Updated 2 years ago
TONIGHT Tuesday July 13, 2021: Slacker Reunion at the Paramount, Austin
This featured art at the top of this page is a play on “Bob” from the Church of the SubGenius, who Mark loved. You can read one of their stories here.
April 9 Early-Mid 1960s – January 9, 2017 Political Organizer, Street Provocateur
Favorite Quotes
“The Arc of The Universe bends Towards Justice” – MLK
“If it sounds Good It is Good” – Duke Ellington
“I wouldn’t give him enough shit to make his breath stink” – My Grandmother
NOTE: I included the MLK “Arc of justice” quote at the bottom of this page, then realized he had the same quote on his Facebook page. This was the kind of connection we had.
“I brought that man to Austin… I met him a Katz’s and moved him from San Antonio to my apartment. Thus began the odyssey of Mark Dark and the Lords of Nothing.” – John Paris
Mark was a personality around Austin in the late 80s and early 90s. Back then, everyone was always out and about, going to see bands play and going to anti-Reagan and Apartheid protests. Mark was everywhere, and everyone knew him. Like a street preacher, he was a talented, magnificent, rapid-fire speaker, with a fairly wide and deep knowledge of politics. He obviously came from a good family. And he could talk you into the ground with sheer determination. In fact, even as I write this, I can feel him somewhere, arguing with me with what to write down.
His typical afternoon would be spent smoking dope at the Ark, where I lived, a clothing-optional hippy co-op on West Campus, and arguing well into the night with my neighbor Greg Turetzky.
Mark sold T-shirts on the Drag, the main road along the West side of the campus of the University of Texas. Here is a shirt I bought from him from that time. I wore it with pride as a Young Anarchist, when I went by the name “Han”:
I was an anarchist at that time, and Mark was one of many compatriots. Mark was like political artillery. He even got into it with Mark Dagger, the local skinhead leader, a human bowling ball, and lived to laugh about it.
I respected him for his speaking ability, his encyclopedia knowledge, and his free spirit – the ability to have your personality shine through, transcending the depressing everyday reality of money and bills. He was a walking avatar, an incarnation of Spartacus, a precursor to the modern Internet age. He was a Social Justice Warrior 20 years before the word was coined.
In 1989 he helped publish a fake front page of the Austin-American Statesman that was inserted in front of the newspapers in newspaper stands.
In 1990 Mark made it into the film Slacker, directed by Richard Linklater, who also lived in the West Campus, near Les Amis Cafe and Mad Dog & Bean’s, near the same place I met Wilson Leary:
Here is probably the music ‘zine he is passing out – Skin & Bones. Kinko’s was our weapon at that time:
I lost contact with him for a few years after I graduated in ’91 and moved to New York. I soon learned he had moved to Philadelphia, and called me to ask if he and his girlfriend and baby could stay with me in Chelsea, on 25th and 7th. I said yeah, sure, why not. She was a pretty blonde, his second baby mama in a short time.
In the middle of the night he left my apartment and went up to 33rd and 8th Avenue by the big post office to buy crack, using an antique Lady Liberty coin that he had stolen from me.
The coin was treasured, and it came from my father. It was the same coin Robert Redford used in Indecent Proposal. Like Christopher Walken’s heirloom wristwatch kept up the butt during ‘Nam in Pulp Fiction. I was pretty disappointed and angry with him, because I felt our trust had been violated. I was very poor working my first job in advertising, living in the city. I was always so broke I even stole toilet paper from the company bathroom. Every single dollar counted. And here he was literally taking my Liberty to get high. I cut him off, lost touch for 20 years. I turned my back on his street revolution, disgusted, and prospered, having gained an astounding clarity to achieving success through conservatism. At least that’s what I presumed. I started yelling at panhandlers and going to church, but I still had the Achilles Heel of drug and alcohol abuse, and was just as sick as he was inside.
Many years passed. Revolutions came and went. I soon learned to be sober, and view reality without a hazy lens. It brought me long-needed clarity, a clarity that prepared me for the Trump era – a reasonable, compassionate middle ground between the two extremes. I finally realized that voting was far more effective than getting baked and political graffiti.
With the wonders of social media, we reconciled in 2014. He had gotten married. He was also doing better! And his son was an anarchist! I bowled over.
After I told him I was sober, his last words to me were:
“Hey brother I’m with you. You know I love you man… Han Clean is a formidable force to be reckoned with.”
I later learned in early 2017 he had sadly died of some medical condition. It totally sucks he didn’t live to see Trump defeated. But we can’t always choose our time. I still treasure the good times and old days. It brings me joy that Kamala Harris was elected to be the first black, first Asian, and first woman to be Vice President, and that he was probably closely related to her, given the common surname. He could have been a politician. But he was, on our personal level.
Mark is still an inspiration, and I hope to make prophetic both his last words to me and his last words in the Slacker clip:
“Keep On Keep’in On.”
Wilson “Butch” Leary
Clarence Brandley
Flyers from Texas in the late 80s
“I am very saddened to announce that my dear friend of 30 years, Mark Harris has passed away from liver cancer. Mark and I met one late night at Katz’s Deli in downtown Austin. We were both waiting to be seated and he struck up a conversation with me and we really hit it off. Mark was in town for a job interview and didn’t know anybody. He was a complete stranger but he needed a place to crash for the night and I let him stay at my apartment in west campus. We really enjoyed each other’s company and ended up crashing a frat party the next day. I let him stay an extra day before offering him to be my roommate and I moved him from San Antonio to Austin the next day. Mark made his way quickly into people’s lives in Austin, making friends with Rick Linklater early on and ending up as the T-Shirt Terrorist in Rick’s film “Slacker”. Mark was a motivator in my life and while i was practicing my bass in my apartment he introduced me to BillyDave Wammo and Chuc Frazier of OBOYO- pretty soon afterward I had a gig! Mark was also instrumental in recapturing my interest in my father’s story as Bubble Gum King. After Mark met my father he said “Paris! You have to make a documentary! And I did. I’m going to miss my buddy dearly. Rest in peace my friend.”
– John Paris
“Mark once called me JUST to discuss Ann Richard’s Birthday, after her passing. I was at work but I dropped what I was doing – because Mark called to talk about “Sister Ann!” Lol. It’s really difficult to remember that Mark has left us all, I have to say. We’re in touch and fb friends with one of his fam and his son Miles (future Mark) and his son Kimani. We consider ourselves godparents to both, having discussed the matter before he was sick (as far as I recall). You probably saw he was in our wedding. All the ladies were smitten with him there“
– Jennifer Paris
Mark’s Facebook
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