Hold Me Like a Mama — My Intimate Conversation with Duncan Trussell
I fell in love with Duncan Trussell about three years ago, listening to his ramblings on the infamous Joe Rogan podcast. His raspy voice — an angel’s soft whispers filtered through a scruffy beard — filled my ears long enough to make me extremely excited to watch his new Netflix cartoon, The Midnight Gospel. When I found out he made it with Adventure Time’s Pendleton Ward, and was converting his own podcast, DTFH, into it, I made everyone who was around me plop down and watch the entire thing with me. After hour eight, tears were streaming down my face and I was brainstorming ways I could talk to the brilliant wizard behind it. Somehow, I got to him.
Me: “My sister and I are really big fans of your show” I said to Duncan confidently over the phone.
Duncan: “Oooooh!” Duncan said in his magic voice. “Thank you so much.”
I told him a little bit about my ideas for the article. He was so quiet in his listening I felt like a teacher who had just figured out how to master a kindergartener.
Me: “Totally get it if you’re uncomfortable, but I did have some ideas for a six-feet-apart-photoshoot that I would pay for, obviously. (I failed to mention that I actually was going to bribe one of my friend’s with an expensive camera into it, but I figured since his agent was still listening, I would tap into my I-am-very-professional-and-know-what-a-401k-is-kind-of-voice)
He paused and I felt my insecurity level rise again. . .the blue checkmark next to Duncan’s name turn into an inflated monster that plopped itself down on my head to show dominance.
Duncan: “Well, I’m not going anywhere until I can see my barber” Duncan said.
I relief-laughed and with my hands in the air said “Alright. I understand. Let me know.”
Duncan: “I mean I haven’t looked this bad since Burning Man”
Me: “I’m sure you look great — ”
“Thank you”
“ — but okay, I understand”
Me: “The first question I have for you is about your podcast. Why wasn’t, or isn’t there video to it?”
Duncan: “Well maybe this is just a superstitious assessment of things, but I feel like I can get more of an intimate interview with people if there aren’t cameras involved.”
Me: “When you reflected back on your podcast, or listened back, did your brain ignite a mirage of cartoons that popped up like a movie. . . or was the development of your show more of an organic growth?”
Duncan: “Organic growth for sure. You know, I did Marc Maron’s podcast once and we were standing in his kitchen, and he gave me this hilarious look. . . he’s like ‘what’s your agenda today?’ It was a joke, but you know I realized he was acknowledging something that I knew which was that, the less you have an agenda going into the sort of podcast that I do the better the conversation becomes. . .”
Me: “Mmmmm”
Duncan paused to hear the completion of my m’s before continuing.
Duncan: “. . .And I’ve found that if I’m interviewing somebody and I’m looking to get them to say something or I’m looking for some catharsis, it at the very least creates some kind of psychic blatancy between me and the moment, which really I think reduces the possibility for any kind of epiphanies to be caught. That’s all a podcast really is, you’re just in a room with someone fishing for epiphanies. But you can’t catch one by hoping to catch one — its a paradox.”
Duncan spoke more wisdom like this, and I was absolutely certain, after a while, that I was speaking to a real life angel — just masked as a scruffy, hilarious, brilliant type of sorcerer. I thought for a second that maybe the reason he wanted the haircut was so no one would find out he was Jesus. He talked about how he met Pendelton, the development of his show, the gratitude and sacred feelings he holds over the place that allowed him to be a truly free creative.
Duncan: “Oh good news! My wife just texted me, wait hold on. . .oh holy shit. . . what a coincidence, my wife just texted me that some fancy hairdresser that’s friends with one of her illumanti friends will come over and cut my hair.”
I chuckled and thanked the universe that I might actually get to meet this human in person. Duncan continued to explain the complexity of the first episode that set the tone for the rest of the show.
Duncan: “Amazing. Anyway, we did not want to dumb [the show] down. And we knew that by making that decision it was going to make it a little less accessible to people who want to know what’s happening right away, but we were thinking David Lynch films, where you’re just thrown into some bizarre world, and you have to figure it out, like a puzzle.”
Me: “Okay, so let’s go into the, well, okay, yeah let’s go into one of the episodes, and I think I’m gonna have to ask you about the last one cause it was just so emotional to me.”
I could hear Duncan smile through the phone.
“You and your mom have this relationship that is depicted in the show that is just so jovial, and silly, and then it taps back down into such deep meaning, and then it goes back to silliness, and then back to deep and spiritual. What was your relationship like to your mom prior to that podcast (that was turned into the episode)?”
Duncan: “Uh, well it was complex. And I think anybody’s relationships with their parents is going to be somewhat complex. . . and mine was with my mom, but that version that we recorded, I mean that’s her soul talking. We’d always have those conversations when we would have dinner together, we would always end up in these philosophical conversations about the universe. She was a really, really deeply spiritual fast, interested person. She was really, really interested in what it was to exist as a human, which probably informed her decision to become a therapist.
I was a really unruly teenager, so I didn’t want to hear much of her spiritual stuff. And I think that parents, when they’re dealing with [that], have this desire to do something to temper the chaos of their kid. So, my mom did try to share Ram Dass with me, and Jack Cornfield, people who later became my friends from the podcast, and you know I would just pretend to her that I would have no interest in it, but still, I would be listening. So it was always complex, but as she got closer to dying we became really, really close. And in that final episode, that’s what you’re hearing — me and her coming to terms that were gonna have to say goodbye.”
I was struck by his trust to confide in me, and the internet for that matter. I suddenly became okay if we never got to meet in real life.
Me: “There were little animation decisions that were different from all of the episodes. You were touching your mom’s back almost the whole time — I don’t remember you really touching any of the other characters as much. And then, maybe I was just confused, but you didn’t go into the portal did you? Do you want to talk a little but about those decisions you made that made it different?”
Duncan: “Yeah! Well that episode, I always knew we were gonna do it. And I had some ideas about how to sort of visually. . .I mean, when your parents are dying — are your parents still around?
Me: “Yes”
Duncan: “In this dimension?”
Me: “They are”
Duncan: “Great! When your parents are dying,”
Me: “Mhmm”
Duncan again made sure to pause and acknowledge my listening to the fullest extent of my “mmms.”
Duncan: “There are so many different dimensions of truth that you are experiencing, the primary one being: I have to say goodbye to the people I have known the longest.
The implicit reality is that you’re going to the same place, it’s just that their flight is coming a little sooner than yours.”
I giggled at the cold metaphorical truth, with tears brewing from a place deep within me.
Duncan: “You’re both in the airport! Regardless, one of the visions I had [for the episode] was a moon orbiting a planet, the planet being pulled into a black hole, and the moon having to say goodbye to the planet. So I had some ideas like that that I told Pendelton over tequila, crying, as we’re realizing how we’re gonna have to figure out how to do the last episode, that there’s no way I’m going to be able to be hands on like I was with the other episodes, cause it was gonna put all of the animators, and anyone involved in it, in a really potentially uncomfortable situation cause I still can’t watch that episode without crying.”
Me: Mmmm. I wasn’t sure if I actually said that one aloud. But suddenly, I felt a pang. . .a need for a glass of tequila and a way to let out about a thousand tears. Somehow, I became him, as if I too was losing my mom. His words held my hand and took me to a place of real-time emotion. My heart throbbed as if I was losing her. I needed to be held.
Duncan: “I can’t even listen to that podcast without crying, and sometimes I’ll just start thinking about her and start crying. So, Pendelton, I mean, that was him making those decisions. . .I remember he sent me the idea for what it was, and I can remember reading those beats and thinking ‘man, I just don’t get this at all, but I sure trust Pendleton,’ cause by then I knew he was a genius.”
Me: “Yeah I mean, those animations in that episode, when you’re walking past and staring at all of those crazy bears who were practicing nonsense on babies, and you both were just staring and she was letting you observe, with you, without even blinking an eye. Was that supposed to be a testament to her devotion to you, her non-questioning? Or am I reading too much into that?”
Duncan: “That’s exactly what that was — that’s a great interpretation of that. One of the things I love about The Midnight Gospel is that it’s a kind of tarot card. I think there’s a lot of archetypes in it, but I do know that since we’re all sort of facing our mortality whether we like it or not, I do think folks see things in there that — not to imply that that’s something in you or to say something so pretentious as that —
Me: “No, I think you’re right”
Duncan: “But I don’t want to rob you or anyone of their interpretation”
Me: “You’re absolutely right. Maybe I’m just saying that cause the people in my life have barely questioned all the crazy shit I’ve done — ”
Duncan: “ — And that’s a good parent”
Duncan went on about the importance and pain in letting a child be free, and I smiled, hard and warm, at the realization of his accurate interpretation of my childhood. . .and the parallel between ours.
Me: “You just had a baby right?”
Duncan: “Yes”
I said the obligatory robotic society-induced “congratulations,” a blip in our deep flow before I tapped back into necessary insanity.
Me: “What did your mom teach you about being a parent?”
Duncan: “This is the spectacularly weird thing about that episode, that podcast — I kinda feel like she was aware of how heartbroken I was that she was leaving us and that I really wasn’t in a place where I was gonna be in the place where I could ask her the things I want to ask her now. . .cause I think she just filled that episode up, where in a way I can, if I want to, call her up so to speak via watching that episode.”
Me: “Was she alive when your baby was born?”
Duncan: “No. She uh — no.”
I took a second to understand the depth of my question, but his angelic wizard rumbles stopped me mid-thought.
Duncan: “But yeah, and God, this is like one of the biggest — there’s so many different qualities of tragedy when you lose a parent — but that’s one of the biggest ones for me is that, uh. . .I don’t get to see her be a grandmother. And that’s really tough but. . .everything is perfect, and even though that perfection is heartbreaking, it’s that heartbreak that is my connection to her.
“And. . .well, if you want to hear something really crazy. . .” Duncan went on for a while about feeling his mother’s spirit still to this day, about knowing inherently, through her, the right answer when it comes to parenting. His articulate, scratchy speech left me with smile-tears. I felt like a softer version of the Joker.
“So I’m not saying I speak to my ghost mommy when I want to know whether or not we should take my baby to the doctor. . .but I do feel her love, still to this day, just as much as I did when she had a body”
Me: “I don’t think that’s crazy at all”
Duncan: “Cool.”
We chuckled again and smiled through the phone. I no longer felt like I was a teacher. . .suddenly we were both kindergarteners sitting criss-cross applesauce staring at each other, drooling and giggling between discoveries.
Me: “There’s moments in the show where you look up to women, or female characters, for advice, almost as if you’re ‘asking for a friend,’ asking what ‘those people’ can do to climb out of that mess. Can you speak a little more to your coincidental, or intentional vulnerability towards specifically women depicted in those episodes?”
Duncan: “Woah. Yeah, well during the production of the show my wife gave birth, and my God. There’s a few different backstage passes to the universe that I know of. One of them is sitting with people that are dying, the other is sitting with people who are giving birth, and the other is — well there’s many. . .psychedelics of course — but you get this glimpse into something that is so powerful, and watching my wife give birth and then watching the resilience of the mother, of the feminine and just getting mind blown by that, and then understanding how slanted things are right now. . .it’s like what Terrance Mckenna called ‘dominator culture.’ There’s an authentic agenda to not share the pain women were put through to bring us here. If that wasn’t the case, we would have to move from the dominator culture into what Terrance Mckenna called ‘the partnership culture’
So anyway, blah blah blah. The vulnerability you’re talking about with Clancy, and what I was talking about with my mom. . .which by the way, I think during that conversation, I didn’t realize I was talking about me. I think I was in such a lofty state of hubris that when I was asking her that I was like ‘but the other ones out there. . I’m fine!’. . .I really think that!”
We both laughed like we had just realized we got Crayola marker all over our clothes.
He spoke for a minute about his admiration of how she let him go on and on about ‘other people’. . . fully understanding the depth of her son’s broken state, in acceptance of humoring him.
Duncan: “She wasn’t talking to me then, she was talking to me now. And that’s what’s really trippy. I think Clancy represents a version of me that was. . . I think. . . actively attempting to not take. . . I don’t want to say — Well, I spent a long time imagining that I could just sort of get through life in this weird slacker way, and that I’d never have to deal with all the things that you have to deal with if you have a body in this dimension, and that’s what Clancy represents to me. He doesn’t want to read the instructions for how to take care of his universe simulator because he’s running away into distraction.”
Duncan continued on to tell me about the advice he received through Clancy, the character in Midnight Gospel based on him with his voice. He told me more about how his mom helped him understand the normalcy of heartbreak, about how he gets his heartbroken everyday being a parent.
Me: “And you pretty much say that exactly in the show. You say, or Clancy says ‘this is not a desirable feeling, but it’s a feeling that every human will experience, and so many of us are just trying to engage in ridiculous activities to avoid this experience,’ and your mom says ‘people are really trying to avoid the consideration that they’re gonna die and that the people they love are gonna die. It opens your heart, it breaks your heart open. Our hearts are closed cause we’ve defended ourselves against pain,’ and then you ask her ‘what do you do to stop a heartbreak?’ and she just says ‘you cry, you cry.’ And that was just so powerful and it reminded me, of. . .well, if it’s okay I’ll just share a short story. . .”
Duncan: “Please”
Me: “I had an experience in college with close friends, and sort of a new lover at the time. . . we were all on Molly. The guy I was seeing wasn’t very emotionally in tune, like a lot of men — but he started telling me that he was seeing someone in the clouds.”
I, then, waited for the completion of Duncan’s Mmmmms.
“I could tell there was a sadness in his voice. At first he wouldn’t tell me who it was, but he finally told me it was a friend of his who had been recently passed away, and he was seeing him in the heavens. I could hear his voice trembling, but I could also feel how resistant he was to what your mom was talking about, this inevitable heartbreak that you just have to confront at some point. And then all of a sudden I looked back down at him and he just had these glistening, peaceful tears.”
Duncan mustered a deep Mmmm over his dog’s barks. I waited for both to be complete.
“I just laid on top of him on the grass. And just held him in this maternal way, where everything sexual went out the window. I just held him and let him cry. I just felt like I needed to tap into this maternal figure, obviously I’m not his mom but, I just had to give him permission to feel.”
Duncan mmmm’d hard and I could tell he had countless responses to that story. I knew I could talk to him forever but I wanted to continue badly with the interview and get the attention back onto the magic wizard.
“Anyway, your show reminded me of that experience when your mom said ‘just cry’ to fix a heartbreak. Have you felt, or been with anyone since your mom has passed, that has given you that same sense of permission to cry?”
Duncan: “Yeah. I mean oh my God, yeah my wife. Look, you have no idea what you probably did for him in that moment.” Duncan sunk into a whisper. “You can’t sweep anything under the rug. It’s always right there. So for me, my wife has been that to me many many times cause she was there when my dad died, she’s had to deal with my grief-stricken-numb-ass and all the quirks and not-so-healthy aspects of my personality that were a result of just unresolved grief. And so, you have to have moments like what you gave him, and those moments where she has held me, like a, like a mama, and has let me cry or has just embraced my entirety, including the part that’s all scrambled by losing my folks and getting cancer — just embracing all of that, what I’ve found it’s almost like some sort of psychic bloodletting, like this stuff you’ve been holding in it gets out of you, and there’s all that new space within. So yeah, my wife has been that for me.”
Suddenly, I felt like the kindergartener, and Duncan was my teacher, wrangling me, and speaking to me with truth and wonder. I gulped and my heart broke a thousand times over. For the first time, I fully understood what I had done for the boy I held like a mama.
Duncan’s new show, The Midnight Gospel, is now available on Netflix.
