WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 876 - Michael Marcus / Dr. Steve

Episode Date: December 27, 2017

Marc closes out 2017 with some old friends. Author Michael Marcus might not have made it to the garage if his life had continued the way it was going. He talks with Marc about his days of criminal behavior, addiction and eventual sober living, all of which he wrote about in his new book, #1 Son. Also, Marc's friend Dr. Stephen Dansiger returns to the garage to talk trauma, PTSD, and treating patients in the Trump era. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5 p.m. in Rock City at torontorock.com. Death is in our air. This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+. We live and we die.

We control nothing beyond that. An epic saga based on the global best-selling novel by James Clavel. To show your true heart is to risk your life. When I die here, you'll never leave Japan alive. FX's Shogun, a new original series, streaming February 27th, exclusively on Disney+. 18 plus subscription required.

T's and C's apply. Lock the gates! All right, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking ears what the fucking istas what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast this is my uh my show happy new year to you almost almost happy new year can we make it can we i for a second there i for some reason i thought it already happened but it's it's on this weekend we're gonna make it i think we're gonna make it to another year i think it's gonna happen i hope it i don't see how it can be better but i hope it can be better uh i don't know what what you've been doing but it's been sort of interesting out here in LA. We've had this year,

we we've had fires and weirdness, weirdness in the skies. Just the other day, weirdness in the skies. I didn't get to see it, but I like, even though that NASA put out an explanation about it, that people still insist it's a,

it's a UFO and that's a coverup. The propensity and desire to engage in completely speculative, investigative theories, i.e. conspiracy theories, because they're so much more gratifying and interesting and have closure than the truth, which can sort of trickle out

and sometimes is not as stimulating. So why not just believe the stuff with an edge that is full of bullshit? Why not just do that? That feels good. That's a package. Sure, that explains everything. That explains everything.

It was a UFO. That explains it. Sure. The FBI is a completely corrupt organization. That explains it. Ugh. Oh, my God. organization that explains it oh my god so today on the show i got a couple of friends of mine who wrote books a couple of friends of mine who are uh you know getting into the the writing guys i've

known for a long time my buddy uh uh steven danziger steve danziger dr steve's been on the show many times he's got a second book coming out. And my buddy Mike Marcus, these guys are sober pals, sober friends of mine. I'll tell you a little more about him as I head into the intro. All right, heading into the New Year's weekend, be careful, please. Don't die, unless you want to. But even then know think it through think it through if you're sober don't drink all right it's not worth it if you're a drunk all

right be careful if you want to drink be careful you know thank god man the designated driver thing that pressure's off with all these uh companies like lyft you know like you don't need they designated driver trip is over you just got to call a service just call a service don't die this new year's and i'll talk to you a little bit on monday on new year's day about it uh we're going to do another show new year's day we're doing another thing it's uh basically going to be new year's day with the marins which is, which is a collection of phone calls that I've had with my parents, my brother, mostly from the first couple of years of WTF. We're looking back, looking back. But I wanted to share before we get into the guest today, I want to share an email I got that I thought was

kind of funny and a close call. And I'm grateful this guy's all right. Subject line, weird affirmation. Mark, I was en route to Spokane, Washington last Friday to pick up my daughter from college for Christmas break, listening to an episode of WTF. The road was snowy with one clear lane, and I was trying to get to the mountain pass before sundown when I hit some black ice at about 70 per. My forerunner slid off the road, slammed into a rock outcropping, and flipped end for end, landing 50 yards away on the roof. In the silence that followed the deafening crash, I hung upside down in my seatbelt, staring at the deflated airbags,

wondering if I was dead. Then I could hear Marilyn Manson explaining why he shaved his eyebrows. I've never been so happy to hear something so ridiculous. I crawled out the passenger side window, not a scratch on me. Just wanted to let you know that your work reaches people in unexpected ways. I'm a big fan. Keep on keeping on, sir. That's from Ednor. Well, you're welcome, man. I'm glad it worked out.

That is a testament to vehicle design. Holy shit. And good for you for wearing design holy shit and good for you for wearing the seatbelt and good for those airbags for popping out and probably you probably got a little you probably a little sore though right probably a little sore now i bet you are good story though good story i'm glad you made it i really am i did happy ending on that one right so listen here's how this is going to go uh my buddy dr steve um he's a therapist he's also my sponsor uh and also a good friend and uh he's he's written this book it's out now

he wrote it with dr jamie marich called emdr therapy and mindfulness for trauma focused care we'll explain what that's all about in this talk. He is an EMDR therapist among other things and it's an interesting PTSD treatment that and that PTSD can range from childhood maybe emotional to you know full-on combat trauma. It's very interesting focus in terms of psychology. So we're going to talk about that now. This is me and Dr. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer.

I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. and ACAS Creative. Death is in our air.

This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+. We live and we die. We control nothing beyond that. An epic saga based on the global best-selling novel by James Clavel. To show your true heart is to risk your life. When I die here, you'll never leave Japan alive. FX's Shogun.

A new original series streaming February 27th exclusively on Disney+. 18 plus subscription required. T's and C's apply. Eve. Dr. Steve. Yes. Aside from the book, which is specific, but it's for everybody. You know what?

It's really this new book is geared more towards clinicians. Yeah. But people who are in EMDR therapy or those who are interested in EMDR therapy and also especially interested in mindfulness will find it clarifying in terms of what they're looking for. Clarifying? Yeah. Okay, so you're saying EMDR practitioners. And what does that stand for again? Because we've gone over this and you and I did a series of EMDR sessions, but I felt that it was somewhat effective But I felt that it was somewhat effective in some areas that, you know, you just kind of go in there and track down the bit. You track down the sort of the thing that's vibrating.

Yes. Sending out panic. It's just like an SOS. Yeah. It's an SOS memory. The amygdala is on fire. Yeah, a little bit. Not complete wildfire, but there's just one little part.

Yeah. Can't get it out. Can't get it out. A lot of my clients are of your description, which is a long time sober and or a long time doing therapy. Yeah. And then there's these one or two or three or four stuck points that no therapy, no 12-step, no nothing seems to move. And then the EMDR therapy seems to move it. It's so easy to sort of want to classify it as some crackpot bullshit.

Yeah. Well, that's my first instinct when I was first introduced to it. It is seen as a evidence-based treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder by the World Health Organization. It has a definition as a psychotherapy, a complete psychotherapy, according to the World Health Organization. So they're on board. Everybody's on board. All the branches of the military, the VA, everybody says this is not crackpot, snake

oil, goofballery. This is a psychotherapy. We see results. I see total results, and the, goofballery. This is a psychotherapy. We see results. I see total results, and the research also shows results. Well, here's my take on it when we did it, is that you either use sounds or light to distract a part of the brain through repetition so you can get right in there. And then you ask for, you kind of track down some trigger words, some trigger memories while you're doing this, while you're distracting the other part of the brain. What does it do? So first of all, the mechanism of action, of course, like all the rest of brain science is largely theoretical.

But there's a number of different theories as to what's happening. So that bilateral stimulation, the back and forth, some of it may be the integration of right brain and left brain. Another thing with the bilateral stimulation is that it produces this sort of mindfulness-based effect. Bilateral stimulation through movement or light? So eye movements or tones back and forth or taps back and forth. Then there also is the orienting response, which is something found in nature amongst all us animals. And what's happening is that we're always scanning back and forth for danger. And so 98% of the time, there is no danger.

The 1% of the time where there is someone that I'm attracted to, that's the go towards excitement, there's that. Then there's the 1% of the time where I'm a deer in the forest and it is a bear. So I run. Now, if I'm a deer in the forest, I run and I get away and I'm not going to be talking to my deer friends about the bear incident because I can't. I'm not going to be on a shrink's couch five years later. I'm just going to, it's going to take about an hour for all the hormonal changes and all

the cortisol and the adrenaline, all the rest to kind of get out of my system. I might even violently shake at the end. But then when I'm done, I'm not looking up 102 times an hour instead of 100. I'm still in that same orienting response. So what happens with us people is that sometimes there's a, you know, the wiring doesn't work quite right. And the smart part of our brain,

you know, something terrible happens and we go, oh, that was awful. I'm never going to think about that again, which is impossible. It basically goes and gets, it stays in the amygdala or the basal ganglia or the body somewhere where we can't have agency over it. And it could either be sort of completely below the level of consciousness or we can get triggered easily by anything that resembles it. So you say there's physical liabilities to repressing trauma, and that repression either happens from survival necessity

or conscious avoidance. Yes. But it can make you sick. It can make you have stomach problems, headache problems. Depression, anxiety, addiction. What happens is that the trauma response becomes coded in. And so our amygdala, our basal ganglia, our fight or flight part of our brain keeps on responding anytime there's just an indication of something similar to what was before.

So in that way, it reactivates the vibration, the bad vibration. Yeah, whatever the sensations, the physical sensations, the emotional content. And then what happens is that the reaction that we have to the current trauma then sort of cements or snowballs the past trauma, which snowballs the current. And now we're in a cycle and I need a drink, you know, for instance. Or I need to kill myself. Right. Or I need to jerk off or I need to hurt somebody.

All the ways that we might act out in order to avoid the feelings that come with that fight or flight response that is so uncomfortable. Well, tell me about this cortisol. Just how much can I take? Well, you probably have some of it coursing through your body like all the time. I do. I'm talking about you. Me, I know.

Why? Because you're just, you're an anxious guy. What does it do? Does it get me off? Is it elevating? Is there a physical, what does cortisol in and of itself do? Well, it's part of the fight or flight response. It's part of that energizing that goes with the adrenaline to get you ready to take care of business. So adrenaline and cortisol is the magic combo.

Yeah. I mean, there's more neurochemical changes. Uh-huh. But those are- But those are the ass kickers. I'm going to kick some ass or I'm going to run fast. That's right. That's right.

Those are my options. Yeah. Well, we got to have options. You need that energy for either of those things. Exactly. Yeah, well, we got to have options. You need that energy for either of those things. Exactly. Yeah. And then what happens is that the brain and the nervous system gets fooled and thinks everything is an emergency.

You know, like that's diagnosable PTSD, but even below the threshold of PTSD, right? Instead of seeing a situation as like a difficulty that I can possibly solve using my cognitive and my limbic and my right all of it i just see it as this emergency yeah oh that's me yeah oh i gotta give me all right oh the fucking tire the fucking tire is flat that but then there's also the maybe not an emergency but like why the fuck does this happen to me all the time yeah all the time but i've did maybe twice it's happened in my life exactly why am i the guy like i got a uh like a bad avocado this morning and now the tire's flat it's all fucking connected yeah the avocado and the tire and some other thing from

when you were six years old that wasn't an avocado or a tire but released the same sort of it was my dad didn't show up for the thing. Yeah. When I had to be at the other thing. Yeah. That. So that's where it's wired in. It's wired in. That's coded in.

Whatever that is. And that's mundane, obviously, but nonetheless impactful. Mundane, yes, to the outside observer. But in your experience, your gut, your soul, your psyche, that's where it, quote unquote, all started. Okay. your soul your psyche that's where it quote unquote all started okay before we get into the you know the nuances of emdr what about the approach of suck it up you pussy yeah um i you don't like the the tough love thing i know pussy's a dicey word now suck it up you wuss

well i you know the suck it up part doesn't go with me either so man up yeah yeah i don't know if you remember. Shut up. But the 45 guy made a speech like that at veterans. That's all they need to do to heal their PTSD. The 45 guy? Yeah, the 45 guy. The name we do not utter? Yeah, dare not say.

Dare not say his name? Dare not say his name. 45 asterisk. Anyway, so no. That yelling at people doesn't work. The problem is that people can suck it up, but that doesn't mean that they're going to be better people. There's any recovery there or there's any sort of progress made or any treatment made. You know, sucking it up is a way that people live and they may be relatively good people, but they're probably living in chronic trauma and chronic pain.

Well, that's the deal. So people who are chronically living in the survival response as opposed to being able to. So when Francine Shapiro, who developed EMDR therapy, when she first started talking about it and to this day, she talks about how the therapy is designed to help people live a more adaptive life, right? So what we do is we come up with these maladaptive,

but they're adaptive at the time right when i picked up a drink when i was 12 years old it was a very adaptive move move for me yeah i needed that drink sure but then eventually it became uh and it was kind of a maladaptive response at the time but then it really became maladaptive and then through my becoming sober and then also doing this kind of therapy yeah um i was able to let go of those maladaptive uh responses and i was able to live or i am able to live a more adaptive life yeah but you're also uh you're a practicing buddhist yes you've done recovery work in several different programs now you have the mdr like you know you're a guy like i've known you a long time

you know that that is it's not a matter of trying a lot of things. You're very diverse in the spectrum of your recovery. But spiritually, you know, you've chosen the path of Buddhism. Now, I had Thanksgiving dinner with a few Buddhists. And I got to say, my feeling was like, it feels a little stifled a little stifled a little muted a little uh a little uh tamped down where's the drama yeah yeah where's the drama so first of all there's a lot of i'm not i'm not i'm not criticizing buddhism but i couldn't quite feel figure out what it was until i left i'm like oh they're they're they're holding they're they're they're

balancing they're what are they doing so there it it is. So there's a difference between squashing it all down and being able to go namaste, y'all. And then, which is not for me, like the way to go, right? That's just repressing stuff. And then, you know, lying to the world by saying, you know, like, yeah, I'm totally cool with that. I'm balanced. Very popular approach. It's a very popular approach. And a little EMDR therapy with mindfulness infused can go a long way in working with that.

Yeah. But, you know, so like the Buddhist approach, the actual, the core teaching of the Buddha was the four noble truths. And the first truth is that there is suffering. But the translation of that is not just suffering, but also just unsatisfactoriness. So it's that continuum of, oh, it's not enough. Oh, I like that. I don't like that. Oh, God, I just don't really feel so great about life.

Or I'm in the fear or the disdain for old age, sickness and death, right? The big three. So then the second truth says, and that's the diagnosis. So the second truth says the symptoms and causes of this suffering are not the pain of life, but rather our response and reaction to it. So it's the craving, the clinging, the attachment to outcomes and things and people and all that. So those first two truths are like, they're gnarly and they're messy. The third truth says you can actually end suffering. And then like any good psychologist,

you know, or spiritual seeker or teacher, the answer is you got to go at the symptoms and more more than that the causes so you need to end craving clinging attachment and and aversion right so what you might be sensing if those buddhists are true truly you know sort of i'm not going to use the word enlightened but if they're you know on the path is that they have enacted that third truth and they did that through the fourth truth, which is the prescription, which is the Eightfold Path, which leads to these four qualities, loving kindness, compassion, appreciative joy,

like taking joy in your joy, and equanimity, which is that thing that you are sensing. Unless they were, of course, just repressing everything, and they're just going to break out in a bad case of self-hater i don't i don't know you know but uh it's hard for me to talk to uh uh people on on the path sometimes because you know there's part of me that's sort of like what's what's going on now seriously but you know where you at i i get it but so but my question is so but how do you experience talking to me? We talk a lot. We've been talking a lot for years. I know what's going on with you.

Right. And am I legitimately equanimous? I don't know. Do you really want to get into that? No, we don't have to get into that. Yes, you are. I know I do think you are. But I do see you apply it in the moment.

Right. Exactly. You know, the thing is, is that there's a vigilance to it. And so the deal is, is that the mindfulness meditation part, that's a way of getting into the experience in the body in order to settle the body and to also give the cognitive part of the brain a different way of relating to itself and to the body sensation, the rest of it. And over time, it changes the way a person, it really does change the way a person kind of thinks things through and takes action.

No, no, look, I'm a big believer in all of it. And I do think that you're relatively spiritually fit and you do the work. I find it to be impressive i mean i i try to emulate how you would handle things when i i when i detach uh appropriately as opposed to just shut down right uh detaching and letting go now but still again instead of like man up suck it up you know shut know, shut up. What about like, hey, how about like not reading so much into everything? Why don't you give it a rest?

So that's the thing. You're overthinking it. Exactly. So that's the thing with EMDR therapy and other trauma-based and body-based therapies is that body-based, limbic-based, and cognitive-based, right? Because everything you're saying right now is talking to the cognitive part of the brain. Yeah. If all the information and all the feelings

and everything there is below the level of consciousness kind of sitting there, then the cognitive part of the brain actually blood flow slows down or during fight or flight, it can even stop in parts of the neocortex where it's kind of like, we have no use for your analysis here.

We have to get away from the tiger or whatever's going on. Oh, absolutely. Huh. Yeah, it's kind of, the uh analogy i like to use is when a person's in a coma god forbid right right every three what a coma is is all the parts of the system shutting down that are not necessary in order to maintain life right in order you know just i need to be breathing i need to so all the energy is put that way so with with this, it's like in fight or flight, I don't need to analyze what make of car is coming towards me.

And so that shuts down literally to put all the energy towards. You might want to try remember. So you can file a police report. Exactly. But it could probably end up with you not having the opportunity to file a police report because you're too busy. See, in just this conversation, if you had this with yourself at that moment even not good we're done all right well let's talk specifically so so tell me precisely what the emdr does and then let's talk about you know you know how this how you've applied what we've talked about in this book to

to people like this is not just for i mean-focused care. It's a specific title, EMDR therapy and mindfulness for trauma-focused care, but that could be fucking like a teacher in a way. It's going to be important information for anybody who's dealing with particularly, potentially volatile situations or people who are dealing with people that are going to need guidance.

So in that way, any sort of leader or any sort of person who's dealing with other people can be helped by the book. Yes. If they look at the book, there's a huge, not a huge chunk of it, there's a chunk of it that's designed for step-by-step instructions for a licensed person who's been trained in the therapy to do. But the rest of the book is absolutely pertinent. And I want to say that if someone is thinking of going into EMDR therapy, this is just my licensed person who's been trained in the therapy to do, but the rest of the book is absolutely pertinent.

And I want to say that if someone is thinking of going into EMDR therapy, it is just my recommendation that the book is helpful in outlining what I believe and Jamie, my co-author, believes to be the best practices for achieving best results with EMDR. So you could go to your EMDR therapist and go, hey, do you do it this way? And give them a little guidance. So when we did it, we used the, what did I use? Did I have things? You had the tappers, the little buggers. You were doing tactile. How does that go again? So the therapy is an eight phase therapy. The first phase is just getting the history. And we did that together where, and I do it with all my clients, where you're mindfully getting their history and not just like a general psyche.

When you use the word mindful so much, what does that mean? Mindfully getting their history as opposed to what? So the way that we get the history is very specific. So an attunement and a mindfulness and not getting taken off the path yeah will be very helpful to the therapist doing it focus so the focus and that sort of non-judgmental awareness of what's going on right and an ability to move with the client let the client lead so to speak and that takes a lot of mindfulness on the part of a therapist because you know we're trained a lot of the training we get in school is like ask this many questions and get this information.

All we want is some information about general sort of needs and goals around the trauma and then getting those target memories. But what if you don't know what the trauma is? Maybe it's some of this experiencing symptoms of PTSD or panic or anxiety or addiction. And how do you go digging for the trauma if you're not going to spend hours? Exactly. So that's the beauty. For me, that's the beauty of the therapy.

It's a very structured kind of history taking that allows you to find those pertinent points, whether they be easily identifiable traumas, whether they just be adverse life events that are stuck in that way, and then be able to have that as your material for moving forward, as opposed to getting into a long of moments that have stuck with me in the way of sort of like, why did that happen? Why did I let that happen? Why didn't I make a different choice? You know, blame myself. You know, why did I find myself in that situation? Why was it perpetrated

upon me? Yes. And that's, so that's where, why when we do the history taking, there's a lot of working with the negative beliefs about self currently related to those kinds of memories and to find those memories that are attached to that negative belief, because that's often the best pathway. So as I'm talking to you, I'm doing the tactile thing, which is what I'm doing. How does it work? Like if I was holding the tappers, what would you say? Well, yeah, you have the tappers and what happens is i will set up the target by asking you uh what's the worst part of the image you know the image that represents the worst part of your memory right then the negative belief you have about yourself now as you think about that memory then the positive belief that you would like to have and how true that is in this moment which is often

very low which is more activating. Yeah. Then the emotions, like what are you feeling? Sad, mad, glad right now? Yeah. As you consider this. And then the level of disturbance, zero to 10.

And then I ask for any body sensations that you're feeling. And it's at that point that I go, okay, so now I'm going to start the tappers and just notice whatever you notice as the tappers are going. And I turn on the tappers and that's a silent part. So that's where it really, when I first got trained in it, I'm like, oh my goodness, this is actually a mindfulness practice. I don't remember.

You feel it? Yeah. I turn them on. Yeah. And they're like pulsers. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So you get into that place. And then when the tappers stop, you take a deep breath. And then I ask you, what are you noticing now? Right? Mindfulness in this moment. Right, right. And it could be memories, body sensations. It could be whatever you're noticing now.

And nine times out of 10, after you say that, I say, all right, notice that. And we do the tappers again. And the material moves along. And what I'm listening for as a therapist is the material moving. And the material moves along. And what I'm listening for as a therapist is the material moving. So as a therapist, as a practitioner, as somebody who works with in drug rehab, but in private practice. So what's changed over the last year? What do you what's happening?

What do you see since the new regime? How has that impacted humans in your therapy practice? So there is, what I'm experiencing in my own experience and then in the experience of the people who come to my office

is that there's a great number of people who are in the middle of diagnosable PTSD that didn't exist for them over a year ago. The constant inundation with information that is threatening. If a person has already sort of like a trauma history background. They're volunteering for it because they're looking on their phone.

Well, and at the same time, right, there's that a little bit of that, you know, maladaptive but adaptive behavior of if I look on the phone, maybe this will all stop. You know, like that primitive part of the brain that's like, I better check. I got to keep myself safe. Got to keep myself safe. Right. Right. So volunteering, yes, but no differently than anyone who's addicted to heroin.

Right. And as much as, you know, like that Buddhist formulation, craving, clinging, all the rest of it. You know, addiction is just addicts do craving and clinging and aversion better than other people. Yeah. Like we're all engaged in that endless. So looking at the phone over and over again. Right. You know, eating food over and over again. But you're seeing real symptoms of PTSD.

Oh, my God. All the time. I'm not, you know, I. What are those? I never lack for clients to begin with, but it's for the last year, people coming in who may not ordinarily have come in for services before. What are those symptoms? or anything that's happened over the last year, like something in particular really got to them because perhaps it impacted them as an individual

or as a group member of a certain group. People are vulnerable to lots of other mental and emotional health and spiritual problems, right? Lack of meaning. That's a lot of what's been coming into my office. Like, how can I make meaning out of this insanity? You know, again, for people who are- Or how do you sustain any sort of hope?

Yes. And what is the point? And can what I do in my little life, is it even relevant to or important anymore? What's the point of doing it? Yes. And that's why I find this particular type of therapy to be helpful because it's acknowledging all of that and then taking steps to address each part of that. You know, the cognitive part, the emotional part, the spiritual part, you know, the meaning, the existential part.

You know, all of it is sort of a, it's a soup or Jamie likes to say a tangled ball of yarn or one of our clients, one of her clients said it's a tangled ball of yarn. And what the therapy does is it untangles the yarn and then you can address the pieces of it. And I find too, you know, my own EMDR recovery of my own, and then also training people all the time and working with people and they do feel better. And I get to see, I actually get to see these results.

I see that people are able to find a way, and you said it, right? How can my little world or how can my little contribution to the world have any impact on all that is going on? And in the end, it was never any different before anyway, right? Even like 2,600 years ago when Buddha was teaching to people who didn't have phones, he was like, your little life or your small contribution, you're interconnected with everybody and we're all impacting each other all the time. So why don't we try and take best care of ourselves? Let us be mindful mindful let us be caring

let's let us be loving kind and compassionate with each other right and so that's all the more important today well i hope we do all right me too i'm rooting for us oh good yeah good talking to you man yeah always good to talk to you. So that was Dr. Steve. The book is called Mindfulness for Trauma-Focused Care. You can get that where you get books. And as he said, it's a good primer to a lot of things, even if you're not in the practitioner racket.

So now Mike Marcus is another buddy of mine. Mike's been through a lot of shit. He's tried a lot of things. He's been up and down. You know, we've been through some shit together. He's been there for me. Uh, in some ways we've had our, our moments of, uh, aggravation. We've had fights and we've, uh, we've come around, we've come through it all. We've been through some shit and, uh, you know, he's a, he's a friend of mine and he's written this, this book about primarily about his old man and god knows i'm sensitive to old man books it's called number one son and other stories uh by michael marcus michael marcus yeah mike and i met in the in the rooms as they say and uh this is a this is a good conversation this is a good conversation

uh the book number one son and other, is available now for pre-order. You can get it on Amazon. Comes out in January. This is me and my pal, Mike Marcus. Mike Marcus. Michael Marcus. What's up, buddy? Author.

Author of a book now. You did it. I can't believe I did it. No, you have no idea. You've tried a lot of things, Mike. That's for, I think that would actually cover a whole podcast. We're on a podcast. Shit jobs.

Well, I can't remember, like, you were talking when you walked in that you remember you know when we met i'm trying to remember when that was where was it it was in 2005 or six oh really yeah you were a cake baker for a meeting i believe oh over it out over at hyperion brunswick yes brunswick that's right and you were this meaty beefy fucking like you i don't think you were roided out or anything but you're roided but i still had an image i was carrying from the past you know yeah you were like some sort of badass or something i thought i was you know we go i i'm not gonna say we i go through these periods of like and it's funny because the book outlined some of this of like hanging out with r&b guys and hanging out with like armenian gangsters

and just different people that used to rub off on me but but yeah but i mean i have that quality too that like you know you're kind of you're not fully baked as a person right because of uh you know because of being emotionally shattered by uh fathers or mothers so you kind of latch on to anybody with some sort of sense of identity a strong identity absolutely and obviously you and i are not going to gravitate towards the healthy examples not no never you know you said something once when we were talking about talking about daddy stuff yeah and it's like i'm looking for are you my daddy oh yeah every relationship like a kid lost at a mall yeah yeah once you really see that it's first of all it's really gross and disgusting because it's like wow i've been

looking for a daddy figure well i mean yeah like i think that we can change it over to father figure when you know the daddy figure like i'm not looking for someone to take care of sugar daddy right a guy that emotionally be like right right yeah i can guide you okay yeah yeah right you're okay and i can show you the right thing to do right you need a vice kid you hang out with criminals it can't you can't get that from a pimp but no but like but your father was in nut case horrible man i'm sorry listen my father was a horrible man and i didn't really know that until he died because i was under the delusion you held it that long you had him up on a pedestal for that long it wasn't a pedestal it was just this really false sense of forgiveness and acceptance. But also, I guess you probably identified with him somehow.

I mean, at some point, there's part of you, there's some part of you, the kid in you, always looks up to that guy no matter how much you find out about his moral bankruptcy. Absolutely. And there was so many different father figures. Like I said, I think I had a false sense of acceptance and this forgiveness that came through doing a lot of work in therapy and a lot of work in whatever anonymous programs. But I think that a lot of that was bullshit. I think it was like that kind of fake it till you make it or act as if.

Sure, sure, sure. You just, you got it intellectually and you just played it out. Right. And it sounded good to other people. people yeah but it was disconnected from the emotional reality but where'd you grow up i was born in freeport long island and then we moved out here in the early 70s first place was thousand oaks then fountain valley this is about 15 different places till i landed in hollywood went to to Hollywood high school. But what'd your dad do? He was like, because I remember- He was a jeweler. Well, he was an auctioneer in Palm Springs.

That's where it started. And we lived in a little town called Banning, right near an Indian reservation, of all things. And my father met a man that worked at Caesar's Palace that started laundering money through his gallery. He's like, i'll bankroll the gallery but we're gonna launder some money from caesar caesar's palace your dad's gallery yeah it was an auction gal he was like an auctioneer but like a really smooth not this not cattle right dabity but i was like okay we have a piaget polo here right he had specific

people he would point out in the audience so he's's a high-end cat. He's playing that. High-end cat. That was the hustle. Right. He had Jews that had made it through the concentration camp with numbers on their arm and he'd say things like, this is a special diamond, Irv. Remember, it got our people out of the camps. Oh my God.

Like do that kind of stuff. And they'd put their fist up and sure, 10,000. I learned very early on to be a split person to be like that guy very charming and yeah you know i i was no problem with the women yeah but this dark side of like stealing lying cheating yeah just real real debauchery yeah there was constantly this and i usually got found out it was usually months or years later but i always got found out whether it was in a relationship or with a step-parent or something like but what are you growing up with this guy like this guy with this hustle like

and your parents stayed married my parents didn't stay married my father went on to have well now he was on his sixth wife but early on yeah no my mother literally to put us in her impala at about two in the morning how old were you i think it was about five or six 1969 i was five years old and literally ran away from my father with us in the car to her then therapist yeah dr sigmund lichter yeah uh he lived in huntington he had the whole 70s like sex therapist look uh you know the van dyke goatees are cool but a van dyke is that thing that really yeah you know the turtleneck yeah occasionally a pipe right and started with him with this whole like the real californ California scene of the early 70s was like orgies, acid, backgammon, you know.

Backgammon's in there. Steeler's wheel. Yeah, stuck in the middle with you. Right, okay. Literally and figuratively. And took us to nudist colonies. Now, that may sound really cool and hippie and all that. But at five.

Not good. So at five, you're in this environment where it was where's the house that house was in a town called costa mesa uh-huh which i'm sure we were the outcast you know orange county especially then they call you know behind the orange curtain right was refrigerator fucking white yeah and to have these people strutting in a jewish therapist yeah you know my mother was like this party girl like a lot like shannon stone's character in casino like that kind of a person was she strung out uh she wasn't strung out but she liked her tangare her coke and her

quaaludes i'm not gonna lie right um and you got a sister who's older. Unfortunately, she OD'd and died. She, now, see, here's the thing. If we can fake getting through our resentments or our anger until it finally explodes, I think we have a chance, whether it's therapy or walking through the 12 steps. Right. But she couldn't pull that off, Mark. Your sister. No matter how hard she worked in therapy went to 12-step

program she could not let go of the rage she had against my father and i think ultimately that's what killed her because you need to relief dude ultimately resentments will kill me i don't know about you but like i see them clearly now you still have them i still have them and i think i'm trying to think i stay spiritual by realizing i'm not the least bit fucking spiritual do you know what i mean yeah like on a daily basis well i think like my resentments i try to vote like i you know like i i don't i negotiate with them so i think i have them but they're not as you know hot they're not as glaring well they're just they're just not you know they're they're tempered right right, right, right. Do you know?

But I've seen that in you over the last 10 years because I saw you in your- Fury. Do you remember we were driving? I was looking for the New Balance store. The New Balance store. Yeah. I remember what happened. You didn't even know where it was, but you were freaked out about the way I was going there.

Well, I remember because this was the first time we really hung out. That's right. And it was over in Pasadena somewhere did i came and picked you up i guess so we were both so insane i was like shitty and filled with grief and knew that i was the major problem in my relationship right and she had every reason to completely fucking divorce and disown the wife yeah the ex-wife right exactly right this is like right then you know you were like i was here yeah like curbstock you know curbside and you were like here with this whole other thing going and i try to latch on to that what was i wanted to be angry at her too you know what i mean oh fuck her blah blah blah like you were blaming yourself i was

blaming myself and i was like shit i wish i could borrow some of his rage it's not working for my situation oh hating my ex oh yeah so we met in the middle i didn't help you it was 2006 that's about right oh yeah that was horrible that was right when she left right you couldn't help any i couldn't help anybody who were you gonna help we're just going to get sneakers right that's all it was what happened um but like i remember when i first saw you i remember there was a story you told i can't remember if you were pitching at a meeting or you're actually doing a show oh because we used to see each other you would go with mishnah yeah to do the moth right right but they were like was but what was the story about where you were? The image I remember was you had to carry your jaw into the emergency room.

Oh, Jesus. Like you literally had to drive and your jaw was dislocated. Broken in three places. Oh, my God. Yeah, it was horrible. I was newly sober once again. How many years ago was that? This was 20 years ago and I still have TMJ from a result of that.

I still grind my teeth. I got to wear a night guard and everything. That's another story. I was in front of a tattoo shop and I just got some work done and I traded the tattoo artist. Yeah. The Stax Volt box set. You know how amazing that box is. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I said, you know, that's the real shit. Motown's like cracker shit compared to this. compared to this yeah and that fell on the ears of an aryan lowrider who had just gotten out of the shoe program in pelican bay the word cracker does not fly well right from a guy coming from the penitentiary yeah i had walked up to the subway i was smoking a cigarette and i see it for a second a mid-sentence you know when your jaw's open it only takes five pounds of pressure to break it oh they you know they gave me the whole breakdown and i got hit as i was talking and i'm on the ground and the guy looks down at me and he's got like two of his lieutenants with him just scary motherfuckers mark yeah real aryan and i can handle myself right but you get sucker punched there There's no way. Yeah.

And I look at it, look up at him and he's looking me in the eye and he says, you got something to say about white people? I'm white. And I was just like baffled. I was confused.

He helped me up and he said, hey, you know, no big deal, right? And I was just like, yeah, holding my jaw going,

this is really bad. I got to get out of here. Yeah. And I got in the car and i went to midway hospital the next thing i did is i called a friend of mine who was in pelican bay yeah rest in peace baby ron um and i said look i think i want to shoot this guy i have a 380 at home i'm fucking out of my mind i i have a job that I need to speak at, talk to people. My jaw's going to be wired up for fucking, you know, it's horrible.

And he goes, you know, don't do that. Don't go near that guy. He will take out your whole family. He will really make everything in your life disappear. And six months later, there was a whole article about him and this Aryan brotherhood that was pretty much running the penitentiaries along with the MA. Am I going to get killed now?

Am I like giving information? I don't know. Anyways, that's what happened with the jaw. Of course, I lost my sobriety. I was making Soma and Vicodin smoothies. Yeah. Soma, is that even around anymore? I think it's gone wow didn't they

use it in brave new world soma was the drug that was the name of the drug but i'm just saying it's funny that they're like hey maybe we'll use this name for this particular thing so you chose the higher road and didn't kill the guy no i didn't kill the guy but i mean that's 20 years ago i don't think you're gonna get in trouble for anything no i think he died of hep c since then so i think we're okay but that was but that was the world you. I don't think you're going to get in trouble for anything. No, and I think he died of hep C since then, so I think we're okay. But that was the world you were in. That was what growing up the way you grew up reaped. Right.

But what was this sort of ongoing dynamic? Because now you're living with the hippie doctor who's sleeping with your mother, and there's other people there, and there's nudists, and it's the 70s, and you're five. Now, what is your father doing? He's like, what's your father? He's like. At that time, my father was traveling. He did travel sales or something.

But from looking at you, your father was probably like a burly Russian Jew. Romanian Jew, German Jew from the Bronx. State raised lunatic. Did six years at Elmira Reformatory. State raised? How the hell that happened what happened he my father really liked nice things when he was a teenager and couldn't afford these things so he would steal them right and i think he stacked up quite a bit of burglary charges okay

and they sent him away and who the hell knows what happened there but i do know that he became a golden gloves boxer while he was in the reformatory oh yeah so he probably fought his way out of did you know his parents your grandparents i knew them when i was young they were pretty nice people i mean they were angry and you know romanian and german my grandmother was from germany and i believed basically got out just in time oh yeah she was like whatever you know whatever that upscale german jew was about at that time that's what she was about yeah and my grandfather owned a couple of delis in queens and in rockaway and there's a funny story about him in there too

well what what he owned delis and he did tricky things with the meat to make the sandwiches look a little bigger and he stacked the middle he stacked the middle heavily he used pickles that were left on the tables to make relish leftover seltzers were re-bottled desserts were were cut in a very specific way both diagonally and horizontally yeah my aunt told me the whole lowdown about this this was just a couple years ago i reconnected with her well that just sounds like uh is that normal i guess they do that at langer's i guess right well i would hope not i mean there are health codes now you're not supposed to you're not supposed to take the pickles off the table but pickles like because of the vinegar and everything else i mean they're

fairly you know i guess that's all right but not retooling seltzer right not no generally shouldn't retool seltzer but you know that kind of seltzer doesn't really used anymore that's true but i worked at gordon's deli and you know when i was in the boston and i went down to fill the pickle bin up and there was a bucket of pickles and i scooped out a bunch of pickles there was a fucking mouse in there dead pickled mouse pickled mouse i told shelly i told the owner i said shell Shelly, this bucket's no good. I found a mouse in there. But I don't think Shelly threw that bucket out. Wow.

Is vinegar a disinfectant? I guess it's a disinfectant. So you're okay. I guess it's a disinfectant. I don't know if it's... I'm sure you're okay. I'm sure you're okay. And I bet you that a pickled mouse is a delicacy somewhere.

Come on. Not here. No rationalization. somewhere. Yeah. But not here. No rationalization. I'm trying. No, no. I know. But I'm just saying that dubious restaurant touring, dubious management of delis doesn't surprise me.

I guess it's not that big of a deal. Maybe Grandpa Sam wasn't so bad. No, Grandpa Sam. Him and my dad had it out, though. There's no doubt about that. My dad was the oldest. Yeah. They constantly butt heads.

And there's a deposition that tells a lot more. I don't really want to get into that right now. But there was a lot of stuff that helped me understand a little more of what my dad was about and the abuse that he had put up with. And he didn't have the luxury that we did, Mark. We have some luxuries therapeutically and 12-step wise. Sure. That me and you wouldn't be sitting here if we hadn't delved into i think i could speak for you anyway sure but when did you start to sort of uh find that you were you know getting fucked up on your

own but also sort of honoring your father's legacy in a way um that started pretty early uh i think really i started smoking pot my sister was three years, so she would turn me on to stuff. It was probably around 11 or 12 years old. I'd visit my dad for weekends. Where was he living? He was living in Newport Beach. Oh, no. Tustin.

Another town called Tustin. He had moved. So you're a real fucking Southern California kid. Yeah, all over. All over. And my mother had left. Well, actually, he died of a heart attack. Dr.mund lichter he was working on his roof he was roofing which i thought was weird for a psychiatrist or for a jew died of a heart attack yeah very sad day what do you mean

your father was a jew boxer you know you're gonna well that's true but he went to prison i think you're forced i've just been plenty of like i used to think that way, too. Don't get me wrong. There's Jew laborers. I was one. Jewish cops. There's Jewish gangsters. There's Jewish plumbers. Jewish gangsters, for some reason, never surprised me. Because growing up with my father and the people that he knew, they were all those guys.

It was kind of like the killing of a Chinese bookie. It was like when Seymour Cassell and his crew pulled up. I don't know the names, but it was like those kind of guys. Were out here in the valley? Mostly Beverly Hills. So it's those guys with Rolexes, maybe, I should say. Just rough Jews. Rough Jews.

Yeah. And my dad had like Crips and Bloods working up there. They were like the bodyguards. Where? At the store? At the, yes, 9460 Wilshire boulevard fifth floor that's right above the union bank this is so he he closed the uh the front in palm springs then he moved to santa ana had a little gallery there actually a big auction gallery for jewelry primarily

jewelry antiques keen paintings yamagata's so he Land. I mean, it just went on and on. Where'd he get his shit? Was most of it real? Well, a lot of it was real. Not the Renoir he sold for $400,000, but yeah, most of the stuff was real. Staged diamond heists. It just goes on and on. There's a whole book just on that. What do you mean staged diamond heists. It just goes on and on. There's a whole book just on that.

What do you mean staged diamond heists? Well, like would have diamonds stolen while he was in New York and then have everybody take a lie detector test to see where they went. Like he would go through every possible stage of the insurance investigation in order to get the money for the diamonds and then would have sold them over here to somebody else. Oh, wow. That kind of shit yeah yeah really deeply entrenched in all of it you know come through criminal mind non-stop non-stop and i it took a lot for me to break that but like but so at what

now the dynamic you know that that happens you know where where do you pick up steam where does the book start for you the book starts uh in 1991 one of the first stories i i wrote was in 1991 and um it was basically about the air force i was in the air force guarding nuclear weapons and i had a little crack relapse while i was there and Well, when did you first get sober? The first time I got sober was in 1981. Yeah. I was in an 18-month youth program. For what? They just made me a ward of the court.

They were like, can you take him? We can't deal anymore. Your mother had enough? My mother had enough. They made me what's called a ward of the court. Right. We were living at Oakwood Garden Apartments. My mother was now with another-

The Furnished Apartments, where all the actors live different place then yeah heavy duty different place not a place for a 15 year old let's put it that way oh really what was going on over there um just a lot of orgies and quaaludes and a couple of shootings like a real heavy r&b crowd a real heavy like a rock and roll crowd oh yeah hunkers some aging you know yeah wannabes whatever it was and uh she was living now with this guy named daniel samuel fagenbaum she got the guys with the good names and he was like this guy that was a swinger up at the a-frame and had the briefcase filled with like amyl nitrate, quaaludes, handcuffs, dildos. That guy? Your mom knows how to pick them, huh?

That guy. Yeah. And I had robbed him and I had robbed a bunch of places in the complex. What did you steal his quaaludes? I stole his quaaludes. I stole a bunch of money and drove to Mexico in my mom's car. I was just really, like the really cheap version of less than zero. Like if you moved it to Oakwood, you know what I mean?

And they just couldn't take anymore. I mean, drug dealers and addicts and alcoholics and junkies and the people that were hanging around there were all angry. You, the kid that kid's got to go right right in the party up exactly so that was uh so that was 18 months it saved my life i wasn't happy from 16 and a half to 18 being in this place that i if i left i was going to do three or four years in a juvenile a really hardcore juvenile program yeah and that would have been going right down the same road as my father, my real father.

Right. So you got out and you were clean? I got out and I was clean. You joined the military? I joined the military to get out of going to prison for a first degree burglary in a grand theft auto I picked up while I was coming over the uh the border what was this after you got sober uh this was after I got out of the program yeah yeah and I kind of went ballistic and stole a bunch of more shit and took my mom's car and drove to Mexico and

I was actually going to end my life in Mexico I was 18 years old and I was just totally done I was like what am I going to do I can't live like this anymore. You stole shit to go sell in Mexico? No, I stole shit. I stole, I think, about 10 grand in cash, maybe a quarter ounce of Coke, and a bunch of pills that he had laying around. And I took my mom's car, which was really fucked. My mother was a visiting nurse,

and she worked all over town, and all of her equipment and her files and everything were in there. And I shot down there, and I figured I'm going to drink and drug and do what I have to do. And then I'm going to drive off a cliff. That was the plan. It sounded glamorous. It didn't work out that way. What happened?

I drove back because I didn't have the balls to kill myself, of course. And you ran out of money. I didn't run out of money, oddly enough. I just knew I had to come back. Did you run out of blow? Did run out of blow. That was a problem. Okay.

So you're right. There was a problem. Okay, so you're right. There was a motivation. Couldn't get any down there. Couldn't find any drugs in Mexico? You're right. What the fuck? So you drove back and got busted? I drove back and got busted.

They put me in San Diego Men's Correctional, and the judge called me up. I was there, I think, for the weekend. My parents wanted to totally press charges. And he said, well, what if we can get him to join the service? And it was weird. I know it's a weird thing. That's funny.

It's like, you know, this guy's a problem. But maybe we can get him in the military. But isn't that, I feel like that's the thing. You know what I mean? Straighten him out. Yeah. Yeah. Straighten him out.

And I went and saw the judge. And that's what he said to me. He's like, okay, you have an option. You can do two to four years in prison. We got you dead to rights. Good luck defending yourself. Yeah. Or you could join the military.

Yeah. And like, I was a stupid, I was a stupid kid. I didn't have a lot of awareness. Right. So I told him, can I think about it? Yeah. It was like, I'll give you plenty of time to think about it. In jail.

Yeah. And I went back and there was, my cellmate was plenty of time to think about it. In jail. Yeah. And I went back and there was, my cellmate was this really cool, older black guy, seasoned criminal. This might've been the best father figure ever, Mark. That you had? Yeah. Was that guy? Yeah.

He said to me, what the fuck is wrong with you? Go plead and get the fuck out of here. You're going down a dark road, kid. So I pleaded and I ended up in the Air Force. You're going down a dark road, kid i pleaded and i ended up in the air force you're going down a dark road you know what i mean and i ended up joining the air force because that's the lightest of the four basically less it's the less training but then i did this heavy duty training and they made me a security policeman and i was guarding nuclear weapons your face yeah then what happened oh god you know all went well for a while because i was up in a place that i didn't know anybody i didn't know what was going on i mean i was drinking but

talk about something that's so acceptable in the air force sure i mean pilots everybody was drinking yeah i'd see pilots shit-faced drunk that were flying around in FB-111s with nuclear weapons up low. Come on. I'm not kidding you. When was this? 80 what? This was 84.

Yeah. 85. Maybe they fixed that. I hope so. They shut that base down, so at least we know that's happening. That was gone. And I went up to Montreal and was on St. Catherine Street hanging out with strippers. Those were great times.

Yeah. And I met the stripper who had the Coke, and it was on. And at first, I was like, I'm not. You were just on vacation? No, we go out. They didn't call it Liberty, but that's what I'm calling it. We go up there and get the strong beer, the good good beer yeah like we're we were in plattsburgh oh okay new york it's about an hour and a half to montreal you know the spot and um i just knew it

it was gonna go wrong i knew once i met her canada okay you had a vibe you know there's a what could go wrong here but it's so deep down that it can go wrong because it's all saturated with the the strippers and the whores and the euphoric recall and this isn't going to be so bad this time yeah and it started from there and i started snorting coke and then i started smoking coke and then i was in canada no i came back down i would go up there and get the Coke and bring it back down. Yeah. And they love servicemen. I mean, you could have brought back anything from Canada.

Right. You flash the military ID, you're good to go. Yeah. And there's what they called operation readiness inspections where you would be on post for about 18 hours guarding a bird with nuclear weapons uploaded. Yeah.

And they would come around and ask you these questions. What's the ORI? Yeah. You know, oh, that's Operation Red. What's the two-man policy? Well, that means one man can't be around the nuke at one time. Yeah. What's a covered wagon?

Well, that means the nuke's been stolen and everything's going to shit. Like whatever it was, they would fire off these questions. And on one particular time, I just remember being so fucking coked out, Mark. I just taken a big blast off the pipe here comes this general a four-star fucking general with like these two lieutenants yeah and i i jacked around into my weapon because i was so freaked out i'm like if i fail this test i think we're just i'm just gonna take them out and take myself out just crazy been up for days smoking coke drinking 151 thinking

sure that thing yeah just that you know everyone knows what that yeah no big deal it's sad when you have to go all the way to 151 like i need the strongest and about 10 shots of it oh god and i was able to answer the questions and made it through and then somebody wrote a statement on me and i got busted a pilot actually wrote a statement on me for selling him coke because he i guess it came up in his urine oh you took the hit did he get the hit too he disappeared i don't know where he went i think he went to another base and probably he's no longer flying they just move him around like priests yeah everyone knows this guy's a blow monkey here right right send right. Send him to New Orleans. Right.

Oh, Desert Storm? He's perfect. Yeah, yeah. Send him to New Orleans. So yeah, that's, you know, I just never could be anywhere. So was that a court martial or were you just out? No, I actually had an independent lawyer because they have what's called the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Yeah.

And if you get stuck in that, you're being railroaded right into leavenworth uh-huh so i had a guy work for me and i got what was called a general under honorable conditions you know what's funny is the way you talk about certain things it's like you know you you know things that only a criminal would know so in that so in that way you're definitely your father's son. It's like, oh, don't go with the military lawyer. You're going to smoke crack after three days awake and get nailed? You got to get an outside lawyer. I love it. That's a great observation.

I don't see that stuff, but I used to look at everything through a criminal or a sex filter, one or the other, right? Because that was the two things I was fixing on. Obviously getting loaded within those two things but those are the things that i fix on in sobriety if i'm not careful too like what else is there of course food but right well you and i share that one you know and uh yeah you're better at it than i am but uh but the whole getting loaded the thing is is like what you know where did you how many like what do you want now what you got about six years now yeah six years just over six years six and a half years i never had six years really had that much time no i had three years four years huh resentment shame or guilt are usually the things that take me out and guilt can come in the form of not

pulling off something that i thought i should have been able to pull off to be at a better place than i'm at at midlife if that makes any sense well i mean i mean what seemed like the last time but you were always like you know high roller right i mean it's like it's been years but i mean years since i was i mean when i met you but like what was going on like i remember there were just you tell me these stories about like, just like, you know, all this cash and art and you had a nice house. What were you doing then? Well, those were all proceeds from dealing drugs. After Daniel Samuel Fagenbaum, I was grandfathered in to a very exciting career in dealing pills.

This was in 2000. He shot himself in 2000, actually. He shot himself in 2000, Daniel Samuel Fager. Horrible situation. He had bladder cancer, and he was a manic depressive. They had to take him off the lithium because it's a salt, and it's very hard on your bladder. So they take him off for a while.

They refashioned or did some new operation where they basically built a bladder for him out of his colon and he came back oh my god i was intense so this is after you hit the wall with the military this was years later this was probably 15 years out but i mean so okay so you get out of 11 you don't go to leavenworth you get out of the military you're not court martial do you clean up again i clean up again? I clean up again. I moved to New York City, which was actually a really good time in New York. I was actually living on Long Island.

Late 80s? Yeah. 86, 87. Great time for hip-hop. Pretty much the end of the punk rock era. Great new wave situation. Jean-Michel. It was a really cool

time in new york and you were going to the city i was going into the city a lot i was hanging out with some pretty cool guys that i had met there we were going to a lot of clubs i was sober but still a maniac getting into fistfights you know i beat down a cab driver like just still a maniac because i never really dealt with that stuff in sobriety. So abstinence for us can be just as deadly, right? So when did you relapse? How did New York end? I moved back to LA in 1990. Yeah.

And my stepfather was really dealing heavily. Him and two Jewish counterparts. Which one was this? Which stepfather? This was Daniel. Dr. Dildo was his name back in the day. But now he was like Dr. Dan. Just Dr. Dan.

He had mellowed out from the A-frame. Right. What is the A-frame? The A-frame is still there. It's a house that's at the very top of Mulholland. It was famous for its 70s swing parties. Oh, okay. You know, like the keys in the bowl situation.

And I came back here and i relapsed again and i started taking money from him and i ended up in another rehab what was the drug usually i was smoking coke again that was your thing yeah that and he had a bunch of pills was taking xanax and valium your free baser base oh god yeah well when you say it like that yeah because that's the old school you know right richard prior before crack before way before crack so you had to base your own shit i had to base my own shit it was clean i used 151 it burned really nice like ether ether was the real shit yeah you know it's so sick when when you're really so into a drug like

when i heard about richard prior freebasing like i wanted to know really how to do that was my hero right yeah i wanted to really know how to do this and get into it what's the chemistry yeah do i need what equipment do i need right and you figured it out i figured it out yeah and it was broke that shit down a love-hate relationship with smoking coke for about 29 years. Because there's the sort of ghetto way to freebase, which is baking soda. And then you kind of swirl it and swirl it. Well, that's not ghetto. No.

That's another form of freebasing. Even though they went from ether to baking soda. But the ammonia is the real ghetto way. That's like the really addictive crack shit that hit the streets. And I found myself down there a lot when I couldn't get the Coke I wanted. And then that whole thing started going downtown. All right. But so wait, but we're not there yet.

So now you got Dr. Dildo's like, you know, he's dealing this before he gets a bladder cancer. Right. You're smoking Coke. You smoking with him? No, no. He was totally clean and sober. But so what happened? So you're smoking coke you smoking with him no no he was totally clean and sober but so what happened so you're stealing from him to stealing from him they find out i'm stealing he kept a safe under the stairs with like 180 grand in it and i started you know by the way

if nobody believes this feel free to ask my mother you know her in mexico that's something else she's not hiding out I promise and I started taking money and one day when they had to come up with some money for a situation that occurred they looked into the safe under the stairs and there was a lot of money missing and I'd been living off that money and then he wouldn't talk to me for years I went back

and made amends to him years later and in between that I worked in a film laboratory I worked at Color film laboratory. I worked at Color by Deluxe. I worked at Technicolor. Oh, you weren't selling drugs? I sold a little pot. Oh, oh. So after New York, you know, you came here. Yeah, took the money.

Took the money. Got fucked up on show. Just a lot of scandalous shit. I was doing like credit card scams and whatever workman's comp well you know what do you got let's see how we can work this credit card scam i uh had a crew of guys that would break into those big mailboxes at like apartments and stuff crack those open you're that guy and just strip through everything and find the cards and just send a crew of about 10 guys out and go on a shopping spree and usually

bring this stuff back yeah fence it or nordstrom's was really good they would always take stuff back and give you cash usually so and this is primarily for money or for for drug money it was for money and drug money but i i did i hate to admit this but i did stuff like that sober too just because i didn't want to work and i had had this idea that like, why not? You know, I had to be very criminal, criminal, and I'm sitting in your garage talking to you about it and not in jail.

I know, you know, so wait, so when, so when did, um, okay. So,

so that's so, but you did have a job. I had a job and I've had jobs over time, but like the, the, the film industry job ended very quickly when Danny got cancer. Cause he brought me in as like a partner to help him sell his pills. He had a bunch of people up and down the coast. So he was a drug dealer. Oh yeah.

Yeah. Big time. Dr. Dan. Yeah. He had, he had doctors. He had been working probably for 10 or 15 years for the scripts yeah so now you got now he needs a partner because he's sick he needs a partner because he's sick so bring the kid in bring the kid in he robbed me he did whatever but we don't have any

choice yeah he's outside the family he's a criminal he knows yeah who else are you gonna trust not his kids believe me uh-huh um yeah so i started like doing the whole situation going to pharmacies then of course i got strung out and i started stealing prescriptions from doctors and writing my own pads you stole the pads i stole the pads and i stole triplicates which are the ones they use for cancer medications, Dilaudid, stuff like that. And you figured out how to write the scripts? Well, my mother was a nurse, so it was usually, I knew how to write what they call the Greek. The Greek is the prescription wording.

And I got back on that train again, man, and it was a nightmare. What were you doing? It was probably, it was so many different things, but I liked to snort Dilaudid. That was my favorite yeah that that a little percadon a little soma xanax it was just dilaudid up yeah yeah and then you know take the edge off with some crack because i tried to find that place you know mark that

cracked a lot of place yeah were you just good i was good for a while i took the drug proceeds i invested in the market i I did pretty well. But you were running up and down the coast selling, you know, delivering. Not up and down the coast. There was a guy in Santa Barbara. There was a guy in Orange County. So, yeah, basically. And were they dealing or they were just buying?

They were just buyers. Big buyers. Big buyers. I would go up to Santa Barbara and this guy would buy $6,000 worth of drugs every month, like clockwork. And then I was like, hey, do you think you could put me on the books as a salesman? I'm having a problem, you know, washing the money. So he did that.

And of course he expected a better deal. And we worked. Oh, for his company? You were a salesman? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I had him.

God, I had a bunch of people. I had a mattress salesman. I don't want to talk about his name, but it was a bunch of different people. Guy had their own Galpin Ford. not his name wasn't galpin but i had got these really crazy accounts i was probably after all my expenses i was probably doing 20 25 grand a month and this is in the 80s this is actually in the mid to late 90s into the early 2000s yeah so he's so when. So when does Dan get sick? When do you hit the wall?

So what you're saying to me is you're making a lot of money. This is the golden age here, right? Yes. This is where you buy the art. My ex-wife used to call it the house that Percodan built. So this is when you buy the house. This is when you're going to go legit. Yeah, I'm going to go legit.

I'm going to really do the right thing. I got this great life thing i got all this drug money great drug money i got some friends on wall street i'm learning how to invest it's the tech boom there's great stocks you're making money i'm making money i'm trading stocks i'm making money i have a shitload of cash and some drugs i put in a box yeah in san fernando valley and these boxes was called american data Vault. You could get a personal box under an assumed name and stash a bunch of stuff in there.

That was your emergency package? That was my getaway, yeah. Is it still there? I had a fake identity in there. You did? Robert Haskup was the guy. You had a passport? No, I didn't have a passport

because I couldn't have left the country with all that money anyway. So you had a bunch of money, a bunch of drugs, and some identification for another guy. For another guy. In case. Just in case. Is it still out there? No.

Actually, the Patriot Act closed those places down. American Data Vault was shut down. There was three of them. There was one under the World Trade Center. There was one here, and I think there was one in Orange County. But after the Patriot Act, you were not allowed to have those anonymous boxes. It was such a sad day. Do you have guns in there? I had a 44 Magnum. I had a Sig Sauer 380. I never used guns, but just to be on the safe side.

In a box. Yeah, I'm in a box. Yeah, yeah. You know, you grew up with guns. Yeah. Well, yeah, my dad had them. Right. and they were legal yeah yeah but so all right so so so you bought the house you got your your escape plan you got money you're buying art he had a nice craftsman yeah right up here on wildwood yeah yeah and when oh really right up there right on wildwood that vaulted the rounded i don't know if you've seen that one at the very top up here here. It's like a Neutra case study home.

Oh, yeah? Yeah, great wife. Everything was going good. No kids. No kid. No kid. You're sober. This is around when I met you or no?

No, just before. No, this is before. Just before. Yeah. Just before it all went south. So what happened? And she came home and caught me smoking crack in the bathroom. I was trapped in the bathroom.

She said, if this happens again, we're done. She came home a couple of months later. Same thing happened. And I was like. She's sober. She's not sober, but she was not like me at all. If anything, probably had some Al-Anon stuff going on. And came home again and said, you need to go to detox.

I went into cry help to a detox. I left there after a couple of days. I didn't like the way the detox was going. That's a story in there. It's called Enterprise Will Pick You Up. They picked me up from the detox and rented me and a guy that I met in their car. Oh, really? Yeah, they'll pick you up wherever you are.

It's great. It was car. Oh, really? Yeah, they'll pick you up wherever you are. It's great. It was a pleasant experience, really. And ended up going to yet another rehab, this place Promises out in West LA. And we tried to work it out, but she was so done. You know when people are done and you're just- Oh, do I know when people are done? Yeah, I do.

I know the exact look of when people are done i know the moment it happens it's yeah you're good yeah i think you're better at that than i am and if you you're less delusional in that world really think about it well it only has to happen a couple of times yeah that's true that's true and and and you know and the thing is is that when you when you see that look it's the there's no nothing you can do. No. You've burned no more resources. No. No more bullshit.

You're right. No dance is going to change it. No amount of money, that's for sure. Oh, yeah? No promises, yeah. Oh, no, that's true, yeah. All right, so what happened? Thank you for taking me down this timeline

because it's so jumbled in my goddamn head sometimes. So I went there. I went to the sober living of promises and that's when i got the call from american data vault that look you gotta come and get everything out of your vault we're shutting down and i couldn't go home so i had probably about seven hundred thousand dollars in there get the fuck out of here why would i lie to you right i didn't have any drugs in there i had the phony id but i was like all right i'm not gonna have to go anywhere i this is i'm gonna figure out a way to do this can the irs come after me i don't know anyways i don't give a shit i bring the money back to the sober living my roommate nobody knows about

it i have it was in a duffel bag yeah it's in a like one of those big like college bags that you would wear put your computer it's a big bag it's a big backpack yeah and I have a roommate who's working for a major production company and I ask him if he can put me on the books as an associate producer producer and I give him like six to eight grand a week and he writes me checks and I slowly start legitimizing some of this money once again yeah and i just continue to do things like that and my wife leaves me and i go on yet another crack run and it's really bad it's really bad it's another really bad one thank god it only lasted a couple of months where's it where'd the money go i still had a lot of money

still had a lot of money in stock still had a lot of money. Still had a lot of money in stock, still had a lot of cash, and I bought that house that I was living in. The Wildwood house? Which was a big mistake. The Wildwood house? No, Edgecliff, right in the center of Silver Lake. That was in 2005. And I knew it was a big mistake.

Right in the middle of the peak of the fucking market? Well, here's what my delusional mind told me. If I buy this house and set it up really nicely, me and my wife will be back together and we'll have a rental. You know? So, yeah, I lost everything because I didn't have that hustle anymore. Obviously, I couldn't sell pills. That was done. I couldn't really trade stocks because the pills had given me that panache to do that yeah and everything just started swirling the drain man and it was a long

it started in about 2008 and it ended in 2010 when i had to short sell the house and i went through like years of poverty living i know and shitty jobs and getting excited about a script that i got paid for, which was a great experience now that I look at it. You know, this is an amazing thing to be here, and I was thinking of stuff

that even comes close to this, and it was doing an improv jam with Robin Williams. Two nights in a row, dude. Oh, at UCB? Yeah. When he was relapsing? When he was relapsing.

He was just a big sweaty mess, but like, what an experience. Because you were doing a lot of storytelling stuff. A lot of storytelling and improv really helped. My storytelling really helped put things in perspective. It put a positive twist on a lot of areas of my

life because I was just so dark and negative all the time. Yeah. But you were trying to, like, you know, once you got through the poverty and once you got, you know, sort sort of got back on your feet you were coming up with a lot of stuff you some pitches you had the the diamond uh store yeah that's still that's kind of out there circulating the marcus and company that's the story about my dad and that's we'll see who knows but i have that i have the you know the other was telling you about. I don't want to mention on here, but that one. Oh, the one. Yeah. Yeah.

Is it still out there? Actually, just got some really good notes from UTA. Yeah. Oh, good, good, good. So it's pretty exciting. It's pretty exciting. And then there's this other movie I'm working on now about my adventures of being a sober companion.

We're actually shooting it. Oh, the sober companion stuff. That's crazy. Oh, it's so good. You're going to love this thing. You're going to, like, this is the kind of movie that's right here. But that's crazy so good you're gonna love this thing you're gonna like this is the kind of that's a real job you do i think like that's something like i i mean it's hard to i mean that's a job like you know you get hired by people with money to basically stop them from putting things into their fucking mouths or their arms or whatever right what you're really

stopping them from doing is killing themselves because they're all going to get loaded they always get loaded i mean the weird thing is the message i got from this guy's dad was keep him alive which day and out of new york i can't tell you what it's right but like there's a client yeah the client and i went back to new york with him and it was just it was overwhelming like i've known people we all know people with money but this is like yeah one percenter yeah yeah we're like they're hosting hillary and you were hired by his father too i was hired through a company by the father to do that yeah but that but it's an interesting job because it's not so much about like you know the program it's it's really about like you know like this guy's he's on a death spiral yeah and you i mean you want them to be going to me he's supposed to take on the meetings supposed to do whatever but right

but it's not it's not it's not necessarily like this is not program uh condoned employment no it has nothing to do with a 12-step program whatsoever and when you are working with a guy who's you know in his mid-40s and really all he wants to do is impress his parents to get the trust fund the lamborghini the range rover back it's it's frightening and there is i think there is a disease of affluence some people call it white privilege whatever it may be that really drives that when somebody like this guy was brought up in this ridiculous amount of money mark like so you so you work on a on a film pitch about being a sober companion well actually i found a group of millennials these guys are

amazing they help me do so much creative stuff and we've already started shooting stuff we've got a proof of concept and a trailer oh great i'll send it when you have time i know you're not busy now but yeah i got a great group of guys and you got a good girlfriend now wife a wife you're married it's nice she's so amazing i really if there is a god she's a god i was very surprised at how you like you know watching you arc through those lean times and even lending you money in the back of my head thinking like what the fuck did i just wait i'm there and you were very very sober about getting it back to me of course and it was you know some issues there but i learned an important lesson your friendship's way more important to me like

i would rather be not having money and maybe living in the car than ever borrow money from a close friend again i don't want to go through that well the funny thing was is that when i did it you know people always tell you it's like no you don't expect to say goodbye to that but not just you anybody right of course you know and i don't know why i never thought that way but they they basically people say if someone has if someone needs money that badly right you're not gonna get back exactly and i've dealt with that with family members and stuff right and like i didn't want to accept it with you for some reason and for some reason whether it was belligerence because you know it did kind of cause a ripple in our friendship but you're like fuck him i'm gonna'm going to pay him back. Right.

Right. Did I, was I like that? I know, but I'm wondering if I was, no, it wasn't like that. I think there was actually more guilt about ever asking you and getting it in the first place.

Yeah. You know what I mean? But I learned early on not to loan people money. Well, that's the thing. You go up with a criminal, you learn not to loan. And if you do,

you have a guy that, you know, goes and collects it and deals with it the right way. Well, like when did your father die? He just passed last year, actually. I got to send you the picture

of this headstone. It's unbelievable. What does it say again? You know, it's a line out of Frank Sinatra, you know, the song My Way. Right.

And there's an auctioneer's gavel and a Rolex on the top of it, which is so perfect. And that's his wife, his last wife did that? Yeah, yeah. What was the line? And through it all, through the tears, through the laughter, I did it my way.

I'm like, okay, there was a lot of laughter. I don't remember the tears, but okay. But what did you, like, you know, like in writing the book, which is called Number One Son and Other Stories by Michael Marcus, you can get it on Amazon, huh? Yeah, I'll get it through Punk Hostage Press. Punk Hostage Press.

And there's a link to Amazon. But like, you know, in having the issues we have, like I've met your mother. She's come to see me work, you know, and I know that, you know, your sister's death brought you two together in a deeper way. Absolutely. And she's got a lot of sober years. And she's a great lady i met her but you know when you have an unrepentant father who who degenerated yeah right yeah like where did you leave it when he was conscious do you know like how like what happened to that

relationship was there any uh there was a little closure if that's what when he died but like what was your relation before he died i'll tell you um he was in a convalescent home for dementia and alzheimer's yeah people patients and about three years into that god he was there for a long time i think he was there six or seven years i went to visit him and I hung out in the room with him. There was like two beds and he had his own room. I was just kind of on the computer. I had jet lag. It was in Atlanta.

And he woke up in the middle of the night and he said, Michael, Michael. And I'm like, yes, I just want to apologize for everything I did to you and your sister. I kicked you to the curb through your drug problems. I took your mother's checks and never gave her child support i'm like yeah yeah yeah well i'm sorry and he went back to sleep and i was like if this is as good as it gets i guess it's a little better and that carried me it fucking carried me and then when he died this this this blossom of rage occurred that i really needed to get help with really yeah i think it was also the fact that i was working that sober companion job and i think that that kind of brought up some

re-triggered some trauma watching the dynamic between this guy and his dad and this guy and his family in general. And I probably should have taken some time off and just, you know, been proper about the grief and chill out. But I didn't leave the job. I just think a lot of things were triggered. I think that I definitely held on to some trauma and some stuff that I didn't even realize. And then when my dad was gone, it was like, it came up. What form did it take?

It came up. Is that when you relapsed no no no this was you went through this all sober yeah man i know i right because we were we were having a problem me and you when he died and then we didn't get to talk about it till after i think right that's right i had to put the dog down i was down the street i was mad at you because you didn't call me back i was putting my you know how i was with my dogs yeah like those were my last thread to my emotional beauty yeah yeah like when they were had a long time yeah yeah i just shut down you know and um i think it really came in the form of just completely shutting down not being emotionally involved to my wife relapse how'd you not relapse i don't know mark i kept going to meetings i went to therapy

i just i just kept doing this knowing your history yeah and i had a lot of money i was making you know you make good effing money doing that job man they pay you a thousand dollars a day whatever it is i don't know something must have happened that's the magic of the program grace it's grace yeah we get carried somehow through something that has nothing to do really with our actions. I really believe that. You can take all the action in the world. Yeah. If you have an obsession to get loaded, do crazy sex shit, eat a fucking sheet cake,

it's going to happen. Not like a sheet cake in Ben and Jerry's. Yeah. But did you do EMDR i didn't i didn't i really would like to experience that i have not done that yet i know i'll talk to him but but how did you like what did you do to process then what did you track it to what'd you track it to like you know you go in you shut down you know the rage and like yeah i can't be pretty with a guy like you the rage you're gonna you're at the verge of wrecking your marriage or the relationship.

It was, I mean, it wasn't, you know what? The thing is, is when I get that shut down, it's just I want to be alone. So, yes, I was at the verge of wrecking it in the form of just bowing out ungracefully and being like, I need to be alone, which has been my thing in every relationship. When something re-triggers that kind of trauma that mommy did, that dad did, that kind of shit. So- You had it from both sides. I mean, you're kind of on your own.

Both your parents were kind of spun out. Yeah, totally spun out. And between my dad and my mom, I had like nine different mother and father figures between their boyfriends girlfriends marriages whatever so what does that look like it looks like it looks like going to therapy it looks like not sharing really in meetings i never took this stuff to meetings i just didn't feel comfortable with it especially family familial stuff dad mom stuff um you started

doing the alan on more too yeah that really helped that really helped yeah and i also just accepted that i'm going to be a tightly wound fucking guy sometimes man and there's no way out of it but you don't have to be a criminal and you don't have to be an emotionally abusive freak no no i don't i gotta tell you something man you've you probably don't know it but you've definitely inspired me over the years because I remember before you started this I think you were having some suicidal ideation. I do those go spider in the drain Yeah, sitting out there on that porch on that patty on the right right there. It's writing things down calling everybody Yeah, dude, that's not good man man. Right. Fuck her. Right.

Of course. And what do we do? I mean, we get through that in some way, shape, or form. You do. You do. Yeah. It's like you don't, and there's no way to know it. No.

That you're going to. No, there is no way to know it. And sometimes it's just walking. Like, I walk a lot. It's so horrible. It's so horrible just to feel that you can't sleep right you know you're just fucking beating the shit out of yourself you're full of rage you can't function socially right yeah you know you know before i bet i met my wife a friend of my lived in vietnam a couple other guys from the program were going every year they'd go to

anchor watt they would do like really cool spiritual stuff, right? And I was like, that sounds like a good thing. Why don't I go to Southeast Asia as a single man? Like, and I wasn't thinking that, Mark. I promise. Compulsive sex problem, single man. And I definitely had a spiritual awakening to one of the grossest fucking bottoms I'd ever hit. awakening to one of the like the grossest fucking bottoms i'd ever hit is sexual addiction like it's so funny when you're in southeast asia and you're doing

all this crazy sexual behavior and i just met women everywhere and it wasn't even like prostitutes was hanging out in internet cafes yeah hey let's go to dinner yeah let's go back to the hotel it was so open and cool and very buddhist yeah like you're there and that's totally cool so framing it as a spiritual experience oh yeah man yeah you go to anchor watt you're sitting with a monk yeah then later on you're meeting this girl in a cafe yeah it's just it felt so natural there but when you're coming through customs at lax and you're back in america and you're back in like our place yeah the guilt and shame was so thick yeah and it lasted a while yeah and that fixing on sex on that level yeah like whether it was prostitutes or massage parlors

or fuck going down figueroa at you know after a meeting and picking up a girl in the corner was removed. It was totally removed. Now, is that because of the level of shame and guilt that I don't want to re-experience? I think it's a lot more than that. I think there's something that separates me from that because my last bottom with anything will not remind me not to do that thing again.

Do you know what I mean? I know I get you but yeah but there but but there is something to to like once you get the space to integrate you know the shame and to uh you know make an amends or let that shit go a bit wisdom does kick in we're middle-aged guys yeah fuck's sake yeah and and we're sober guys so you know once you find you're you're you're fucking compulsive in this other area at least you know the framework of how it works yeah right yeah so yeah you're right so so maybe it is nippeting in the bud before really falling for that trick again yeah but those things right you know the things with

sex and food is that you you need them both yeah you know you have booze and drugs you don't need either that's true so so you're negotiating with that stuff and i think that you need them both. Yeah. You know, you have booze and drugs you don't need either. That's true. So you're negotiating with that stuff. And I think that as we get space and as you get older and as you're not fucked up on the other stuff, you're like, that got a little out of hand. Right, right, right. That almost went to a bad place, you know? Yeah, yeah.

I think you're right. Between doing the work, whatever the work looks like, whether it's some therapeutic stuff or just an accountability thing I do with a couple of guys on a thread every day. Yeah're right. Between doing the work, whatever the work looks like, whether it's some therapeutic stuff or just an accountability thing I do with a couple of guys on a thread every day. Right. And, you know, just a little more self-care. And the obsession does get lifted. But the weird thing with any of them, they can get reactivated.

Yeah. And, you know, with porn or with sex or whatever, you know, it's not the same as going to buy crack or smoking. You know, it's not the same. going to buy crack or smoking, you know, it's not the same as going to get dope or getting fucked up on booze. Don't have to leave your house. Yeah,

yeah, you gotta create your own little, you don't have to, there's no, you don't need anything, you don't need to put anything into the system.

No. Other than into your fucking eyeballs. Right. Right, and then you just got a little shame portal, a little shame compartment. Right, right, yeah, I don't want to go down that road again. I don't want to go back shame portal, a little shame compartment. Right.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. I don't want to go down that road again. I don't want to go back. Well, I'm glad you're still alive, man. I'm glad you're doing all right. I am too.

And I really appreciate this. Can I give a little shout out? Not a shout out. Can I tell people when the launch party is? It's 1-21-18 at Stories Books Cafe. January 21st? 2018. Yeah.

Definitely. And congrats on the book. Thank you. All right, buddy. Thanks, buddy. So that's it. That's our little in-between Christmas

and New Year's show. Monday's show will be a special collection of moments with my family. Spend New Year's Day with the Marins. On Thursday, we'll have our first

new show of 2018 with tanahasi coats uh great conversation so uh do i play guitar now do i do i do i play a little all right all right all right i'll turn on okay i'll do a little Thank you. Boomer lives! Be careful out there. Tonight for the whole family, be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5 p.m. in Rock City at torontorock.com. Calgary is a city built by innovators. Innovation is in the city's DNA. in Rock City at torontorock.com. goods and people and better health solutions, Calgary's visionaries are turning heads around the globe, across all sectors, each and every day. Calgary's on the right path forward. Take a closer look how at calgaryeconomicdevelopment.com.