Transcript

Exploring Spiritual Growth and Interconnectivity

Speaker 1 0:45

Hi guys and welcome to Language of the Soul podcast, where life is story. I want to start out by saying Virginia and I are always kind of trying to up our game and improve our format and our protocol and we're going to go back to kind of chatting a little bit before we invite today's guest in from the green room. So don't be alarmed that we're changing things up a little bit. But welcome, virginia.

Speaker 2 1:10

Thank you, I'm glad to be here.

Speaker 1 1:12

And some of you may remember we often gave Virginia a title, so I don't know. We've been chatting a little bit right. We've been kind of touching base and sharing what's going on in our lives, but it has been a while since we've done a podcast. So, simply put, what are your nails looking like right now?

Speaker 2 1:30

And it's funny. I just got them done, so they were bringing up my nails again. It's quite funny because I know we haven't talked about them in a while.

Speaker 1 1:35

Well, I decided. This is the reason I'm asking. They've become your alter ego.

Speaker 2 1:41

They are.

Speaker 1 1:43

They absolutely reflect what's going on in your life at the moment.

Speaker 2 1:46

So they do have mushrooms on them. Them, but they're not just straight mushrooms, because we came out of um valentine's day because I had actually gnomes with love on them for valentine's day, but so now I have mushrooms, but they actually, for the first time, are reflecting my spirituality, so they actually have the sun and moon and the goddess on my nails as well, with the mushrooms wow, yeah, I think last time you had shroom nails they were uh, what do you call it?

Speaker 1 2:13

Like fluorescent?

Speaker 2 2:14

They float in the dark. Yeah, so this time it's green and gold and red. The mushrooms are all red, but the green and gold is for the all, like the sun. I mean, the sun, the moon and the goddess are all in gold, and then I have green kind of scrolliness on them too. So I'll take a picture and get them out there on social media.

Speaker 1 2:33

Absolutely Well so you are aware that I mean we kind of joked one week that, like when you wear red, you go out into the world with confidence, right, and sometimes it's unexamined. You are aware it reflects where you're at this week in your little journey, your little tiny spiritual journey.

Speaker 2 2:50

Yeah, yeah, and I'm also getting together with fellow counselors this coming week, so that's kind of why I picked this. So it was just a very open reflection of me and my wholeness.

Speaker 1 3:05

I love it. Yeah, you're in a good place. Transition is always good and I know, even without getting too much dirty laundry out on the table here, you've been in transition. So do you feel like you're emerging from kind of a little dark night of the soul, or is that too much?

Speaker 2 3:22

No, that's actually probably a really good way to put it. Um, for the first time in a long time, I feel grounded again, but this time where I feel like all of my walls are down and I am 100% authentically showing myself to the world, which has been something I haven't done since my youth.

Speaker 1 3:41

Wow, actually, I feel like that is a strong statement to make. I love it, you're in a great place and I think that's going to come up majorly because, yeah, going back to our core essence is a theme on this show and I don't think it's going to be any different with today's guest Mark. But I can't help but say you know, shrooms are kind of the archetype for interconnectivity right. The largest organism that we know of is that network of shrooms.

Speaker 2 4:08

Yes.

Speaker 1 4:08

All interconnected, was it in Oregon or Washington.

Speaker 2 4:13

I don't remember actually. Yeah, so the grounded.

Speaker 1 4:15

you mentioned groundedness, that seems apropos. Apropos, but also interconnectivity, and that's what we're all about.

Speaker 1 4:23

Okay. So I guess that's related to my introduction here. Speaking of interconnectivity, we all know the interwebs have made the world a smaller place, right, but they've also isolated us in a lot of ways and robbed us of what we used to call social skills. So, online, I think Mark would say the same thing. I don't often friend strangers, really, but I had somebody reach out and friend me on Facebook and we do have five or six, um, mutual friends. But that's not unusual in the gay community, right. We all know each other, especially in LA. We've got it less, less. So now, as I get older, I'm like, yeah, if I go down to WeHo and I go to a club, it's going to be the kids straight off the bus from Iowa, not the old staples that I know. So I'm less and less involved in the community and more and more isolated here in my ghetto, which is Silver Lake.

Speaker 1 5:18

So I don't want to go on and on, but I did notice and maybe we can get to the bottom of the what is it? Six degrees of Kevin Bacon, like how Mark knows some of our mutual friends. But in any case, I'm so glad he did reach out because, yes, I immediately checked out his book and I thought it might have been podcast related. I guess that was in the back of my mind. I thought, hey, maybe he wants to come on the show or he's heard about it. So it turns out his book is amazing. He is the ideal guest and I'm sure he won't disappoint. In terms of our agenda and there really isn't one right other than illustrating we never want to use guests as guinea pigs. We want them to present themselves as they wish, but often, often, often, certain themes come up that are really relevant to our podcast. Anything you want to add to that, virginia? No.

Speaker 2 6:08

I absolutely agree. I think that you know, when we get going with our guests, that we always find and I'm going to steal this from a counseling friend of mine, but she calls it the golden thread. So it's that interconnected link between everybody when, like you're in a counseling group.

Speaker 1 6:35

And so I think that we have that same experience here on Language of the soul.

Creative Connections Through Storytelling

Speaker 2 6:37

Do you always find it in a group counseling situation? Do you always get to the bottom of what that thread is? Um, generally it's. It's usually a general kind of overarching theme, but where everybody's at a different place in their life, but it's still connected to that main central theme. Um, and I think that's kind of what happens here. When we have our guests come on, that you know we talk to them and we're like, okay, yeah, they're going to be a great guest. You know they're right there. But when we start going, it's those branches start just kind of to develop and then we can see that whole interconnectivity, not just between what we're sharing with the guests and they're sharing back with us, but even with past episodes.

Speaker 1 7:09

Yeah, it's fascinating, isn't it? I do think we've built a community and we do have a lot of kindred spirits and I think there are good reasons we find that common thread. Eventually, you know, it's because of the intent of the podcast. It always goes back to intent. But I also think, just on the topic of story, it's kind of fascinating how, yes, within one conversation, an arc kind of magically molds itself and themes and motifs reoccur from beginning to end.

Speaker 1 7:36

I learned that in my, I think at 19 or 20, at Art Center, I think I've told you, I went out and interviewed street people which turned out to be teenage runaways, squatters. The shoeshine man, a male prostitute, like you name it Runaways, squatters. The Shoe Shine man, a Male Prostitute, like you name it. But I recorded, because back then you just recorded, analog, recorded the interviews and then transcribed them and I painted their portraits. It was part of a journalistic project. But at 19, 20, I learned that, like holy crap, within one interview, all the milestones and the turning points just presented themselves and it was like begging to be written as a screenplay and anyway. So that's the power of story. We open our mouths and these things, the archetypes and the tropes, magically occur, as well as the themes and the motifs.

Speaker 2 8:22

Yeah.

Speaker 1 8:23

Anyway. So, yeah, I would love to hear more, maybe later, about the group counseling and how that's going, and the narrative therapy aspect is always relevant to the podcast. Yes, okay, I feel like some of that's going to come up. So I'm going to read Mark's bio. So what I didn't say is yes, when I checked out Mark and, frankly, stalked him on the interwebs, I did fall in love with his book and everything I learned about him. I do feel like we're the same person in so many ways with maybe David Sedaris as our third brother from another mother. Anyway, and I did read his entire memoir it's called Ink from the Pen and unfortunately, when I do that like with Robbie Zabrecki, a kid I grew up with, and in this case it does help I have said in the past that Adele is my spirit animal because she canceled an interview once because they didn't take the time to even listen to the album. So I've done many podcasts and I do feel like there's more grist for the mill if they've read my material. However, now that I'm a host, I get overwhelmed, so that I have a learning curve of my own. I find that if I read it immediately before the podcast so that it's fresh, then I don't know which thread to pick at, if that makes sense. So just bear with me. I think objectivity is maybe better. So, virginia, I'm counting on you. I always say that every week for one reason or another, but I can't really see the forest for the trees because I'm so immersed in the wonderful. I call it a memoir because it's not a whole. You can tell me, mark, when you enter the room whether it's a memoir or an autobiography. Anyway, I adored it and maybe at some point I'll read my little review. I don't. That's the other downside is it becomes about me and my reaction to the work too much. It's really irrelevant. Number one I'm not qualified to review people, but it's also kind of irrelevant. So I may or may not read or share some of my reactions to his amazing book. Okay, without further ado. Okay, got to get some lighting on my little paper here.

Speaker 1 10:28

Mark Olmsted has been a writer since graduating from NYU School of the Arts in 1980. After over a decade in Manhattan, he moved to California to pursue screenwriting and take care of his brother who died of AIDS in 1991. Gay and HIV positive himself, mark self-medicated through the worst of the plague years with crystal meth, which led to a conviction for drug dealing in 2004 and nine months in prison. Ink from the Pen is the story of his time behind bars. Mark emerged into a life of recovery and activism, getting a master's degree in the humanities at Mount St Mary's University and penning hundreds of essays on the Huffington Post, medium and Substack. He is working on an expanded memoir as well as a novel. It is presently the subject of three episodes of the podcast Everything is Stories. Sounds familiar? He lives in Los Angeles, california. Okay, welcome, mark Olmsted.

Speaker 3 11:34

Hello, dominic, in Virginia, so glad to be here and I should tell you right off the bat that I, right before this, I signed on. I signed on to the Zoom, I posted your review.

Speaker 1 11:46

I saw that.

Speaker 3 11:48

Because it was just, and you know what do you mean? You're not qualified. There's no degree in criticism. You're at least as qualified as you are to host a podcast. So, and it tickled me, I'm glad I forgot to look at it until right before, because it sort of buoyed me and you know, it's a kind of dream review that I will brandish.

Speaker 1 12:19

Wow.

Speaker 3 12:21

So thank you very much.

Speaker 1 12:23

I'm glad you did say immediately after, because I really wrote an informal one just to you and gave you my reaction and then, when you asked me to put it on Audible, I did spruce it up a little bit and I tried to put on my academic hat a little bit. But I do think feedback's everything. I make work in order to share it. So not that I always want critical feedback, but I do want interpretive feedback if that makes sense. So yeah, that was gratifying to me to hear that I did get from your book largely what you intended you the things you want them to like.

Speaker 3 13:13

So you contacted me back. I mean, I clicked on your your Facebook photo uh, that was on a friend's page uh, simply because you know you're quite handsome. And then I looked through everything that you did, you know, the art school and the podcast and some of your drawings and that's why I friend requested you Cause yeah, it's like you know I had, especially in the early days of Facebook. We used to just friend for looks.

Speaker 1 13:40

Right Crazy.

Speaker 3 13:41

Well, I escaped that.

Speaker 1 13:42

I escaped that for a long time and I joke like, well, now the algorithm has figured me out, cause it's not just cute, guys, but it's like abs. Do you know what I mean? Like TNA, basically.

Speaker 3 14:07

And I kind of want to go back and start my friends list and get their friends of friends, because there are some people that it's like, really I don't want a friend, the sister of someone who I barely know the dog sister's lawyer but then when you, you just friended me back.

Speaker 3 14:31

but then you, you did the same thing I did. You decided to look at my page and you investigated the, the, the book, and, without having read it, you invited me on the podcast. I was like this guy gets me and through and through our extensive early IMing. It was true, we do get each other extraordinarily and that's increasingly rare these days. It feels increasingly rare to me, but it was very gratifying and I just wanted to respond to something in your intro. It's that, virginia, I think the nails are so complex from what the description is. I think you should make them into little tarot cards and then do your reading of just your nails.

Speaker 2 15:28

You know, that's an idea it is.

Speaker 3 15:31

It is, you know, for for us talking about creativity and being creativists, uh, I think that that's a that's a fabulous idea well, the downside would be we could probably have you committed based on your fingernails right there's a few, maybe a few times that I've done my nails, that yeah, everybody looks at me like okay you know we have had a tarot reader on mark.

Speaker 1 15:54

I don't know if you found that episode, but two, two episodes in a row. My friend rosalind came on and did a tarot reading and yeah, it's fascinating. It's all story really, and it sort of it overlaps with the hero's journey in some really beautiful ways.

Speaker 3 16:08

Well, my sister's best friend, who's also a good friend of mine, is an obsessive collector of tarot decks and she has, I don't know, in the hundreds. And then, you know, a friend of mine did gay erotic tarot cards. Nice, in Palm Springs, and I posed for one of them.

Speaker 1 16:33

Was it Tom of Finland? Was it Tom?

Speaker 3 16:38

I mean, there's a fair amount of Bond and Gee sort of references in it, and he's now selling them in Palm Springs, jonathan. Chaplin, dury, I should just give him a plug. Go for it. What's his Springs? Jonathan Chaplin Dury, I should just give him a plug.

Speaker 1 16:50

Yeah, go for it. What's his name?

Speaker 3 16:52

Jonathan Chaplin Dury.

Speaker 1 16:54

Well, I'm intrigued. I'm going to Google them. Another of our guests, greg Spelenka, who is a dear friend and I've known him since Art Center. He was my instructor. Do you remember that, virginia? Yes, he was doing illustrating. He's an amazing illustrator. I mean nothing less than an American icon. And yeah, I kind of do want to illustrate a tarot deck, just because I don't know if you saw them, but Greg's images are just so evocative and there's so many directions to go with that I would love to do that. So, mark, we'll do a crowdfunding and the three of us will do a tarot deck. That's what I say.

Speaker 3 17:33

Well, you know, and I have looked through your illustrations on your various sites and everything, and, without overdoing it with the sort of mutual compliment, your illustrations are very impressive.

Exploring Artistic Expression Through Blogging

Speaker 1 17:50

Oh, thank you. Yeah, thank you. That is a good transition though, because I feel like you are very versatile. Maybe I don't want to put words in your mouth, but seems like a multimedia artist. You have a lot of vehicles of expression and I have noticed that can be a plus and a minus, depending on, again, how I've said, and I don't want to dwell on it, but I've been told you're a master of jack, of all trades, master of none. Nobody knows how to market you and it can be shamed this idea of being versatile and adaptable. So I guess I want to start by asking I do want to hear your story. I'm going to ask a very basic, rote question, unfortunately, but yeah, do you identify as a multimedia artist or an artist with many vehicles of expression and, if so, what is the umbrella? In my case, it's definitely story. Everything has a narrative element to it. What ties all your creative efforts together?

Speaker 3 19:06

if there is any one umbrella A story would be good, because my art is almost all collage-based and artist when I would visit her up in Seattle and it's mostly visits for the grandkids and et cetera, but we would always pull apart two or three days in the art cave, what I call it.

Speaker 3 19:25

And she has just tons of boxes, you know, with things that are cut up, and I learned to just sort of do art by spontaneity and just let the pieces choose you, and then she would also teach me some techniques like let's work with a sponge, or, you know, I learned that she always wanted to give me at least one art lesson and just not to resist that.

Speaker 3 19:53

But from all of those visits I now have, my walls are completely covered with my own art, and sometimes, when I need to clear the decks of my brain, I will take all my art supplies out from and then do something on that if I find a great frame in a thrift shop that needs filling. But now I have almost no space left. And and I also recognize that my primary gift is as a writer, and so I I believe in, you know, creation and creativity. It makes me happy. But writing and doing it the way I like to, which is a lot of rewriting, a lot of editing, because I like things to be well-honed it takes a lot of time and you know so anyway, love my art, very proud of it. I don't think it has tons of resale value, but that's fine, something will happen after I die.

Speaker 1 20:58

Oh, right, right, we all hope for that posthumous crown and that recognition, right Kind of Van Gogh style would be nice. Now, I'm sure you're reaching people. We don't always even know how big our digital art. So um and I.

Speaker 3 21:34

I'm just I. You know, I shared one poem with you just because it had a reference to Icarus. Icarus is about but uh, that poem has art, uh to it uh, that I I really enjoy putting together. It's just that.

Speaker 1 21:52

Did you include the link to the artwork? I don't remember seeing that.

Speaker 3 21:55

I didn't send that. I didn't, I would love.

Speaker 1 21:57

I'd love to see it. I'm all about Icarus, yeah.

Speaker 3 22:00

Yeah, I will send that to you and my. The blog that I started when I started to pick up trash uh, while walking, the dog called the trash whisper, has now become uh, where I, I, I park all my art. So it's, that's the official archive. So you know, you can, you can get lost in there. It's just that it's, it's. It can be overwhelming, even for someone who loves my poetry. You know, if you love someone's poetry and you read five poems in a row, it's like that's, that's it, because you know, you know you can't possibly absorb the richness.

Speaker 1 22:36

So let me, let me make sure I understand, and I do want to go back to square one for our listeners. I have a million things I want to follow up on and what you just said, really, in terms of the role of creativity, creative expression, etc. So prompt me if I don't get back to that later. But I do want to say I don't quite understand. Is it a website where other people share their found items as well?

Speaker 3 23:04

or what is the platform you were just referring to? Oh, it's a blog. A blog, okay. Yeah, yeah, it's a blog, a blog, okay, yeah, yeah, so I'm the only one who posts on it, but a lot of it was. I found a lot of art, I found that you would find notes, incredible notes, right, right, and that I would post on the Trash Whisper, whisper and just observations of the day. But then, slowly, I would, I would, uh, you know, I occasionally I wrote poetry, about once every two weeks, sometimes based on something that happened on one of my walks, and then I always arted it because I just wanted it to be each, each, each entry to be pretty.

Speaker 1 23:48

Yeah, I struggle with that too, because as an illustrator it's kind of funny. I don't want to dictate what people picture in their imaginations while they're reading. I mean, I loved the fact that I could read Wizard of Oz and picture it exactly as I wished. And then the movie kind of becomes cemented. The 1939 version becomes cemented, and same with Peter Jackson and Lord of the Rings. So I never want to dictate what people are meant to picture or imagine. But yeah, it's a logical thing to do, isn't it?

Speaker 3 24:22

Yeah, you know, I never felt it. I felt like it was the equivalent of a frame frame, you know. So that it, it, it just, it just was more evocative and just more attractive to look at. But since my, my poetry is never that on the nose, that you know this, I'm illustrating this line. You know there's one or two words that are evoking something that that I use in the in the background, so I'll send you a few samples.

Speaker 1 24:52

Yeah, I get it. It's more of a conceptual.

Speaker 3 24:55

Yeah.

Exploring Redemption Through Trash Collection

Speaker 1 24:56

Like a companion. I do companion pieces that are conceptually based, but they're not so narrative that it limits the imagination. Anyway, I love that. I think I told you before there's a guy called Dave Rothbury and he has a magazine called Found and I just stumbled into him here in, uh, Silver Lake there's, you may remember, the bookstore is not lighthouse, that's West Hollywood, right. Anyway, the one on Vermont, amazing bookstore.

Speaker 1 25:24

A different light, yeah, a different light. And I was waiting for a movie, of course, and I just popped in there I'm kind of a regular there, despite not being able to remember the name and he was doing a reading and I just fell in love with his content. It's a little bit Augustine Burroughs, a little bit Dave Roth, I mean a little bit David Sedaris, but he's straight, of course and just fell in love with his work. And then I discovered his whole magazine. Found is a lot like you said, like he'd find a piece of paper that had been on somebody's windshield crumpled and there would be, you know, a whole backstory of the breakup and cheating. Oh my God.

Speaker 3 26:03

You know it's like it's. I mean, once I feel validated and a little bit pissed like I better have thought of that first, but it's like it's. It's an idea that had to be done because it's so. Anyone who's observes, and you know, when I was picking up trash I just would find notes on windshield wipers Right, Right, Bringing many novels you know, and that then I would come home would find notes on windshield wipers bringing mini novels that I would come home I would post on the blog and I would write my guess of the backstory and a lot of breakup between street people or the unhoused, or a clearly one clearly engaged in street, uh, in sex work, Hustling Right, and some with these poetic turns of phrases.

Speaker 1 27:00

Wow Interesting.

Speaker 3 27:02

Uh, uh, and you know so I'm, and then you know so, go back to Iowa, mother, or clearly someone who'd just gotten out of prison. And because there was a reference, I mean some of them were just and it just increased my intention. One thing that picking up trash did is it forces you to be, to be in the present, because it's hard to do anything else. Your dog's there. Who's teaching you how to be in the present, right, because you just didn't watch. And then you're picking up these pieces one by one, and so you might as well look at them and look around and learning to find a beauty in the ugliness, I mean, you know, and and, and, realizing that's a perception you bring.

Speaker 3 28:01

but you, you take the right picture and like some, some homeless people who, who are traditionally beautiful, but you could see that they had once been gorgeous in a traditional way, and then that that invites uh, or the way you know. I mean, there's so much and I live in a very gritty neighbor, the neighborhood in East Hollywood, live in a very gritty neighbor, the neighborhood in east hollywood, so it pays to be able to find beauty, uh, and and and, what is not traditionally considered very, uh, beautiful right.

Speaker 1 28:40

Yeah, I think if you can find beauty in like urban sprawl, you're ahead of the game well, I had to find it in prison right?

Surviving AIDS

Speaker 1 28:47

well, let's. I definitely want to back up now because I feel like we need some context for all of this. I do love where you landed in terms of I don't want to put words in your mouth, but in the rehabilitation process, the fact that you ended up serving by picking up the trash, and it seemed like a little bit of a delayed reaction to your experience. But I do want to back up for the listeners, if you don't mind, and just give us however detailed you want to be it can be the Reader's Digest version, or you can vomit all over us either way but what led you to your prison time? Because I don't think it was in the intro, unfortunately. So what led you to it? And then just tell us a little bit about your. How many days was it? How many?

Speaker 3 29:27

2866 days okay, you're 286 days behind bars, that's right, that was one of the early, early titles in fact, oh, really nice um, so I'll just tell it the way I I I've learned to tell it, which is probably closer to the vomitorium Nice.

Speaker 1 29:48

We're all about vomit here.

Speaker 3 29:49

on Language of the Soul, please. But what happened is, when I moved out to California, my brother and I had both recognized, found out that we were both HIV positive and there was a feeling of clock ticking. He was a doctor this is Luke, right, yeah, luke. And he had me come out to, as he said, to help him open a clinic, a plasma for rhesus clinic, which was a experimental treatment for AIDS, and the state of California did not approve it.

Speaker 3 30:29

And here I was, and a struggle, you know want screenwriter wannabe. So I was like I'm still in the right place and um, uh, so started working here, developing the screenplay, trying to get connections, and, uh, then he died in february of, in February of 1991. And it felt to me very much like, okay, the clock is really ticking, especially since my T cells were going down and every three months after that, after he died, a friend in New York or a new friend in LA would die, because that was the intense time, the very early nineties. That's when the death rate went just AZT had that come out yet.

Speaker 1 31:16

or the cocktail, or it had, but it was.

Speaker 3 31:18

it was. It had limited use.

Speaker 1 31:21

It was very toxic, no one it was killing killing people Right, and so my brother refused to take it, and we wonder if he hadn't, if at least it would have prolonged.

Speaker 3 31:32

It prolonged some lives until 1995. But alone there was a lot of problems with it.

Speaker 1 31:40

Of course. Yeah, I mean, have you seen Dallas Buyers Club? I'm guessing. Yeah, exactly, I mean it was really truly killing people.

Speaker 3 31:48

My brother, you know, was a very particular kind of guy who wanted to find the cured AIDS by himself and he tried so many different things. You know selenium garlic, which was a real problem. I was like take garlic Pelzen, I can't take it, you know.

Speaker 1 32:13

I could go on a very long list colloidal silver oh, let me see.

Speaker 3 32:16

Selenium uh, zinc, uh uh. Typhoid vaccine was his big thing, no bleach that that ended up being uh. It didn't work and after he died some patients families of patients tried to sue him at his medical license and he probably would have lost his medical license because it was an underground uh trials that he was doing and looking so sorry I might have missed.

Speaker 1 32:44

I knew it sounded like he had a background in medicine was.

Speaker 3 32:47

Was he a doctor? He was a doctor. He was an AIDS doctor, Okay, who had to sometimes prescribe things he didn't believe in. I mean because he wasn't going to say, you know, drink a glass of urine a day, it works for me. He was on a macrobiotic diet. I mean he was a quirky, eccentric guy.

Speaker 1 33:07

Was he working with Gladstein?

Speaker 3 33:09

I guess it's gladstein, you know the guys at apla michael gottlieb here medical group which was one of the big aids practices. Uh, then that turned into keith limb and then jess limb and I ended up staying the patient of Dr Lim up until when he retired just two years ago. But so after he died he left $10,000 in the bank, which was a lot for me. I wasn't ready to get a new roommate because we lived together in Hollywood. So I just his bank was in San Diego because that's where we lived before, and I just he had told me to write checks for him when he was in the hospital and handling bills, and I just didn't close his account and I kept writing checks on it and his disability checks kept coming and I neglected, oops, to tell them he was dead.

Speaker 3 34:13

And I I found out that the assumption was that the funeral home tells everybody. Maybe they do that now, uh, but this was pre internet. And um, uh, I, I found out that I found a loophole. And so six months later, after these huge disability checks which allowed me to pay off my my own credit cards, and then I started using uh, and then my credit went much higher and I used his credit cards, I was able to pay them off and my credit got higher and higher. Um, and finally, you know, and I rationalized it all, I gave one car to my sister, his car to my sister, one sister and the other sister, wife of a doctor. She didn't need it but you know, I should have. The right thing obviously would have been to share whatever he left with my sisters.

Speaker 1 35:06

Um, were you responsible for the estate? Yes, okay, yeah, that's kind of normal. I mean, some of it is not.

Speaker 3 35:13

No, yeah, but I would you know I was a great rationalizer, as my mother said, because it was like you know.

Speaker 3 35:22

You had you're on the two-year plan and I wanted to live well, I wanted to do some things. So, for example, I ended up going to London that year for Christmas with my mother because she just needed to do something else and she was a visited friend. And then the next year I did the same thing with France and it was all very rationalizable in my mind. It was all very rationalizable in my mind. And finally, when his credit card just went a little to the max, I found out that I could take his death certificate and get a graphic artist friend to forge it and just change the date of his death to be two years after. And boom, it was paid off, because I checked the insure, your credit card things and this little modality was something that I would use.

Speaker 3 36:22

But the big thing was that just right after he died, he literally got in the mail a renewal for his license. And this is this sort of this is where creativity is not always great, when you're facing a terminal illness and your T cells are going down and all your friends are dying Like really good good friends once every three months, literally. The only mercy that they were weirdly spaced out so that I could catch my breath for a month. So I went down to the DMV and I just we looked just enough alike and I had it in his whole old license and she looked at it. She glanced at it, glanced up at me and put it in the pile and says, okay, step and get your picture taken. So I had a new license with his name on it and my face and and my fingerprint on it. So now it made it very easy to sort of have a double life, you know where I could pay off his credit cards as me and his, my credit cards as him.

Speaker 3 37:42

And I felt, you know, looking back, psychically speaking, I think, instead of really feeling the horrific grief of the loss of a sibling, not only did I use and drink over it, but that I was keeping him alive on paper. Wow, yeah, and um it. That was a little easier than really feeling the grief, uh, uh, I mean I felt it, but I didn't really because, for some of my friends were, I had let myself go there, you know, like crying jags that you couldn't stop, and afterwards, instead of feeling cathartic and healing, for me it was like man, you just ripped open the scar and it'll take you weeks to get, and so I learned to not go there. That's why I hate memorial services and I don't want anyone to come to mind, because I think they're wrenching. They're supposed to be healing, but not to me. I'll pen a fabulous eulogy, which I did for many of them, and now you can do that on Facebook, but anyway, so this continued, this double life continued for 10 years and I kept thinking, oh my God, this is the last time I do something.

Speaker 3 39:14

I got some viatical settlements and I was able to pay off all my credit cards and I said, okay, that's the last I do it. But I got my dream job, which was an editor of genre magazine, managing editor, and that paid $19,000 a like and I couldn't live off that. So I, I, I was, I filled out the paperwork as my brother, I kept his account, I got paid as him and I still had the disability from Mark which I was still getting because I had gotten full blown AIDS in 1993. And you know, when you, you get viatical settlements which basically say we guarantee his doctors that he has less than 24 months to live, you know, I just kept living, right, you know, shockingly, and I didn't do anything, particularly right, you know, because I was a big party boy.

Speaker 3 40:09

Well, again, could rationalize it. Anyway, the meth got creeping, started creeping up. So there's the job at genre, which I absolutely loved. Then they moved to New York and I didn't, and so I lost the job and I lost the screenplay that I've been working on. The first director died after Whoopi Goldberg agreed to be in it. I found another director.

Speaker 3 40:43

Then he died, norman Renee, and so he died of AIDS. The first director was straight. He died of lung cancer. But I had these blows, these professional blows.

Journey From Addiction to Sobriety

Speaker 3 40:55

So the nineties was the most rollercoaster decade of any life imaginable, you know, uh. So after genre, I just started doing more and more uh meth. And you know, it crept up from um, uh, let me just get a little extra for the weekend and I'll sell a few quarters to my good friends. Uh, and then you found out, if you bought a step up you know, an eighth of an ounce or you go up, that you could actually start to make a little bit of money. And, um, I discovered the pleasure of fast cash. You know, uh, wow, what a frigging addiction. And also, I was really good at it. It was fun to build a business. I answered on the first ring. You got your stuff immediately, you know, and I discovered I'd always wondered what would be like if you could get high, as you could possibly want to. And um, in a way I'm I'm glad that I went through that experience, because now I know exactly what it's like, you know, and it works for about 18 months, and then your brain becomes, uh, like a dirty sponge. You can't. You, the endorphins won't work anymore, the dopamine receptors are are clogged and sogged Right, um.

Speaker 3 42:25

But the final addiction was after alcohol, which I used to drink also, and then I drank less because the meth replaced it, and then fast cash. The last one was getting away with things and I got away with the ultimate thing, which is like I was supposed to die every year. And I got away with the ultimate thing, which is like I was supposed to die every year and I kept like. So I developed this sort of psychology of consequences are for other people and I found out the hard way when I was arrested and that I still didn't accept it until prison, uh, but so that was a big consequence.

Speaker 3 43:20

And you know I got a slap on the wrist because I was a first time offender. And you know I had to pay a fine and and and pee in a cup once a week, uh, for, and I Even that was too much of a consequence, mostly because I wasn't ready to be in a cup, I wasn't ready to embrace sobriety, I wasn't ready yet. Plus, I had all these barnacles living with me and friends who depended on me, both financially and for the meth. Uh, depended on me, both financially and for the meth, and it's very hard to say okay. You have to be willing to have total upheaval in your life to get sober.

Speaker 1 44:01

You know I was waiting till I want to hear it all. I want to hear about prison and I was going to not jump in with or AA, that you have to hit bottom. It can't be court ordered. You have to want it for yourself. You can't do it for your partner, right, and so there is that kind of sentiment that you have to want it for yourself. I also have often written about what, if one person hangs in there and believes in you, that could make all the difference for an individual. Where do you fall on that? If that makes sense, I know, erica, is that your sister, erica?

Speaker 3 44:40

Both sisters knew that I was doing meth. They certainly didn't know I was dealing Uh and I had developed such a skill at the double life and the lying and I was just a consummate liar to institutions etc. So there was no one. Now, in the sort of novel I want to write, based on the idea of what if Luke had lived my brother? He would definitely have not. None of this would have happened at all. Plus, I wouldn't have been reacting to his death on some level or taken his ID. It never occurred to me taken his ID, id never referred to me, but he he.

Speaker 3 45:30

If I'd gotten into crystal anyway, up to a point, he would have intervened. He would have gotten me into rehab, there's no doubt about it. There would have been an intervention and so my life would have been very different. So, and the irony is well, first I had my last big crime, which is when I was being summoned to meet up for a parole officer, forged posing as Luke, shocked to come down from Seattle and to found out that there was any meeting with a parole officer whatsoever, and the family was shocked. I sent in that and they sent me back the loveliest note saying um, you know, we're so sorry for your loss and the case is closed. And so I was like wow.

Speaker 1 46:36

Okay, let me make sure I'm following, because this is news to me. I knew a lot of this. Yeah, so you officially became Luke and you declared Mark dead.

Speaker 3 46:45

Just to the West Hollywood Police Department. Okay, Wow that's amazing and to the judge. But the thing is, if you I think it's called identity theft.

Speaker 1 46:54

Basically that was, but this is called faking your own death.

Speaker 3 46:58

Right, okay, it's a step above, and the thing is, if you fake your own death, you need to move from your apartment right and, but it was a. It was a. It was a rent control, rent stable. I was West Hollywood apartment, two bedrooms for 625 months, Fuck that shit. So, and and it's clear to me now that I was just pushing the envelope pushing the envelope because I needed a prison ended up being something I could have totally avoided, but it was the closest thing to death.

Speaker 1 47:35

I have to, I have to jump in here. That is the most intriguing thing I've learned, you know, and again I'm completely overwhelmed but in you know, kind of listening to you in other interviews, reading the book, listening to you here today, I will say that is the most intriguing part of it is, and I think one of the interviews you said or maybe it was in the book itself, but of course you said prison was the closest thing to death. But basically you cheated death and so maybe in an unexamined way, in testing the boundaries, the way you're describing it, you were self-destructing. Does that make sense?

Speaker 3 48:14

Well, I was looking for some sort of closure.

Speaker 1 48:17

Well, the way you put it I think again was it in the book or in an interview but you said when you write off your next chapter and you actually think you've got a built-in expiration date, you have a bunch of empty pages that you need to put back in when you realize you're going to live. So I just think it's fascinating that in a way you may have cheated death or circumvented it, but then you absolutely pushed yourself toward the closest thing to death, which would be prison.

Speaker 3 48:43

So there could be an end, a renewal, a beginning. The AIDS drugs were online. It was clear that it was not going to necessarily kill me, butled that and literally shrunk that space. And do you feel like sometimes?

Speaker 1 49:17

Yeah, I even in high school I wrote a little. I started writing a musical about basically right now and you know it feels like the end times and we're going to hell in a handbasket, and decadence does set in when there's sort of a doom and gloom feeling in society. I think you know the Roaring Twenties were seen as sort of that and so, yeah, I don't know. I think that you just party hard and you become a hedonist when there is no future.

Speaker 3 49:43

That you can rely on. And the thing is, I discovered meth, which is the best drug in the world if you want to live in the present, because for me it was like you get high, I pull on my chaps, get on the hardcore line on the computer and someone would be over pretty soon. For, uh, it was like it it it supercharges the libido so much. And then there was a whole subculture of gay men in West Hollywood, silver Lake. They were all going through the same thing and it takes a while before it really fucks up your life. But eventually the irony was is that I remember the last two weeks before my second arrest, when they discovered that I was. They discovered that I was still dealing and, uh, I hadn't died, um, that I couldn't get high anymore, and I was the closest I've ever been to sobriety, to just saying you know what I'm doing this as long as it's fun, but it's not fun anymore.

Speaker 1 50:46

You know what do you suppose the significance of that is? I've said you know? What do you suppose the significance of that is? I've said you know cause? I was a stoner and junior high and actually quit pot at 17. I continued to do shrooms and acid, you know, throughout college. But I do remember, even at 17, I said I'm not getting high anymore. Um, I tried SENS Indica, homegrown. I've tried, you know, more or less smoke, the whole dime bag. Nothing worked. But I came to the conclusion, you know, my subconscious knew it wasn't for me and it kind of pushed me. If that makes sense, what is the significance for you of the fact that you just couldn't get high anymore? Had you burned out all your synapses, had you?

Speaker 3 51:22

you know, Listen, it's like the wet sponge analogy A wet sponge can no longer pick up any more water.

Speaker 1 51:35

You know, your brain, literally, was like my dopamine receptors. You know, right, you maxed them out.

Speaker 3 51:37

Yeah, so when I got to prison I was ready to be sober and unfortunately I mean or fortunately you experience something called anhedonia, which is a lot of trouble experiencing any pleasure. And when I tried to get sober before Get Clean, like once, I was in the hospital for CMV and when I came out I felt so gray for three weeks and I thought that's what sobriety would be like.

Speaker 1 52:11

And if I'd?

Speaker 3 52:11

gone into the program and have people to hold my hands and explain to me, I would have realized that you just have to wait. You have to wait a good six months for your brain to get, uh, feel pleasure again, Right, and then. So I and I had to do that in prison. Um so, but gradually, as I made prison work for me by writing, by writing my way through it, my brain started to fix itself. But I was physically cut off from the drugs. So it was a good place for me to get sober, because I couldn't just relapse. I could have, if I really wanted to found drugs there, but I was just not that stupid.

Speaker 1 52:58

What is the withdrawal process like for meth? It certainly couldn't be like heroin, where you get a shake.

Speaker 3 53:04

No, it's not anywhere like heroin, and I was in suicide lockdown for the week after I was arrested and that is really. That was the purest bottom. Simply because they don't give you anything not to read, which drove me crazy they take my glasses so I couldn't even watch TV. Across the giant room where you were housed it's like a three-story tiered thing where all the mostly crazies are behind these glass enclosures. And they didn't give you a toothbrush even, and that was I tell you.

Speaker 3 53:55

I will never, ever take for granted that I can brush my teeth because it is horrible. But but there was just me and my brain and so just just the attempt to. I would sing every song I'd ever thought of and then I would start talking to whoever came into my brain. And I had these long conversations with my dead uncle that were no doubt from just my imagination. I don't think he was really talking through me, but the fact that I was doing story, it was like that was my first steps of battling my brain, which had become so attuned to just sensual gratification.

Speaker 1 54:43

Okay, I want to jump in. I totally was just going to wait and then come back with questions, but there's a lot, you know, I think it's working out to be. You know it's logical to ask questions in the moment. So I would say, you know, the terms are kind of interchangeable, kind of not. But you know, we all have dark nights of the soul. We have come to Jesus moments. We have we hit bottom. That seems like a forced timeout, right, if that is. It sounded like that was bottom for you, even within the prison context. Right, that was bottom. It seems a little too. It couldn't be by design on the part of right, the prison system. Do you think there's any wisdom behind that? Like, let's really have this person either atone or reflect or introspect.

Finding Compassion Through Writing

Speaker 3 55:33

No, they're just covering their ass. They ask me if I had any suicidal thoughts and in my little crazy mind I was like the judge is going to see this and he's going to go easy on me and not put me into prison. And he's going to put me into a rehab, me, and not put me into prison, and he's going to put me into a rehab and instead, uh, they just don't want to get, have a suicide in their hands and it looks right, right, they just yeah, I thought I thought that's giving them way too much credit to think, because even you know we'll talk about this later but rehabilitation is a fantasy that I think sometimes especially in county jail, where you know I wanted to terribly to tell them they made a mistake.

Speaker 3 56:13

And you know I wanted to go into gen pop and they would not let me see the psychiatrist until a week. It was seven days, that's it. And then as soon as I saw her she was like. I always thought she was like, oh, this job is so much shittier than I ever hoped. She came in all idealistic but within two seconds she was like okay, you're fine, sign me up. And so I was so frigging relieved and so, but to go that far down every step in the next step in the prison system, uh, I could find advantages, that you know. At least I always had a toothbrush.

Speaker 1 56:55

Um, I was gonna say so. Do you find it a blessing that you were in solitary straight out the gate, because it was only up from there for the rest of your term, your?

Speaker 3 57:04

I need to find a very pure bottom. I look at every. I'm a very much a make lemonade from lemons sort of person and it dates back from a long time so that when I had AIDS and I had a two year terminal date, expected know, survival, that I was all right. Well, who do I? I can steal the identity of my dead brother. He's not going to get upset and, you know, do this victimless crime that will allow me to go to Spain, will allow me to go to France, will let me go to have a great life that I have to. I have to pack in to this, to this short period of time. So, and you know, I used to think, wow, how great that I'm not going to have the decrepitude of age or illness. You know, I mean I just tried to reframe everything and so within prison rapidly.

Speaker 3 58:18

What happened is that my sister was just like blown away by the letters I was sending home. She says I want to, I want to, I want to put them on a blog. And so I would send her my letter of the day, my account of what was going on around me, and she would type it up and put it on a blog. So that I was one of the very, very concerned, obviously, and who had no idea most of them certainly are New York friends of what was going on, were able to follow my experience real time. But more importantly is the act of of observing what was going on around me taught me how to be in the present without drugs.

Speaker 3 59:18

And if you can learn to be in the present in prison, you can learn to be, live your life in the present, and that's why my life since then, you know, yeah, prison was a, a blessing in disguise. Plus, it produced this book that I can't imagine my life without. Now, if I had to do it all over again, would I make different choices and avoid it, just write a, a sequel to gone with the wind is my first, but, but, um, I still I. You know that that book really does, in a way, justify everything.

Speaker 2 1:00:00

Well, I was going to say, mark, what I think is pretty amazing is is you're talking about this too, is you know about being present? Is that you know? And I know Dominic and I both meditate and we usually try and do you know? We try and do that before we do our podcast here and stuff, so we can get in the right frame of mind. I mean, that's something unless you set out to really do um, and it takes time to really hone that skill. I mean the fact that you went and I understand crystal meth because I actually my first partner, ironically, in the early 90s, got involved in crystal meth, so I had gone through that process with them.

Speaker 3 1:01:05

So the fact that coming from that state of mind and finding that coping mechanism of being present and being mindful of what. Know that I was doing it at the time, uh, but uh, the magical thing that happened is that, uh, I swear to you I don't know what energy once I knew that my I was writing for an audience of you know, the 12 people were following the blog, or just for my sister, but I was the. The letters changed in tone, they became more writerly, with an awareness that you know it's like the inmates got the memo that they needed to step up and create a short story for me every single day.

Speaker 3 1:01:47

That's so funny and and and. Then, when they actually found out about it, everyone wanted to be in it, because it's like that's a good transition.

Speaker 1 1:01:58

I'm sure you've heard of the documentary, if not seen it. Shakespeare in prison have you guys seen that?

Speaker 2 1:02:03

I have.

Speaker 3 1:02:04

I just saw the Coleman Domingo movie about Sing Sing, which is very sort of about that program.

Speaker 1 1:02:13

Oh, okay, yeah, so you know it's a, I think, a step in the right direction in terms of this fantasy of rehabilitation. So I just think, you know, in the spirit of the podcast, creativity is the answer for a lot of things. So I do want to jump in, I'm sure we'll get back to. I do want to know how the letters translated into the book and how closely you honored the letters themselves, because I'm a little confused about that. I guess I'll just ask that straight out right now. You didn't verbatim turn the letters into this memoir, correct?

Speaker 3 1:02:45

Not verbatim. When I first got up, I thought that's what I was going to do and I tried, and I realized that a lot of the tone of it was was not as literary as I imagined it to be, and and I think part of it was that I couldn't bear my mom. She would want to read my book and I couldn't bear her, the idea of her reading it and reliving all of it. Right, and I think. And so I went, I got a master's, I did the blog, I did patricking, I was I was doing some translation work on the side and every year I was like fuck, when am I going to put these together?

Speaker 3 1:03:35

And I know there's a book and literally the month after she died in 2015, I just cleared the decks and it freed me somehow, and so I was able to take each letter which my sister had put all in a notebook for me, but also I had everything she typed up and I would just take each entry and I would just rewrite it to make it was verbatim and I would throw out some things and I would throw out some detours, I would go on, but basically it's very, very close to what the blog was Got it, and you know it's epistolatory, so each little chapter was the first two sides of a, the front and back of a letter. Usually that's where I would stop and then sometimes a little longer. But you know, but it took me. I was embarrassed that it took me so long after prison.

Speaker 1 1:04:44

Well, I'm going to jump in because I think it is fascinating that you felt freed up to write it once your mother passed, and I think that's fairly universal, right? I mean, especially when there's a tell-all book, right? For some reason the Tatum O'Neills and I guess she didn't wait till Ryan died, but like Mommy Dearest, that sort of thing, they feel freer once the person's gone. I don't really parse that. I feel like my mom's still around and, uh, you know, watching from above and legacy matters to me. So I think I try to be honest in my writing, no matter what, but do it from a place of love.

Speaker 3 1:05:16

But what I'm getting yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 3 1:05:19

Well, there was a, there was a secondary consideration. It's like every time I tried to put it together I felt that the reader was going to go. Well it's. I'm fascinated by your experience in prison, but I need to know why you got there. And I tried to fit that in. I mean, look how long it took me just to tell you the broad strokes here and I would try to replicate that. And it was like that first chapter just got longer and longer and I was like Mark, you have to write that as a full book before you write the prison, otherwise it won't make sense.

Speaker 1 1:06:00

Well, we're more objective, because we're not. We can see the forest for the trees, right. So I do want to jump in. I think it's very for writers. We have listeners that I assume are writers, and we've had Rob Zabrecki come on and talk about his process of writing his autobiography and I totally relate, a hundred percent, mark, when I I'm capable of doing narrative nonfiction essays where it's a chunk of my life, I I'm very clear about the themes and what I want to say with it and how I want to illustrate it.

Speaker 1 1:06:30

But it's so daunting and overwhelming for me to even consider writing a full memoir or autobiography. I can do it when I commit to a theme, right, cause I generally go, wow, is my life a tragedy or a cautionary tale, or should I tell the victorious version? There's a million lenses you could swap out, right, and so I always find, oh okay, I can commit to a theme like the gay thing. So, if I was able, the longest narrative nonfiction essay that's bordering on memoir only worked because I was able to commit to a theme the progress in terms of representation, right and tolerance and for diversity, all of that. So it's totally relatable.

Speaker 1 1:07:12

Uh, there's no judgment on it when I say you were freed up the moment your mother passed. What I wanted to get at is, it does seem. I mean, the book is really beautifully written. In that I think I one of the things I said that you liked because it was in line with your intention, was it's an exercise in finding your compassion and suspending judgment. You're presenting us with a lot of really prickly but really lovable characters, and so I find, wow, it's really easy to fall in love with these very faulted people and I think that was your intention, correct kind of showing, showing their redeeming qualities.

Speaker 3 1:07:48

It also, yes, but it was also a way to get back deeply the gratitude I had. I mean, once I got seven letters in one day, all from friends or relatives, and you know you get the guard would pass out letters and he'd he'd skip most bunks because a lot of people didn't get anything. And then maybe one letter here and one, and when he said, uh, he gave me seven, and I was like someone yelled out, man, if I was loved that much, I would never be here. It was, oh my god, it's the truth. And in my head I was like, yeah, but I I'm particularly gifted at fucking up, you know.

Speaker 3 1:08:41

But I was aware that the advantages I'd had being educated and, fairly, the gay thing was a little dramatic in 1975 another story, um, that I I put used in my student film that I sent the other day, but, um, uh, but it made me aware that I had to step out of this.

Speaker 3 1:09:09

You know, when you're very well loved as a child, you proceed through life with a basic sense of I'm okay, right, and when you're not, as most of these men weren't, I had to say, well, try to emphasize and imagine where they're coming from. And so that infused a lot of their bad behavior. Right, you know it wasn't too hard to find compassion and I had to go and I'd gone to it. You know there were a lot of black men around you and you're supposed to be afraid of them and I had been raised. I went to a very heavily black high school and I always had seriously very close black friends. I've lived with two for many years so I didn't have this inherent fear of them as black people, but they were also and they looked at me and saw how marginalized I was by the other whites.

Speaker 1 1:10:11

Right, right.

Speaker 3 1:10:12

So there's an identification there and they felt bad for me and they said now you know how we feel right?

Speaker 1 1:10:18

Well, sometimes, anyway, the African American community doesn't like the comparisons with the gay community, right, you've heard that mentality.

Speaker 3 1:10:26

Well, that's true, but the thing is that when they were, we were, see, we were our, our bunks were always next to each other, because they do intersperse the bunk, your bunkies, always of your same race. But I black guys on the left of me and got back lies on the right and conversations erupt. And the thing is is that, uh, they felt that they were safe from the gay because it was a white disease, they couldn't get it and it served as a weird passport, but but they felt kind of bad, it's like man, they're shitty to you. And I was like, damn right, they're shitty to me. And uh, just, just the idea of being marginalized, right, exactly that. That that one thing. And then they were all really curious and you know, they all wanted to know but they couldn't understand how, if I had the choice between men and women, that I would choose men. So I would explain so much to them about homosexuality.

Speaker 1 1:11:25

I was going to say did that ever get tiresome? I call it hand-holding. You know, I kind of grew out of that a long time ago, bringing people along on the journey of the gay experience. Did it ever get old or were you glad?

Speaker 3 1:11:37

to do that. I would warn them that if they were going to bring in the Bible, you know, just don't, don't even bother, don't even try.

Speaker 1 1:11:47

Yeah, because it becomes a not a circular conversation, but it becomes one where you you have to talk on one person's terms or the other. Right, If that makes sense? I?

Speaker 3 1:11:57

just had to say well, that's fine that you believe, that you know, but that's not my experience and no, I would not take a pill. And they were amazed by that. But I also was aware that there were a few silent ones watching who were on the down low Right and there was a whole nother.

Speaker 1 1:12:16

The whole nother podcast about prison sex and how malleable right People love to think women are fluid, but men aren't well actually right If you factor in but they were on the down low but they were actually gay on the outside, Right, but some of them were just curious.

Navigating Intergenerational Trauma and Self-Destruction

Speaker 3 1:12:32

And then a lot of them who had just never seen a proud gay person, Right, yeah, They'd seen a few in their community, but they were always very secretive and very, you know, uh and so uh, and then you know, I found the black guys were, were. And then you know I found the black guys were, were sort of had the most interesting backstories. Um, uh, and I would have these conversations and I would have to spin, you know, I. I remember thinking, man, if I had to ask for any one to babysit my child, it would be those four guys.

Speaker 3 1:13:06

The way they play cards was so cool, and because they had all been raised in these households where it takes a village and they have their mom and their grandma and their auntie and everyone takes care of each other, and it just gave me an insight into black culture. And you know, and how, how can you judge anyone in prison when you're there too? The only difference is that I was the one who was completely guilty and said I was completely guilty, and most of them usually had some story why they weren't.

Speaker 1 1:13:44

Yeah, I think that's what I said in my review was. It does make the reader really consider you know, was somebody just dealt a shitty hand right, is it? You think about nature and nurture. You think about privilege, a stacked system. It is really hard to judge when you can't nail anyone you know on how they ended up where they are. So I will be honest, I, kind of you, didn't include too much in the beginning about your household or your upbringing, but I got a real fondness. Your parents seemed awesome. I'm not going to call it privilege, but there was a lot of love there.

Speaker 1 1:14:22

So I do wonder how somebody kind of self-destructs. You've described the mechanics of that right. When you have all this whole chapter that you had written off and now suddenly you got to fill in those pages. It seemed to me the arc seems to be you magically created the circumstances in which you could get as close to death as possible meaning imprisoned right and that was a form of self-destruction. I also see that you did get in touch with your creativity and found a healthy outlet for your self-expression later, and I see that as your redemption a little bit.

Speaker 1 1:14:56

But I guess what I want to get to is I am fighting myself, thinking, well, I'm lucky, I'm not addictive, I come from a long line of alcoholics, right, but I've always identified in my adult life as a cycle breaker. But I've always identified in my adult life as a cycle breaker. So in kind of trying to work that out, like what, how does one person fall victim to their demons whereas another doesn't? So I guess at the very end, when you started talking about, I think, both your mom and your aunt had some trauma from, you know, the days when the Nazis were taking over Paris, basically, right, some World War II trauma. Do you see, in your case, is there self-medication, not just for mood control, right? Not just for depression and anxiety? But do you see that intergenerational trauma is playing a role at all in your self-destruction?

Speaker 3 1:16:00

destruction. Well, there's a slight element of it, but for me, a few years ago, six years ago, I discovered that they were lifting the statute of limitations for having been, for having been reporting molestation, right, and I was molested in 1970 in the Boy Scouts and as part of my I had to give them a very clear testimony of everything that happened, and you know it was. The event itself was not that traumatic. I didn't think so at the time, but finding out that this guy was in prison and had actually murdered a kid afterwards was uh. I was like oh, uh, you were actually in danger.

Speaker 3 1:16:49

But when, when I started to write about it and I started to realize that there was cascading consequences from that my whole life, of course, I mean, I told my parents and they didn't. They responded a little bit, like you know, in it's called Absence, what's the one with Meryl Streep? Streep is the nurse, very famous play and Viola Davis. And she tells him oh, yeah, I love that. Yeah, and you know, basically my parents sensed that there was this little gay boy emerging and they wanted him to go back, not emerge, right, and so my mother just said well, are you okay?

Speaker 1 1:17:33

was that doubt? The play that became the movie doubt amazing viola's monologue is just hard it's right and you know, are you okay?

Speaker 3 1:17:42

and I said you know, yes, and of course I didn't want to describe what happened to my mom and my father and his wasp boy just decided, um, uh, that he called in that to make sure chuck falco's contract wouldn't be renewed. Now, in fact, this guy was doing this all over the camp and threatening, and the in the head of the camp knew it and they threatened him and he was very threatening. He was a world war one, vietnam, and they were all world war. It was a vietnam vet and they were all scared to death of him. So but he could have my parents could have prevented perhaps a lot more damage.

Speaker 1 1:18:24

But my mother said I was going to say unfortunately there are way too many stories like that. Really, everybody my age and I think you have 10 years on me, Mark but everybody my age was told to just shut up about it, you know, and carry it around and suck it up.

Speaker 3 1:18:39

Well, my mother said well, we thought about it, but we didn't want for you to be traumatized.

Speaker 3 1:18:44

Traumatize you further and by retelling it and the thing is that it never seemed to occur to them that this was, couldn't have been a one-off, that these, these men are pedophiles, one after the other, after the other. And the thing is, I told the truth and I didn't get protection from it. And so when I realized I was gay, which came very soon after in high school, I was like you know what? I'm not going to tell the truth because I'll be taken to a psychiatrist, I'll be ostracized. And so I started lying about it and I was like, if you're going to gonna lie about it, might as well lie about it. Well, so I was very dapper with the ladies and you know, of course, as a young gay man, man, I was, uh, I was more comfortable with the women and I was very, very funny and they were all like man, how does he, how does he date these girls that we can't even get close to? This was pre-Oprah, I call it, and so nowadays, or just 10 years later, they would have gotten that I was popular, but they didn't with the girls because I was gay. But it went by and my mother was reassured, et cetera.

Speaker 3 1:20:07

So then, when I was sent to France, then I started going into the city when I was 16. And I had a little double gay life on the weekends and I lied up a storm about it. You know, I invented a fictitious circle of friends. It made me feel powerful. I felt like I wouldn't have to lie in a correct world, I could be able to tell the truth. So I'm taking my power back. And then I went to france and I met this you know, uh, 28 year old guy and fell in love with him and his name was renee and I just wrote back to my, to my family, that I had met renee with two e's, which is why why I responded to your sister, my sister, yeah, right, no accent, no second E Right, well, there should be.

Speaker 1 1:20:56

There's supposed to be an accent, but yeah and a second E for the female Right right.

Speaker 3 1:21:02

So I just got a kick out of that, because that was very central. Now my mother said I'm going to come visit you in France and I had to write her out of my life and it exploded.

Speaker 1 1:21:13

Well, I want to jump in. I mean, I've noticed that my gay friends that say yes, I got very comfortable being inauthentic or that's a nice way of putting it right or lying, getting comfortable lying. I also again, it might be the 10 year age difference, but when I was coming up, you know, disney was a fag magnet. So I was with a lover, lived with a lover all through college from to the age of 21 when I started at Disney, and so I wasn't officially out. But then my worlds were colliding. I thought, well, what if my parents come to an art opening here at Disney and I'm out at work? And I just didn't want them hearing it from the wrong person. So I took that step of officially coming out. I just assumed everybody knew. Kind of surprising, right, the denial is not just a river in Egypt. So it was a whole process that was important to me at the time.

Speaker 1 1:22:05

But I guess my point is I wrote a whole essay at 21, surrounded by amazing role models at Disney, like you said, people that don't apologize for being gay, that own it, and this was early 90s, so it had been all the talk shows, right, but it wasn't the norm. So I wrote basically an essay. That said, I have not been taxed by my experience. Here's what I've gained by being gay the character. When you are marginalized and you're forced and alienated. Frankly, throughout junior, high and high school you're forced to be introspective. That builds character.

Truth and Creativity in LGBTQ+ Culture

Speaker 1 1:22:42

But you know what, pretty soon all those 13-year-long relationships or 20-year relationships that were models to me started breaking up. I started seeing the dark underbelly of West Hollywood and the meth and that self-destruction, if that makes sense. So I decided there's pain in equal measure, there's character, but there's also pain in equal measure. So I don't know if that makes sense, but I noticed at some point those that identify with being a chameleon or being inauthentic happen to be actors also. So my actor friends will say I had to quit acting because I didn't know who the fuck I was anymore.

Speaker 1 1:23:18

You go into an audition and you have to be all things to all people. So I kind of I don't know what the ingredient is, but I think there are gay men that identify with being more courageous and more authentic and more honest because they're called upon to do so. Do you know what I mean? I don't identify with the lying thing. I guess I'm lucky. My blue-collar Italian thug of a father didn't put me out to pasture or disown me. Does that make sense? What do you think the difference is there.

Speaker 3 1:23:46

Well, there are two things, is there? Well, uh, there are two things. I after, after France and after it was all out uh, I never went back in the closet again. Uh, what I did lie about to my mother, uh, uh, in in the during the eighties, I would go home a lot. It's like she didn't realize that the extent of my promiscuity of or my drinking or my drug use.

Speaker 3 1:24:14

So I did, which have nothing to do with being gay, but I mean other than the extra trauma the added trauma, except that, you know, in the gay milieu there's a lot of people also partying and having fun, and whether it's because, you know, we're medicating, uh, a trauma. But I had already established a real capacity for the ability to lie. That just kicked in after my brother died. I'd never really lost it. So that's one thing.

Speaker 3 1:24:43

The other thing is that what I would say about coming out, certainly in my generation, is that in the process of going from, god I'm, I'm not of that self beating up after jerking off and saying, tomorrow you're going to be attracted to women and you're never going to think of another guy again to go from there which I did, from I thought I had a long, dark night of soul, soul, but it really only took me, uh, uh, uh, I don't know 18 months, um, but where I finally, in order to get to self acceptance, you have to question everything that society tells you about, everything, right?

Speaker 3 1:25:28

So that's the power of coming out. Is that you're like you know, we're, we're, we're, we're trained to have this heteron and I don't know who's going to be more, husband or wife, but, but, but we're going to have the roles that we discover for each other, right? So it gives you an incredible freedom and I think, with the arts, that the effect is that once you come out and you start seeing everything from an angle, you know my, my straight friends, particularly the girls who were, you know, have a wedding and get married and have kids and I'm like I'm questioning everything and artistically, I'm seeing everything at an angle and I think that's why gays are so creative. Uh, because I don't care how advanced your family is. Uh, even today, you have to go from oh my God, I think I'm, I might be different to, to being being self-affirming and you learn to question so much.

Speaker 1 1:26:54

Yeah, I think I've often. I mean, I think it's true, when you have a unique experience on the planet that isn't heteronormative, right, or you have some kind of neurodivergence or whatever, it does give you that gift of a unique perspective in life, right. But I also think that maybe creativity is the flip side of the gay gene. Or, if you believe in epigenetics, and it's not actually a gene that can be identified on the strand, the nurturing of those methyl groups is you got to be creative to fucking survive. Gays have been creative throughout the ages to stay alive, so that's kind of a little premise of mine, you know that's why.

Speaker 3 1:27:32

And as I says on the back of my book, I learned in prison that creativity could be an incredible survival tool.

Speaker 1 1:27:41

Absolutely Exactly yeah.

Speaker 3 1:27:43

And one I mean I could see.

Speaker 1 1:27:44

Now, this is the first time it's ever occurred to me, but I could see how that could lapse into fabricating a convenient truth based on rationalization. You know I don't identify as being dishonest, but some of the gay people I've met that have. You know, that is a form of creativity. Embroidering the truth is a form of creativity. That's a tangent. But I will say I've had a not a front row seat to meth addiction or just call it what you want self-medicating pain through drugs. But I consciously, maybe subconsciously, just never chose to move to West Hollywood. For that reason. I think Silver Lake was like as far as I was willing to go, if that makes sense, because it was the healthy couples that owned homes, you know, and I was in a gay community. But I didn't have to witness all that. Of course I did over time.

The Power of Creativity and Freedom

Speaker 1 1:28:37

I remember being at a pool party and it descended into an orgy, but that's when I got up and left, you know, and some kid I don't remember what it was, but he was younger than I at the time just spouting cynicism right and left and there is an inculcation. You hinted at this idea that we don't take our relationship models from the mainstream. We're free to invent our own. But then there's this rhetoric of like oh you know, you've been brainwashed by the mainstream community, the world is our oyster.

Speaker 1 1:29:03

Okay, but the human heart, I've always said in my writing, the human heart actually works the same way, straight or gay. So propriety, jealousy, all those things exist for a reason, even if you're not going to be the breadwinner protecting your brood. You know I'm a little off topic here, but anyway, this kid, look, I might've said something about you know. Well, that seems kind of cynical. And he said, literally said don't worry, you'll be just like me one day. So I never bought any of the tropes that I was being spoon-fed from the gay community. Does that make any sense at all? I avoided them at all costs actually.

Speaker 3 1:29:39

Yeah, listen, I've always felt that I was attracted to all the people in my life. One of the major attractions too is that they don't conform to any stereotypes, or very little. And I love originality and original people and I just find that that was easier to find in the gay community sometimes than in the straight community. But I do find that straight people sort of catch up to us and then you get to know them because they have the life experience that was laid out for them and then they discovered the hard way, that's, you know almost all. So the other thing is that seeing things at an angle helped me with a sense of humor, because I could.

Speaker 3 1:30:44

My father, who drank too much, would always ruin jokes. He would tell them at the dinner table, everyone would stop and he'd always forget some element. Make it funny, right, and so the punch line would fall flat. It wouldn't be feel uncomfortable and I learned to, to to come up with the one-liner that would save it. And they make it look like he was uh, almost like it was a setup act, like he was Johnny Carson, right.

Speaker 3 1:31:15

I've been so good at that, and that I attribute partially to my gayness.

Speaker 1 1:31:22

Yeah, whippy, whip, quick quippiness and wittiness it's really valuable.

Speaker 3 1:31:26

I can find the joke. And in prison, uh, that was so helpful because mean guys who are looking at you askance and are not looking at you favorably for what they assume to be gay, if you can make them laugh, they're like you're all right, mark, pat me on the back. I remember once we were eating together breakfast and there was, like you know, 10 of us around the table and someone said hey, mark, I see you get a lot of mail. You got anything from your girlfriend Cause they all knew, they'd all decided that I wasn't gay, even though I got a lot of mail. And I said well, oh no, she's the type who can lick everything but a stamp. I don't know, it was like a gift from God that came, but everyone laughed and after that I was not only popular, but a few guys asked if I could write letters home to them, to their girlfriend, because they didn't know what to write Cyrano de Bergerac the gay letters home to them, to their girlfriend, because they didn't know what to write and serenade, serenade a berserk the game.

Speaker 3 1:32:43

And so, um, uh, and that was like I got free, I got some coffees I badly needed and some soups and stuff like that. Uh, and I got a big kick out of the fact that, uh, he started selling that same letter around to others and when I found out I was like, come on, man, a little respect. He says I'm sorry, man, it was really good. And I wrote another letter back to his girlfriend. But but so that's what I mean. Creativity is a survival tool.

Speaker 1 1:33:15

Yeah Well, I think that's a really vivid illustration, on the micro level right, Of how it operates. I've always said you know, you look at somebody that's firing on all cylinders like Michelangelo or Da Vinci, and it could be said there are more nerve. I don't know if you've heard this, but the corpus callosum is larger in gay men I don't know about lesbians, but in gay men and so I just think, oh, there's more messaging between the left and the right hemispheres of the brain and sometimes that accounts for this genius creativity. But I also see, I guess again in your story, how it happens on the micro level too. You know, I got my job, my brother, an interview, not the job he got it himself, but once I was at Disney a lot of my colleagues left and founded DreamWorks. So I got my brother an interview and he's gotten a whole career out of it.

Speaker 1 1:34:06

The first couple of you. Like, growing up in Burbank he didn't have any contact with the gay community, or actually there's a trans individual that showed up at a board meeting and said all right, you know, now you're going to call me Kim or whatever, and brought a handbag, but like my brother had never seen any of that, so we, he'd bounce it off of me and sometimes he'd say, oh, I don't know why they need to rub it in your face. You know that whole rhetoric and I had to gently say, you know, and it is a form of creativity, but I I said how can you judge somebody if they don't want to be the butt of the joke? They lead with it. They lead with their eccentricity, right and uh, their humor. As you're saying, it is absolutely a survival mechanism and how much virginia?

Speaker 3 1:34:51

how much do you uh, is this jibe with your own experience of how you've observed gay and straight people?

Speaker 2 1:35:00

or or just part of you bristle and say no, we're just as creative as you are no, I actually don't, and and I was thinking about this as you guys are talking and and going to that whole thread um, I, I think the reason why, um, and when I actually I went to college in San Diego, yeah, so I and I had a lot of friends who were out of Hillcrest, so a lot of gay friends, um, anyways, I always noticed that they always were more creative, uh, than my heterosexual um friends that I was in college with, and I think a lot of it too, is because they were more curious about the world, because they weren't confined to the social norms that the rest of us were trying to live up to, and because of that it allowed more freedom of expression.

Speaker 1 1:35:50

It's almost like a muscle, right, the minute you were not written. You're written out of the narrative or silent. Oh my, my god, my mouth. Silenced and erased. Right, that whole the world is your oyster in in yeah in terms of creating new paradigms you know what?

Speaker 2 1:36:06

it's easier to think outside of the box when you live outside right, exactly because you're not you're not trying to conform to this set of rules and you know like and this is the first time I've ever really talked about it, so Nick's going to be like, wow. But so I grew. I grew up in a very Christian household as well, cause I know Dominic and I have mentioned a little bit of our background of family. But when I got into college, I actually I'm actually actually bisexual. I am married to a man, but I am bisexual, and so I actually had quite a few girlfriends in college, and not because I was experimenting, I just I tend to which I guess would probably nowadays be more non-binary is how they'd probably or I can't remember whatever term it is, cause I'm not I I.

Speaker 2 1:36:55

There's so many different things on the gender spectrum I can't even think of them all anymore. But gender by fluid yeah, maybe it's the fluid one, maybe it's, maybe it's the fluid one, but anyways, where I tend to fall for the person based off who they are, it's not really the gender in front of me, um is really what it is. But back then it was considered bisexuality because you know I was male, female, um is how everybody looked at gender then, and so I actually had quite a few girlfriends. It was because I was trying to explore everything. It was just because we connected. And we connected both on a physical and, you know, intellectual level.

Speaker 2 1:37:31

And when I started to realize that about myself in college that's really like you guys said, you know the world became my oyster. I started to get more curious about things and that's when I started looking at my spirituality more and a lot of other things going. Wait, I don't have to stay within this. You know family. You know belief system that I grew up in and value system or the social norms that I have been. You know part of my cultural identity, of growing up in. I can break out of that and it was really really freeing for me, which has been great because as a mother, you know, my oldest is transgender. My middle child technically will tell you she's ace, even though she does have a partner now, but it's not a physical type thing for her at all. My youngest is still figuring herself out um, probably is going to be cisgender, just based off comments. She says but yeah, it's. It's allowed my kids that freedom because I've never put those constraints on them.

Speaker 3 1:38:32

They grew up sort of boxless, neither inside or outside. But you know, I've seen so many people who raised in the Bible Belt or fundamentalist Christian, you know, and when they first fall in love, in particular, they're saying, if this is wrong, then this is can't be wrong. This is, this is fully positive two consenting adults, and what happened between us is beautiful. So if, then, the religion that condemns it has to be wrong, so I'm freeing myself from the shackles of that and, um, I I feel so sorry for, and sometimes it ends up freeing their parents and their family members from the shackles of that too. Yeah, um, or they go back and they're part of the pressure that changes. A lot of the I mean a lot of these churches that you know were you're going to hell are now more like love, this love the sinner. You know not crazy about the sin, and then you know to to or or the parents there's even within the christian right.

Speaker 2 1:39:51

It's amazing how they're carving out sort of ways to escape people as long as they don't act on it you know, whatever I don't think many of us like to hear love the sinner, hate the sin.

Speaker 1 1:40:07

My brother-in-law is a minister and he did a whole talk about how nobody wants to hear that, that every day, that they're a sinner, you know, or that our sex is better than your sex.

Unpacking Trauma and Addiction

Speaker 1 1:40:19

I think we're all over the place here. So I'm going to steer it back by asking it's sounding like because we're spending so much time talking about pretty universal things in the gay experience actually not to minimize them, but pretty, you know, universal things we've all gone through, like trying to navigating all of that the judgment, the Christian aspect I think we all relate to a degree to all of it and the marginalization and what character might be built from that marginalization. Versus when does it tax a person and create the self destructive behavior? So I'm asking you straight out because I want to get back to a couple of questions before we wrap this up. So my question, mark, is are we spending so much time talking about the gay experience here and the challenges it presents because that contributed to I keep calling it self-destruction. You may not identify that way, but I think I've heard and read enough to know that you wouldn't have gone that route right? Had you made different choices? Did all of this weigh into how you ended up in prison?

Speaker 3 1:41:19

Well, listen, there's one thing I'm very clear of If there had never been a world without AIDS, if there had never been AIDS, none of this would have possibly happened.

Speaker 3 1:41:31

It distorted, the fear, was in itself extremely distorting, and the grief on top of the fear, uh, uh just you know so and I thought interestingly enough, I kind of thought, when covet happened and I was, my story had been optioned and was shopping around, one of brothers were shopping it around I was like, oh, this theme of the fear of death and how it's you know, now everyone will understand, not just like someone who confronted cancer or something like that. But in fact it didn't, it was the opposite. People were like no, I don't want this, I don't want to see this on screen. You know they wanted to escape from it. So, uh, and plus, really uh, the, the brunt of COVID was born by a minority of the population, including older minorities, et cetera, a lot of us, I, I know I didn't know anybody who died of COVID, but, um, that by far, because I, I and I had plenty of gay friends, um, who didn't go off the deep end.

Speaker 3 1:42:42

Plenty of HIV didn't go off the deep end, um at all, but I did know, uh, there there was a propensity within the, the crystal circle of crystal meth. They were overwhelmingly HIV and everyone had lost somebody and some of them died. And you know that you, you just uh. But if there hadn't been AIDS, no, I would. I don't think I I might've gone off into a sort of addiction. I definitely liked drugs and alcohol and you know, and that's not really so different from straight people. But but getting going to prison or the self-destructiveness, um it was a. It was a weird perfect storm of of circumstances, you know. Uh, but when I started looking back at my have the molestation affected me, I realized it was way had much, much greater impact on my life than I do.

Speaker 3 1:43:49

There's a cascading thing there was that there's a feeling that I wasn't protected, that that lying made me more powerful than telling the truth, but also it's like the perfect storm.

Speaker 3 1:44:02

A trauma, you know and it's here is it was my first orgasm and I was very attracted to this man in a way that was just pre-bubescent. You know, I couldn't realize it. I like the hair on his shoulder, I like the way he threw me up in the air and I like his deep voice. But when he, you know, put his arms around me and in my sleeping bag in this bit teepee in the middle of the night and jerked me off, it was still a non-consensual thing.

Speaker 1 1:44:41

That scared the fuck out of me, right? Yeah, and that, yeah, it's a very formative time and our wiring right. We're still very malleable. We've got a lot of vulnerable neural circuits, so I would say you know.

Speaker 3 1:44:54

so it was very confusing, because I knew this was wrong and I felt like I'd done something very shameful and, at the same time, part of me was very erotic.

Speaker 1 1:45:04

Well, again, I'm not minimizing anything, but everyone will say that that's the confusion when you blame yourself or ask if you somehow played a part in it or invited it straight. Gay doesn't matter. Molested by a woman, molested by a man, that is part of the mind fuck. So we are a little short on time, but I just want to say I mean, since we're down this rabbit hole, like you know, I was molested by a female and I often didn't want to tell that story for one reason I think it was a long arc for society to understand that there's a genetic component wherever you land on nature versus nurture, that it is certainly not a choice to be gay. We just weren't there yet. It was very important for me that people understood this is not a lifestyle, this is not a choice for me, that people understood this is not a lifestyle, this is not a choice. So for most of my adult life I wasn't going to give anybody the satisfaction of saying, well, of course you have an aversion to women because you were molested by one. Nope, doesn't work that way.

Speaker 1 1:46:06

I had been with men before. You know. I was 15 and a half when we smoked hash and I willingly again. Later you go ah, she's fucked up. She has issues of authority and power and it definitely wasn't right. But I was a willing participant. It was, you know, mrs Robinson, and we were smoking hash. You know, I thought I was a willing participant. So my point is I kind of didn't talk about that a lot because it was important to me. People understood it wasn't a disease on my part, it was. I am gay and I was molested by a woman. Do you know what I mean? Both can exist. So I just find, you know, I did have somebody at my 10-year high school reunion say I mentioned, yeah, my dad was an alcoholic. There you go, there, every gay person I know comes from dysfunction. And I said you show me the Cleaver family, you show me the Brady Bunch. Right, every family has some level of dysfunction.

Speaker 3 1:47:03

My older brother. I had a second brother who committed suicide, unfortunately in 2009. But he would say when you look up dysfunctional in the dictionary, there's our family. And I was like you don't have many friends that you talk to. Do you? That is family union.

Speaker 1 1:47:24

Right. You know it's called life.

Speaker 3 1:47:27

at some point it's called life Right Exactly, you know and so, but but I had always thought that when I got high or drunk and it was I was, I was a pure uh addict, in the sense of I did it for the pleasure of the high Right and that, and only looking back with a lot of self study and do I realize that now you were suppressing some pain too, uh, uh, you didn't want to feel some stuff, and that is very clear is that when my brother died and a lot of friends that I do.

Exploring Mother-Son Relationships and Identity

Speaker 1 1:48:03

If you don't mind, I I will jump in here because, again, I've had a kind of a front row seat to addiction and, you know, even got involved with somebody that was in recovery and being in the gay community. It's been pretty hard to avoid witnessing, you know, different relationships with addiction. So I guess I would just say I did put, I did connect those dots, that you have a brother that died of suicide, one that died of AIDS, and I actually see you as a cycle breaker because you've now created this chapter, this next chapter, right, you didn't think you were going to survive. Then you had to create new rules in order to move on.

Speaker 1 1:48:38

So you seem like a cycle breaker, but in it I still was like there's no way his home life was more traumatic than mine. There's no way there was more dysfunction. What is the difference here? Um, if that makes sense. So then I put that's why I mentioned the trauma from World War II. Why did you choose to in the very I think the afterword is when you told those stories of trauma? Does that make sense? Why did you include your mother's trauma?

Speaker 3 1:49:10

I'm sorry if I'm confusing your aunt and your mother no, I was very close to both of them and uh. But for me, if we get back to story, it was like I grew up. My first short story was called the Black Framed Letter and was about you know me, the 10 year old hero getting a letter to his father in the underground. It wasn't traumatic to me at all at all. Um, what I did inherit is the sort of my, the sense my mother would always even the streets of new york. My mother was a fast walker, you know. So that's a, that's a, and I would finally go. Mom, mom, mom. Why are we going? You know? Why are we trying to pass people? If people were walking not slowly, you know they weren't she's trying to outrun her. People were walking not slowly, you know they weren't she's trying to outrun her demons.

Speaker 1 1:50:00

Is that it?

Speaker 3 1:50:01

No, it was because at a, you know, in France, you had to get home before the curfew. Oh, you never knew if there was going to be a hafla, which was a roundup, because they would round up people in a street and they would start shooting them out of out of revenge for the killing of a German officer, and so, and that she managed to pass along to me, because all of my friends have always said, mark, will you just chill? You know you're so hyper, which, you know, I probably would have been, but, like my mom, that's the way I am. But this sort of this feeling that you could be a refugee at any moment, and I, part of me, was like I was ready to go to prison, even years before I had any reason, this feeling that I was going to end up there, um, and I would go.

Speaker 3 1:51:03

No, you're not. But, uh, I, you know, I. So it's, it's not unrelated, but I've, you know, I've known too many people who grew up in dysfunctional, abusive families or who had parents who were Holocaust survivors and who really passed on a trauma.

Speaker 3 1:51:24

My mother says, you know, I was very young and I thought that would live forever, and she doesn't remember the war as being that traumatizing. It was after the war when she had a child out of wedlock that all of her trauma happened, and so she, you know she may have passed that trauma on to me, you know.

Speaker 1 1:51:47

Yep, I think we have. I mean, eckhart Tolle would call it the pain body right, and so we have experiences that are in our cellular memory. For sure Virginia does that. The way he put that. It reminded me a little, like I always mentioned Anya Ochtenberg, I'm not sure why, but when you said you know, maybe you inherited the fast walking from your mom for very good reason, it reminded me of Anya.

Speaker 1 1:52:11

To tie it back to story a little bit, she's she coaches writers. Um, and she kind of basically said when you are displaced, not marginalized per se, but when, let's say, your home country has been colonized and you've lost your culture and your identity, you feel displaced. So do you remember this? She said, like when you are coached, because most people say, oh, a sense of place is so important in your writing, and being linear and immediate instead of disjointed and telescoping back and flashing forward, she said, actually, the voice is more authentic for somebody who doesn't have a home, who feels displaced. It's fascinating to me, and so I kind of heard that a little bit in the idea that you've got to get home before sundown because bad things will happen. It's so in your cellular memory there was.

Speaker 3 1:52:59

There was this afternoon. We were all under the gazebo at my parents uh, country home. Uh, this was in the berkshires in the 80s and all of us kids were were joking around and laughing. But we would. We spoke in rapid fire, uh, english, uh, and even though my mother's English was better than my father's, she still couldn't follow our humor and what was making us laugh. And she burst into tears because she'd just come back from France where she had no trouble following her nieces and nephews and making jokes along with them.

Speaker 3 1:53:34

And she says you have no idea, we were very concerned what it's like to be déraciné, which is making jokes along with them. And she says you have no idea, we were very concerned what it's like to be they has seen a which is uprooted or displaced, right, and that's exactly, uh, uh. And since, since my I got the one, I was the one who was sent to France and learned French the best. I was this sort of link in the family between my mother and understanding how French people thought, made jokes and could communicate in the family. And I think maybe that's why I waited till she died to read the book, because we had a relationship that was incredibly keyed into each other and, like you, who didn't want, ever want anybody to say you know, I couldn't stand this idea of like are you gay Because yeah, because you were so close to your mother.

Speaker 1 1:54:28

Right, you know well. I think it is universal. Men want to rescue their mom, straight or gay. It's not an Oedipus thing, but we want to rescue her. Is that fair to say, or?

Speaker 3 1:54:37

protect her.

Speaker 1 1:54:38

Yeah.

Speaker 3 1:54:40

And she also. You know, she loved all her children equally, but she liked me a little bit more.

Speaker 1 1:54:47

Overbearing mother, distant father.

Speaker 3 1:54:50

But we were friends. You know, if we'd met somewhere else, like she was the mother of a friend of mine, we would become friends.

Speaker 1 1:54:58

Virginia, you've said that about your mom, right, you'd be best friends regardless.

Speaker 3 1:55:03

Yeah, and I don't know if you have that your siblings, either of your siblings, feel that way with your mom, virginia.

Speaker 2 1:55:11

Well, I'm my mom's only.

Speaker 3 1:55:14

Oh, that's, right Okay.

Speaker 2 1:55:15

Yeah. So I can't say that, but I can say with my kids, um, cause my oldest is is the half to my, to my two others, but, um, they'll have me as their mom, as their main mom, and my two younger ones will tell you that my oldest is my favorite and that's because we have a very special bond, um, bond because of what we have been through together. And then also when she came out saying, hey, mom, you know, I know I'm your son, but now I'm going to be your daughter. It took the rest of the family longer to come along.

Speaker 2 1:55:53

In that process where for me it was, it's even though it was a loss to to not have a son anymore. I didn't see it as a total loss because I gained something deeper with my older kid and a whole new way, um, so I think that's why my other ones feel that way. So I think, you know, I think it depends on the relationship with your kids, but I mean my other two. No, I love them just as much because my youngest one's my travel buddy. So you, know.

Speaker 1 1:56:23

Yeah, I mean, I come from a family of six and my mom was very judicious. She was very smart, you know, and never playing favorites, and I think all mothers try to do that right. But I think it's fine to say our relationship is different. I mean, my mom and I talk about art until the cows come home. Really, nobody else in the family would give a shit about Jansen's art history books, and so that's our bond.

Speaker 3 1:56:49

But anyway, I would hope you have a different relationship with each of your children. Yeah, I think gay men tend to have a more closer sense of humor than their siblings with with their mothers. It's not, it's not always, but it's very it's, it is very common and I don't know if there's a genetic component and maybe homosexuality is passed to the male through the female, which I always thought it was maybe like homophilia.

Speaker 1 1:57:17

We're pretty so sorry, we're really down a rabbit hole, but since you brought it, the whole interview is like since you brought it up. I have something to say on that. I have you heard this one, mark? Again, my mom was as good as it gets, but it was a learning curve for her after I came out. But then, blissfully, she would say, you know, I heard on Oprah. Or if, blissfully, she would say, you know, I heard on Oprah. Or if you heard about a study, I heard the index finger is longer in both lesbians and or the corpus callosum idea. And so she retroactively did her homework and let me know she was paying attention. You know she didn't join GLAAD or anything, but she let me know she was paying attention.

Speaker 1 1:57:53

Anyway, as far as being passed from the mother, have you guys heard this one that a higher testosterone levels in the prenatal environment create both gay men and lesbians? Or there's a correlation, put it that way. Causality we have yet to see, but there's a correlation between higher testosterone in the prenatal environment and children that are lesbian or gay. And so to me, like again, I gotta create a theory out of everything I or gay. And so to me, like again, I got to create a theory out of everything. I think time will tell, but to me I feel like, okay, if we have limited resources and we just instinctively don't want to overpopulate the planet, it makes sense that actually the latter born children are the gay ones. There's a correlation there too, so it's almost like nature is saying all right, we're going to cut you off. You've had three kids, I'm going to make the next one gay. So there's no chance they'll procreate, because both are true. The gay kid happens to be the latter born kid and there's a higher test.

Speaker 3 1:58:50

What number are you?

Speaker 1 1:58:52

I'm the last, I'm the youngest.

Speaker 3 1:58:53

Okay, and I'm, I'm the fourth of five right, right, um.

Speaker 1 1:58:57

So something, something's going on there and we'll learn. We'll learn more and more, but I, we are way over time.

Speaker 3 1:59:03

I don't know if you guys are paying attention yeah, so I'm starting to realize that I'm um instead of a late lunch I might have an early dinner, oh sorry.

Speaker 1 1:59:13

Well, look, I've said this many times but I've never meant it more. I think there's a part two. I would love, really, because I honestly I haven't gotten to a single question that I've written down, not one. So I took the time to write them and I like them. So I'd like to do a part two, but maybe just so I feel like we at least end. I mean, it's all good, we love our tangents, right, virginia? We love our rabbit holes. And, mark, I always hope you feel we talked about some things that are of value to you. I'll give you a chance at the very end to impart anything that you really want to impart to listeners. But I guess I don't know. For my own satisfaction, I'm going to read one of my prepared questions.

Exploring Creativity in Prison Culture

Speaker 1 1:59:55

We kind of hinted at this earlier. I found all your characters very redeeming, very redeemable. And then I noticed in the I keep calling it the afterword, but it might have been just one of the later chapters you did give us a here's what became of dot dot dot? And some seemed like you know, they found redemption and were on the straight and narrow, and some not so much. So I guess again I really want to read it, but I don't want to take your time flipping through here. Like you know, they found redemption and were on the straight and narrow and some not so much. So I guess again I really want to read it, but I don't want to take your time flipping through here. Okay, here we go. So what I?

Speaker 1 2:00:32

wrote is on art therapy and the spirit of language of the soul and that documentary I mentioned which is Shakespeare in Prison. I want to ask about the role of self-expression and creativity in general, especially in rehabilitation. But I also want to ask about redemption in general. It became a theme for me in reading your book. Do you have anything to say about the mechanics of redemption and you could fill in that word right With transformation, rehabilitation Do you have anything to say about redemption and the mechanics of it?

Speaker 3 2:01:01

Well, there was very little valuable teaching in prison. You had to take this course that was just abysmally taught about life skills with multiple choices. You learn more from a good episode of Oprah, you know. But if that time had been spent on art classes, the bang from the buck would have been extraordinary, as they have shown for the Shakespeare program, but also with art, I mean that day that my sister, that I got all those letters, thank God, because there was literally hostility toward me in the room because I had so many letters my sister sent an envelope full of colored pencils and I distributed them quite grandly and I distributed them quite grandly and fabulous paper, because she's my muse, if we were that, that that's, that would be great part of part two by drawing Disney characters for other prisoners to send back to their little daughters or their sons, and they were so grateful.

Speaker 3 2:02:26

But I had a few conversations. I remember seeing one time, just seeing something weirdly accidentally beautiful within the room. The light was coming through, accidental beauty. That should be, should be right, and I love that. And he was like no, yeah, he's like, I just do portraits, what are you talking about?

Speaker 3 2:02:48

And I realized that these guys were very literal, and that's the sort of rejigger, jiggering that was so needed and that you do a theater with a good art teacher.

Speaker 3 2:02:59

Stop thinking that you have to draw something exactly as it was, because they, they get locked within. You know, we were talking about heteronormative thinking, but the, the, the rules of impoverished backgrounds and what men are allowed to do and what women are supposed to do, are just as stratifying, you know, and very damaging. And and they don't get freed up by school because they, you know, the guys, get into discipline problems early on and the class overcrowded, you know, and some, some, make it out and a lot of it is from music, I mean the, the, the rap, rap was really important to to some of these guys and and it was because they found creativity in it well, I think it's easy to say I mean, here's what I hear in in there like I think we all know art therapy programs exist for a reason, and what I've landed on is that if you aren't creating, you're probably destroying, and that can be turned inward as self-destruction or it can be turned outward as aggression.

Speaker 1 2:04:07

But I've found that to be true. If you don't have a creative outlet, you tend to be destructive, whether it's inward or outward. But just now you kind of made me think about it a little bit differently. You know these rigid, whether it's gender norms or relationship models or any other institution. That's a product of socialization. If you're bound by those, how could you possibly self-create? Right, we need to self-create as a form of our evolution. If you don't adapt, you die. So that's what I'm hearing, and it was in your book.

Speaker 1 2:04:39

I found them very locked into these rigid ideas, right, that kept them from self expression. And I'm just extending it to say our life is a creation, it's the creative process in action. So if you're bound by right all these rules I mean in art my mom would say in action. So if you're bound by right, all these rules I mean in art, my mom would say why would you care? You know, the sky doesn't have to be blue. I had a. I had a grandmother that would. All she cared about was that little Joey. You know she's had spent money on the paintbrushes, so make sure you shake them out and you make the perfect tip before you put it back in that cup. And my mom was like what the fuck? Because she was all about self-expression anyway. I just think that was really beautiful. What you just said. That all right. I think you hinted at this idea that the rigidity of all of that actually and what I heard was keeps people from creating their own reality, manifesting their highest potential and capacity so everything is so rigid in prison.

Speaker 3 2:05:36

Talk about reinforcing it, but a lot of these guys. You'd be surprised at how voracious readers they were. That's how they could escape.

Speaker 1 2:05:50

Well, you mentioned the racial thing earlier and I meant to ask, or I wanted to ask at that point how ironic is it that, yes, you're strange bedfellows because of the marginalization, but yet prison culture doesn't allow for it? You very much portrayed it as racism in action, in terms of the segregation. So, yes, I guess the question that I did write down I'll slip one more of them in is yeah, we all carry around tropes about prison culture, whether it's Orange, is the New Black or Oz, or again, I happen to have seen Shakespeare in prison, but who knows and I did spend my one night in prison, but it was just one night, it was county I got an Eiffel, trust me, but it's very rudimentary, right my understanding of that what was your biggest surprise in terms of, I'm calling it, prison culture and the politics therein?

Speaker 3 2:06:47

Well, I actually one of my chapters is called Office Politics, because and that word is actually referred to when they talk about which prisons they're going to go to, you know, because everyone starts at these clearinghouse prisons before they're assigned where they're going to do down the main line and they would say, oh god, the politics are so bad there, or the gang banging and that. What surprised me, that there was less violence than I thought.

Speaker 1 2:07:21

I'll be honest. That's what that was, my takeaway. I have seen again the Shakespeare in prison one. I found it very redeeming that they could cooperate, and you mentioned some early on cooperation.

Speaker 3 2:07:33

Much less sex. I never. I never saw Right.

Speaker 1 2:07:35

That's what I was going to say. Like you talked about the television, how magically that was. The easiest thing to negotiate was what channel the television was on. But anyway, I was a little disappointed, Like where's the prison sex, Come on.

Speaker 3 2:07:47

Mark, I was almost disappointed, except after I had more sex. I had the Olympics of sex when I was you on crystal meth I mean, I had more than a lifetime, and and and my testosterone went down to zilch, because that's what hiv does, uh right, of course, over time, and so I had uh no interest. I noticed there was, you know, some guys with hot bodies. I didn't notice it, but you, you made sure your eyes stayed, for yeah, well, I don't want to make light of it.

Speaker 1 2:08:20

I, I'm being facetious, I seriously no but that's that's. There's a rape culture too. I mean it's statistically I'm sure you've heard this mark men get raped more frequently than women, if you factor in the prison systems well, I, I didn't see that.

Speaker 3 2:08:35

I think it gets over, but within maximum security. But if you're minimum, which I was, where you're all dorms, then no, I mean, I didn't see it and it wasn't very often, but the threat seems really hard.

Speaker 1 2:08:45

It seems like it would be so hard to pull off.

Speaker 3 2:08:48

I mean, I remember you mentioned no privacy, and you who wants to do it in a porta potty?

Speaker 1 2:08:53

but no, I'm talking the prison rape. I mean you. You've heard and you mentioned Lynn too. Remember Lynn?

Speaker 3 2:08:59

Yeah.

Speaker 1 2:09:00

Yeah, like that is tricky. She's very vulnerable and she wanted to shower alone when she could Right.

Speaker 3 2:09:07

Yeah, it's more, it's more. No one was attracted to Lynn on any way, shape or form, but when you asked what sort of surprised me and that was one thing to surprise about I didn't see anything resembling rape or threatening of it. The homophobia seemed complete across the board and no one wanted to be uh tarred with that feather and what I found is that by but they all respected honesty. And when I raised my hand, we had a meeting and it's like are there any homos or bisexual or gay people in here? Because they were so preoccupied making sure we didn't smoke after anybody.

Speaker 1 2:09:51

Right, I remember I read your book. Man, Tell us about that a little bit. That's pretty alarming.

Speaker 3 2:09:57

When I raised my hand and I thought, oh God, you're in for it now. But I got a level of respect because she was honest about it and that kind of surprised me.

Speaker 1 2:10:08

I identify actually as a short kid with freckles and a space in his teeth, and I could have been bullied growing up, you know. But people respected me. They liked oh, he can draw elephants, Remember Virginia. He can draw unicorns, he can draw elephants. So I actually felt like I protected myself through garnering respect. Does that sound a little bit like they respect you Well?

Speaker 3 2:10:29

listen, I think you are also probably very funny and just likable, and also it helps when you have a posse of your family, Because with me I could have been bullied but I had my older brother. I had a sister of mine who wanted to date. My mother was a teacher there and so I got very lucky and I was never bullied and I suspect that your older brothers not being that, oh no, they were the worst.

Speaker 1 2:11:02

They picked on me the most On you, that's right.

Speaker 3 2:11:04

But if anyone else picked on you, Eh, who knows, I don't know. But it does leave me.

Speaker 1 2:11:10

Do you feel like those same attributes that saved you from bullying? Those were the ones that were assets in prison as well.

Speaker 3 2:11:17

Well, that's the likability, and for me the quickest route to likability is sense of humor. Humor, yep, yeah, and that I know you've always had, I'm just sure of it.

Speaker 1 2:11:28

Actually it's funny you would say that I do remember my sixth grade report card and it was. I was just on the verge of puberty, so I was probably starting to act out more than ever. You know the alcoholism in my household. I was feeling it and you know impending puberty and the sense that you might be different or gay. There was a lot going on in sixth grade. But I remember I was a very good boy, even with the dysfunction. I was such a good boy until sixth grade and I think it's just puberty. But I remember getting in trouble for the first time in sixth grade. But she also wrote Nikki is developing a nice sense of humor.

Speaker 1 2:12:03

There we go. But back then they used humor to mean mood. You know it really meant a sense of humor, like I can read facial cues. I think that's what she meant. Anyway, yeah, all right, all right, I swear to God, we need to do a part two. But I will end by saying sorry to keep interjecting, but I feel like there is something you would love to impart to our listeners. Am I wrong? Is there anything we didn't hit on that you would like to? We are going to put the links, by the way, to your book in the episode description. I would love to do a part two, but in terms of wrapping this up here, what words of wisdom do you have for our listeners? No pressure.

Speaker 3 2:12:44

Well, just I should have had something ready.

Aging, Creativity, and Gratitude

Speaker 3 2:12:48

Read the series the other podcast was called the Disorientation Survival and it's just like To understand the second part of my story and we'll talk about. It is like that it was. It was very it was. It was quite something to realize that I had had to put stuff, the future, a concept of the future, back in my brain, in my brain. And I think for people who survived HIV, who didn't expect to, that, yeah, you're very happy about it, but you're also incredibly disoriented and and it takes a while to get that back and I'm saying that sort of as a service for sort of understanding the HIV survivors in your life and also cancer survivors, et cetera. My story is about time in many ways.

Speaker 1 2:13:50

Is there. I mean, of course I relate a little bit, but I feel like for me it's a matter of regaining my agency and reclaiming certain qualities, because, uh, anyway, I don't want to make it yeah, well, that's yeah, getting the future back was reclaiming my agency, but that's a process yep yeah, and I feel very much full of agency now.

Speaker 3 2:14:10

I'm just full of resentment that I have to go through this thing of getting sick and dying, that I'm a privilege to at 66, that I was like. I'm like, god damn it, I live my quota.

Speaker 1 2:14:25

You happen to listen to Jane Fonda much. I have her actually, you're at autobiography on my table here but do you? Are you a fan of Jane Fonda at all?

Speaker 3 2:14:32

I do like her.

Speaker 1 2:14:33

Yeah, I just think she's amazing in terms of fighting ageism with every breath and remaining relevant and intellectually curious. But more than that she's said many times I never imagined that I'd live this long, let alone be working. And anyway she gets me up every morning just because she still gives a shit. She's politically active and she hasn't thrown in the towel on humanity or the planet. That's a feat, man. She hasn't thrown in the towel on humanity or the planet.

Speaker 3 2:14:58

That's a feat, man. I can't believe my life would be perfect professionally if I was 28, because that's exactly where I should be.

Speaker 1 2:15:07

I'd be right where.

Speaker 3 2:15:08

I should be, but this feeling of very much that I'm in my prime and moving forward and have all these things I'm going to get done and the idea of turning 80. I was like, well, I'll go into that death chamber that you saw in a Star Trek and it's like Live to 90.

Speaker 1 2:15:28

Do you remember Logan's run?

Speaker 3 2:15:31

Is that what the pot is that you, you're all gonna die at a certain age?

Speaker 1 2:15:35

Yeah, it's basically it's like putting you out to pasture, but they had a really haunting image of, yeah, there were these disks, right, and you just went off.

Speaker 3 2:15:43

Well, I got it. There's an episode with Donald Ogden Steers where he's going to their society means at 60, you go into a chamber and that's it, yeah, but he's discovering a cure. Anyway, it was very food for thought, as all the other later, star Treks in particular, were. Okay, yeah, but otherwise we're going to go on another tension.

Speaker 1 2:16:11

Well, no, I think that's a good note to end on, though, because we're all works in progress, right, and I know that I'm somewhere on that arc of reclaiming my agency in the world, but I relate to what you just said. It's like if only I was 28, because I'm good, but you know what?

Speaker 3 2:16:27

the world's not throwing me any opportunities at my age right, there's a lot of ageism going on, but a lot of people are going through the same thing at the same time. But you know, basically, creativity it's almost very little is not improved by the application of more creativity. That's what I would say. That is also in line with the podcast Beautiful and I just encourage everyone to. You know all, all you know. We didn't even get into Viktor Frankl and reframing, uh which Do you want to share a quote from him?

Speaker 1 2:17:04

or next time?

Speaker 3 2:17:05

It's the story. It's the story of the that he starts his book out with, the survivor, comes into his office and he said you know, he's just lost his wife and she was everything to him and he doesn't know if he can go on. And he wants to, you know, thinking of killing himself. And and Viktor Frankl says and your wife, did she love you just as much? Oh, yes, very much. She was very devoted to me. And how would she have felt if you were you? You died first. You died first. She would have been devastated. And so Viktor Frankl says well then, think of your grief as the gift you're giving her, because you have saved her from the grief she would, from feeling what you would be feeling now. And he left the office and he could move forward and see his grief as this sort of weird gift. And for me, that story has stayed with me and it's taught me you can always reframe almost everything by telling yourself a different story.

Speaker 1 2:18:12

Beautiful. Okay, now, that is in the spirit of our podcast. Okay, right.

Speaker 3 2:18:16

Okay, that's when I rehearsed in my head in the shower.

Speaker 1 2:18:19

Well, no, I think we should just end on that note because it was beautiful, but I will. I mean, I will say like we sometimes don't recognize our legacy. We think our legacy is meant to be one thing but it takes others to tell you your gifts. Sometimes we don't see our own gifts or you know one thing we might've done or said that did make a difference, that we're. It's not even on our radar. Like my family are just so generous. My parents would give you the shirts off their back and they do to a fault where you know money is not a priority. They're just so fucking generous.

Speaker 1 2:18:52

But I did a little experiment one year and I said, hey, everybody, to my family of six, you know, I think I assigned them a sibling. Say what you like about this sibling and my parents were just so judicious, right, had to say the right things, not play favorites, but they said things that they identified with and prided themselves on, like generosity, and I thought I guess I am. I am I never because you don't recognize it in yourself. It's such, it's such a normal thing to do. Does that make sense?

Speaker 3 2:19:25

oh, I recognize it myself. My bank account tells me but it's their values you want to go into how much money I've spent on a family in gaza, uh, but you know, that's.

Speaker 1 2:19:37

You know what I'm saying, though, Like you'd actually, because they are your values and they constitute your worldview. You don't see them as gifts, and sometimes it takes another person's pair of eyeballs to remind you of your gifts.

Speaker 3 2:19:49

Well, you know, the thing is, I tend to be the person reminding, for example, my sisters and others of my husband's the gifts, and not sound, you know just. But I've, I don't, I've grown into myself in a way that I never thought I would. I'm, I'm much, you know. I, I always wanted to live in the present. I live in the present. I always wanted to work in languages. I subtitle for a living. Um, I can't believe how, you know, I wanted to write at least one good book. I wrote one good book. So I'm not resting on my quote, laurels, but I was like, uh, I, every every day, I'm in that day and I'm doing exactly what I'm doing, and I used to live so much 10 minutes in the future or what I should have done. That regretting the past, and so and you know now is, where is the best address?

Speaker 1 2:20:43

beautiful yeah, yeah, and you mentioned that uh meth kind of forces you into the moment.

Speaker 1 2:20:48

You're thinking about the next minute and the minute after that, not next week or next year it sounds like you've really learned to be in the moment without the vice and, uh, I hear gratitude in that too. Not everybody can say right that I've accomplished my bucket list or, you know, pick the goal, like you said, being in the moment. I think it's a beautiful gift to be able to do that, but I think all it takes is shifting one's perspective to that of gratitude.

Speaker 3 2:21:17

And that's why I don't. I don't. I take my hands off the. I'm thinking of all the wise things I can say, but I've you know, I took my hands off the rear view mirror. I keep on the steering wheel and that's my advice.

Speaker 1 2:21:25

Beautiful? Did either of you see poor things?

Speaker 2 2:21:29

No, I haven't.

Speaker 3 2:21:30

I haven't seen that yet. It's, it looks. It looks to me like I won't like it, but yeah, well, it's pretty stylistic.

Speaker 1 2:21:38

of course you have to like I can't say his name properly, but the director, he's an acquired taste A really lush production design, really beautiful to look at and a really simple parable, almost insultingly simple, right, the archetype of the, basically Daedalus, or the inventor archetype, the mad scientist. They call him God. So it's like how much more can you beat us over the head with this metaphor? But it's not trying to be clever, but anyway, the point is, I noticed in that I had never thought of it this way, but I think there's a lot of disillusionment themes of when you finally get in the room with God, is he selfish or not? You know there, I've seen that a million times, but this one was like once God literally died, she came into her own and her authentic self. So it's almost what you hinted at, which is throwing your hands in the air and surrender and saying you know, let me serve. I think that is a milestone. But yeah, you got to go through those valleys to get there waking up in the morning, it's a great.

Speaker 3 2:22:42

First question is to say every day, how can I be of service beautiful you know to the world in general.

Speaker 1 2:22:50

You know, yeah, okay, those are words to end on right there.

Speaker 3 2:22:53

Thank you so much, mark thank you so much and I'll make and Thank you so much Mark, Thank you so much, Amik, and thank you so much. Virginia, I'm sorry that we're so bossy, we're in this especially about it.

Speaker 1 2:23:05

I've been called worse. I'm the host I'm supposed to direct, that's right, it's okay.

Speaker 3 2:23:10

Yeah, this is your show. Goodbye. Thanks so much.

Speaker 1 2:23:16

And to our listeners remember life is story and we can get our hands in the clay individually and collectively. We can tell a new story. See you next time.