The front half of Ferguson Hall was filled Thursday night with a few hundred people eager to see cult celebrity Hal Sparks. A Renaissance man in the entertainment field, Sparks is an actor, comedian, musician and general hottie (if you’re into guys that weigh less than you).

Popular among women and gay men alike, Hal’s fame is mostly attributed to his five seasons as Mikey, the lead character on Showtime’s Queer As Folk. You might also remember him from the elevator scene in Spiderman 2 — he’s the one that tells Spidey what a cool costume he’s wearing. Some say he’s also responsible for the downfall of E’s Talk Soup, but the show didn’t have that far to fall anyway. And his jokes were always funny. Mostly.

Texas born, L.A.-based comedian Chris Bonno, opened the show. A well-rounded sort of fella, Bonno was either nervous and used it as a crutch in his act or can mimic nervousness to use it as crutch in his act. He clutched an acoustic guitar for half the set, periodically breaking into song. The best part was his grand finale: a spot-on impersonation of Paul McCartney. With a simple shaking of his hair forward into his face, he captured the look of McCartney, bringing to mind SNL’s “The Chris Farley Show” skit. (“Farley: Remember when you were with The Beatles … and everyone thought that you were dead? That was, um, a hoax, right? McCartney: Yeah. I wasn't really dead.”)

Sparks hit the stage looking like a teenager who went crazy at the Hot Topic — crisp black T-shirt, shiny wallet chain linked with Iron Crosses, hair stylishly streaked with red. More than just a pretty face (and body), the man had done his homework on Tampa, pleasing the crowd with tidbits of local info. Sparks’ talked throughout the set; running around the stage while sharing a story about paintball, singing (very well) every time he got the chance to show off his ’cords. He even sprawled out on his back four or five times. His best bits were imitating the dinosaur shows he loves on the Discovery Channel (much screeching like a winged reptile), and discussing the reason the T-Rex was so mean (their arms were too short for them to whack off).

A follower of Eastern religious traditions, Sparks lost the audience

during frequent references to reincarnation and quieted the crowd when,

in a joke on weather (he grew up on a tornado lane in Kentucky), he

spoke the name Katrina. The audience wasn’t sure where he was going at

that point, and Sparks smartly felt the tension and quickly went back

to making fun of rednecks in the Bluegrass state.

My favorite part was his social commentary on the usage of slang for the female anatomy. He said he

didn’t approve of the use of P-word as an insult insinuating weakness.

He said the fragile center of a woman can take on hours and hours and

hours (and hours) of, ahem, utilization (one should be so lucky). He

also pointed out that women pop out babies all the time, whereas he’s

sent into the fetal position if his own genitalia is rubbed the wrong

way. ‘Basically my dick is a pussy,” he said wrapping up the bit.

After the show, young women and metrosexuals alike lined up to get pictures,

autographs and a cheap feel of Hal Sparks. Roberto (Mata, of TBCN's Voice of Pride, and I were at the front of the line.