When did the Will Clark Show/Porno Bingo start, and where did you get the idea for it?
I had been hired by Micky’s in West Hollywood to revamp and emcee their weekly “Cocktails with the Stars” event in 1999. This was a show with local porn stars talking about themselves and hawking their latest videos. I had a couple stars like Jeff Palmer and Sergio Real sing during the show and really liked the idea of having performance embedded. As I was producing the “Bad Boys Pool Party” at the time, I was very heavily involved in charitable work and wanted that to be a part of the show somehow, but the bar thought that it would be too much of a downer for a show where we were giving away porn. But I managed to sneak it in anyway – doing a shout out to friends of mine who worked in the fundraising sector who would “just happen” to drop by – and then I’d talk about their org for five minutes.
In 2003 I moved back to NYC and had been hired to produce a weekly show at View Bar in Chelsea. It wasn’t terribly successful, but I did have a commitment to promoting LGBT nonprofits, so I ended up meeting a lot of the people in our community who were doing really magnificent work. I knew of a couple bingo games in town, and one day I thought that it would be funny if “Porno” was atop the card instead of the word “Bingo.” Thus “Porno Bingo” was born, at least in name.
When the View Bar show got canceled, a fan/friend of mine who worked at the 9th Ave. Bistro as a barback suggested I do something there. I pitched “Porno Bingo” and put the pieces together. Eventually it all came together, and the basic concept that we worked out eight years ago is still strong today – play four rounds, bring in two or three guests (drag queens, porn stars, singers, comics, soap stars and other “gaylebrities”), give the charity bingo cards to sell and let them keep 100% of the amount raised. Over the years, we’ve gotten more “showy” with DJs and lights and all sorts of “show” aspects, but when we made the change to Uncle Charlie’s in February, I decided to strip all that away and just get back to the original format and the original feel.
So far, I think we’ve been successful. We are still giving away tix to Off-Broadway shows, lube from ID and all sorts of other fun giveaway items. The porn donations have dwindled over the past couple years, so we might end up giving away something else eventually, but it’ll always be a fabulous night no matter what! By the way, we haven’t done our “porn star jockstrap” auction in quite awhile though, and I’m looking forward to the day that I can bring that back.
Your show always benefits a worthwhile charity or organization. How do you pick them?
It’s a mixed bag. I made about 80% of the contacts with organizations that still routinely come to bingo in that year I was doing the talk show at View Bar (2004) – and so, while some of the development or fundraising contacts have changed over the years, many of the organizations are still in business. Today, I still do some outreach to orgs (for example, I spent a great evening at a sports team networking event a few months ago and hopefully we’ll have some of them join us), but I also get a fair amount of reps from orgs contacting me directly via email or coming to see the show themselves and deciding that they’d like to be a part of it. My best advice for any organization that thinks they’d like to benefit from Porno Bingo is to come to a random night and see what we do and approach me during a break.
What’s in store for the Will Clark Show / Porno Bingo in the future?
More performances and more NYC gaylebrities. I have Yolanda and one of Vito Gallo’s last appearances booked for May 8, Witti Repartee on the 15th, Jake Deckard coming to the show on May 22 and all sorts of great guests planned for the weeks beyond that.
If you would like to be a guest or be considered as a charity, contact
Will Clark at willclarkworld@gmail.com
For more information visit:
http://www.willclarkworld.com/
The Will Clark Show / Porno Bingo is every Wednesday night from
9-11 p.m. at Uncle Charlie’s, 139 E 45th St., New York, NY 10017
www.unclecharliesnyc.com
