Mark's List Claims Theft
The owner of one of Florida’s largest gay websites is fighting back after discovering a new start-up company is allegedly stealing his site’s content. JumpOnMarksList.com owner Mark Haines claims that owners of ThePinkLife.com has taken a majority of their content from his website and the websites of other local gay organizations such as Sobe Gay Life and the Gay and Lesbian Community Center.
Mark’s List is a seven-year-old company that posts GLBT photos, news, events restaurant and bar reviews. They attract about 4,000-6,000 unique visitors per day, with most of their traffic from the South Florida area but with significant readership across the state.
The Pink Life is also a GLBT website, which has been in development for about one year, and had their soft launch coincide with Miami Beach Gay Pride in early April, according The Pink Life owner Lesette Figueroa.
Haines recently sent a 22-page copyright infringement letter to EZOT, Inc., former host of the The Pink Life. In his complaint, Haines states, “The website http://thepinklife.com was clearly based on the work of Mark’s List and is littered with content copied directly from Mark’s list.” The letter then goes on to demonstrate 17 examples of content that Haines says The Pink Life stole off of his website. He said that is only a small portion and not an exhaustive list.
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Britney Spears will receive LOGO’s Always Next, Forever Now Award in a ceremony in Los Angeles next month. The gay and lesbian-themed network will honor pop culture pioneer making incredible strides during the second annual 
Jonny McGovern: Gay Pimp of All Media
You have a recurring cast of characters, the people on the show have things they goof on each other about -- it’s almost like you have your own satellite radio show.
Exactly. There’s no rules, and it’s definitely in that format, that long-form Howard Stern type of ... the shows are as long as we want it to be and the format allows us to do or say what we want. People come on and ask, "Can I curse?" And I say, "They ain't no rules on the podcast!"
How time-consuming is the podcast? It seems like you’ve got so many irons in the comedy fire.
We have it down to pretty much a science. At first was full days of working on it; we'd record five or six hours one day and then spend the whole next day editing. But now we have it down to a science; it’s pretty tight. I'm able to do all my other faggoty endeavors at the same time, but this is my favorite one. It also provokes the most passionate fans -- the kids who listen to the podcast are really devoted; they get really into it and get into the characters.
A lot of us first got to know you from the Gay Pimp videos, but take me back before that. What’s your performing background?
Well, you know, I went to acting school; I went to Boston University School for the Arts and then came to New York. But I sort of got bored when I originally moved here, waiting for someone to cast me in things. I saw all these other people performing their own material, and thought, I can do that, so I started performing these one-man shows all around New York. And eventually, to promote those shows, I went to open-mike nights at all these Lower East Side kind of alternative comedy rooms. And one of those shows that I started doing with a group of people out of those open-mike nights, called Grindhouse-a-Go-Go, everybody would get together and we would write a loose script and just throw together these musicals. And one of those shows was called The Wrong Fag to Fuck With: The Gay Pimp vs. Eminem, and that’s where the whole Gay Pimp thing started. That’s where the "Soccer Practice" song came out of. And then I started performing as the Gay Pimp character at different nightclubs in New York.
When you started doing this, there was no Logo ...
There wasn't even YouTube! [Laughs] I feel like, man, this would have been a lot easier if my video had been passed around on YouTube. They were playing it in video bars! A phenomenon I didn't even know existed! Today, it would have been a lot easier to get that video seen and a lot easier to get revenue streams off of it. I mean, I remember sending people DVDs at the post office, myself!
Queer comedy seems like it was ghettoized for a long time, but now it seems to be reaching a wider audience. In the years that you've been doing it, do you sense a shift in who your fans are and who’s responding to this material?
There’s always been a group of people who liked what I did, but "Soccer Practice" kinda hit across the board. The people that I reached on that level -- straight girls, straight nerds, whoever -- they all would come along with me. I think more people understand what I'm talking about now, due to the Tyra-ization of gay culture. Or RuPaul's Drag Race. A lot of references to runway battles and drag things that gay people have known about from their club life are certainly becoming more mainstream and easier for people to understand. All our gay subculture secrets are now being fully used on mainstream TV shows, but that’s good so people can understand you. But I always think, Tyra, you stole my joke!
Who do you think is funny? Who are your comedy idols?
When I was a kid, I was obsessed with Lucille Ball. My bedroom was like a shrine, with Lucille Ball and the casts of The Golden Girls and 227 cut up and put on my walls. It was so faggoty. Everyone else my age had pictures of rock stars or sexy ladies, and I was all, "Oh. Bea Arthur, you're so beautiful." [Laughs] I really do think that watching Golden Girls can be like a master class in delivery and timing. And when I was a kid, I was really loving what Whoopi Goldberg was doing, when she was doing those one-woman shows back in the day. I still enjoy her on The View, but back in the day, she was someone I looked to in my early career as to who I wanted to emulate as to how she got her big break. She took acting classes and did her one-person show characters in class to get attention, and I followed that same path, but sadly, I was not cast in The Color Purple by Steven Spielberg. (laughs) That’s where our roads divide.
Has any of your material, especially with the podcast, been controversial? I mean, being a skinny guy playing an enormously fat guy has to be one of the last queer taboos, much less the racial and trans material you guys get into.
Not from The Big Gay Sketch Show. I mean, certainly we had a lot of racy stuff, especially in season two, but I haven't had anybody get angry with me about any of that kind of stuff. It’s all pretty much love from the fans out there. There have been times over my career in the past when people have accused me of pandering to some idea that gay guys are all about sex -- there was criticism of the Gay Pimp that it was all [in televangelist voice] "dancing go-go boys and drag queens and rhinestones!" And it’s like, "Lighten up, bitch. We're having fun." That’s the only kind of criticism that people give me, that whatever I do, it’s shining a bad light because it’s too frivolous. But I think there’s a lot of room for frivolity in the world today and plenty of room for rhinestones, go-go boys and drag queens.
If you could do anything, whether it was touring or TV or writing or the podcast, where do you want all this to go?
Ultimately, I love doing TV. Filming The Big Gay Sketch Show has been a blast, and that’s what I’d like to do more of. If the podcast could lead to a TV show, like Howard Stern did, that would be a blast. Or I love late-night or even daytime talk shows, so you and your grandma could have a nice cup of tea in the afternoon with your Gay Pimp, Jonny McGovern.
MTV recently posted the trailer for Pedro an MTV original movie that dramatizes the story of the late Pedro Zamora, the Real World season 3 cast member who was both openly-gay and HIV-positive. (It's set to premiere on MTV and Logo on April 1.)
The diva who coined the phrase “You Betta Work!” appeared in an interview with CNN’s Reggie Aqui on Tuesday to promote his new LOGO reality show, RuPaul’s Drag Race, which tries to find America’s next drag entertainer. See RuPaul as never seen before on camera.
Logo And Rupaul Are In Search Of America's Next Drag Queen Superstar As "RUPAUL'S DRAG RACE," Presented By Absolut(R) Vodka, Premieres Monday, February 2 10:00 PM ET/PT On Logo
While "RuPaul's Drag Race" will take a look at the outrageous world of drag, it will also reveal the courage, perseverance and humanity of 9 men who have overcome and endured the hardships of a masculine dominated society that mocks and makes fun of men who act like women. Not only will viewers get a bird's eye view of what it takes for these chameleons to transform themselves but they will also take away the secrets of the artistry of drag.
