So far, 2006 is agreeing with Rob Foster. In addition to this weekend’s world premiere opening of his fifth play, a romantic comedy called Just Lovely, the local actor, playwright and artist is still basking in the afterglow of the unexpected success of his first animated short—a retelling of the infamously crude “Aristocrats” joke, which won a national contest thrown by the 2005’s The Aristocrats.

“It’s been a good start to the year,” Foster admits with a laugh. “Hopefully it’s the beginning of something bigger.”

Foster describes Just Lovely as a “very light” story about “dueling psychos.”

“It’s as complex and simple as that,” he says. “It’s not something the audience has to struggle to grasp. There’s no purpose, no redeeming qualities, it exists just to make people laugh. Any larger meaning is purely incidental.”

Although he sees it as a sequel to his 1998 comedy Guy Things, “another really comical satirical take on dating and relationships,” Foster considers Just Lovely much funnier and tighter.

In between the two romantic comedies, Foster also wrote and produced two well-received dramatic biographies—Ambrose Bierce (2000) and Mr. Bruce, Do You Swear? (2004). The latter play was honored by the UK Lenny Bruce Society and garnered a call from Village Voice writer and First Amendment champion Nat Hentoff, who is also Bruce’s biographer. In addition, one of Foster’s short plays, Anonymous, won Santa Cruz’s 2003 Ten-Minute Play Festival.

According to Foster, the story of Just Lovely is incited by the Date.com.

“The Web site automatically pairs up people who are like you,” Foster says. “This, of course, doesn’t bode well for people who are psychotic. The two characters come together and try to out-psychotic each other before coming to their senses and breaking things off. Unfortunately, fate brings them back together at a bosses’ party.”

Foster says he’s always been fascinated why men and women tolerate each other.

“It’s a necessary evil, I guess,” he says. “We all need love like we need food, water, air. Some people resent that, some grin and bear it.”

Foster traces the modern problem of male and female relationships to an increasing number of individuals who act as “havens of self-gratification.”

“People are being programmed to become islands unto themselves,” Foster says. “We’re getting away from truths like the fact that we need each other. We’re buying into this fiction that we’re all self-contained. Ultimately, this kind of mentality is doomed to failure because as humans, in loneliness, we can never be happy.”

Foster has spent years trying to make it in Los Angeles. And although he had a lot of what he calls “little breakthroughs,” including national commercials and a small part on CSI, he hasn’t achieved the success he desires.

His most high-profile success so far was the Aristocrats contest.

The Aristocrats was a 2005 comedic documentary in which 100 star comedians tell the same very filthy joke—one shared by comics since Vaudeville. Foster’s rendition of the story, which won the Animated Category of the contest, will be included on the Jan. 24 release of the DVD.

“I’d heard the joke years ago, back when I was doing stand-up comedy,” Foster says. “I saw Aristocrats. At the tail end I saw there’s a contest where you send in a tape of yourself doing the joke. A lot of people said I should do it, but I didn’t think much about it, assuming I’d be lost in the shuffle.”

Foster saw that there was a second category which allowed entrants to “be creative,” and it dawned on him that he could do the joke as a cartoon. “The problem was I only had a week and I had limited resources,” he says.

He decided to do it as a cartoon slideshow. He did about 30 drawings in individual frames that captured each stage of the joke, and then put them together using Photoshop and iMovie.

“The soundtrack is just me telling the joke in the voice of an old school Hollywood agent,” Foster says.

Needless to say, he “went through hell getting it ready in time” and says that the project was almost doomed because one local video company (which will go unnamed) showed him the door after they saw the offensive nature of what he wanted to do.

Nevertheless, Foster’s beginning to consider giving the City of Angels a second shot. “I’d like to jump back into it, but not blindly—that’s when you become a victim in LA,” he says.

Now, thanks to his first-prize entry in the unique contest held by the producers of The Aristocrats, Foster may be able to return to LA on his own terms.

JUST LOVELY OPENS FRIDAY NIGHT AT 8PM AND CONTINUES 8PM SATURDAY AND 2PM SUNDAY AT THE CARL CHERRY CENTER FOR THE ARTS, 4TH AND GUADALUPE, CARMEL. $18/GENERAL ADMISSION; $15/STUDENTS AND SENIORS. 649-0259 OR WWW.UNICORNTHEATREINC.ORG.