FRONT PAGE

ECONOMIC CRISIS:
     AMERICAN DREAM
     STUDENT LOANS
     JOB MARKET

CAMPUS NEWS:
    VOTING
    DAN RATHER
    SAFETY
    FIDDLESTIX
    AGAPE
    REALITY CHECK

SPORTS
    SOCCER
    CAPTAIN

A&E
     HAL SPARKS

SHENANIGANS

SENIOR PROFILE
     CLARK

PAST ISSUES

Adam sits down With Hal Sparks

by Adam Stahl
Exchange Staff

Adam Stahl: How are you enjoying "scenic" Rindge, New Hampshire?

Hal Sparks: Uh, Rindge is beautiful. It's kind of got that Camp Crystal Lake, latent serial killer vibe, ya know? Like, you half expect that if you roll up to whatever the local diner is some weird old geezer on the corner is going to go, "Stay out of the north woods." And then you're like "what?" Followed by "the Chupacabra…" and he's interrupted by some guy that's like "oh, no one listens to him." And then your car breaks down near the north woods and you hear this scuffling in the woods and one of your dumbass friends goes to see what it is and of course he disappears and someone's cell phone is dying and you have to argue whether or not you should go look for him and then it becomes all this personal stuff like whether he's really your friend or not and if you even like him in the first place and the girl decides to be all tough and says she'll go find him and then she disappears and one of you gets the bright idea that you should take a tire iron and head into the woods and then it ends horribly. Other than that, I have no opinion about Rindge.

AS: When did you realize you were funny? When you realized "wow, I could do this for a living."

HS: Wow, at a really young age. I think when I was 8 years old I made my grandmother laugh. She probably supported me in comedy the most, I talk about it a bit in my stand-up. But I always used to go to the movies with my mom and my Aunt Susan and she passed away and she was a very smart math professor. They named the math wing of her college after her when she passed away. And they'd take me to see things like Monty Python and the Holy Grail and things like that but I would sit in the front row like I would always do when I went to the movies. I would watch them laughing and there is certain jokes I would get and there's other I wouldn't get and it made go "what's so funny? Why are they laughing?"

     I used to read Mad magazine in bed at night before I'd go to sleep and they'd have song parodies and "sung to the tune of whatever" and I didn't know what any of these songs were from the 50's and 60's as far as songs went and I didn't know Elvis or Neil Diamond and I didn't care to because I've been a KISS fan since age 5. So my mom would have to sing the words of the songs to me in the tune of "You Light up My Life" or something like that and from that I figured out the mechanics of being funny. And then you just start copying albums. Being a comedian is kind of like being a farmer, you work at it from dawn 'til dusk everyday just trying to be funny.

AS: If you could have dinner with three people, dead or alive, who would they be?

HS: Some of them are both, does that count? Ha ha. George Carlin, clearly. I got my best advice as a comedian from him, he told me to "write everything down" and I think that applies to almost every job or anything you want to better yourself on. I would love to have dinner with George because he was a gem.

     Gosh, there's so many people…Thomas Jefferson, because the base of his knowledge and that base of knowledge I think was unsurpassed in American history except, maybe, Ben Franklin gave him a run for his money but Thomas Jefferson just had this openness to philosophical and political thought that is rare but needed now more than ever. It's really the reason I'm an Obama fan because I think it is the closest thing we've got to it.

     And then, gosh, Nikola Tesla. You know, most people think Marconi invented the radio but he had, what? 13 Tesla patents with his radio when he built it. I mean, and his ideas for wireless energy which I guarantee we will have in…20 years and will make the energy we're using now look as dumb as when the "Star Trek" crew came back in time and started talking into a computer mouse. I think those three people, I think we could talk well into the night…oh, and some chick with big boobs.

AS: You've had several roles in show biz throughout the years, but what would your dream role be?

HS: The truth is, there are two things I lament that have died in American entertainment. One is white guys who can fight. Since Chuck Norris kind of went off the deep end and become a facelift, exercise machine salesperson and Steven Segal turned into a weeble, we really don't have an American martial artist in the movies that can actually do what they do. I've been studying martial arts since I was eight years old and to me, that would be great fun, the idea of making kung-fu movies all the time just is so, I would love that.

     And I also lament, to some degree, the death of the American smartass, comedy-wise which, oddly enough, what America carved into the world more than anyone else was the smartass and the clever retort. Whereas you know, British comedy is more about embarrassment and anger and a lot of European comedy over the centuries has been about physical humor because of the multi-lingual nature of comedy was that you had to do things that had no sound to it so things like miming and vaudeville had to work. When America came in it was at the height of the beginning of the television and film era with the wiseass speaking true to power is the voice of America as far as comedy goes and I think Eddie Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop is a good example of that or Chevy Chase in Fletch. That kind of wiseass angle has to some degree been lost.

     We've somewhat fallen into the British angle of embarrassment and anger and it's great, you can milk it, like if you look at the major comedy hit movies of the younger generation is more about sharp retort. I think Jim Carrey is the closest because the Ace Ventura character is very sharp and very witty but it's hidden behind this cloak of abnormality and it's almost like I would like to see a Jim Carrey movie with that level of funny without the goofiness if that's what he wants to transition into. I think me being a wiseass fighter in a bunch of movies would be so much fun and I don't think anyone else can do it or wants to so I might be able to corner the market on it which I think is the goal.

     Honest to God that's why I haven't done another series in the last two years and why I chose to get back on the road doing stand-up back to my roots. Because I spent the last five years playing Michael on "Queer as Folk" and it's a very distinct character and I think it's hard to get out of that with people seeing you that way. I think you kind of have to remake yourself and you need some distance and have to have people go "what happened to you?" for a little while so that you can be you again. I've got about eight months before I'm back to where I want to be and I can start from scratch on a new set of characters as it were and I think that'll be the zone, that's my goal, my niche mark and if I can do something that's what it is.

AS: If you weren't in the spotlight today, what would you be doing?

HS: If I weren't in the spotlight today I would be working on getting into the spotlight TODAY. In all honesty, I do this as a career and as a path as a human being, I don't do it as a job and so there is no variance. I am a big believer of "burn the boats at the shore." I don't know if you know that story but this general came to an island and they were going to take over this place and as soon as his troops were on the shore he set fire to the boats and they said "what the heck are you doing?" and the general said "we either win or we don't go home," and I've always had that attitude in everything that I do.

     I think it's the healthiest way and it means you live a life of vigor as opposed to a life of marching in line with some other BS that somebody else has setup for you. If you really believe in what you're doing than there's no other way to do it. There's no other option. I never had a job to fall back on. Some people are like "oh well, I have a job to fall back on," that's the worst possible option, that gives you a soft landing. You don't want a soft landing, you want a pit of nails under you to some degree. If I don't win I'm screwed ya know? I mean, that's a motivator.

     The problem socially that a lot of us are going through is that we have too many soft landings. It's too easy to get a flat screen TV, it's too easy to get a nice apartment and IKEA has made it so that everyone looks like they live well even though they don't so you can BS yourself into thinking you are where you want to be before you are which is the biggest danger. You don't want to ever do that. You'd rather live in squalor until you can afford that big nice house to some degree. That's sort of more the immigrant mentality, they like live in the back of their store until one day, "how the heck did he afford that $12 million mansion on the hill?" It's because that was the only option, to work hard and get it. I really think we soften ourselves at first because we think we deserve softeners and I'm not a fan of that.

     Toughen it up you know? Live with some struggles so you can meet people down the road and be equals with them, you know? It's worse in the arts. If you're in the arts, no one thinks you struggle, they think you just BS. Like, if you dig a ditch for a living, at the end of the day people can point and say "that was dug, that ditch is done", you can see physical evidence of it. As a writer, artist, actor, comedian, musician, you can "dig" all day and you can be convinced that you "dug it" but nobody else has to agree with you and that's a really strange place to live.

     So you have to face that on some level and realize that no one else is going to give a crap about what you do until it somehow affects them in a positive or negative sense. And so for me it is just "plow ahead," "own your life," "never fear" because it is nobody else's business, so do it you know? The thing with stand-up is "there's nothing to it but to do it," it's a muscle, you just have to keep using it and I think that's true of any great path.