Meet Mark Miller | Content Creator

We had the good fortune of connecting with Mark Miller and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Mark, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
Having your own business gives you the freedom and pleasure to do what you want, with whom you want, when you want. And you can’t be fired, unless you’re a real masochist. So there’s permanent job security. And in this pandemic age, there’s also greater safety if you’re working remotely.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
Obviously, seven brief paragraphs cannot possibly begin to capture the scope and depth of my life experience. That would take a eighth paragraph, which I have every intention of adding just as soon as there’s a break in my hectic schedule.

Made possible by my mother giving birth to me, for which I give her nearly full credit, I grew up on the East Coast and received a B.A. in English Literature with Honors from Franklin and Marshall College, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania—the heart of the Amish country. I did this for two reasons: to impress women with my knowledge of books and to absorb the well-known humor of the Amish.

I started my comedy career in the San Francisco stand-up comedy scene, where I wrote and performed my own stand-up act, sharing the comedy club stages and often doing improvisational comedy with Dana Carvey and Robin Williams. Encouraged by Jay Leno to move to Los Angeles, I became a stand-up fixture at the Comedy Store and Improvisation nightclubs. TV soon beckoned, and I became the first 4.0 perfect-score-from-all-three-judges winner on “Star Search.” Several TV talk show appearances followed. At the same time, I created special stand-up comedy material for Roseanne Barr, Rodney Dangerfield, Joan Rivers, Jimmie Walker, Gallagher, Jay Leno, Garry Shandling, Jim Carrey, Dana Carvey and many others.

This was followed by a series of sit-com staff positions, ranging from staff writer to story editor to executive script consultant, to producer, on such shows as “The New Odd Couple,” “Diff’rent Strokes,” “She’s The Sheriff,” “The Munsters Today,” “The Carol Burnett Show,” (her more recent come-back attempt), “Living Dolls,” “Together We Stand,” “What A Dummy,” “The New Hollywood Squares,” and Dana Carvey’s HBO Special.

I have been a nationally syndicated humor columnist for the Los Angeles Times Syndicate and a regular blogger for The Huffington Post and Medium.com. My humor essays have also appeared in a variety of magazines, newspapers and websites. I’ve contributed radio comedy sketches and original material to Premiere Radio Syndicate and to the Jack FM series of CBS radio stations nationwide. I have also been a part of the vibrant Los Angeles spoken word scene, performing my personal essays at storytelling shows such as The Moth, Sit ‘N Spin, and I Love a Good Story, in theaters and clubs.

Finally, I’ve contributed comedy material to Showtime, the Playboy Channel, America Online, MSN, Weekly World News, and to nationally syndicated cartoonists including “Bizarro”’s Dan Piraro. I am currently developing an edgy new children’s sit-com called “Brokeback Daycare Center,” and sincerely hope both for world peace and a nutritionally healthy dark chocolate. A selection of my humorous dating essays is collected in my book, 500 Dates: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Online Dating Wars. It’s my first book, if you don’t count 101 Reasons Why You Should Date Me, the limited-edition pamphlet I created in college just to convince Janet Vartel to go out with me. I consider the pamphlet only semi-successful, due to Janet’s restraining order.

As to how I attained all this, it comes down, I think, to a love of writing and of making people laugh. Though there was plenty of rejection and failure along the way, I considered that to be part of everyone’s journey and just kept pressing ahead. It was all stuff I loved so much that I would have done it for free anyway – and often did work for free for years, until I reached the point where others found me worthy of payment. Hard work, contacts and a little luck all helped.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
My girlfriend and I are vegan, so if they’re open-minded about that, we’d introduce them to some of the city’s most wonderful and creative vegan restaurants, such as Crossroads, Gracias Madre, Au Lac, Nic’s on Beverly, and Shojin. And for more casual vegan options: Veggie Grill, Vegan Glory, Real Food Daily, Araya’s Place, and Erewhon. Might take them to the Improv, Comedy Store or Laugh Factory for a live comedy show.
Or to one of the wonderful live shows of musical chanteuse extraordinaire Janet Klein: https://www.janetklein.com/web/main.htm
And of course to the Santa Monica Beach and hiking in Runyon Canyon.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I’d like to make a shoutout to all the women in my life, including my mother, sister, daughter, girlfriend, ex-girlfriends, ex-wife, friends, and co-workers, who have been so supportive and loving throughout my life. Not that the men haven’t, but the women have especially stepped up to the plate for me.

Website: https://www.markmillerhumorist.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkMiller123

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/markmiller.writer/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/TofuMan333

Other: For my marketing copywriter credits: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markmiller3/ https://my.visualcv.com/markmiller1/