Long one of the more interesting voices in comedy, Doug Stanhope has been acclaimed, derided, respected (his specials No Refunds and Beer Hall Putsch are two of the greatest hours of the past two decades) and abhorred (the last season of The Man Show). He has weathered the uncertainties of the modern era and emerged with a devoted fan base and a space of his own. From his home in Bisbee, Ariz., Stanhope has been conducting a wild and magical (and occasionally grotesque) life on his own terms, periodically going out on the road and getting down to business with the public.
In one of those inadvertently portentous moments that life occasionally throws at us, I called Doug Stanhope on 9/11 to talk in advance of his upcoming show Oct. 9 at Zanies. (He's also appearing Oct. 8 at Comedy Catch in Chattanooga and Oct. 10 at Stand-Up Live in Huntsville, Ala.) It was a delightful conversation.
Does the world have the capacity to surprise you anymore?
I haven’t been surprised, no. I was just thinking that right before you called. One thing with age is that you’ve seen everything before. ... Everything is cyclical, and everyone gets shocked and stunned by something that we’ve seen before. And every election is the most important one of your life. I mean, I was born during the presidency of LBJ, which is terrifying. I don’t think anything is hopeless, but the fear-mongering is definitely on the rise. Everything is supposed to terrorize you and bifurcate you and polarize you.
You’ve always had a devoted Nashville fan base, thanks in part to your openhearted and enthusiastic embrace of former Nashvillian Ville Kiviniemi (aka musician The Mattoid). What sort of memories do you have of our sordid little city through the years?
I remember walking tons of people from Zanies in the early days, I think it was the late ’90s when I started playing there — I don’t think they booked me for a while. … They liked me, but it was not working in their room, until I could build up my own fan base to where I could do my own night and it wasn’t just random bachelorette parties stumbling in with coupons and false expectations. Now it’s a different game, and people know what they’re coming to see. … There’ve been so many memories in that place — I remember once, the power going out in the middle of the show, so we did the rest of the show by candlelight, yelling because we had no mic. But I love that room, and some of those shows — Birdcloud, and Ralphie May. It’s been a couple of decades of fun in Nashville.
As an author, you’ve done some very interesting things with your books Digging Up Mother and This Is Not Fame. You’ve basically democratized your authorship, which is awesome and goes against the conquest-oriented ethos that seems to prop up everything that people try and do. What brought that on, to make you open up your story that way by adding other voices?
Mostly it’s because my memory is flawed. Everyone’s is, but I’m very aware of my limitations. And it was fun to get people who were in the stories to come in and chuck in their two cents. And you get some really good stuff out of it. The next project is an Audible exclusive — it’s going to be written for the audio version, with a million guest stars.
Who’s the funniest person who’s ever lived?
Dave Attell.
Vodka: Fleischmann’s or Popov?
Popov. Though they’re all the same. Popov is the one that got the recognition; it’s the most well-known. But vodka is the worst. As a mixer is one thing, but just talking about straight alcohol, vodka is fucking terrible. If I’m drinking something straight, I’d drink just about anything before vodka.
During my research, I heard about your both infamous and famous Xanadu shots. How exactly did those come about?
This is years ago, in Bisbee, me and a buddy, we’re tripping our balls off, and we had some mushrooms left. And this is getting toward dawn, and we ground up the mushrooms in a coffee grinder with a Xanax, and we put it in shots of Jagermeister. And we called them Xanadu shots. … And then I decided we needed to talk to the world, so I called up [Opie and Anthony], and they put me on. And I was out of my fucking skirt. And I’m just rambling about Xanadu shots. And years later, I’m outside of Old Bisbee, and a cop waves me over, and he says, “You were on Opie and Anthony,” and I said, “Yeah.” And he said, “Talking about Xanadu shots,” and I said, “Yeah, yeah.” And he said, “We listened to that back at the cop shop, at the station.” And he said the sergeant was a wicked prick, and when he heard that, the sergeant was apparently like, “This guy’s doing mushrooms! And he’s in town? Does anyone know where this guy lives? We should send people over there!” And he said he had to talk to this guy forever to calm him down, to explain that you’re a comedian, and you were “just kidding.”
Have you ever had to fight a scorpion?
No. I’ve killed many, but I’ve never gotten stung. My wife Bingo, when we first moved [to Bisbee], I remember I was writing something, and she was right outside my office and starts jumping up and down and I realized there was a problem. She had put on a pair of my underwear to go check the mail, and there was a scorpion in the underwear. And it stung her six times right around the vagina. … That was 14 years ago, and I’ve never picked up laundry without shaking it first.
I can barely deal with spiders, so you add in claws and a stinger? No.
I’ve spent a lot of money on exterminators. I want them dead.
Given your time as a smoker, what are your thoughts on the current controversial wave of vaping deaths that have all the medical professionals and moms freaking out?
Vaping lost me when you would hear about the things exploding and blowing people’s jaws off. People have died from that.
How did your airport bar crawls start happening? When they pop up in your Twitter feed, it’s like a grenade of joy. Your airport journeys are like a ’60s caper movie where there’s some ancient treasure to be found somewhere just to the left of the limes at the bartender’s side.
That started when I was just about to be bumped up to the highest status, and I needed 19,000 miles before Dec. 31 to get Diamond status on Delta, and that means getting bumped up most of the time for the next year. So I went and I found a flight from Tucson through Atlanta to Johannesburg, South Africa, to Amsterdam, and then back through into the States. It was 77 hours, 57 of them in the air, without leaving an airport. It was $2,200, but it meant first class for the whole next year. So that’s where it started. But I would do those crazy flights to make sure I got that status every year. And sometimes I’d do them for fun, just to get miles. I fucking love airport bars.
How do you know when an outfit is right for you? Is it a random, instinctive thing, or is there a mental dowsing rod in your brain that leads you to your fashion choices?
I really love putting outfits together. Me and my tour manager both will wear the same stupid ’70s shit. That’s what we do on the road, we find all this old gear — sometimes I spend more time putting together suits for the road than an act. I don’t have a lot of interests otherwise, so it gives me something to do. I do have an eye for what goes with what.
If a diner or restaurant named a sandwich after you, what would it be?
Egg white, ham and Swiss cheese, with tomato, bell pepper, some hot banana peppers, a little bit of iceberg lettuce for crunch. … And the sauce is a mix of sour cream and Sriracha chili paste — not Sriracha itself, which is shit, but the chili paste. And it’s on Killer Dave’s Whole Wheat Thin-Sliced Bread. And it’s only available after 11.
