EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,015 words- 0:00 – 15:00
(drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast,…
- NANarrator
(drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience.
- JRJoe Rogan
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (instrumental music plays) Hello, Mark.
- MLMark Laita
Hey, Joe.
- JRJoe Rogan
How do you do what you do and maintain any-
- MLMark Laita
Mental health?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MLMark Laita
(laughs)
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) Let's just tell everybody-
- MLMark Laita
Let's-
- JRJoe Rogan
... you, uh, you have the YouTube show, Soft White Underbelly, which, uh, I, I found a while back and I, I just watched one video and then I went down the rabbit hole. And now, today I binged a bunch of them preparing for this and poof. Dude, it's so sad and so heartbreaking and, um, you interview all kinds of people, addicts, uh, prostitutes, johns, uh, gang members, and, uh, why Soft White Underbelly? Why'd you come up with that name?
- MLMark Laita
Um, I, you know, I remember my dad when I was in the '60s, '70s, talking on the phone with, you know, I, I heard that ter- that term being used to, you know, it's, it's like a, an al- an analogy for the, the vulnerable part of, of whatever you're talking about. I don't, I don't hear that term anymore, but I remember it back then. And I always thought it was a cool name. Blue Oyster Cult used it as their original name before Blue Oyster Cult, um, so I just ... It was a fun name. Makes people wonder what the hell it's all about.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, it's very appropriate.
- MLMark Laita
Yeah, yeah, I think it's fitting for what I'm doing.
- JRJoe Rogan
Completely. How did you get involved in interviewing all of these people that are sort of downcast from society?
- MLMark Laita
So I'm, uh, I've been an advertising photographer since I was 14 years old, or, or after high school really and went to college for it, but I was always into photography and then I got into advertising and I did that for decades and decades. Had a great career and then what happened is, you know, you do it... My advertising work was so slick and beautiful and perfect and everything's retouched so it's, it's better than life. And you do that for decades and you get burnt out and you, you just get fed up with the perfection and all the aspirational aspects of advertising and I just wanted something that was real. You know, I, I recognize that there are things going on in the world that weren't so perfect and I, I just felt like my life was out, out of balance because e- you know, like I didn't wanna grow old and have my kids say, you know, "What, what did your dad do?" "Oh, he, he shot advertising his whole life." I wanted to do something different and I've always done these side projects even when I was a teenager in Chicago. I, uh, I was always fascinated with the drunks on Madison Avenue on the west side. You see these guys sleeping on park benches and just with a paper bag and a bottle in their hands. It's like, what? It was such a, it's such a interesting lifestyle to me because I didn't grow up like that. I grew up, you know, in a pretty perfect household. Mom and dad, parents loved me, it was great, but I was fascinated with all that dark stuff and, uh, that continued throughout my career. I was always like doing portraits of people like that and, you know, I didn't really do much with it until about 1999 I started, uh, working, you know, while I was doing advertising I would sneak away whenever I had a hole in my schedule which wasn't often but I, you know, for 10, over nine or 10 years I went to each of the lower 48 states and started photographing everything that exists in the US, uh, cowboys in Wyoming, drunken Indians in New Mexico, ballerinas in New York City, repo men in Oklahoma, auto mechanics in Alabama, peda- uh, uh, pedophiles (laughs) in, uh, all over the country, um, polygamists in Utah, Am- the Amish in Pennsylvania. Just everything, like everything that kind of fits for... Oh, that's Pennsylvania, they have Amish there so I would pick that and I'd hunt it down and find it. So I got really good at finding these subcultures that we've all heard about but you didn't really know if, you know... Some of them are easier to find. Drug addicts are easy to find, um, but there's other subcultures that I've found that are, that are more difficult to find and certainly difficult to photograph and now it's really difficult to interview. So I did that book, came out in 2010, cre- it's called Created Equal and I was really proud of it. Put, you know, my heart and soul into it, but it, it didn't really... Like I would, I would sit at, at a table and somebody's looking at it and they would go, "Oh, what did he sound like? What did the cowboy sound like? What did he... How did he get like this? How did, how did he get this career? What was his childhood like?" You know, all these questions. And I didn't, honestly, didn't know it for each of these 200 portraits in that book and I realized if I'm gonna make this really stick the way I wanted it to, I'm gonna have to do it with, with an interview as a backstory. So it's a portrait and then I would just do these interviews that might just exist behind the, the portrait as you're looking at it and that's how I started. And you know, I had, I had... I always had studios like, like on Skid Row like while I was doing advertising in LA at my LA studio I'd had another studio down on Skid Row which was, you know, cheap and, you know, I would just sneak away there on, on s- slow days and just photograph all the cr- the, uh, the drug addicts, the, the prostitutes, the transgenders, the mental health, you know, the people that are off their rockers, everything, gang members and, uh, I loved doing it but I never really did anything with that until I started... Canon came out with a Canon 5D which is a cam- uh, a still camera that did video and I just was playing around. I do- I never shot video in my life and I'm like let me just put this thing on a tripod and interview somebody and there was this girl Caroline who was a, a heroin addict prostitute down on Skid Row and I was like, "Hey." You know, I got to know her and I said, "Hey, would you wanna just sit and tell me your life story?" And she goes, "Sure, I'll do it." So she sat down and did this and it was heartbreaking like Jesus Chri- I just hit a grand slam my first time at bat, like, like a really like horrifying story and she, uh... So I did that and I was like wow, that was, that was amazing. I started doing a few more and they were all interesting in their own way. Every single one was diff- you know, very different and interesting and I'm like, "May- maybe there's something here."And, uh, went through a divorce, went through, you know, my mom, uh, went through a lot of stuff. My mom died. Uh, went through a divorce. Uh, my advertising industry- you know, advertising industry changed a lot in th- in those years. Like, th- this was like f- seven years ago, seven, eight years ago. And I just, I gave up my studio and I just kind of like didn't know what I was doing with my life. And I, I had all these storage units for all my studio equipment and my furniture. I was building a house, so I had all my furniture in the house. Had like four or five different storage units around the city. I'm like, "Let me just consolidate all these into one big space and maybe I'll have room for a studio up front and I'll start doing those portraits and those interviews I was doing on Skid Row before and s- just see if I enjoy doing that." 'Cause I didn't know what I want to do with the rest of my life. You know, I was like, I wasn't doing advertising anymore and, uh, I didn't know what I was. You know, I just, I was just drifting and I started doing these and I just loved it. Just loved it. And I started doing them every day. And I've done it pretty much every day for over three years now.
- JRJoe Rogan
What you're doing is almost the exact opposite of advertising.
- MLMark Laita
Almost the e- it, it's a reaction to that slick-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MLMark Laita
... aspiration. I, I, you know, I shot Apple for t- for 10, 12 years and made these products look amazing, right? They had to be perfect. And I'm like, "Life isn't perfect. Life is messy."
- JRJoe Rogan
Hm.
- MLMark Laita
Life can be really messed up. And I just, I, I, I longed for that. So that's what this is. It's, it's a, and I, I learned, I got all these skills, all these chops of how to intera- how to find these people, how to interact with them, how to con- how to find them, how to connect with them, how to get their trust, uh, from doing Create Equal where I did that for 10 years and I was interacting with all kinds of people from Hell's Angels down to from pedophiles, everything, you name it. Everything that exists in the US I, I got. When I first started, I was really shy and r- this, this is gonna be really hard. I decided this was my project, this is what I'm gonna do. But when I first started, it was like, man, (laughs) this is, this is not my personality type to go u- up to strangers and, and tell them what I, you know, "I want to photograph you." That was so hard. But now I've gotten so good at it that it's, it's a breeze. You know, I've, I've, I got to a point, I remember early on, I was just like so nervous to do this, to th- to just walk up to a stranger in, in a casino in Las Vegas and say, "Hey, I think you're interesting. I'd like to photograph you." That was the first one I did. And then by the end, I was like, I remember I, I wanted to photograph the Hell's Angels, uh, the motorcycle c- gang up in, uh, Oakland is like their main headquarters. And, uh, I just flew up to Oakland. You know, you can't really arrange that. You can't call them up on the phone and say, "Hey, I want to do a f- I'm a photographer in LA, I want to photograph you guys." That's just not gonna happen. So I, uh, I just flew up there and I, uh, it was a morning and I, (laughs) I ring their buzzer at their headquarters in Oakland and, uh, no answer. It's like 9:30 in the morning. I ring it again. Nobody answers. I ring it a third time and somebody comes, uh, oh, this, this junkyard dog of a biker opens the door and says, "What the fuck do you want?" (laughs) And I'm like, w- I'm, uh, I start telling him. He just slams the door in my face. He goes, "Fuck off." He just sh- slams the door. Okay, that didn't go well. But I've, I've done this so much now that I'm so good at it that I knew to give him some time, allow him to say no. I'm not gonna force, I'm not gonna pressure him. Went across the street, there's a Mexican restaurant that was serving breakfast. I got breakfast for a bunch of guys and I brought it over and, uh, I ring it again. He opens the door and I had breakfast for them. And, uh, eventually they let me in and we chatted and I event- eventually photographed, uh, the, uh, the president, you know, uh, the head of that, uh, chapter, uh, Cisco Valderrama and Flash and, uh, this guy's name was, uh, Marvin. And it wa- it was a great portrait. I'm proud of it. You know, it was like, uh, that made that happen because of my ability to just go up to anybody, killers, anybody, and just walk up to them and say, "Hey, I'd like ... This is what I like to do."
- JRJoe Rogan
Did you ever read Hunter Thompson's book on the Hell's Angels?
- MLMark Laita
No.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's really good.
- MLMark Laita
I'll bet.
- JRJoe Rogan
D- that was his breakthrough book. And, uh, he was embedded with the Hell's Angels and hung around with them for long periods of time.
- MLMark Laita
No, it's a hell of a lifestyle.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. And that's sort of where he invented that sort of Gonzo journalism-
- MLMark Laita
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
... aspect of it.
- 15:00 – 30:00
Right. …
- MLMark Laita
e- eight or 10 in a day like I do.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- MLMark Laita
Like, I'll, I'll do six, seven, eight, nine, 10 in a day hoping to get one or two.
- JRJoe Rogan
But even the ones that you have where the people can barely communicate, they, they're almost more disturbing.
- MLMark Laita
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, I watched a, a couple today of homeless people-
- MLMark Laita
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
... where, you know, there was this one woman. She d- was missing one of her toes and, you know, that woman.
- MLMark Laita
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And, and she's ... Just the movement and th- the c- th- the mental health, th- the obvious signs that she's very troubled and probably on some drugs and it's just ...
- MLMark Laita
Yeah. It's s-
- JRJoe Rogan
Do you have children?
- MLMark Laita
I do. I have two daughters, 19 and 22.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, so that, to me, was ... Like, the, the hearing the stories of how they were all abused sexually and physically when they were children and (sighs) and seeing what it leads to, to at least-
- MLMark Laita
Right. So I, I'm aware that these things go on.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MLMark Laita
You know, I've been, I've been down on Skid Row for 12 years now, maybe 13 years, and so I, I know what's going o-
- JRJoe Rogan
You live down there?
- MLMark Laita
No, no, no, no, no. I, I (laughs) I live in Pacific Palisades, which is, like, the exact opposite.
- JRJoe Rogan
(laughs) Yes.
- MLMark Laita
I live in Bel Air basically, but then I go-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MLMark Laita
... down to the worst ... I go from the worst part of town to the best part of town.
- JRJoe Rogan
Whew.
- MLMark Laita
Yeah. It's a big ... It, it's a drastic change from-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MLMark Laita
... from, from one to the other. Um, but even when I was doing this before I started Soft White Underbelly, I was aware that this sh- this crap is going on to these people when they were kids.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MLMark Laita
And when I decided ... You know, I gave up advertising. I wanted to do something that was meaningful to me. I looked around. Like, that's a problem that needs to be addressed. And, you know, people say, "Oh, well your work's ex- exploitive. You're exploiting these poor drug addicts." Like, I understand there's an exploitive element to, to it. All photography has that, you know, element to it, but ... Let's say I never did these videos. Let's say we just ... Pretend they ne- ... Pretend these problems don't exist. It's all gonna continue and, and Caroline's kids are gonna get molested by the babysitter or by the uncle or by whoever and it's gonna ch- ... It'll repeat the pattern over and over and over. So I figured by putting out these ... You know, it's disguised as entertainment, but what it really is, is, is if you watch a dozen of them, you're gonna learn, like, "Fuck, we need to protect our kids. We need to watch our kids. We need to ..." You know, how many fathers were absent in th- in these kids' lives that I do? Like, like (laughs) like 1% of them had fathers that were in their lives.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- 30:00 – 45:00
Oof. …
- MLMark Laita
sho- you know, you know, advertising ev- you know, I was, I was playing around with big money and big jobs and big campaigns, and it was very, very stressful at times. But I handled it all. I was, I was cool with it. But when I started doing this project, I recognized that ... I, you know, I knew from Create Equal, the book I worked on, what it's like to deal with these kind of people 'cause I interacted with a lot of them. So I knew, I knew getting into it what I was, what I was ... I was gonna get robbed. I was gonna deal with hustlers and con artists and thieves and liars. I knew that.... but I dove in and, like, y- y- you know, th- th- that's, that's like a barrier to entry. Like, people who watch my channel, they go, "Oh, I wanna do what Mark's doing."
- JRJoe Rogan
Oof.
- MLMark Laita
Good fucking luck. Like, every day I wanna quit.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, you're really good at it too. You, you have a very non-judgmental way of communicating with people that allows them to open up. It's very, it's very comforting.
- MLMark Laita
Yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, you seem like a very nice guy, and when you talk to these people, you know, you just, you're very flat, you know?
- MLMark Laita
Yeah, yeah. I'm n- I'm n- Like, I can interview the Ku Klux Klan or a pimp or a pedophile.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MLMark Laita
You know, I, I interviewed a, a guy named Marshall on my channel. He's an older, older guy. He's probably in his 70s. And he was having intercourse with his daughter from six until 14, and her, and her best friend, I think.
- JRJoe Rogan
(sighs)
- MLMark Laita
And he eventually did prison time for it, but he's free now and he's living in this ... You know, he's living in, in Florida. And I interviewed him, and I just... I'm talking to him as if I'm talking to you right now. Like, I, I, I could be interviewing or, or interacting with... It's not about how I interview, it's how I interact with others.
- JRJoe Rogan
And he was open about this?
- MLMark Laita
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
What-
- MLMark Laita
I've, I've interviewed a bunch of those guys.
- JRJoe Rogan
Did, did he have shame?
- MLMark Laita
He didn't seem to, but he said some of the right words. But it, it wasn't like he broke down. Like, if, if I had done something like that, I'd be (laughs) ... I'd be crying, man.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MLMark Laita
I, I wouldn't be... You couldn't-
- JRJoe Rogan
D- Did that happen to him when he was younger?
- MLMark Laita
I asked him about that and he said, "I, I suspect something might have, and who knows if that's the truth or what..." I don't know. Probably did.
- JRJoe Rogan
Hmm.
- MLMark Laita
He di- he didn't recall anything, but he suspected that something happened.
- JRJoe Rogan
But you do see-
- MLMark Laita
So, so-
- JRJoe Rogan
P- Go ahead.
- MLMark Laita
Yeah. But, but my point is that whether I'm interviewing the Queen of England or a homeless drug addict on Skid Row, I treat them the exact same way. Nothing in my behavior would change, whether I'm interviewing a, a, a, a pedophile that's having-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MLMark Laita
... sex with his daughter or, or the President.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. Well, it comes across, and it, it... You have a very good way of getting these people to relax-
- 45:00 – 1:00:00
Yeah. It's so heartbreaking…
- JRJoe Rogan
was inside of him, he just couldn't help himself. He just couldn't stop that. He would get off of it for a little while, decide he was gonna clean up and then dive right back into it.
- MLMark Laita
Yeah. It's so heartbreaking to watch.
- JRJoe Rogan
And I- that was ... He was the closest that I'd ever been to a person that had ... Everyone else that I knew that had problems was like my friend's cousin or this guy that I worked with, or ... They weren't people that I was really close with. And with him, we spent so much time together. And to watch him just im- just could not escape whatever the b- the gravity, the magnetic pull, the, the addiction, the thing, to just like constantly trying to get fucked up and, and escape. And-
- MLMark Laita
Yeah. Usually they were trying to escape something that happened in their childhood or some-
- JRJoe Rogan
Something.
- MLMark Laita
... some lack of love, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, something. Well, there's mental health in his, um, family too.
- MLMark Laita
Yeah. That's a big part.
- JRJoe Rogan
And I, I suspect, you know, there's a lot of these people that are schizophrenic or they have these issues and they have children and it's genetically transferred.
- MLMark Laita
Absolutely.
- JRJoe Rogan
There's ... Yeah.
- MLMark Laita
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And so I think there's nature, there's nurture. There's a lot of things that are-
- MLMark Laita
Yeah. It's not, not just like, "Oh, you-"
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- MLMark Laita
... "you were molested when you were six, so that's why you're a drug addict." It's, it's more complex than that, I think.
- JRJoe Rogan
Have you met any of these people that have gone through any sort of psychedelic therapy? Like-
- MLMark Laita
No.
- JRJoe Rogan
... Gabor Mate is a big-
- MLMark Laita
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Have you?
- MLMark Laita
I've heard about it, but I've not encountered anyone who's tried that and done that.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's not really available to these people.
- MLMark Laita
No, not on Skid Row.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. And when you're ... When-
- MLMark Laita
You gotta, you gotta have the motivation-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MLMark Laita
... first off to wanna get clean and use that as a technique to do it. And I, I, I'm, I'm hopeful that somebody, some doctor somewhere, I think University of Chicago is doing something with, uh, skin grafts that, that help with drug addiction. But-
- JRJoe Rogan
Skin grafts?
- MLMark Laita
Yeah.
- 1:00:00 – 1:09:14
And it's always a…
- MLMark Laita
wants that. But (laughs) ex- except maybe some pimps. But, but what they don't understand is these guys ... The, the women that they are managing is, this, this, this will get a lot of negative comments on your YouTube, but, um, the, the, the, the women are th- they're just trying to survive, and they figured out this is a way that I can make money, but they don't know how to do it well. They don't know how to manage their money. If they have money, they spend it. It's all gone. And they end up broke every night, and they're just like they're f- they're spinning their wheels, going nowhere. So a pimp will step in and like, "Let me handle your money. You give me all your money, and I'm gonna take care of you. We're gonna save some for your future, and I'm gonna keep some of it, and we're gonna live in style, and you're gonna work for me. You're gonna be one of my stable." So he, he, he provides some benefits and security and guidance, but when they break up, it's rare that the girl gets anything. (laughs) So ...
- JRJoe Rogan
And it's always a horrible ending.
- MLMark Laita
It's usually a horrible ending, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MLMark Laita
When, when the pimp goes to jail sometimes ... But the girls never end up with a story where they're like, "Oh, yeah, and then I got my money, and I, I went off to college."
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- MLMark Laita
That d- that never happens.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MLMark Laita
But, but the pimp does.... provide a lifestyle for the time when she is doing that, that is better than what she was doing without him.
- JRJoe Rogan
And you, you've interviewed people that have been open about murdering people too.
- MLMark Laita
Yeah. I've interviewed a lot of people that have done that. You know, I, I, I'll interview people. I mean, uh, w- ... I could do a whole YouTube channel on what happens after the (laughs) interviews that I do.
- JRJoe Rogan
Really?
- MLMark Laita
Oh, yeah, there's a lot of-
- JRJoe Rogan
So a lot of people get in trouble?
- MLMark Laita
No, no, no. They haven't g- ... No, nobody's ever gotten in trouble.
- JRJoe Rogan
Really?
- MLMark Laita
The cops have never come after anybody.
- JRJoe Rogan
Really?
- MLMark Laita
I've d- I've done all these interviews, and the cops have never approached me about anyone I've interviewed.
- JRJoe Rogan
Isn't that kinda crazy?
- MLMark Laita
It's crazy to me. But I think, you know, I, I know the cops watch 'cause they- they'll roll by and say, "Hey, man, who are you posting today?" So they, they watch all the time.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MLMark Laita
I think the cops enjoy watching because the people that they're arresting are always lying to them.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- MLMark Laita
They're never telling the truth, you know, "Oh, yeah, I was robbing that liquor store," and I'm like, "Yeah, I'm sorry. I was guilty."
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- MLMark Laita
They're, they're never getting that. But when I interviews people, it's like, "Yeah, I robbed a liquor store, and I, you know, I got away with it. And I did this, and I, you know, robbed a jewelry store, and I shot the guard in the shoulder, and I got away with it, you know?" (laughs) Like, they're getting to hear the story told a very, very different way than the way they hear it when they book somebody.
- JRJoe Rogan
Do you interview cops as well?
- MLMark Laita
I would love to, but, uh, um, I've only interviewed a couple of retired cops. And those ... Th- they're great stories.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
Episode duration: 2:26:21
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