An Interview with Doug Stanhope
On Tuesday 4th August, Richard Bacon interviewed American comedian Doug Stanhope on his BBC Radio 5live programme. During the interview, as Stanhope writes in his blog, “Mr. Bacon did his best to warn his people in a very English, passive-aggressive way by using 1000 big words to say I was very offensive. As an aside, he said that if anyone didn’t believe that I’m really that bad, they should find my Sarah Palin bit on YouTube. And then the polite, gentlemanly interview ended.” But then Richard Bacon’s radio listeners ignored his advice, watched the YouTube clip (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdFJ-hFFdI8), and got offended. This led to a lot of complaints, and led the BBC and Bacon to apologize. Stanhope had only been in the country for 6 days.
Causing uproar is commonplace for Stanhope. It is an art form he gleefully enjoys. Google his name and you will find the following headlines, “Irish women are too ugly to rape! Comic booed after shocking festival jibe,” and “Stanhope booed off stage at Leeds Festival,” and also, “Is This America’s Most Depraved Man?” But along with the controversy, Doug Stanhope is very, very funny, and very, very uncompromising, as his new live DVD Oslo: Burning The Bridge To Nowhere, will attest.
Akin to other American social commentators Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, and Bill Hicks (even though he hates that comparison – see below), Stanhope has garnered a reputation for being one of the most exciting comedians working today. Giving his audience a mixture of straight-talk and frustrated bewilderment of the world as he chain-smokes and drinks heavily through a set that covers topics like abortion, terrorism, pee-hole fingering and love – it is not hard to see why companies and organizations feel the need to apologize for him.
I caught up with Doug in his London hotel room as he prepares for his month long residency at the Leicester Square Theatre, to talk about the controversy, Bill Hicks, critics, and his new DVD.
You have said you don’t like recording specials or DVDs as they can feel kind of wooden and stilted, was this new one a reaction to that? Cause it has a lot of energy and it feels very spontaneous.
LAUGHS That’s because I had 36 hours notice that we’d be filming it. I don’t know that that’s necessarily a good thing.
When you look at it now, how do you feel about it?
I’m never happy LAUGHS By the time you have material ready to record, you are usually so sick of doing it that it’ll take a couple of years to look back and see if it was a piece of shit or not.
When people come and see you, what can they expect?
It’s hard to say. GROANS It all depends on the day. Especially when I’m over here and I get so miserably depressed on any given day.
Yeah, I wanted to ask about that. On the DVD you do say that you hate playing the UK, why is that?
London particularly is just so overwhelming. There are so many people, and I get really claustrophobic. It’s not as bad as it’s been. I’ve been here so much that I’m used to it. I’m now here for a month, so I’ve kind of resigned myself to it LAUGHS I’m staying a 40 minute walk from the gig, so I’m getting some exercise at least.
Resigning yourself to it? That sounds happy.
LAUGHS It’s the best I can hope for over here. LAUGHS I’m such a creature of habit, and of comfort, and I don’t like when I’m away from home and it takes me 20 minutes to figure out how to work a new fucking microwave oven.
You do tour a lot; do you get sick of it?
Well, the better your home life is, the worst the road is LAUGHS And things are great at the house. But in the States when I’m touring I will only go out for a couple of nights and then fly right home. It’s not brutal like this.
When you’re over here, or like in Oslo, do you feel you have to tailor your act more to fit where you are?
Not tailoring so much, it’s just not as easy to just riff. You start going off page into whatever seems to comes naturally, then you realize – oh shit – you are three minutes into a five minute bit where the big pay-off is something they wont get. Like I started into a bit the other night, and the pay-off is about (Los Angeles) Raiders’ fans, and I had to stop in the middle as I thought – no, wait, this joke wont work at all. I have to stick to more of a planned set list.
Do you ever panic at moments like that?
No. I never panic cause I’m always half in the bag. I probably should panic. LAUGHS Fear can be a good thing sometimes, and when you drink that out of you, you can end up doing anything.
Speaking of that, does bad press bother you?
Not as much as it used to. When I first started coming over here it was horrific. See, they don’t review comedy in the States; they don’t treat it like it’s an art form. It’s not treated like it is over here where you have comedy critics, and that’s all they do for a job.
Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
It’s good on some level. It definitely made me work a lot harder. But generally, critics suck.
Do you still read what they write?
No, cause you don’t want to read someone saying – he had a brilliant piece about this, but then he went to more of a base area – and all of a sudden you are deciding what material you like or don’t like based on some clown in a newspaper – I really didn’t like that bit, but he said it was brilliant so maybe I should do more of that. And the stuff that they trash, every time you say it, there will be a voice in your head saying – oh, this isn’t good – but I liked it, until I read your stupid review.
Controversy seems to follow you around, and quite a lot of the stuff written about you involves riots and the like. How does that make you feel?
Well some of that controversy is stoked. Like the Kilkenny thing, that was just a bad show. I was booed roundly for some hot button issue I addressed, but the people weren’t there to see me – I was on a mixed bill in support of Dara O’Brien – they weren’t there to see me. Normally, that would have been any shitty show where the crowd turned on me, but my manager had a thought, he got on the phone to the PR people, and the next day I was on the front page of a tabloid with the line – American comic booed for saying Irish women too ugly to rape. Maybe every comic has that much controversy, but they don’t have that good of people around them to spin it into front page news LAUGHS
How do you feel about being compared to Bill Hicks?
I get it, but it’s annoying in that same way that critics are. It makes you think – oh shit, does this sound like Bill Hicks? And you get people that show up at your gig because everyone has said, for lack of a better analogy, that he is the next Bill Hicks – and if you come to the show and you see I’m not Bill Hicks, then you get mad and say – you’re not Bill Hicks at all – well I didn’t say I was – some lazy writer said it.
How may times today have you had to answer that question?
LAUGHS 8 out of 10 of them say – Bill Hicks. And I’m not offended by it. Bill Hicks was a very sober, deliberate, paced comedian, whereas I am a drunken, rambling, stuttering mess LAUGHS
Is it just that you don’t want people to expect something you’re not, or does it feel like a giant fuck you?
It gets tiresome when you don’t really see the comparison. Even a comparison to someone like Sam Kinison, I would understand more than Bill Hicks. Or George Carlin, maybe. I think it’s because Bill Hicks was so big over here, and it’s just lazy because we’re both Americans with strong opinions – that’s where the similarity starts, and probably where it ends.
For people that don’t know you, what is the one thing you want them to know about you?
LAUGHS I have no idea. Go to YouTube, click around, and if you don’t like it, go on your way.
Doug Stanhope. Oslo: Burning The Bridge To Nowhere is available to buy or rent now. Doug is playing the Leicester Square Theatre until 3rd September. Visit www.DougStanhope.com for more information.
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Everythingsfunny
