Three Great Things: Anna Konkle

Three Great Things is Talkhouse’s series in which artists tell us about three things they absolutely love. To mark the current release on digital of the new comedy thriller Untitled Home Invasion Romance, starring Jason Biggs (who also directed), Meaghan Rath and Anna Konkle, beloved comedian, actor and writer Konkle – best known for the hit comedy series Pen15 – shared some of her favorite things in life. — N.D.

Korean Bathhouses in Los Angeles
I really love the Korean bathhouses in Los Angeles. The first time I went to one was probably 10 years ago, and they are kind of what keeps me in L.A. They’re so interesting and so special. Every city I travel to, I’ll ask, “Where’s the closest Korean bathhouse?” But most places just don’t have them.

Most of the facades have a real strip-mall vibe, so you’d never know what’s happening inside. When you arrive, you sign in, they give you a little bracelet, and they tell you where the men’s and women’s areas are. (If you’re me, you accidentally go into the men’s area, almost every single time.) But the magic truly starts when you have to take off your shoes before you go in; there’s some very calming spa music playing, and it’s usually very quiet. Some bathhouses that have become more trendy over time aren’t so quiet anymore, but the quiet ones are the best.

You put your stuff in a locker, there’s a room where you shower (there’s little stools to shower on), and then you get in the bath. There’s a bunch of very hot baths and a cold plunge, which I can’t do. And there are also steam rooms and saunas, plus a nap room where the floors are heated and you lay on a mat. Just thinking about it, I can’t believe how much I crave being in a Korean bathhouse now – I need that heated floor!

There are jade rooms and charcoal rooms and Himalayan salt rooms, and they’re all at different temperatures. You just relax there. And then once you’re done bathing and showering and being in these different rooms, you eat bulgogi or some delicious Korean soup, because there’s usually a restaurant in there, too. It’s $30 to go for the whole day, which is so cheap. They should raise their prices! It’s such a gift to go there, and they don’t exist much beyond L.A.

I usually end up at a Korean bathhouse because I’m at the end of my rope, but I always fantasize about integrating it into my weekly schedule like, Oh, that’s what I do every Friday. I’d love to write there, and if I’ve outlined the day before, I could totally write sitting on the heated floor, because I see other people doing that. It would be great to go to a Korean bathhouse as a regular act of self-care for myself, rather than only when it’s a necessity. It’s sad that I literally have to pay to make myself take a luxurious bath and shower and lock myself in a quiet place where I can’t leave and I don’t have access to my phone away, so it forces me to slow down and relax. But yeah, it’s just really nice.

I know it sounds like I’m advertising and I have stock in a Korean bathhouse, but I don’t. Unfortunately.

My Dog George
My dog George is about 80 pounds. He’s a big boy. He’s currently laying behind me on the rug. He follows me everywhere. He thinks I’m a sheep, because he’s part Cattle Dog, plus part Pitbull and part Jindo. He doesn’t bark, because Jindo is a very feline breed.

We think he’s about 12, which is bittersweet. We got him as a rescue from the Pasadena Humane Society, and when we found him, we’d been going to the shelter for maybe a year. We kept signing up to adopt dogs, but then other people got them first. We’d be told, “You’re sixth on the list for this rescue,” and we’d say, “But we have a yard!” They’d reply, “Everybody has a yard.”

And then there was George. I really wanted a Cattle Dog, because I had seen another Cattle Dog whose owner went to Intelligentsia Coffee in Silver Lake. That dog was never leashed, he would follow his owner everywhere and he understood his every word. They had the most beautiful bond. I loved that dog, and I had never had a dog before. So, after a year of going to this shelter, we saw George, we were the first on the list for him and it was very serendipitous.

After we were approved, we were going to pick him up and the shelter told us, “He has a tick infestation.” We were like, “OK, cool …You’re going to take care of that, right?” They said, “No. No. And someone else is willing to take him with the ticks.” So Alex, my partner, and I just said, “Well, obviously we have to take him and the ticks. Like, who are we to not take the ticks too?” And so we brought him to a groomer and discovered he had about 200 ticks. He has very thick, long white hair and when the groomer lifted up his hair, they were everywhere. The groomer did as much as they could, but when we got him home, they were still there, in his hair and between his toes. So we spent the first couple hours with him in the bath, taking off each tick. Sadly, he ended up having Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, which is a tick-borne illness, and there were a few scary moments there where he was struggling, but we got him healthy.

And 12 years later, George has been the best first dog I could ever ask for. He really is one of a kind.

Waiting Tables
I have a dorky fascination with all the things that come with waiting tables and watching other people wait tables. I used to wait tables for a very long time, and it started in my hometown, for any joint that would hire me. After college, I had the same acting degree everybody in New York City had, so I had to figure out how to pay rent and ended up at nice restaurants, where I started as a host. I quickly realized, though, that all the waiters were making so much more money, so eventually I trained to wait tables.

And I loved it, though I’m not totally sure why. Maybe it’s the structure of the job, because as an actor and writer, you never know where the beginning, middle and end of what you’re doing is, and it’s so invisible. But as a waiter in a restaurant, you have all this structure and there are so many rules. It’s like exactly how life should go: you can learn how to do it well and meet the needs of the people you’re waiting on, because there’s such a clear delineation of roles. Everyone has their spot and you play it out to the best of your ability. There’s an atmosphere, there’s great food, and at the end of the day, you get a fistful of money – it’s really neat!

And then you do it again and again and again, and it’s exhausting. I mean, who wants to polish glasses for hours or be on your feet for nine to 12 hours straight? But there’s something that I miss about that, too. It’s so clear: you know where to show up and what to do and when to do it. When the job’s over, it’s very clearly over, compared to when you get an audition or you’re working on an idea as a writer, which both feel very amorphous.

I think I love the literalness of it, but also the low-brownness of it, too. I want to know which waiters are feuding and who’s about to get fired. Is the chef yelling at people and throwing things? Are other people aware of the font issue and the typo on the menu? I want to get into the nitty gritty.

One of these days I may write something about working in restaurants, as so many people in our industry have waited tables or been really deep in the food industry. A long time ago, when I first had an agent, I brought up that idea and they said, Yeah, everyone’s tried. It doesn’t work. But obviously that’s not true, because on The Bear, they do such an incredible job of it. It’s exciting when people say something can’t be done because you’re like, “Well, I guess I have to figure out how to make it work!” Maybe one day I’ll do that.