Maybe you read about the grotesque umbilical hernia that was growing ever larger and disgusting from my gut last year. I offered a Free CD or DVD to any surgeon who might like to do some complimentary surgery.

And who'd have fucking guessed that yes, indeed - Doctors do come to my shows. Just so happened that a couple we'd met on the road happen to be anesthesiologists and live right up in Tucson. They emailed me post-haste after the update and offered their services. Anesthesia is 99 percent of the game - so long as I'm unconscious, I could have my dry-cleaner do the alterations. But they had a surgeon friend that was game and waived her fee as well.

Yes. It was a chick doctor. A hot Japanese chick surgeon with ropey arms who probably mountain bikes and didn't laugh at my examination room jokes and could have been 28 or 70 the way Asian women tend to go.

My immediate concern was that this might change my ingrained hatred of women and Asians. Like the movie where a Klansman gets the kidney transplant that saves his life from an carefree negro and learns a lesson. Would this surgery make me finally see the weaker sex and the yellow plague of the Rising Sun as equals?

Okay, I don't actually harbor animosity towards ladies or Japaniards but I do think racism and sexism are hilarious and certainly didn't want to lose that to some random act of kindness on her part.

And kindness it was. After my initial visit where you get asked a lot of questions and you tell a lot of lies - it's funny how you lie and say you drink about 20 drinks a week and their jaw drops like that's a lot - I asked her what this would normally cost for a cash paying customer. She said she didn't know exactly but estimated between 8 to 15 thousand dollars. 

This made it very awkward in how the fuck I was supposed to say "Thank You." Not really enough to mail a Red Lobster gift certificate.

So I told the doctors that in return I'd do a benefit show in Tucson for whatever cause they were behind. They discussed it and fortunately they don't like people as much as I don't and decided that it was best to do this for animals, something even my diseased fan-base can get behind.

So on Saturday, December 10th we'll be doing a benefit for the Humane Society at the Rialto in Tucson for my last show of the year. We're not going to be able to fit Phoenix in this year so drag your asses down and join the party. I'm gonna fill the bill with the funniest people I know that will still talk to me and we're going to tear the fucking place down in the name of sad puppies and surgeons and homeless kittens and a belly-button that no longer looks like a cocktail weenie blowing out of my stomach like a turkey timer.

I'm envisioning me tossing stray animals into the crowd from the stage and letting people drink shots out of my new sweaty navel. I want to do a Humane Society benefit that gets protested by PETA. 

Regardless, thanks, docs, for the surgery and the incredible results. I'll post pics of it spilling over a pair of Daisy Dukes with the top button undone as soon as we've pre-sold at least half of the show.

There's your incentive. Now get your tickets and spread the word.

*****************************

I'll be on the "Eddie" episode of the 2nd season of "Louie" on FX. I'm "Eddie." A whole epsiode of me acting. What a treat! If Louis CK can save that, he can do anything. The season has started and mine will air sometime in August. DVR it, queer-holes. 

I had to cancel Dallas and Houston last minute to do the filming and I appreciate you understanding.  If it was anything other than Louie's show I dont think you'd have been so kind. I've rescheduled both and tix are on my schedule.

Also, on July 28th I'm on "The Green Room with Paul Provenza" on Showtime. If you haven't seen the show - find it. It's one of the only shows about stand-up that I've ever liked - and I fucking love it. Check out last season with Patrice O'Neal and Roseanne and you'll see why it's brilliant.

My episode is with Dave Attell, Glenn Wool, Janeane Garofalo and Richard Belzer. Depending on how they edit it down, I may have to update again to defend a bit of a tiff I shouldn't have started but was completely right about. Either way, best to put Vaseline on your tv where my face is to make it more palatable. Hi-def doesn't work for everybody.

stanhope

September 25th at 6pm, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Litla-Hraun

I've finally landed a gig in Iceland where I've always wanted to go. Bingo and I planned a trip over at the end of September and the Mayor of Reykjavik, comedian Jon Gnarr, is hooking me up with a gig playing at the only maximum security prison in the country. I didn't want to confuse a short vacation with the headaches of a gig but playing a prison is something I've always wanted to do and a prison in Iceland makes it ten-fold the fun.

So, if you're in Iceland and want to go to the show, you have a couple of months to get convicted of something and then you'll be able to see me absolutely free. And don't bother waiting for next time.

Here's the deal. I will only ever play Iceland at the prison. I want to create what will be commonly known as the "Doug Stanhope defense" where defendants claim that they only committed the crime in order to get into my show. That would amuse the shit out of me. I have very little ego about all the trappings of this silly life but a few things still make me smile.

About five or six people that I know of now have either my name, face, a cartoon of me or my autograph tattooed on them. That is endlessly funny to me. I have a standing request when anyone I know tells me they are pregnant - that if the baby is horrifically deformed to the point it could get freak show work, they have to name it Doug Stanhope. That hasn't happened yet.

But if you get sent to prison in Iceland just to see my show at the end of September, I will tattoo your name on my weathered body somewhere. Cuz that would be funny as shit. 

WTF

This Thursday Marc Maron will be airing my second appearance on his WTF podcast. It's the hip thing to do and we don't talk about football at all from what I remember. Set your clocks for it. 

Available HERE on Thursday.

Here's a first - I'm re-calling my own merch.

We thought it would be fun to put out a "Sausage Army" high-end football jersey. Well, we rushed the thing before I left for 5 weeks of London.

Turns out that the finished product was nothing like the sample I was shown before I approved it and got on the plane. I guess I'm no Puff Fucky and my merch will never go global. 

I just got home and now realize why every picture my web-guy sent me of the jersey looked like shit. That's because it is like shit. It was supposed to be the quality of something you'd buy at a pro game. Instead they put it on a shitty, cheap and too-short lightweight football jersey that - ironically - is most fitting for chicks.

Bottom line is I'm embarrassed that I've had it for sale for too much money for three weeks before I got home to find out I hate it. Selling merch seems creepy on some level anyway but I won't sell over-priced garbage that I *know* is shit unless it's my actual live show, then I'll rip you off blind.

So I pulled them immediately.

If you want your money back I completely understand and agree. Email me at doug@dougstanhope.com with "jersey" in the subject and we'll take care of it. Or you can just wait til I come to your town and we'll trade out. 

I'll look for a better jersey, or just a better idea. And then I'll drag this huge bulk of jerseys on the road and dump them on drunks or chicks for cost - at least then you can see what they really look like before you get the wrong idea of what they look like the same way I did.

Some things fuck up but I make 'em right. Maybe I'm over-reacting since I havent got an actual complaint but they aren't what I was sold so I ain't puttin 'em on my website.

Ok, that's all - I'll get another update that might be entertaining in a couple days.

Ooops.

stanhope  

Congratulations.

You've made it through another Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Pink ribbons, pink products, and pink accessories on football uniforms. 

Everywhere fucking pink for an entire month. I'll spare the details because you'll hear enough about it at my shows for a while.

The whammy is that - for the most part - Breast Cancer Awareness is a scam. A giant fucking rub.

Here's one quick but common example.

I'm eating a Breast Cancer Awareness-lidded Dannon Yogurt at an airport. I peel off the pink-ribboned foil top and notice that there is writing on the inside but in order to read it, I have to lick the yogurt of the inner lid. 

In small print - I'm at an awful place where I sometimes have to use reading glasses - it tells me that if I go to a website and register then I can enter the given code at which point the caring people at Dannon will give one thin dime to Breast Cancer.

You see the big pink ribbon and logo on the top and assume that you - by simply purchasing and eating this product - are DOING something to help. Total up the amount of people that actually take the time to lick, read, log on, register, enter a code and hit send and I'd guess that the total contribution to The Cause is less than nothing.

Multiply this by the amount of companies turning similar duplicity, the color pink and the popularity of Tits into huge third-quarter profits and all of a sudden you don't need to Occupy Wall Street to figure out that Breast Cancer Awareness is just another giant money-rake by the corporate house. 

I could go on with shitloads more examples and angles but that's what my live shows are for - getting drunk and rambling on about something that disgusts me that I'll eventually forget about. But trust me, it's 93.4 percent scam and the rest is mostly useless. 

But it works because it's about tits. Tits are hugely sellable. In fact, there is probably no body part of either sex that has the marketing capabilities that tits have. Breast cancer is not the most common nor the most deadly cancer. It simply has a commercial aspect that makes it easy to exploit with a pretty color. Tits aren't even vital organs like your lungs, liver or brain and aesthetically they're really just a gateway organ to a vagina.

Try to sell the NFL or Dannon Yogurt on Vagina Cancer Awareness. No chance.

So instead, how about I just exploit their exploitation and sell you on it for sheer fun and little profit.

I made up pretty Polo shirts in a kind of Miami Dolphins blue with a brownish ribbon to celebrate Cunt Cancer Awareness. 

Show the world that you Care About The Cause in a high-quality Polo shirt that only shit-heads would normally wear and be fantastically amused (as I have been) at how many people don't notice! And the people who do, just tell em "It's all about raising awareness! It's all about saving lives!"

So as to keep myself on the same caring level of Corporate America, I will be giving back myself. Lick your own yogurt off your computer screen and read my fine print.

"Please sign up on the MAILING LIST at the top-right of the page after you've purchased the CCA POLO Shirt and I will give One Thin Dime directly to Nancy Grace, the worst cancerous cunt of our time."

And yes, I will actually be sending her checks. I'm all about transparency. If I spot a bigger cunt cancer on the horizon, we can shift our focus in that direction.

But now is the time for action. Only you can make a difference.

SOLD OUT! You can find one at my show while they last.

************************

A quick note of recognition. Brendon Walsh - one of my favorite comedians of all time - randomly but frequently uses the phrase "Cunt Cancer" in his act and the world loves him for it. If you laugh at cunt cancer, you should seek him out and enjoy him.

***********************************

As for the last batch of "Stanhope's Sausage Army" football jerseys that I re-called for shit quality - see that update HERE - I want to get rid of them in the best way possible. I figured sending them to the military in Afghanistan would be fun. They could give em to a village and pictures. The Pig logo would make that extra funny and make it worth the bad beat. 

If you know how to get em to those guys through the proper channels, email me with SAUSAGE in the subject. Thanks.

****************************

If you really want to support a cause, I am doing an actual benefit for the Humane Society at the Rialto in Tucson on December 10th. I don't do benefit shows for several reasons but I'm doing this one with ALL the profits going to sad kittens and puppies. Being that I never do anyone else's benefit shows, I haven't had the nerve to ask any of my Big-Name Draw friends like DAVE ATTELL, JOE ROGAN, RON WHITE, LOUIS CK, ETC to participate. If I were them and they asked me, I'd pretend I didn't get the voicemail. I mustered up the courage to mention it without asking SARAH SILVERMAN to but word is that she likes NiggerHeads more than starving baby animals.

Marquis names or not, I'm gonna do my best to make it something you should road-trip to be part of. We're thinking about auctioning off nonsense like my Mother's ashes, strange and weird memoribilia, something of Hedberg's, a SuperBowl weekend at my house here in Bisbee, a few other ideas that we have to check on the legality of and a tour opening for me.

Get your tickets now. 

Road trip.

The only time I can ever remember doing a benefit show was at the Comedy Store fuck-teen years ago for legalizing weed in the days I would have done a spot anywhere for anything.

I don't do benefits for a reason. Most people don't like what I do. It's a simple fact. And benefit shows tend to draw caring, sensitive people cutting my demographic down to almost nil. Your friend is dying of face-cancer and all his friends and family are there at the show to show support and raise money and on stage you have some drunken asshole bleating on about justifiable homicide and corrective rape and the meaninglessness of life. And if that doesn't ruin the night, I'd probably not be able to stop myself from a couple face-cancer jokes to close it out.

I'm not heartless or greedy, I'm just not cut out to do charity functions. I'd rather just send a check than email apologies the next day.

The only way I can do a charity event is to simply do my own show for my own fans and just give the money to whatever organization without having someone's crying family staring at me uncomfortably.

So that's what I'm doing for the Humane Society of Southern Arizona.

If you haven't read THIS - I recently had a much-needed surgery pro bono from some extraordinarily generous surgeons in Tucson. In return, I told them I would do a benefit for whatever charity they chose. It was the least I could do, mathematically, in comparison to what surgery costs.

They chose the Humane Society which I love because unlike most of the human-related charities I mock, spay-and-neuter is at the core of what they preach. If that was one of the base messages of UNICEF or Habitat for Humanity then I'd be far more inclined to participate.

My big faux-pas was to book it in a theater that seats about four or five times what I can draw in that market. So I've been Twittering my dick off trying to find someone with a name that loves homeless kittens, who can sell tickets, and that doesn't need money. In Tucson. On a Saturday.

Funny how you go to call in a favor only to realize nobody owes you one. I should have been a better person I guess. I should have done more benefit shows when I had the act for it.

The good news is that a lot of my friends are still the funniest people in the world even if they aren't Big Names and the show will be a monster regardless. Brendon Walsh and Henry Phillips have signed on and we have local legends Nowhere Man & a Whiskey Girl as the house band.

Nobody is getting a cut of the profits. I'm paying everyone's expenses out of my pocket, not the gate. I'll be auctioning off Mother's Ashes as well as lots of other sentimental oddities. Bingo even said she'll auction off a lubricated handjob but I think that's illegal even in the free-thinking, progressive state of Arizona.

I'm only pushing this show this hard because some nice folks were nice to me and I don't wanna look like a dick in paying them back. So please spread the word and Facebook and Retweet and whatever the fuck it is you kids do.

Oh... and whatever you do... don't Twitter Sarah Silverman repeatedly about coming to this event. The sexual tension between us would be too palpable for mere comedy to overcome.

Here's to kittens and puppies,

stanhope  

Tickets available through Brown Paper Tickets.

I can't imagine that Allison Pearson has any friends within her profession. Otherwise someone would sit her down and stop her from making such a buffoon of herself repeatedly in a national newspaper.

Allison Pearson is a columnist for the UK newspaper The Daily Telegraph. She has also written two romance novels, a feat as impressive as a songwriter landing a jingle for a toilet paper commercial.

A few weeks ago here a man named Tony Nicklinson made the news with his fight with the High Court for the right to die. Mr Nicklinson is what they call a Tetraplegic. He's 53 and his mind works perfectly but he is trapped in his body and can only communicate by blinking his eyes. He's been there for 6 years. In short, Mr Nicklinson is as fucked as you can get.

His story made national news here and Allison Pearson followed it up with a half-assed, empty-calorie, op-ed piece disparaging not just the right to die but seemingly Mr Nicklinson himself.

She had very little or nothing of any bolstered argument on the issue, only snide, condescending personal jabs at the expense of a man who can only communicate by blinking his eyelids.

She suggests he should just starve to death if it's so bad. She suggests he just go off his meds and hope for an infection, like some cruel version of Mother's Home Remedies. All in the most sarcastic, condescending tone.

She suggests he just make the best of it like Stephen Hawking.

Vulgar.
 
My problem wasn't with the point of view - she didn't seem to have one other than "I think it's wrong" - but with the snarky, dismissive attitude like this poor fuck was a whining child asking for too much dessert.

So after reading this I threw out a Facebook/Twitter post that included the word "cunt," of course, to share the story. I also tweeted that I had gone Christian just to pray she got a fetid ovarian cyst. Because that's funny.

This started a bit of a Twitter war that I won't bother going into too much detail about here. It's better treated on stage and you'll most certainly hear about it if you see any of my remaining shows in England. At the end, I will tape it and put it out on my website for those who couldn't make the live shows.

Allison Pearson responded with a series of head-scratching tweets threatening to report me to Twitter (?) investigate my employers (??), call the police (???), before tweeting "I am writing a column about vile misogyny of @dougstanhope. If you know of any other woman thus attacked let me know. Pls RT."

Well, obviously someone did sit her down and explain why using the word "cunt" in the UK rarely has any gender distinction and that writing an article about me being a woman-hater based solely on one word might be too stupid even by her standards. The only evidence she might find of me being abusive to women are the juvenile videos of us fucking with my girlfriend Bingo  on this road trip.

This whole affair seemed to come to an end when someone turned up another column she'd written two years previously in which she completely contradicts herself, entitled "Why I Admire The Mother Who Killed Her ME Daughter." ME is some kinda disease that left a woman in a state similar to Tony Nicklinson and after years of suffering, the mother did as her daughter asked and put her out of her misery. For some reason Allison Pearson didn't think that woman should suck it up Hawking-style. That's because Allison Pearson doesn't really have an opinion. She just has a job and she does it in a slip-shod fashion without giving a fuck who gets hurt.

Once that contradictory article started making it's way around this Twitter battle, Allison (I like to call her "Ally" or sometimes just "Sugar-Tits") Pearson shut her ridiculous clown mouth, put on her dunce cap and slinked off into the corner.

I thought that was the end of it until last week when I found a big, full-color picture of me in her column right beside a guy who'd just been sentenced to prison for inciting racial hatred on Twitter. He had live-tweeted the on-field heart attack of a black soccer player with the most puerile invective and was for a moment the most hated man in the whole country.

Here we are, hand in hand in the Holy Matrimony of the Press, under the headline "What Planet Are They From?"

Nice spin, Ally. Put me alongside the Asshole Poster-Child Du Jour as partners in crime in "cyber-bullying." And go from abuser to victim in the drop of a "send" button.

The article is so full of distortions, mis-quotes, spin and out-right lies that if I were to put it into my act, there wouldn't have been any time left for even a quick fist-fuck joke for a closer.

I'll go through the most egregious parts to show what a slap-dash attempt this is to defame and denigrate me.

The article starts out talking about the 56 day jail sentence that Liam Stacey received for online taunting of Fabrice Muamba as he was laying on the field after having a heart attack that began with him tweeting "Fuck Muamba. He's dead!!!" (He didn't die but came close.)

How this incites racial hatred, I don't know. There must be more but Ally-Pants didn't want to say. She only says that it was a "barrage of obscene racist comments that I will not ruin your breakfast by repeating." Nor inform the reader of what one could possibly say to go to jail for tweeting. That seems like it would be important to include.

After some digging I found screen shots of Liam Stacey's tweets in question. Just stupid, "what's the worst thing I can say for attention" repetitive garbage. Dick for the sake of being a dick. "Go rape your mother" and "go suck a nigger dick you aids ridden cunt". Like he took all the worst words he knew would get reactions and cut 'n' pasted them. Definitely a shithead but inciting racial hatred? Not really a White Power/Nazi Rally call to arms that should qualify for a prison sentence.

But that's another argument and another bit altogether.

In the article, Pearson basks in the schadenfreude of his imprisonment and for a reason... because she got called a bad word online and she wants to share that horror story with you here.

She talks about the Nicklinson article and the "flurry of emails, the usual mixture of support and furious disagreement" that she received. I imagine the "flurry" is probably 3 or 4 on a heavy day.

Then she writes that next "I went on my Twitter and found my name next to a well known gynecological insult. I was bewildered. Who was this guy I'd never heard of - one Doug Stanhope and why, if he disagreed so strongly with my column, didn't he find a way of saying so that didn't involve calling me a Sarah Lund?"

Just ignore the Sarah Lund part - nobody knows what the fuck that's about. I assume it was her attempt at rhyming slang for cunt that doesn't quite rhyme.

But you were bewildered? A guy you've never heard of? You mean most of your feedback comes from close personal friends? They never use any insults? Is this your first day on the job? Holy shit.

"Stanhope turned out to be an American 'comedian': being horrible and offensive is his job description."

No, my job description is a person who seeks to entertain an audience, primarily by making them laugh. Horrible and offensive, if that's how you see it, is simply my style. It's your style as well, but you do it to incite, not to entertain.

"For example, in his stage routine, Stanhope described the birth of Sarah Palin's Down Syndrome baby thus: "Threw that spastic out of that 'tard (retard) launcher ---- of yours."

I guess at this point Ally stopped caring about ruining people's breakfasts.

Nice you had to travel back four years to find a bit you thought would vilify me. And completely out of context.  You failed to mention that the whole 'retard baby/tard launcher' quote was delivered in the voice of then-VP candidate Joe Biden, saying it to Sarah Palin during the debates, satirizing the mud-slinging and personal attacks of the campaign. But being clear about that wouldn't really paint me as the monster you want people to imagine.

Like the kind of monster who would so thoughtlessly shit on a completely paralyzed guy so savagely crippled that he is begging to be killed.

You are an idiot and an ogre. But let's move on.

"Doug invited his unmerry men to join in the fun. Stanhope has 83,000 followers on Twitter and he directed them to "read this ---- Allison Pearson's column."

In full, what I said was "To fully understand my rage and upcoming vitriol you'll first need to read this cunt @allisonpearson's column..." and I posted that so people would be familiar with the piece when I talked about it on stage that night. You see, Ally-Baby, my act is my "column." I use Twitter to promote it. I'm sure you'd have no problem fitting the entirety of your hollow & hobbled arguments into 140 characters and still leave room for a retweet and a hashtag but I try to flesh it out more and save it for the stage.

"Over the next 48 hours, I learned a lot about Stanhope fans as they swarmed over my Twitter timeline like killer ants."

No kidding. They can be fucking brutal. They scare me sometimes. You'd previously tweeted that they were like a swarm of locusts and in another article you called them swarming killer termites, both of which are a bit more creative than"ants". I think I like "Killer Termites" the best and will continue to use that as a monicker for them that they'll wear with pride. Until now, they were my "Sausage Army," but that seems to exclude the ladies.

Regardless, they can be brutal in a Liam Stacey way and that's why when I saw some of the things they were saying I immediately tweeted "And for my fans please don't randomly abuse @allisonpearson. Read her article and excoriate her smug, personal smear of the weakest of men." They didn't attack you just because I used the word cunt. They attacked you because I had them read what you wrote and a lot of em felt the same way I did. This is still all on you, no matter how you try to turn it around.

Kinda tough to handcuff me to Liam Stacey as some vicious internet bully when I'm tweeting people specifically not to abuse you. Almost libelous. But you pulled it off.

"Spite and impotent fury should not be allowed to hide under the magnificent cloak of free speech. Doesn't a Down's boy have the right not to be called a retard by a so-called comedian?"

Now, this is where I fucking lose it. What the fuck does a bit from my act, one that you are happy to take out of context, have any fucking thing to do with Twitter abuse? That's what your article is supposed to be about, isn't it? Or is it all a big fucking hit piece, a personal vendetta cloaked under the guise of journalism because you wrote some really ugly shit and I called you out on it publicly. If your article is supposed to be about cyber-bullying on Twitter, how the fuck does Sarah Palin's baby come into it? Are you trying to intimate that I have been tweeting Trig Palin - as though that's even possible - to call him a retard?

You are repugnant. And you know it. Even your own publication knows it. Did you notice that in the heat of our exchanges that your own newspaper listed my show in Edinburgh as its critic's choice? I think that was more of an internal finger to you than a pat on the back for me.

You even mention BBC radio presenter Richard Bacon and his documentary on his own dealings with cyber-stalkers into this piece as though he were some kind of ally of yours.

Well, Ally-Whacker, lemme throw you a quote from Richard Bacon during our interview last year. "Doug Stanhope is here. Just a remarkable stand-up comic. If you haven't seen him and want a flavor of what he's like go to YouTube now and type 'Doug Stanhope Sarah Palin' [laughs] and get back to me."

Yeah. That's your companion in the horrific trenches of internet name-calling.

The conclusion of your column makes me want to grab the weathered skin of the back of your neck and rub your nose in it like a puppy in his own loose stool.

You say that Liam Stacey shouldn't have been kicked out of school or sent to prison.

"Far more effective, surely, to take Liam to the bedside of Fabrice Muamba and make him stand there, repeat the callous words that he tweeted when Fabrice was suspended between life and death, and apologize."

No shit? You mean EXACTLY THE SAME fucking thing you should do to Mr Tony Nicklinson?

You try to malign me and brand me with the same mark as some headline-making internet troll solely out of personal spite. You tried and failed to have me fired, arrested, denounced as a "vile misogynist" and when all that failed, you fraudulently cast me as a cyber-bully, only because an actual one made the news and you found a weak tie-in.

You don't even understand the concept of an internet troll. I stand up alone in front of people nightly, my exact location announced well in advance and speak my opinions openly and publicly. You sit hunched over a laptop with a finger-sandwich hanging out of your mouth, blurt out whatever inane, reckless pap you can generate and think that there will be no repercussions, save for your alleged "flurry" of emails.

You would never have the balls to stand up and speak directly to a public gathering of Telegraph readers. You are the troll, Allison Pearson. You've always been the trolls.

This is the arrogance of a media that is beginning to realize that they no longer have a monopoly on public discourse. People like Allison Pearson are dipping their toes into the internet, into the medium that is quickly making them irrelevant and they are shivering at coldness of their own sudden vulnerability.

It used to be that people like me were at your mercy, Al-Zebub Pearson. If I said something considered mean-spirited or off-color on stage, the papers could lambaste me in the press with impunity. Now the shoe is on the other foot as we, the people have columns and readers of our own. You wrote what I found to be loathsome, I gave you a bad review and all of a sudden the flurry of email you're getting isn't so pretty.

You are a moribund Vaudeville act. And you can either sink with the ship or come into the future where you are gonna have to hear what people think in whatever language they choose to use. If you google my name or read the comments on any one of my Youtube clips, you'll find boatloads of comments that are far worse than any of the slings and arrows you or even Fabrice Muamba suffered. It's par for the course. And if anyone ever went to prison for even a minute because of the viciousness of their online attacks on me, I would campaign endlessly for their freedom.

Enjoy your breakfast.

BLINK BLINK BLINK BLINK

stanhope

The 4th of July party started June 28th and finally wound to an end on July 10th with only one visit from the Bisbee police on a noise complaint when the band moved inside at 5 am. All apologies to the neighbors. Funny thing is I slept though the whole thing only feet from the amplifier. I musta needed it. Thanks everyone for coming. My hands are still a bit shaky and we haven't finished sorting out the wreckage or found Bingo's phone. We're considering moving the Super Bowl Party to Vegas this year to let them deal with all the bullshit and just enjoy the game.

Thanks for everyone who came down. I miss the fuck outta you guys.

*****

My latest special "Before Turning The Gun on Himself" premieres on Showtime Friday, August 3rd. 

Set your DVR. Or wait an hour and wait for someone to put it online.

The audio version is available now digitally on Amazon if you can't wait or don't have Showtime. Or you can just steal it somewhere online. 

The DVD won't be released in the U.S. until November. But it's already out in the U.K. so you can probably just steal it online.

So long as you tell people about it. I kinda like this one except for my face and body of which I am not a fan.

********************

Next, the Doug Stanhope Big Stink Comedy Tour launches in Chattanooga on Aug 7th. I don't know why we titled it that other than it's fun to title a tour. And we can probably unload some t-shirts. The first run will have Carlos Valencia and the Junior Stopka on board and then the September run will have Brett Erickson and Geoff Tate. The last couple years I've just been flying into towns, saying words and getting back on a plane. There's no fun in that. This tour is gonna be old school, bunch of drunk friends in a van, driving around the country and fucking off heavily. Probably not as healthy physically but a lot more fun.

Check the dates and get tix now. Will be adding more soon. Note that I'll finally be in Boston at the Wilbur November 17th. About fucking time.

The first three weeks are in the southeast. If you miss us, maybe you can catch Neil Hamburger, Todd Barry and Brendon Walsh on tour together at the same time down that way. That's a hell of a show as well. Their dates are at http://www.americasfunnyman.com/tour.html

*********************

Update. Bingo got crawling drunk on a mountain vacation in Pinos Altos, NM and somehow found her phone. Lost it in a blackout and found it in another state weeks later in a blackout. 

That Bingo. She's a pill.

I'm in Wolverhampton by Henry Phillips

Here's a special bonus. The great song that Henry Philips came up with on our UK tour.

My good old buddy Frank Lunney aka Captain Rowdy croaked this month. He was a "triple X-rated" comic and pretty big in the southwest when I first started out. He took me under his wing in the early years and sometimes under his fists or shod foot. His beatings were like a gift from an angel. Shit started going downhill for him after a while and never seemed to stop. Diabetes had them whittling his limbs down like scrimshaw and his kidneys finally left him like so many of his wives. He was a damn good human being and I can't say how much I appreciate all he did for me starting out. 

If you care to help, buy my merch. His 13 year old son Gage is now an orphan and I'm sure he'll be jacking me up for cash soon. I'll say it's from you.

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I've been lazy about putting up fun fan mail. This one showed up as actual hand-written snail-mail near 4th of July a year ago. My friend Hack read it out loud in the kitchen and we all laughed at the fan-boyish tone. At least at first.

I'll transcribe it as it was written.

"Dear Doug... or should I say feloow drunk Doug,

I was at your show last October or November down in Ft Lauderdale, I was the creepy kid in black among the crowd of creepy kids in black and I really enjoyed the show and I'm glad I got to see you live because I was beginning to think you weren't real; I was starting to think you were some form of CGI digital Santa Claus that was sent down by God to save us from this retarded society we live in. At least I got to see the philosopher Doug Stanhope do his magic and I'm talking real magic, the kind that makes you want to drink even when you really don't want to.

Anyway, since you're reading this you should knw that I'm already dead by the time you get this. I'm no fan of the world and even less the way I live in it, and there are some good things but I've had 23 almost 24 years to do those things, and although I want to stay a little longer and get to see some more I can't, for the moral justice thinks I have to do 7 years in a prison for looking at the wrong kind of porn even though that happened to me as a kid and I never complained about it.

Anyway, now that I'm completely out of hope, I'm leaving you my favorite book, which I think you will like and maybe give a few ideas for new material. It's not perfectbut most of the concepts in the book are similar to your views, just a little less vulgar.

So Doug, thanks for giving me something to laugh at, that was almost impossible with my gloomy outlook and sick sense of humour.

Thanks for being the one person with the balls to speak out the truth. I hope you are much more successful in what's left of your career and save some worthy people before it's too late.

Thanks and good luck

Your fan and follower.

Liam S.V. Hughes

Oh and by the way, it's painless helium suicide in case you were wondering. At least I DIED LAUGHING!"

**

We checked it out and he indeed killed himself after being arrested with child porn on his computer and facing 7 years. My lawyer friend who looked up the case said he did the right thing, considering his odds in prison. I don't think I could have offered a better suggestion aside from using something other than helium as I already have a bit about a fan that killed himself that way.

Comics always say that they are happy to be able to make people laugh, to give em a small break from their daily grind, their grueling nine-to-five. A lot of my people have a much darker grind and I'm happy to give them a nice chuckle and release at the end of a long day setting fires, drowning their kids in a car and blaming it on the blacks or debating between suicide or prison.

Liam Hughes was certainly not the only really fucked-up fan I've had nor will he be the last. I don't know exactly why I appeal to so many wrecked, scared, miserable, ugly, angry or otherwise ill-suited for life as we know it. But I'm not unhappy that you're here. Every time there's somebody like the Aurora theater shooter, I check my mailing list and Facebook to see if they were a fan. I know that if it weren't for comedy, I might be sitting in a dark room stockpiling weapons and putting names on lists. 

Maybe you should try writing jokes. Or kick-boxing or something. Join a Neighborhood Watch. That's where all the real psychopaths hang out. 

I don't have all the answers. I just do comedy.

But in the meantime, certainly keep your cards and letters coming to 212 Van Dyke St. Bisbee AZ 85603.

***********

In case you're wondering, the book Liam sent with the letter was called "Think!: Why Crucial Decisions Can't Be Made in the Blink of an Eye." Pretty unremarkable but it's the thought that counts.

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Wow, this update has been pretty death-heavy.

Here's a great story for anyone who's fantasized about riding over the Westboro Baptists with a combine followed by a Zamboni, a more clever way to fuck with em!

Me, I feel better already.

As we draw closer to the dullest election since Bush/Dukakis, I will now go on record as throwing my shriveled, impotent support behind the only candidate worth hearing, Governor Gary Johnson. Johnson, the former two-term Governor of New Mexico is running on the Libertarian ticket.

Many of you reading this are thinking that the whole affair is a waste of effort, that the corruption runs too deep and the system is rigged and you'd be right. But I still like rooting for an underdog and I'll cheer-lead the fuck out of Gary Johnson.

Upsides:

Gary Johnson wants to end federal drug prohibition and allow states to set their own policies. He wants to legalize marijuana. 

Wants our troops home from Afghanistan immediately as well as reevaluating the need for other bases spread across the world.

Is pro-choice and pro-gay marriage and for stem cell research.

Abolish the IRS and enact the Fair Tax.

Keep the internet tax-free and uncensored as well as legalizing internet gaming.

End the Patriot Act

That's all pretty fucking good.


Downsides:

Nobody knows who the fuck he is even though he pretty much in synch with Ron Paul (without any of the racism baggage.)

He's a little creepy looking.

He's far too honest.

That's one of my biggest peeves with both Johnson and Paul. Why not just lie about some of the shit you wanna do? It's been a working business model for politicians since I've been alive yet it seems that it's only implemented by the nefarious. 

They say the won't raise taxes and as soon as they are elected they raise taxes. Why never the other way? Why never a guy running on the Anti-Coon ticket only to get elected and free the slaves? Bullshit has a solid track record and should not be taken out of the equation especially if it offers you opportunity to make drastic changes for liberty. Some stuff is gonna suck. Gloss over it or just flat out lie. Most people - myself included - are too fucking under-educated on the facts to have any business scratching their asses in a polling booth. If it's necessary, tell them whatever dogshit subterfuge it takes to get into office and then fuck em over by doing the right thing.

Deception should not be reserved for evil people.


In the meantime, take out your Sharpie or your spray can and write "Johnson/Gray 2012" in every dirty toilet stall you find yourself vomiting in over the next few months. That might be the extent of my political pull but it'll make me smile when I read it.

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The main reason that most people cannot take this election seriously is that we are all now frightfully aware that indeed, December 21st, 2012 - the end of the Mayan Calendar - now certain to be the End of the World.

It no longer matters how the Arizona Cardinals did in pre-season. Nobody gives a fuck about going over the mileage on their leased vehicle. Only a sucker would buy a pregnancy test today. She won't even be fat by the time the firestorms come.

All folks seem to care about his how the will spend their last day and who they will spend it with.

That was a problem for a lot of you who were having to choose between spending their final day on Earth with me, Joe Rogan or Joey MadFlavor CoCo Diaz. Well now you don't need to choose. We have come together to do a show in Los Angeles on that soon-to-be fateful date so we can spend it with you.

Rogan, Stanhope & Diaz at the Wiltern Theater 12/21/12. 

Ticket info later this month. Get on the mailing list now so you dont miss it, it'll sell out quick.


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Well what if you're WRONG about the End of the World?

Highly doubtful. That's some strong science.

But even if we don't die, people will keep dying and that can be sad if you're not in a death pool.

The folks in my social circles had always used the term - "oh yeah, he's a wicked fuck-up. I'm putting him in my death pool" - but not until two years ago did my friend Jobi actually start an actual organized pool with rules, point structures and bonus systems.

Even then I only got in as a goof since I don't really follow pop culture. And then as the ball dropped on New Years Eve and we all revealed our 20 picks for the year, I became immediately hooked. Every day that year I found myself going to Wiki Deaths 2011 before even checking my email. Summer hadn't even come before I was making notes for next year. Strategies based on different bonuses. I'd front-loaded Celebrity Rehab contestants for obvious reason but over-looked NFL lineman who die in their mid 50's on average. Couple that with the bonus for African-Americans during black history month and you're looking at nice odds.

By the start of the 2012 pool, I had been sitting at the computer like some racetrack handicapper for months and all but kept my picks locked in a briefcase to my wrist. I am currently in 2nd place and feel bad following my friend Ralphie May's Twitter feed more closely than I would if he weren't in the position to play king-maker and throw me over the top.

There is nothing I won't gamble on - even if it's FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY - but nothing has proven more fun than Celebrity Death Pool. Whatever you're into - Fantasy Football or Baseball, March Madness brackets or picking the ponies are all fine but this is better. Death has no season and any long-shot can surprise you and pull you from worst-to-first at the last minute.

So Jobi and I have decided to spread the joy of prognosticating the Fates of the Stars. We are launching "Doug Stanhope's Celebrity Death Pool" - www.stanhopesdeathpool.com - so that you can join in the fun. You can pre-register today, start getting your crew together and, of course, start doing your research for 2013 candidates.

And fuck you if you copy my Ralphie May pick. I've had him since long before there was such a pool. Besides, I'm probably a way better choice.

More to come.


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We are on the road a ton so updates don't come as quickly as I'd like. Fortunately Bingo updates our travels a lot on her Facebook page. Follow her at www.facebook.com/bingo.amy.bingaman and see her at the merch booth on the road. She's the blue-haired girl and she loves it when people know her. 

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We're still adding dates for the "Doug Stanhope's Big Stink Comedy Tour." Keep checking the site for dates or just get on the mailing list so you don't miss it. If you can't make it out yet still want a Tour T-shirt - they are for sale for a few days only since my web-merch guy is going on vacation and I'll be on the road. Shirts are 19 bucks plus 5 bucks shipping.

International orders add 10 dollars for shipping 

For XXL add 2 dollars more for the Fattie Tax.  

"Hey John it's Mike Ragogna from KRUU & HuffPost - we have a phone interview scheduled if you can please call the studio line - it'll be real easy, just a few questions about the new release and PiL."

I had an interview scheduled with this same guy at noon so he'd obviously put the wrong phone number to the wrong guest - and although I don't know shit about music I did catch the John and the PiL together and realized he was calling for John Lydon aka Johnny Rotten.

So I dialed the number he'd called me from, got voicemail and left a message saying who I was and that he'd called the wrong guest.

"Hey John it's Mike Ragogna from KRUU & HuffPost - we have a phone interview scheduled if you can please call the studio line..."

This time I said fuck it, wrote down the studio number, put on the best British accent I could muster (which is absolutely fucking awful) and called in to do the interview as best as I could, being still half asleep and not knowing shit about who I am pretending to be.

Sadly they edited out the fun parts where I would pause to fake-vomit mouthfuls of water into the toilet our loudly take a piss with the phone just over the bowl but they left in the "Howard Stern" and "Baba-Booey." How could they have ever guess they'd been duped?

Also, HERE is an interview I did as myself on same phone number later. Guy still clueless.

John Lydon Interview by dstanhope

Click for Original Article

As usual, I will close out the year at the Rialto, Saturday Dec 1st.

This year's Tucson show will be proudly home to "The Funniest Person in Arizona Comedy Competition."

And unlike all other comedy contests, we tell you upfront - "It's a Scam!" That's why there is no need for it to continue for weeks of preliminaries, semi-finals and finals. It's just one night!

Not only just one night, but just one minute!

That's right! You will only get to do one minute of material!

But, you ask, how can they judge us on one solitary minute of comedy?

Because like all competitions, It's Completely Unfair!

So unfair, in fact, that you will not even know that categories on which you're being judged, none of which will be comedy related.  Originality? Who cares? Stage Presence? Not an issue. Crowd Response? Wasn't listening!

The only thing I will promise you is this contest is NOT rigged, that the winner is NOT pre-determined. The winner will be decided by a panel of completely unqualified judges using a scorecard of random, superfluous criteria.

The winner will have the title of "The 2012 Funniest Person in Arizona" and will be opening for me for shit money immediately upon being crowned.

And the rub is, the losing comics will probably still cry that it was unfair!

But that won't matter to you because your career will be rocketing skyward and you will never look back!

To enter email a link of your stand-up that I will watch no more than a random 10 seconds of before making a decision. If you don't have a clip online, you can just send me an email telling me how funny you are, that you have a shitload of friends that will be buying tickets or other subtle forms of bribery, chicanery, hi-jinx or bamboozlery.

We will choose 10 comics to compete and will let you know by Wednesday, November 28th.

Email doug@dougstanhope.com

Hey Doug, pretty sure you can appreciate this since you're not a faggot about the dark shit people feel.

I'm 34, so this was close to 20 years ago this shithead I went to elementary and high school with used to call me names, trip me, tell people I was talking shit so they would want to fight me, shit like that. One thing I remember more vividly than any of this was this time on the school bus I was leaning over the seat in front of me, talking to a friend, and he snuck up behind me and hit me over the head as hard as he could with this kid Scott's history book and knocked me silly, practically unconscious, hurt me, made me feel like an asshole, and just laughed with all his scumbag friends at me slumped over.

I left that school after my sophomore year, never really saw him again, until my sister texted me to tell me "Harry Klingenberg died in a meth lab explosion." 

It gets better, though, because I google his name and some other keywords and find surveillance video on a news site.

Around 0:35, I just got goosebumps and started laughing like a motherfucker, because there he was, being rolled into a hospital, writhing in pain shortly before his death, with burns over 80% of his piece of shit body.

He was cooking in a car in a hospital parking lot. You can see the shit explode and watch him die.

Maybe you don't give a fuck but I've been listening to you for years and I feel like maybe you can relate.

Episode 2: Goosekirk

Doug Stanhope interviews Goosekirk about his 5 year prison stay in Brazil on drug trafficking charges. Interview was conducted on the patio of the Doug Fir Lounge at the Jupiter Hotel in Portland, OR. Attending the interview and making comments off mic - Andy Andrist, Bingo!, Ggreg Chaille and a guy that looked like Joaquin Phoenix.

GET THE PODCAST HERE

Episode 3: Rob Mungle in Houston

Recorded March 12, 2013 at the Houston Improv during the Big Stink Comedy Tour. Attending the interview and making comments off mic - Junior Stopka, Jack&Dino, Rob Mungle and Bingo.

GET THE PODCAST HERE