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Thursday, March 15, 2012

An Illuminating Interview



Here's my
Gelf Magazine interview with professional funny person Mark Sam Rosenthal. Mark Sam's a Comedy Central writer, who also makes plays that look good from the short YouTube highlights I've seen.

The concept behind his most recent play I Light Up My Life is brilliant. Despite having starred in a Travelocity commercial (which only ran in the UK, and recently was declared the 44th gayest ad ever) and acted in a porno, Mark Sam still hadn't quite "made it big" (in the "become a mega-celebrity" way, not in reference to his porn career. Aaayyoo). So Mark Sam decided to create his own glowing preemptive celebrity autobiography and then adapt the novel -- one that only exists in his head -- into a play that would further glorify his life.

I didn't know about his play when I lived in NYC, which is unfortunate. Especially my last theater experience left a bad taste in my mouth as when I went to see Killing John Grisham, it was actually really good, despite my general disdain for theater. The terrible part is that Killing John Grisham was written by a kid my age, which of course made me resent him and hate myself for not having accomplished what he had. Even worse, I wrote KJG's creator, who is Sarah's friend, a very complimentary Facebook message. The bastard never wrote me back. All that to say I wish my last NYC play could have been Mark Sam's and not the other guy's... and I'm still bitter.

Tangent aside, Mark Sam is really nice, not just because he wrote me back... well mainly because he wrote me back and made for a entertaining interview. Additionally the article also let me work in one of my favorite shitty-and-vaguely homophobic jokes, which I got to use in that beautiful window that was right after New York legalized gay marriage and before I got engaged. A time when I could tell Sarah that I never wanted to get married because "that shit is for homos." Let the record show that I'm all for homosexuals and I hope they one day have the same amount, if not more, rights than heterosexuals -- I was just very fond of my own joke, thus proving why I should leave all humor to professional comedians.

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