Mark Mallman - The Happiness Playlist: The True Story Of Healing My Heart With Feel-Good Music

The Happiness Playlist 2019 by Mark Mallman. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form whatsoever, by photography or xerography or by any other means, by broadcast or transmission, by translation into any kind of language, nor by recording electronically or otherwise, without permission in writing from the author, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in critical articles or reviews.

ISBNs: 978-0 - 9863607 -3 -2 (paperback); 978-0 - 9863607 -4 -9 (ePub); 978-0 - 9863607 -5 -6 (Kindle)

Library of Congress Catalog Number: 2018964032

Book cover and eBook designed by Mayfly Design

Front cover photo courtesy of Lauren Wuornos

Think Piece Publishing

433 S. 7th St.

No. 2016

Minneapolis, MN 55415

www.thinkpiecepublishing.com

Contents

Foreword

T he first time I met Mark Mallman, I was looking at tigers at the Minnesota Zoo. Mark seemed so nice that I assumed he was making fun of me. The second time I met him was when we performed together at First Avenue: I was reading from a book Id written titled Killing Yourself to Live , while Mark would periodically interject live musical interludes inspired by musicians who had died young. As one might expect, its hard to compete against the energy of a rock frontman when all you have to offer the audience are ironic passages from a memoir. Mark blew me off the stage. But you know, that was one instance where it was really an honor to be obliterated in public. There are so many artists (musical or otherwise) who want to present themselves as creative , which usually just means they cant hold a job and want people to give them credit for being vaguely annoying. Mark is the exception to this clich. He is legitimately original, exclusively motivated by a desire to conquer the strange obstructions he builds inside his mind. Hes talented, sincere, singular, and weird. And hes hyper-competitive , but only against himself.

Chuck Klosterman

I ts 3 a.m. Im afraid of the dark. Im afraid of my hands. An airplane flies over the sun and I hide under the bed. Something is wrong. Im shaking. Im crying. Im having a panic attack that doesnt go away. Not in the morning. Not the day after. Not a week later. To sleep is a nightmare. To be awake is a nightmare too. How can I stop it? I give up sugar. I stop drinking. I also quit caffeine, antiperspirant, and multivitamins. Is it my laundry detergent? This shampoo? That allergy medication? I throw it all in the garbage. Nothing changes. Im frightened to drive. Im frightened to open doors. Im frightened to be alive. The panic attack lasts two months.

A converted Lee jeans factory sits next to a freeway ramp in downtown Minneapolis. It is run down with urban decay. The floors are warped. The bathroom is a utility shower. There is no quiet. No sleep. No such thing as calm in the city. I live here.

Music is my only escape. Not all music. My favorite artists have become terrifying. Radiohead, Joy Division, and Patti Smith are ridden with bleak lyrics and ghostly overtones. Classic musicals calm me. Singin in the Rain, Love Me Tender, and My Fair Lady bring calm. My heart rate slows a bit. Breathing comes easier. I used to scoff at what now is saving me: happy endings. When the musical is over, the fear returns.

The Happiness Playlist is created. It grows from a Bob Marley song repeating on headphones. One Love. This has never been a favorite song, but its a welcomed joy against the creeping void. Such is the power of Were Going to Be Friends by the White Stripes. The magic of I Wanna Dance with Somebody by Whitney Houston or On Melancholy Hill by Gorillaz. The playlist becomes a newfound musical map to safe harbor. Once, I knew peace. I will stop at nothing to return there. Difficult does not mean impossible.

In a hospital emergency room Im told the paranoia is the result of postponed grief. An amygdala hijack. The fear of fear. Mom died a year and half earlier. A part of me went with her.

Sometimes the brain waits to process a trauma, the doctor says. Now its ready.

My therapist tells me to surround myself with people who lift me up. A few weeks after that, I meet Annie.

It starts over artichoke dip. When she laughs, light catches her cheekbones in slivers of two moons. She parts her hair on the right, and complains her fingers are too long. But they are the fingers of a queen alien whos been traveling the universe in search of the perfect mandarin orange. Elegant fingers as long as this summer that has come to an end. Soon, my favorite thing is to tell Annie, I love you, too.

If I cry, which I often do, she doesnt see it as weak.

You got this. You can do it, Mark, Annie says.

One day a Whole Foods opens two blocks away. Soon, rows of slick condos are built. The price of sandwiches goes up at the coffee shop. Gentrification pushes all the filth out, including me. I am given nine months notice and the opportunity to stay in a refurbished version of my loft for the low price of double my rent. Im shown a floor plan. It will be remodeled to look like the inside of a Panera Bread store.

I move to a duplex on the south side of Minneapolis. Its on Cedar Avenue, six blocks from Annie. There is one restaurant between us. We swear well never eat there. There is a cemetery between us. We swear well never eat there either. It looks peaceful inside but we only make jokes about it.

Annie, if you were a ghost, where would you choose to haunt?

I guess Id hang out in a theater and watch movies all the time.

The same movie five times a day?

No, in a megaplex where theres more than one movie. Oooooh, I got one! How about a ghost who is haunting another ghost?

A meta haunting. Brilliant.

When Annie is excited, she makes up songs. Driving! Driving! Driving to the zoooooo! is a favorite of mine. When she is sad, she vanishes into the couch with her dog, Gilligan, a rescue, a Kentucky stray. He is a Boston terrier mix. Annie says hes part pug. I say hes part pit bull. Dad calls him Fatso. One of us is correct.

Annie and I share a love of animals. How they clean and protect each other. How they press their heads into soft spots and sleep. When she goes on work trips, the dog stays with me. I give him spoons of peanut butter, let him sleep on my bed, and call him Mr. Boodles.

On account of his runaway past, Gilligan is easily frightened. He doesnt talk about it. Whatever he saw in Louisville is something hed prefer to forget.

In storms, Gilligan squeezes between the bathtub and the sink. No matter how many times you tell him he is safe, he cant be convinced.

For my birthday, Annie makes me a terrarium in a fish bowl with a rubber ant and bee hanging out together on a rock. Thats us!

When I get it home, I cry.

From what I can tell, love results from timing, chaos, and mathematics. You meet at a bus stop. You meet at a bar. Movies are wrong; nobody ever meets in aquariums. Its a numbers game of readiness and mutual desire. A hungry crocodile, spewed from a cyclone, that bites you in the head, even though youd been hiding at a safe distance. You try to write just one love song, but the components cant be distilled. The depth cant be measured. This is why nobody knows how deep in love they are until its over.

After a beautiful year together, somethings missing. Its glacial. We break up. No hard feelings. We agree to stay close. We still go to the grocery and to the mall, watch movies with Gilligan under a blanket, and still say, I love you.