Mark Allen

My story about the time in the 80’s I drove to Austin naked and the cops found “drugs” in my car (originally recorded live as part of Kevin Allison’s Risk!, at 92Y Tribeca in NYC) is airing on NPR’s new storytelling program Snap Judgment this week, as part of their Road Trip show. Check the show’s website (or NPR’s) for terrestrial stations (it airs in NYC on WNYC), or you can download the podcast of the show on here.
UPDATE: Here’s the audio of the show on Snap Judgement’s site.

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Rev. Sam A. Adreades and Mark Allen (photo: Jeff Moore)

I was coached by a priest that’s part of an “ex-gay” program in front of a live audience at Upright Citizens Brigade Theater last week, as part of Ken Freedman and Andy Breckman’s excellent Seven Second Delay program. The audio archive of the show is up at the 7SD site, as well as some great photos by Jeff Moore. What happened? Well, the power of Christ is still trying to compel me. A lot of my friends — who were great — came out to see me do comedy, and it was instead this awkward, what-the-hell-is-happening kinda thing. The show was… cringe-y, but interesting. Ken and Andy were their usual showman selves, very fun. Rev. Sam A. Adreades of NYC’s Village Church/G.A.M.E. program was great, and a real sport to come out and put himself on the line like that (we’re having lunch this week, and I’m attending G.A.M.E.’s next meeting). He’s a good guy! Did people laugh? There were some clucking tongues and boos when Sam was discussing his opinions about the Kinsey report. It got a bit tense in the audience at one point, and there was some snickering when Sam was praying for me. People seemed to not know if they should be laughing or not. When I was up there I was thinking “How do I get into these situations?” Only one person after the show (an old activist friend) told me what I did was “irresponsible.” I’m glad I did it. And 7SD is known for this kind of thing. There was an EMT crew standing behind me while it was happening (they were there for the competitive eating guy). At one point Andy Breckman tried to turn me straight by surprising me with old black and white Joey Heatherton footage from The Tonight Show. That didn’t work either.

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Comments Off on Got bit by a garter snake while mowing lawn today. Attached to my leg & had to yank it off. Look at it now. Eww…

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Comments Off on Recommended: listening to Gill Melle’s ANDROMEDA STRAIN sdtk. while riding the upstate train, as the setting sun flickers rapidly along the Hudon river landscape

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(Click here for) some of my then and now photos taken in downtown NYC in 2010.

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(photo: Ben Wilson)

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Hey New Yorkers! Come see me get “cured” of my homosexuality (in front of a studio audience) on August 25th as part of Seven Second Delay Live! (w/ hosts Ken Freedman and Andy Breckman) at Upright Citizen’s Brigade Theater (307 West 26th Street, 6-7 PM). I’ll be joined live on stage by my friend Rev. Sam A. Andreades of The Village Church (G.A.M.E./Exodus Intl. church network), and we’ll be discussing my 2008 enrollment in the Exodus International introductory program, what happened there, why it didn’t “work” on me, how Sam’s approach is different, and what paths I might take to reorient my sexual orientation. You think I’m joking, right? I’m not! Should be a very interesting show, I know I’d pay $5 to see something like that. I may change my mind (again)! Come by and see what happens…
(Facebook event page)

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Google CEO Eric Schmidt is right. Although my name is pretty hard to search on the internet as it is. Maybe I should change it to “sex.com” or “the the” just to make it totally impossible.

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Check out my latest for Vice magazine’s “anti-music” issue, an overview of “melophobia” (fear of music). Do you know someone who says they don’t like music? Someone who doesn’t own a single CD or an iPod? Are they always turning the radio down? And when pressed on the subject, do they shrug and say they don’t really “getâ€? music? Never could quite figure that person out, could you? Your friend’s weird lack of taste could be the result of melophobia, a little-understood but very real neurophysiological condition. So turn that iPod down and read-on, for interviews with Dr. Marsha Johnson (audiologist and clinical director at the Oregon Tinnitus & Hyperacusis Clinic), John Loudenbeck (a sound engineer who struggles with melophobia) and Julie Hope, a grandmother who has dealt with “musicogenic epilepsy” (music-triggered seizures) her whole life. Music is all around us…and melophobia is real!

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