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.

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 next day we met up at city hall and were given the full tour and were introduced to some of the other members of the Best Party including Einar Benediktsson, formerly of the Sugarcubes who thankfully smoked cigarettes and thankfully was with the Sugarcubes so I could Google his name. I forget everybody's name anyway but when they have Icelandic names I never really got em to begin with.  

Now we go for our Official Meeting at the Hofdi House where 25 years previously Reagan and Gorbachev held their famous summit meeting in 1986.

 The woman who ran the place greeted us and commented on how much she liked Bingo's shoes - a pair of knee-high black Chuck Taylor Converse. Of course Bingo immediately insisted that she have them. She took them off, put them on her and went home in a pair of plastic shoe-condoms that are given out to tourists so they dont muddy up the carpet. In return, the woman gave Bingo a gift basket of things from the house to take home with her, one that kinda took us both off guard. Wrapped in tin foil, Bingo opened to large, dried mushroom stems.   

"You know what this is?" asks the woman.

"Ooooh yeah!" says Bingo.

And with a wink and a nod we were off.

It was mushroom season in Iceland. On the drive to the prison they pointed out people on the side of the road and in the medium, picking mushrooms like dandelions. We could get psilocybin anywhere, they told us like they were bored with it. But to be given it here during an Official Meeting at the Hofdi House... fuck, it's too bad Reagan and Gorbachev didn't shroom during their failed attempt at working shit out.

We spent the next few days just hitting bars and meeting folks in town. Everything in Reykjavik is in walking distance, a beautiful village of a city with great sushi and unassuming folks and lots of things on menus that I didn't dare to eat. We also spent a lot of time curled up in bed the way a vacation is supposed to be.

But on the last night we still had the mushrooms and still had to meet up with Frosti and his friends. We weren't really in the mood to trip but sometimes you have to push yourself. How often will we have this chance?

Bingo crushed them up and wrapped them into moist bread-balls for some reason - saying we could just swallow them like a pill, as though you could eat a pill the size of your thumb. I chewed it down gagging the whole way like I was eating a cricket on a dare and then we waited for Frosti and the mushroom shivers.

When Frosti showed up, there was a bit more crushed up on a plate and Bingo offer it to him.

"There's not much left but if you want some mushrooms..."

Frosti looks at it oddly, touches it, smells it.

"That's sage."

"What?"

"That is sage, not mushrooms."

"What the fuck is sage?" I ask.

"Sage. It's like uh... incense."

We had just choked down bread-balls full of incense thinking that the mayor's office had given us hallucinogens as an Official Welcome Gift.

You can go ahead and make all the "your shit doesn't stink" jokes you like. They did.

We had a fantastic night. Frosti and I fell in love. People might not accept it as he is 20 years my junior but true love sees beyond that. Ask Hef. 

We'll have to finish that part of the story down the road.

In the meantime, go to Iceland the first chance you get. I'd like to make it my second home. I'd really love duel-citizenship there. And did I mention gay marriage is legal in Iceland?

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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  

Another night, another Stanhope Sausage Army Hate-Fest Comedy Show.

My Facebook page shows my demographics as being nearly 82 percent male. I think if there were a Facebook Fan Page for Rape it would have more chicks "like" it. 

Granted, the 18 percent of ladies that do show up are pretty fucking cool, intelligent and probably do ass sex but it's still confusing to me why there is probably a higher percentage women in combat roles in the military than among my audience.

No sense in fighting it. I'll just have to accept it for what it is.

It's football season anyway and I need to talk point-spreads and over/unders and survivor pool picks without any interruption. Not that it's only women who find football to be stupid by any stretch. There's plenty of guys and Europeans who remind me of that on every NFL-related Facebook post.

I know it's stupid. It's just as stupid as any number of other pointless endeavors that waste away the hours. You have yours, I have mine. Mine is football season.

This year I didn't book Saturdays on the road so I wouldn't have to travel on Sundays. I'll be at the house from the first Bloody Mary at kick-off Sunday morning until the last beer on Monday Night.

But this year won't be as much fun without Russ Dunn. Russ was my friend and one of the regulars at the house every weekend for the games. He and I happily admitted that we were the gayest football fans in the world because we were both fixated on the uniforms. We'd talk about them like we were flaming fashion critics. We were really hoping for a Jets/Packers because the colors would compliment each other so well. We got giddy as school-girls when the Patriots or the Bucs wore their throwbacks.

Yep. Gay as shit. Russ died of a massive brain aneurysm in March, leaving a massive hole in Bisbee and it's going to be that much more apparent once the season kicks off... when I'm the only guy with a boner on the weekend that the Titans break out their old Oilers uniforms.

It'd be nice if the rest of you stopped dying for a while except for the ones I have in my celebrity death pool and those people really need to step up. I've dropped to fifth place in the pool after so many others scored big on Amy Winehouse.

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.

 

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. 

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.

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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

We're taping two shows at The Complex in SLC for my new DVD to be out for Christmas. It's a very small room and only days away so get your tickets immediately, jump in the van, start driving or flying in from whatever state or country you live in and I'll start doing my hair.

"But a Tuesday night? People have to work in the morning!"

Yeah? Fuck em! Besides, the best audiences don't have jobs or at least show up to them drunk.

I'm done booking 2011 so check the schedule and see when I'm near you. If I'm not, it's probably because you said something mean to me the last time and I'm sore about it. Or maybe I just didn't have time and I'll get there next year.

Sorry Arkansas and Mississippi, somehow your paperwork just keeps getting lost in the mix year after year.

Everyone else... check the tour dates.

Official Press Release:

COMEDIAN DOUG STANHOPE TO RECORD LIVE COMEDY CD/DVD

IN SALT LAKE CITY JULY 19

TWO SHOWS ON SALE NOW

NEW YORK, NY (JULY 11, 2011) -  Doug Stanhope, the brutally honest and shockingly uninhibited comedian will record his next live comedy CD/DVD in Salt Lake City, UT at The Complex on July 19, 2011.  He will perform two sets, using local comedians as openers: one at 7:30pm and another at 10:00pm. Tickets are $19.00 each, on sale now and can be purchased through Brown Paper Tickets here.

Stanhope said of filming in Utah, "I'm filming in Salt Lake City because if the recording goes bad, the rest of the country will blame you."

Stanhope’s critically acclaimed cutting edge stand-up, ranging from biting social commentary to the crass and obscene, has landed him appearances on The Howard Stern Show, Comedy Central Presents, Premium Blend, The Man Show, Fox News with Greta Van Sustern, and BBC’s Newswipe.  Stanhope has taped TV specials for Showtime and UK’s Channel 4.  He was also featured in controversial film The Aristocrats alongside George Carlin, Don Rickles and Chris Rock to name a few.

His most recent CD/DVD Oslo: Burning The Bridge To Nowhere came out May 3, 2011 topping the Billboard comedy chart and was recorded in an abandoned factory in the Grünerløkka suburb of Oslo, Norway.

Stanhope will begin a 25-date headline residency in London at the Leicester Square Theatre on August 2, 2011 then he will head back to the States for a series of shows in the U.S.

About Roadrunner Comedy:
Launched in 2010, Roadrunner Comedy represents and encompasses the spirit in which Roadrunner Records was originally founded: a label that highlights brilliant artists that are inherently irreverent and provocative.  Roadrunner Comedy continues to expand with that same attitude and with the ideals that have made Roadrunner a recognizable brand worldwide. Roadrunner Comedy is currently home to Doug Stanhope.

http://www.roadrunnercomedy.com/

It's a good Sunday when you spend the afternoon trying to stop yourself from directly calling or emailing children to piss wildly on their dreams simply because you can.

I watch an assload of documentaries when I'm home and generally it's because I hope to enjoy them - unlike regular television which I often times watch just to hate. Hate is entertainment too.

In order to understand how a simple documentary on teenage magicians taking part in a contest can bring me to the brink of calling or emailing those same teens to tell them how much they suck, you have to understand a few things.

First and most obvious is that you have to understand how (shitty) magic is and how wildly delusional magicians are about what they do.

Another key is to understand how easy it is to find the people from documentaries on the internet, either the documentarian or his subjects. These people aren't celebrities. If a Kevin Bacon movie makes you angry, you can't just pull up his name and number on Google in a fraction of a second. But a teenage magician...?

Yes - if I hate magic so much why would I watch a documentary about it? Frankly - on the off-chance that the documentary was mocking it. I watched "Jesus Camp" as an atheist and was thrilled with the results.

But no such luck with this one. This one was magic at it's most magician-y. In the first three minutes you are shown a montage of professional magicians hurling lofty quotes about their own craft such as...

"Magic reminds us that the universe is a huge, capital 'M' mystery."

No it doesn't. It reminds us that some people will do anything to get people to look at them. The universe never springs to mind at all, ever.

"It's a specific state of mind when your world view is shattered for a second."

This goes into footage of someone doing a pedestrian coin-disappearing hand trick. Which of course shatters your world view.

"Magic... on a significant level and a more deeper impact, it is changing people's lives. When you are able to do the impossible, there are no obstacles left in your life anymore."

Yes but you don't do the impossible. You have the dexterity to hide a coin between your fingers while wearing spangles. It's extremely possible, as are the obstacles in life. Idiot.

Now a montage of the teenagers in the contest.

"I found something that came naturally to me, came easy to me and blew people away, made a lasting impression, made people wanna talk to me, made people like me."

Magic doesn't make people like you. It makes people watch your hands to figure out where the coin went. If they don't like you without doing magic, you have a long road, son.

"Maybe that's what we're trying to do with magic - is trying to find out who we are as a person."

Um... yeah. You'll figure that out by hiding a silver dollar. Jesus fuck.

Now comes the Japanese kid.

"When I can't communicate with language, I can use magic. Because magic is borderless."

Remember this next time you are overseas and can't find the bus station - just pull a string of chinchillas out of your top hat. It's an international language.

You can see now why I'm already in a state of vomit-shock in the first three minutes. Or maybe you can't. Regardless, I now had to watch the whole thing. And while I watched, I Googled the most annoying of them and all had email contacts and most had phone numbers for bookings.

I didn't call or email any of them - maybe because I'm a better person than that or maybe because Bingo kept yelling at me for even thinking of doing it.

But just being on the verge of shitting on their happiness, I understand every piece of hate mail I ever received. I'll settle for simply imploring these young magicians-in-the-making to lean more towards the Penn Jillette and less towards the every-other faggots who seem to believe they are mystically doing more than spinning plates in a uni-tard.


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

Chris Cavanaugh was a fan in Seattle who just died of cancer. His friend emailed last year to tell me about it so we drunk dialed the cancer guy and he wouldn't believe it was me. I dont know why - my name isn't really Make-A-Wish caliber. If your friends are gonna pull a gallows prank on you, you'd hope they'd go a lot bigger.

He came to the show last August and then had it beat for while but it came back and ate him dead. He was late-20's/early thirties. Just saying, have fun while you're still around. Don't take shit so seriously. Osama bin Laden? Royal wedding? Magic? C'mon. Do you really give a fuck?

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