"Everything’s a lie when you’re drunk, you know? You’re like, hey, it’s the best night ever, these are my good friends and she’s super hot. Then you wake up, like, aw, it’s a waste of time, I spent too much money and that’s a dude."
Possibly an exaggeration, but Mark has said on podcasts that he was "raised" by a transvestite nanny who taught him how to fight, go on a date with a girl, fix a car, and other life skills.
Shout out from Big Jerry
In 2019, while guest for a New York Mets broadcast, Jerry Seinfeld recognized Mark as "the best young up and coming comic that we should keep our eyes on.”
House burglars
Growing up, his house was constantly getting robbed. Mark stated "I would often walk into the house and someone would be in my dad’s office stealing a computer or something. But our house was usually a disappointment for criminals. They would wander...
It’s draining, but it does become a skill. You get good at it, and you start to polish your stories, then you figure out your voice or whatever the hell it is. It’s an art, and it pays well.
It was probably about 2009. I was getting a little bit of work in New York, but still day jobbing it, still nothing going for me. I was doing a comedy club and she happened to walk in on the one bit that worked. She came in the green room and said, “Hey, I like your vibe. I think we would work well together.” She was nobody at the time. I was like, “I’ll take any work I can get.” We took the train to Hofstra and had dinner with her mom. I was kissing her ass the whole time because she was a bigger comedian who was helping me out. We hit it off and she gave me a bunch of dates and that was it. We went all over the country. I watched her blow up, do TV shows, get on the Charlie Sheen roast, Co...
The worst ones are when you read the YouTube comments. Out of ten, seven are kind of nice, like, “Funny guy,” “Decent stuff,” “I liked it.” But then the last three are like, “What’s up with this guy’s face?” “I hate his pauses,” “He’s got a horrible delivery.” Those stick more because they might be right. Maybe I’ve had those thoughts. I’m not one of those guys that’s like, “Screw you. You’re saying mean things.” I’m like, “Maybe I can learn from this.” We are so accepting of the compliments. Why not be accepting of the insults too? If you’re going to be mean like, “Hey, look at this fag,” I’m like, “Alright. Whatever.” But if it’s, “I hate his delivery,” I’m like, “Oh shit. Maybe I should w...
It’s crazy. Seinfeld calls it the “kit.” You’ve got to have a podcast, a web series, a TV show, you’ve got to be on social media constantly with Snapchat, Instagram, and tweeting all the time. You can’t just have standup anymore. That’s not enough. It’s a lot.
I’m a big booze bag. I can sink into a Netflix like you wouldn’t believe. I love a good documentary. I like making sweet love to a woman. I like going out to eat and checking out a movie. I’m a big walk guy. I love to just take a walk. No one walks anymore. It’s nice to just get out there and stroll.
My comedic role models are guys like Groucho Marx, George Carlin, Chris Rock, Bill Murray and Colin Quinn. But as I get more into comedy I’m starting to dig more intellectual types.
Of course, all the time! I have really bad anxiety and I’m an introvert, and as a comic sometimes you can’t find it up there and you lose it for a second. You’re just telling words to an audience but there’s no connection, and that’s when you bomb.
I think 90% of comics are introverts. It’s a lot of defense mechanism. Comedy is just preparing funny things, and that’s what we [introverts] have been doing our whole lives, preparing something to say to everyone we have to go meet. That’s all stand-up is, just professionally.
I want to sell a show. I’m working on a show now about introverts—it’s called The Introvert’s Survival Guide, and each show is a different scenario, and how to deal with it. It’s a fun idea. Introverts have no spokesperson—I want to be that guy.
I would do it, but I’d have to be a Seinfeld or a Ray Romano, being myself. Imagine me crying on TV. That wouldn’t work. I did an audition once where my dad died in the script, and I was like ‘uh, dad, you’re dead.’ They were like ‘get out of here.’
Oh yeah. The thing is, you’re so scared, but every day you’re just dreaming of doing Conan or doing a special on Comedy Central, so when it comes, it’s terrifying but great. You know, as a guy you’re scared to have sex but you want it so bad, you do it. Also, as a comic, you realize how hard getting on TV is, that you’re not going to pass it up out of fear. When you’re at Conan behind the curtain waiting to go out, and they pull it open and say ‘you ready?’ you see the lights, the crowd—it’s crazy.
The ceiling for comedy in New Orleans is about a foot-high, so you have to army crawl your way through it—it’s that low. New York was no question. I went to film school here a year before, and I just fell in love with the city then, so I came back. In New York you can get a lot of stage time [as a comic], and I needed and wanted that.
It was the worst transition ever. I moved here with $800, blew through that in about two days, got an apartment in Crown Heights, got mugged three times in a year, my landlord died of AIDS, and the first day I got into my apartment, there was a pigeon in it, just flying around. So it was pretty rough. I got a job as the file clerk at the film school filing pap...
George Carlin said that comedy comes from looking around and saying, “There’s something wrong here.” It’s that and the twinkle feeling when an idea hits you. Something hits you then you write it out and tweak it on stage. Sometimes it works, but usually it doesn’t. And you repeat that over and over again.
Definitely. I have a joke where I say ‘you ever forget your headphones at home and have to walk around without them? Boy, thoughts are no good. Turns out I love music, I hate my brain,’ and in other places, people don’t get it. That’s because they don’t walk, they drive everywhere. So I had to change it to ‘you ever had your stereo stolen?’ and it’s like ‘eh, it’s not the same. I’ve got to adjust according to where I am. It’s tough because if the joke works in NY, I want to keep it.
I was doing five, six open-mics a night, grinding it out, and then I did a show one night and got noticed by one Amy Schumer. I bombed, but she goes ‘hey, I liked that one joke you had, do you want to open for me at the Atlanta Punchline?’ And I was like ‘Oh my God, I’ve never been on the road or opened for somebody.’ She asked if I had about 30 minutes of material, and I said ‘sure’—meanwhile I had about eight, and the eight wasn’t good.
But I said yes to it, and then I started thinking about it and I was like ‘I don’t know this girl, do I have to hang out with her? I don’t have thirty minutes of comedy.’ I wussed out and called her and told her I couldn’t do it because my parents were com...
Being an introvert sucks. I get off stage and I’m a wreck again. People always wonder, “Hey, if you’re an introvert, then how can you perform in front of crowds?” But stand-up is perfect for an introvert. I get to prepare what I say to you, it’s all worked out, you listen intently and if you talk, you get thrown out. Then I get paid! What a perfect gig.
Mark Normand