If at Birth You Don't Succeed (18 page)

For all our differences of opinion, Mark had always been my most steadfast supporter, never failing to go above and beyond by helping me with homework assignments or school projects far beyond the scope of his own interests in
That's Awesome!
So when he approached me to be in a short film for his Intro to Digital Narrative class, I knew that I owed him one.

His inspiration for the story came from a nervous tic I had whenever I flubbed a line. Unable to enunciate clearly, I reset by making a motorboat noise, just going, “Bluh-ruh-ruh-blub-buh!” For some reason Mark thought it was hysterical and he had written a part for me that used this singular talent. In the same way that Quentin Tarantino wrote a
Pulp Fiction
character specifically for John Travolta or how Wes Anderson revamped Bill Murray's career with
Rushmore
, it was a true honor to have somebody create a role based on your ability as an actor. I was excited, until he told me the title.

“It's called
The Retard
,” he said, “but it's not what you think. Basically, the premise is, you're chasing my friend Nick around making all these ridiculous noises and he's frightened of you, and the whole time the audience thinks that you're this retard, but it ends up that you're just trying to give him the meal that he accidentally left at Wendy's. So when the credits roll, your character is The Stranger and Nick's character is The Retard.”

“I'm not sure that's as strong a social commentary as you think it is,” I said.

“C'mon, dude, it'll be really funny!” he pleaded.

I had several issues with the story, the first of which was who really forgets an entire meal at Wendy's when they've just gone to Wendy's to get said meal? Participating in a project that made fun of the intellectually disabled was bad enough, but then tacking on some credits and pretending like the whole thing had been a brave and bold statement made it even worse. Naturally I said, “Absolutely not!” and explained that he had to come up with a new idea, because I had dignity and morals. I said that in my mind anyway, but in real life I just went ahead and reluctantly filmed it, and then complained to all my other friends instead of bringing up my issues to Mark directly. Real spineless-like. On that day, I revealed myself as not only a douche bag but a jellyfish as well.

All this unvoiced dissent came to a head during the meeting before what would become our last Open Screen Night. Mark was insistent that we bring the three clips he'd chosen, but none of the rest of us thought they were particularly funny. When Mark steamrolled our opinions and said he was going to show them anyway, because “funny is funny,” one of my other new friends, Jesse, flew off the handle.

“You're not a dictator, Mark! I think what you're doing is exploitative and Zach doesn't want you to show those clips,” Jesse fumed.

I sat in silence. I'd been able to perfectly articulate my problems with Mark to everyone but Mark, and now the cat was out of the bag. Hurt, Mark took the segments to Open Screen Night without me. One of the clips that made me uncomfortable was a commercial for a fictional tracking device you could put on your children called “The Third Eye.” In the ad, I gave a testimonial saying something like, “It worked out great because we found them. Unfortunately, they were already dead.” To Mark's surprise, the segment was booed and stopped at the Drafthouse. He didn't know what the difference was between this and all my other offensive clips, but I did. The testimonial had been shot from the waist up and the framing cropped out my wheelchair. To the audience, I was not a disabled guy being irreverent; I was just a distasteful jerk making light of a horrific scenario. My golden ticket had been revoked.

I planned to quit
That's Awesome!
live on television at the end of a bit we were doing in a send-up of the movie
Dr. Strangelove
. I'd be sitting behind a desk, and as we signed off, I'd let the audience know that this was my last episode. Then I'd use my arm strength to stand up and exclaim, “Oh my God, I can walk!” and we'd cut to archival footage of a nuclear bomb going off. That was supposed to be the end. But when the time came, I got cold feet; it would have been completely unfair to Mark. I knew I had to confront him before someone else spoke on my behalf, but when I called him, it was clear that he already knew something was up.

The setting for our final showdown was not in a desert at sunset or on the top of some picturesque snowy mountain, but at the Pita Pit on Guadalupe Street. It's an unassuming place where students go to grab a bite between classes, an eatery whose mascots are cartoons of animals as well as personified versions of the meat they're cooked into, smiling side by side. There were two freshmen working behind the counter, unwittingly about to become the audience for an impassioned three-hour-long breakup of a bromance.

It started with terse hellos. Neither of us ordered anything besides sodas, and even though Mark looked like he was ready to knock me out, he still put the lid on my drink and got me a straw, knowing that I'd spill it on myself otherwise. When he sat down, he had one question.

“I want you to be honest with me,” he said. “Were you planning to quit at the end of last week's episode?”

I wasn't gonna be able to sugarcoat it, so I just replied with a meek and simple “Yes.”

“Why do I have to hear that from somebody else?” he demanded.

I didn't have a good answer for him because the honest one was that I was a coward.

“I worked nonstop on this show for a year and a half and always put you first,” he went on, “and you can't even tell me to my face that you're quitting? Dude, I only made this show because of you! I wanna be making action movies! And I put that all on the back burner because I think that you have a better shot than anyone I know of getting famous.”

“Mark,” I said, “I feel like a scapegoat. We're not making anything
good
. And nobody else's opinion matters but yours, but I'm the one people
see
. I'm responsible for whatever's on TV. You're not the only one who works on this show—there's a LOT of people.”

“But none of them work as hard as me. And just because you don't like something doesn't give you the right to stab me in the back!” he shouted.

What followed was an unleashing of every grievance the two of us had ever had over the past year and a half. Now certain that I would burn the bridge of our friendship to the ground, I told him how I felt exploited so that he could look better in front of girls, and that I had a huge problem with his commandeering of Open Screen Night.

“And another thing,” I said, impassioned, “I'm ashamed of
The Retard
!”—a sentiment that would have benefited from further explanation for the uncomfortable Pita Pit staff.

“Uh, can I get you guys anything else?” asked a nervous teenager as he tried to take away our tray without making eye contact.

“If me leaving the show means that you keep doing it, I'll leave,” Mark said emphatically, ignoring the scrawny server in his monogrammed visor cap. “Whatever you do, don't call it
That's Awesome!
anymore. It's a show that I created and if I have no control over the quality, I don't want my name associated with it.”

I told him I wasn't going to change the name because I thought that it would be disrespectful to all the other people who worked on the show.

We both left the Pita Pit as bitter and spiteful individuals. After that conversation, I contemplated how I'd gotten into this whole mess. If I had just been frank with Mark from the beginning, this meeting might have been a friendly chat instead of an all-out verbal brawl. But in an effort to be liked and avoid confrontation, I'd become somebody I didn't even like—a backstabber and a hypocrite.

If for no other reason than to prove a point, we continued making
That's Awesome!
without Mark for one more semester. The production value was higher, the sketches were better, but it was still lacking in any good judgment. After our last episode aired, I confided in Chris that I thought our work on
That's Awesome!
was self-centered and that I knew I could and should be doing something more meaningful. I wasn't sure how yet, but I knew I needed to chart a new course.

Mark and I rarely saw each other for the remainder of our time at UT, and when we did, I couldn't make Mark laugh anymore. In the years between
That's Awesome!
and Oprah, I came to the conclusion that, for me at least, humor without humanity isn't worthwhile. In my
That's Awesome!
days I thought I was using humor to break down barriers, but in reality I was only building walls. It took me years to figure out the difference: laughing at somebody is just another way of dismissing them, but laughing
with
somebody is a bridge to understanding.

Sometimes you can only find your boundaries after you've crossed them. I'm just grateful that my moral compass got calibrated in the age just before YouTube could make my worst gaffs immortal. I often get asked for advice by young YouTubers starting out on their own channels, and I always tell them, “Make sure you know what you want to say before you start, because everything you put online lives forever.” My generation was the last one to have the luxury of growing up without social media. I was able to learn from my mistakes rather than become defined by them, and for me, that made all the difference.

When my Oprah audition went viral, Mark was one of the first people I called to thank. We may have had different sensibilities, but I never doubted that he wanted to see me succeed. In the time since
That's Awesome!
, I've transitioned from an insult comic who made dick jokes to an inspirational leader (who still occasionally makes dick jokes). I've become known as much for my positive spirit as I am for my work, but the truth is that being positive is not an inherent trait of mine, but rather a choice. I've grown out of using my voice to be loud and obnoxious and learned to only speak up when I have something meaningful to say. It's easy to get a laugh by making fun of stereotypes, but it's much more rewarding when you can use that same humor to bring people together. So I do a lot less shouting and a lot more listening these days.

Over the course of my time at UT, Austin became home and I went on to produce other shows and shorts that I can still watch today without cringing. My brother Brad moved down a year after I did, excited by the work I was doing there. He never formally enrolled in UT but got a job, moved into an apartment, and starting collaborating on shoots with my classmates and me. Later, a handful of us formed a comedy troupe called Lark the Beard. Among our many projects was a mockumentary series called
The Wingmen
, which you can still watch on YouTube.

The last time I visited the University of Texas, students stopped me on campus, but it wasn't so that I could spout vulgar one-liners—they stopped me to say “Thank you.” Winning the Oprah competition had given me the opportunity to divvy up a $100,000 donation to charities of my choice, and after hearing that the TV station at UT was struggling, I gave a large portion of that money to them. My time producing
That's Awesome!
provided me with a safe place to experiment, define, and refine myself into not just a persona but a person. Giving back to a place that was so important in the development of my voice and values was an opportunity I couldn't pass up.

Roaming the white halls of the comm building, it didn't seem like much had changed. There were still stacks of VHS tapes, corkboards with newspaper clippings about the station, and posters for all the current student-run shows.
That's Awesome!
was still one of them. They'd changed their slogan from “Something to Offend Everyone” to “We're a Comedy Show That's Really Lacking in Comedy, and 98% of Our Fans Are Usually Vomiting.” I had no idea what this incarnation of
That's Awesome!
was like, but part of me was glad that Mark and I had started a legacy so that other lost Longhorns could have their own creative experiences to fondly regret down the road. As I made my way down to the end of the hall, there wasn't a plaque or a bust but a laminated sheet of paper taped on the door that read, “The Unofficial Zach Anner Studio.” It was fitting because, even though I never officially got a degree, it's fair to say that behind that door is where I completed my most valuable education.

 

CHAPTER 10

Hope, Salad, and Breadsticks

August 23, 2014, was Andrew's anniversary with his girlfriend of six years and they'd be celebrating with an intimate twelve-course meal at a five-star restaurant, followed by a night at a four-star hotel with a rooftop pool in the heart of Boston. This was no ordinary dinner but a six-hour-long journey through a parade of culinary pleasures so extravagant and delicious that it would make the lords of Downton Abbey feel like hot dog vendors at Fenway Park. The meal would begin with an amuse-bouche of cantaloupe foam and rhubarb
macarons
, and progress through a smorgasbord of immaculately prepared and artfully displayed delicacies, all illuminated by glowing candlelight.

A processional of pampering waitstaff would float to the table with the precision of dancers waltzing at a royal wedding, removing each dirty dish with the same smoothness of the cucumber ice cream they'd return with only moments later. For each course, the sommelier would meticulously detail the origins of the wine pairing, listing its characteristics as though they were milestones of a best friend receiving a lifetime achievement award. The notes of chocolate and robust bouquet of the Madeira would perfectly complement the foie gras with Black Mission fig, smoked almond polvorón, and arugula. To someone with a less refined palate, it could also be described as having a general wine-like flavor with some sugar in it that distracts you from the gross alcohol-iness, but still makes you long for a Sprite.