Interview with Doug Stanhope

You may be familiar with Doug Stanhope from Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe or Newswipe or some other cleaning implement. But if that’s as far as it goes, shame on you: you should have pursued it further. He has three standup DVDs, Deadbeat Hero, No Refunds, Oslo: Burning a Bridge to Nowhere, a book of his online baiting of paedophiles (“I never thought to maybe not put the word paedophile in the title because people are very reticent to have that on their credit card”), and has also hosted a Girls Gone Wild. We wanted to know more:

RK: You once tried to run for President. Let’s say you get in: what would be the first policy you would put in place?
DS: Gosh, I dunno. If you asked me in 2007 I’d probably have had an answer. But I’d let a lot of people outta prison. I’d be handin’ out pardons to any non-violent drug offender. They’d have about 600,000 people back on the streets, doing drugs! We’d know where to score drugs. But yeah. I’d do alotta nothin’, I’d do what I do with my days now, a whole lotta nothin’.
RK: OK, you’ve released them. Now, the head of the CIA crawls towards you snivelling and says you get one free assassination. Who is it?
DS: I’d make him kill himself. He’d be coming in to get a pink slip. Most government should be eliminated. (I’m really a big Ron Paul fan. )
RK: You’ve been described as libertarian, but that sounds a bit anarchist…
DS: I don’t know the titles. I don’t know what I am. ‘Anarchist’ has alotta baggage with it but I’m sure I fit into that mould more than most. But ‘anarchist’ gives the illusion somehow that I’d be willing to be teargassed in a riot, and that’s just not my style.
RK: How do you feel about this whole Occupy-movement?
DS: It’s like anything else, it lacks focus. A lot of it feels like wayward angst that doesn’t know why it’s there. I think it needs leadership. When you see that many people that angry, you kinda wanna put ‘em in a direction. “Hey, let’s get something done.” Not just live in a park. I don’t know what that’s accomplishing.
RK: Is your ideal audience antagonistic or with you on every point?
DS: It depends. I don’t mind the antagonism if it’s a crowd I can control. If you’re playing the Apollo Hammersmith, you want them to be with ya. Cos if someone gets pissed off on the balcony… I don’t even know where you are, and you’re yellin’ shit… If it’s a small enough audience, then antagonism is good. I miss the old comedy clubs, where people would wander in, having no idea who they’re there to see. Some of my favourite shows have been absolute chaos.
RK: Do you like being given the label of ‘controversial’ comic?
DS: I guess controversial is better than the rest, like ‘Offensive’, or ‘X-rated’ – none of those apply. I’m not trying to offend people. Controversial – nothin’ wrong with that.
RK: From your blog, I gather you had to appeal online for free surgery for yourself, and it worked… Mind telling us a bit about that?
DS: Yeah, I kinda put that up as a joke. I didn’t expect to have alotta doctors hangin’ around my blog, but it turns out I did. I did it as a goof and I was just amazed got gut surgery from it. I think I said I’d trade a free CD or DVD for hernia surgery, and I got it… and I think I cheated him outta the DVD!
RK: Well, you did a charity gig in return.
DS: Yeah, we raised about $17,000 for the Humane Society. Which is a little more than what the surgery woulda cost, so I think we’re even. I told them to give ALL the money to one cat. It should have a waterbed and a diamond in its tooth and a three-piece suit.
RK: How would you describe your fans?
DS: Single, brooding, overweight young men disenfranchised with the whole lot of life. A lot of doughey kids in Misfits T-Shirts. School-shooters who couldn’t find the bullets, I call them. Those are the ones I see a lot. But then again I do have doctors. I forget sometimes. I’ll read a bunch of my facebook comments and think: What a bunch of fucking idiots I have for fans. But you gotta keep in mind that a lot of those fans don’t hang around posting dumb shit on facebook. I have alotta professionals, but mostly school-shooters.
RK: What’s your drink/drug of choice?
DS: My drug of choice would be ecstasy if it were any good, but the shit you get now is not any good. I like hallucinogens. We took alotta mushrooms the other night, and it was fucking 12 hours of it, we’re still cleaning up the wreckage from it. And not just mental wreckage… So yeah, I like hallucinogens, but I’ve always said they’re the exercise of narcotics, like a gym membership: “Oh I know I should do mushrooms, it’s good for me, mentally, spiritually… But it’s so much work! Maybe tomorrow.” Drinks: I’m a vodka-drinker at home. On the road I stick with beer, you don’t know how much vodka is in that drink and you have a show to do.
RK: What’s your weirdest story from the road?
DS: After 21 years on the road… there’s no superlatives. It’s gotten to a point where people will bring up a story that I don’t remember: “Hey, you remember when you were getting blown by that girl who threw up in your lap?” It’s always fun when someone starts telling a story about you, and you’re just as rapt as everyone else at the table because you don’t know how it ends: “Then what did I do?”
RK: What’s the worst thing about your job?
DS: Alotta times you go on stage you feel like a magician, like a total fraud, because you are saying the same things night after night. There’s nothing worse than the disappointment in someone’s eyes when they stay for the second show because they think it’s all off the top of your head. Last year in London some guy came to the Leicester Square Theatre three nights in a row, front-row centre in the exact same seat. On the second night I thought: it must be me. Third night I asked: “Are you the same guy?”   “Yeah.”    What are you coming here for? I can’t just repeat this to your face like you never heard it before. You’re just a shining beacon of fuckin’ disappointed in my face.

Go be a beacon of disappointment at Stanhope’s next show in London, April 21st, Hammersmith Apollo.