Okay, so I interviewed Hal Sparks a few weeks ago. Why has it taken me this long to get the damned article written? Where do I begin? Well, besides being out of the country for a little while, I had problems w/ the recorder I used to record the interview and then…I started to compile the facts and the info on Hal and honestly??? This guy is so busy he makes me feel like I don’t do anything. (And I’m always busy!) There is so much I could tell you about this guy, that I could write a book. It might be easier for me to tell you what he isn’t doing than to tell you what he is. But I’ll try my best to give you the important facts and info. Take it or leave it, this guy is nothing short of amazing.
Hal Sparks is a badass NOH8 mofo
Hal Sparks, comedian, actor, musician, activist, inspiration. Put that in any order and it still makes me wish I did more than I do already. The first place I ever saw him was on E! when he hosted the show Talk Soup. After that I saw some of his stand up on TV but it wasn’t until Queer As Folk that I started to really admire him. (Not for the reasons you might be thinking!) I was blown away by his versatility and his ability to play a character that many actors wouldn’t have the guts to play. Instant admiration. Eventually I saw him at an AIDS Walk and started to see his name around many of the charities that I support. My admiration only grew as I realized that he was for real. He didn’t do Queer As Folk because he was looking for fame and fortune, he sincerely cared about the issues. Then I find out he has a band. Zero 1. What else can this man do? “I think I’m a combination of all of them really, I don’t think I feel like I’m more of an actor than a musician or a comedian, they all seemed to be a beautiful and great way to express things since I was a kid. I mean, I’ve been a Kiss fan since I was five, I’ve been listening to Steve Martin, Robin Williams, Jonathan Winters, Richard Pryor, George Carlin, since I was the same age.”, he assured me, “They all have their own challenges and none of them come easier to me than another.” He was one of the first people that I started to follow on Twitter which is where I learned that this guy is pretty much too smart for me. His passion, compassion and eloquence make him someone that I enjoy reading just about everything he talks about. I learn a lot from him. And I learned a lot during my opportunity to talk to him as well.
One of my favourite things that he said was, “I have my own ideas about what happens to us after we die, but I do know that no one can tell you how much time you have, no one can tell you how much experience you can have in your life, so anyone who tries to limit you on what you should or shouldn’t be doing as far as societal pressure, is selling something.” If there is one statement from the entire conversation that sums up what Twisted Peppermint is about, it is the idea that you do what is you and what you feel as an individual, not let others tell you who you are. Essentially “be yourself” right?
I wanted to know where all of this compassion he has comes from? I suppose I was of the understanding or belief that we tend to lean towards compassion for various issues because they have touched us in some way. Hal explains differently, “I think the natural inclination is towards being compassionate, open-minded and hopeful, but it usually gets beaten out of you as opposed to into you, so I think I just managed to avoid the beating, you know? The sort of societal push towards not caring.” And with that the lessons began. I had never heard it put that way nor thought of it that way on my own. It really made me rethink my reasons for my own compassion and concern for various issues. “I sort of view the way that I am as just common decency, but there is this idea that doing stuff or taking an interest in issues takes a lot of work. There is a level of work involved, you do have to get up and leave your house to go to an event or volunteer, but the effort really comes from avoiding it and the stress of avoiding it. The negativity comes from not being compassionate.” In just the first five minutes my perspective on issues and being involved in issues had changed and that isn’t a bad thing, it has made me realize that maybe we really are so involved in the issues we are involved in because we are these compassionate and caring people that we constantly strive to be. So maybe the key is in not striving so hard and just let it come, because it is inside of us already.
So what about the issue of hate? Does hate come naturally to us as well? If you have been reading my blog for a while (or any number of blogs I’ve had) you know how I feel about the state of hate these days. I don’t even like the word and I feel that hate has become the norm these days. We (as a culture) seem to love to hate others. Reality shows, celebrity gossip, so much about our media is about making fun of or disliking others. I asked Hal how he feels about all of that. “If anything it has really lessened the strength of the word ‘hate’, really you can’t genuinely hate a lot of the things people say they do, especially as far as people go. There are a lot of people out there who are saying things like ‘OMG I love this band or that person’ so really saying ‘I hate Incubus’ is the equivalent of saying ‘If I’m not home by a certain time my parents are going to kill me.’ So that doesn’t concern me as much as a lot of other things going on.” He makes a great point here and one that highlights the issue of vernacular and how we can take a word and essentially beat it to death until it no longer has the same meaning anymore or at least isn’t nearly as intense as it once was. He feels that, “we use extreme language to express extreme emotion even when the situation isn’t essentially that extreme.” Personally, I still can’t say that I hate a person, but that is just me and how I was raised, but I can certainly see his point and how, for the most part, people throwing that word around doesn’t have much of an impact anymore. He continued, “I think linguistically we have to be careful about how we talk, but only in how we communicate to ourselves. I think it was Lenny Bruce who said, ‘There are no dirty words, just dirty minds.’ and I think the same thing applies to violence, you know? That kind of language can be turned on ourselves as much as it can be turned onto another person or an activity. And the funny thing is, the people who are always saying they hate something do more damage to themselves than to the thing they actually hate.” Actually, that is exactly how I look at throwing hate around, that it can be detrimental to ourselves and to me it is just a way to attract more negativity.
Being involved in issues can be overwhelming to many of us and as much as we might like to help, sometimes we can’t express ourselves properly because we get that enraged about an issue. “Anger and being enraged like that really becomes ineffective towards the issue. If you’re too angry, you don’t have all of your skills at hand.” he told me, as I sat and realized, I have some anger management to work on. As humans we are expressive and I am always encouraging others to express themselves in a positive way yet I know I sometimes can’t do the same. My anger over an issue gets in the way and he’s right, I become quite ineffective. “If an issue is really that important to you and you really want to make a difference you have to learn to steady yourself and have all your wits about you.” So true.
Our art and how we express ourselves can sometimes create an inclination towards or away from an issue as well, especially if we encounter something during that expression that makes us suddenly realize differently about issues or the way we handle an issue. (As is the case as I talk to Hal and have my eyes opened to a new way of seeing.) I asked him if he has encountered anything while working that has made him change his feelings on any issues. “No, I just think it is a natural expression of who I am. I mean, my views towards the gay community didn’t change after I did Queer As Folk. It was a natural expression of something that I thought needed to be done, which is largely why I took the role in the first place.” Told you so! If you haven’t seen his brilliant performance on the show, you have to check it out.
For those of us who seem to feel overwhelmed by the very issues we care about, it makes sense that we probably have to retrain our thought processes and start realizing that our efforts need not be overwhelming. What does Hal Sparks do to decompress from his efforts. “Well I always have something else to do. I have many outlets and they all feed into each other. My life feeds into my art and my art feeds into my life so there is no point where I actually let go of an issue.” There was a zen about talking to him. He speaks very confidently, animately and positively, which was slightly intimidating (due to my own insecurities) yet calming because he really expresses himself so intelligently, it was inspiring. After talking to him , the idea of making our art flow into our lives and our lives flow into our art made perfect sense. That process is even pretty calming when you think about it. Most likely this is all common sense that, as Hal stated previously, was kind of beaten out of us.
One of my favourite question to ask everyone is “What is art to you?” I did ask Hal this question. I did not, however, remember to turn the recorder on during that part of the interview. I loved his answer too. It was good, trust me. I’m bummed I didn’t record it, but if you follow him on Twitter, check out his stand up or follow him in anyway, you probably already get the gist of how he views art. He is art. So while I am admitting this was one of the toughest articles for me to write, it wasn’t for a bad reason. Hal Sparks is a human being who never seems to slow down, but yet doesn’t seem bothered by being busy, which I think many of us can’t say for ourselves. We run ourselves ragged doing things we don’t believe in and save the things we love for later and call them hobbies. If there is one thing I came out of this interview with it is that I should be more diligent about the things I care about and my life should reflect my art, and vice versa.
I cannot thank Hal enough for talking with me. It really meant a lot and was by far one of the most informative and inspiring interviews I’ve done thus far.
Because I tend to like to focus on why people do what they do and what their thoughts are on how we process our compassion, art and ideas, I tend not to get too into asking people about things like, their bands, shows, movies, etc, I like to know about what goes on in their minds about why they do what they do. So I didn’t get into asking Hal about a few things. So here I’ll just link you via some images so you can check them out yourself!
Zero 1
Charmageddon
Humpdays w/ Hal on the Stephanie Miller Show
His tongue...
Check more Hal out at:
PS: A HUGE THANK YOU to Amy for spending weeks going back and forth with me via email to make this happen. You rock!
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