Mark Falkin Is Ridiculously Busy, Patient, Productive

FALKIN: And I am someone with some decent frickin’ advice, because I don’t have any today.

IST: Well would it be YOU popping out of this box, or …

FALKIN: Me and much wisdom 22 years from now, yes.

IST: [?]…

FALKIN: Yep.

IST: [eagle still not landing] ….

FALKIN: Yes it all gets to go to her.

IST: [concept finally sinking in] Well, wow. That’s pretty heavy there. So approaching the whole book thing and having a daughter, how is that, I mean it seems to me that with being a first time author, perhaps I am bit biased, but wouldn’t that person be someone who is freewheeling? Trying to do that with a child is, I mean, being a father is really weighty venture.

FALKIN: I actually got more serious about writing the book after my wife got pregnant, and even more so after my daughter was born.

IST: Oh really?

FALKIN: With all the difficulties involved with that, having an infant in the house, the crazy hours. Somehow that crazy sleeplessness, getting up at 5 o’clock in the morning, it fueled all that. I know it sounds bizarre.

IST: Very bizarre.

FALKIN: I don’t know but it started a fire. Made me into something of an insomniac. Figured that since I’m getting up at 5am to feed the baby anyway, might as well get to the office at 5:45 and write until 8am. It just kind of made me want to do it more, I guess.

IST: That’s pretty much the opposite of what I would have assumed.

FALKIN: What do you mean?

IST: I mean, considering all the exhaustion and whatnot, you wouldn’t want to just dedicate your time to writing a book. Right? From a provider’s point of view, you could be selling shit on Ebay instead of writing a book. Or maybe working a second job.

FALKIN: Yeah, but I want to show my daughter what I am.

IST: [aha!] Part of your legacy.

FALKIN: Sure. I want my kid to know that I did something that I wanted to do. I’m not going to see Burning Man with her or anything, I mean…

[an uproar of shared laughter]

FALKIN: Or whatever that means. But I’m not doing it during banker’s hours. So I definitely work toward my family, but I have my passions, the things I want to do, and I want her to have hers. And if I don’t follow mine, then how is she going to follow hers?

IST: IST: Right. So part of this is meant to be inspirational for her?

FALKIN: Absolutely. Totally.

IST: And possibly part of the advice that pops out of the Christmas gift she gets when she’s 22.

FALKIN: Right. “young woman, do what you will. Listen not to the others”

IST: Take your days of grace, when they take you. Because you don’t want to be…

FALKIN: Take out that list of bad jokes, as Ian did.

IST: But it was even better when he went through the “are you depressed?” list!

FALKIN: Oh, on the way to Chicago?

IST: Yeah, yeah when he went to the gas station and…

FALKIN: There was a blackout happening and he’s waiting for gas, [inaudible discussion of a certain scene in book, which boils down to a brief summary of when the main character ends up stranded at a gas station, finds a leaflet counting/describing the standard indicators of depression, and he sarcastically tears each one apart with ruthless and hilarious glee]

IST: There’s a certain world-weary quality to the way characters are described in Days of Grace, and they way that they describe themselves. As if no one really takes themselves too serious, and that they all know how wonderfully absurd their whole existence is even though they work like hell to accomplish things. Where you that smart-ass kid in high school who never worked with any real urgency, that laid back guy who everyone assumed had things “all figured out”?

FALKIN: Certainly the smart-ass kid description applies. I’ll cop to that. But I’m not sure I didn’t work with urgency. And I don’t think anyone ever considered me to be someone who had it all figured out. I know I certainly didn’t, and still don’t. I don’t know what that means, to have it all figured out. Laid back? How do you define that, I mean, does that mean not Type A? Well, then I’m probably relatively laid back. But I don’t feel so laid back. I mean, there’s a part in the book where Ian takes and dissects a depression test while Chicago browns out in the distance. I think that sort of self-questioning, self-deprecation and viewing things as absurd exists in me.

On the use of personal experience in writing a book.

IST: Ian’s loss of family, both physically and metaphorically, are huge motivators in his decision to set off on the journey that makes up Days of Grace. How did you pull his reactions from within your own?

FALKIN: I’m not sure it was a mechanical thing, deliberate. I just put Ian in a situation similar to mine and extrapolated. I’ve always seen the book as: What if my doppelganger quit law school and just dropped out of what we think to be normal society for a while? What could happen? It’s a first-person narrative and it’s a first book so there’s me in there, sure. Is Ian me? I don’t think so. Was Holden Caulfield Salinger necessarily? Ask him. But he’s probably hard to find and not talking.

IST: Tell us a little bit about the Cancer Fundraiser that you are currently working on/with, which has obvious links and roots back to the basis for the travels chronicled in Days?

FALKIN: Oh, it’s just a self-guided thing. I am not formally working with any foundation. I’ve just stated in the past that any net proceeds from the sale of the book will go to the American Cancer Society. But now, my sister informs me that she is running a half marathon in the spring for Team In Training and is raising money for blood cancer victims. I thought I’d glom on to her and offer a “buy the book, have it signed by the author, make a donation” package thing. I can buy them cheaper, at cost. So if anyone wants to donate to her, that’s great. If they want to donate and get something tangible, a book, there you go.

IST: Fair enough. If you were going to be a world leader at any point in time, any period in time, what would you do, especially knowing what they didn’t know.

FALKIN: I would be a world leader pretend. Like in the REM song. Which is pretty much what we have now, going on. And I would try really hard to get people to think more than they do. Don’t just follow my lead you silly lemmings. Think. Or, because that makes little sense, I’d step into Hitler’s shoes and just end the Reich really early on. Just admit to being a frustrated painter and live with it.

IST: World leader pretend… I could imagine myself being a mongol horde leader of some sort. You know, one that wasn’t necessarily in history, but you knew really affected it.

FALKIN: It would involve a helmet with some sort of horns?

IST: Fur. Lots of fur.

FALKIN: A pitchfork, and you’re like “ahhhhhh!”

IST: A human bone. Bones.

FALKIN: Yeah.

IST: But they wouldn’t be part of history because they didn’t really write it themselves.

FALKIN: [genuinely confused] Who?

IST: The Mongol hordes.

FALKIN: Right, because they had no written system.

IST: Yes. I mean, the only written history of them is when one of the populations they invaded was like “holy shit, who the fuck are these people!” They’re fucking crazy, and I don’t think there are any women in the population, they’re all dudes. And they’re really fucking angry.

FALKIN: Yes.

IST: But they changed a-lot of history, we just don’t know exactly what.

FALKIN: [gets the point, but is unsure that it belongs here] …

IST: [thinking about how cool Mongol Hordes are] …

FALKIN: I’ll go for the more geeky answer, with the World Leader Pretend. I don’t know what that means.

IST: [quick gear change] Did you drink a-lot of Welch’s as a kid?

FALKIN: Yeah. When you put the sticks in the ice tray…

IST: And they made little grape-sicles!

FALKIN: Yeah!

IST: OH YEAH!

FALKIN: What about you? What was your favorite Koolaid flavor?

IST: I haven’t actually thought about that. We pretty much just had diet, caffeine-free Coke. I’d drink it warm like, fuck it.

FALKIN: In the eighties? Diet caffeine-free coke? I had no idea they had that back then.

IST: They did.

FALKIN: I did not know that.

IST: And Cherry coke.

FALKIN: Okay then. Oh, you probably liked New Coke when it came out, right?

IST: No. Not at all. It tasted like Pepsi to me. But you could probably sell one of those cans of New Coke on Ebay right now and make a mint.

FALKIN: Okay, I need to turn the tables on you for a minute here. You’ve mentioned Ebay twice now. I have to ask, do you trade on Ebay or something?

IST: No, not at all. [totally true] It’s just part of our modern lingo at this point. The world’s garage sale.

FALKIN: Two things I know nothing about, even though I should as a modern citizen, are Ebay and Tivo. Don’t know what the hell they are.

IST: Well Ebay is, like I said, the world’s garage sale. And Tivo is like…

FALKIN: I just got digital cable with the DVR functionality.

IST: Well that’s pretty much it right there.

FALKIN: Just learning though.

IST: [with gusto] Learning.

FALKIN: [clarifying] I’m learning.

IST: [same gusto] Learning.

[long, semi-awkward pause, leading into semi-awkward question, expertly fielded]

IST: If you were a superhero, what would you want your superpower to be?

FALKIN: Could I copy one?

IST: Well you could, but I’d think you’d want to name your own.

FALKIN: If I could be a superhero, and could have a power…

IST: Think of the nemesis too. That’s really where it’s at. Got to have a counter-power out there.

FALKIN: Sure. The power would be like, to… Truth Guy. So I could spread pixie dust of truth. So if I’m in this group with you, alakazam, these people are going to speak the truth. So I could go to the UN, The White House, the Kremlin. This is getting really political… or Darfur. I could go to the places that really matter and just [whipping sound] ‘you WILL tell the truth’.

IST: But when you get up to those high-up political situations, don’t you think things get a little dicey?

FALKIN: What do you mean?

IST: Like a legal definition of the word “is” kind of thing.

FALKIN: No, not at all. That would be the power, as it would be absolute perfect crystalline truth. Maybe that makes things hard, but…

IST: But you’re a lawyer! You know how slippery these things are.

FALKIN: Maybe that’s why I want that specific power. Take out the slippage. Truth itself is not slippery. Getting to it is. Lots of banana peels thrown in the path.

IST: But I mean, the truth is not as absolute as we’d like it to be.

FALKIN: Well, the truth is the truth. You’re wearing a leather coat. I’m wearing a red shirt.

IST: Oh. [he had us on that one]

FALKIN: That’s the kind of truth I’m talking about. Factual truth.

IST: [in whiney protest] But…

FALKIN: [with skillful interruption, probably taught in lawyer school] THAT’S MY POWER. It’s not perfect.

IST: [continuing to whine] Right. But it’s…

FALKIN: [with the final shut-down] It’s NOT perfect.

IST: I know, I know. [with sarcastic authority] You’ve got five seconds to answer me these questions three!

FALKIN: The nemesis would be the guy who inflicts the impulse upon people to lie. All lies matter, but especially when it matters most But not just with politics. There are always situations where people say something that isn’t true, which effects someone other than themselves.

IST: Right.

FALKIN: And if you had the power to step in and correct that, there you’d have the opportunity.

IST: One last question: Kerbey or Magnolia?

FALKIN: Kerbey. Cute, tattooed girls with matted dreadlocks serving you migas. I suppose you can get that at Magnolia, but…