thePULSEDoug Stanhope Returns to Worcester
By Sean Corbett
Comedian Doug Stanhope is one of Worcester’s loudest, rudest and most foul children. He has had a fledgling national comedy career and has put out five well-received comedy CDs and one DVD. He was in the comedy documentary The Aristocrats, he hosted The Man Show with Joe Rogan after Jimmy Kimmell and Adam Corrolla and he’s even hosted Girls Gone Wild, admittedly for extra cash. And now, after a public life full of drugs, alcohol, prostitutes and fantastically foul comedy, he’s going to run for President of the United States as a Libertarian. You can see what this guy is all about September 9th at Ralph’s Diner.
Ring….ring….
Doug Stanhope: Hello! Hello Worcester!
Sean Corbett: All right, good. We’ve got Doug on the line. How’s it going?
DS: Ha ha, I’m good.
SC: Well, I was excited to find out that Pulse wanted me to interview you because you’ve done a little bit of everything…and I do mean everything. You’ve got the standup career, Girls Gone Wild, The Man Show, and now you’re about to run for President.
DS: Yeah I figure that’ll top it all off. Then I can blow my head off or move to Costa Rica.
SC: What keeps you going?
DS: Ah, keeping it weird. And, ah, a lot of beer.
SC: After starting standup, what made that a main focus of your career?
DS: Ah, well standup is, it’s what I’m best at. And it’s the easiest as well. And so I moved out of LA after I did The Man Show, because I realized that even if it was good, which it wasn’t, I don’t want to work for a living. And television is ~ that’s 16 hour days. That’s exactly why I left Worcester. I’d be working in f*ckin’ Norton Company or whatever, putting in those kind of hours. Stand up ~ I go up with a beer and cigarette in my hand and talk for an hour and that’s it.
SC: I’ve heard of some censorship problems with The Man Show. Tell me about that. Did it ruin TV for you?
DS: Oh yeah, it’s ruined TV all around, pretty much. Because the censorship is not just about language, it’s about offending sponsors. It’s more the legal issues. I think lawyers ruin more things than even censors. Just the litany of miniscule things you could get sued for. We had one thing, we were going to do a “Humanitarian Beer Drop” for the homeless people in LA. Because that’s a basic civil right that you don’t get as a homeless person. Just being able to drink a beer at the end of the day, because you can’t do that outside. We were going to set up, you know, like beer tents. And then they’d have free beer. I thought that’d be a great idea.
SC: So you were going to be a new breed of Red Cross.
DS: Yeah. Yeah, and then bring some, you know, tittie dancers in there. Because that’s another civil right they don’t have. They can’t ever be naked or see nudity, because you can’t do that outside. So we were going to have tittie dancer tents with free beer. And then, the lawyers: “These people are alcoholics and if we give them beer, they could go berserk and blah blah blah.” Then we’ll give them fake beer. And they came back with, “Well that has trace amounts of alcohol that could trigger a reaction, and blah blah blah.” And we were like, you’ve got to be kidding.
SC: So these kinds of things happened all the time?
DS: Yeah, and after so many of those ~ the, you know, John Gates dumbstruck battles with producers or lawyers or censors, we were just like, f*ck this. Let’s just get our check and let this thing die.
SC: People would think the answer is clear, but I’ll ask it. Did you have a blast doing Girls Gone Wild?
DS: No, no.
SC: Not even just as an admirer of outrageous people?
DS: Unfortunately, it wasn’t a job where you only had to admire them. You had to deal with them. It’s like asking a bouncer how much he must enjoy being around hot chicks at last call. They all want to believe you’re living the dream, but what you’re doing is you’re talking to the dumbest, drunkest, annoying women in the world. And you’re trying to get ‘em to show their t*ts. And you’re doing this dance like you’re trying to get a handj*b on prom night. At 39 years old, that sh*t wore out quick. It got to the point where, once a girl was going to go on the bus, they would keep me off the bus because my sense of humor would make girls stop going wild, and leave.
SC: That’s something to be proud of, right?
DS: Yeah. Sure. [pause] If I was 23 when I did it, it would have been a blast.
SC: I saw a censored clip of you pushing girls into the snow in Alaska.
DS: Yeah, Alaska was great. That was the only fun part of Girls Gone Wild. Even though they hated most of the footage. That’s my favorite place to be. And those are the chicks that I think are hot. Pierced, tattooed, f*ckin’ skanky suicide girls.
SC: So you’ll be coming back to Worcester soon. As far as your lifestyle is concerned, do you think your life in Worcester or your voyages after Worcester have been the biggest influence?
DS: You know what, I don’t even remember the people I hated enough to get into this business to get back at. I think I have two friends from my Worcester life I still talk to, and they both live in New Hampshire. I quit school after the 9th grade. It was midway into the 10th grade at Doherty [Memorial High School], when I bailed completely. So I don’t even know who I went to school with.
SC: So you don’t have any stories about life in Worcester that you use in your act?
DS: Hmmm, on one CD, I do talk about… all the people who, when you go back, who judge their lives now by the hourly wage they make. “Hey, how’ve you been? What’ve you been doing the last 15 years?” “I’m good, I’m making 16 bucks an hour now. David, he’s not so good. He’s making 11 bucks an hour.” Yeah. And it’s like, hopefully it doesn’t rain at the Cape the one week I get to enjoy out of a year. That’s their life. ..let’s hope it doesn’t rain when we go to Falmouth.
SC: A year ago people might have looked at your career and said you’re frivolous and out of control, but also that you do whatever you want, whenever you want to. After deciding to run for President, do you think your image will change at all?
DS: No, not really. I just had to do a Q&A with one of the big Libertarian blogs and I had to force myself to keep the jokes out of it. But again, that’s right now, announcing that I’m running as a Libertarian. Half the Libertarian party thinks it’s a joke. So it’s not the time to be joking. But I’m sure I’ll be able to fight my way into it and make it as much fun as it is.
SC: Do you plan to do any comedy tours to campaign?
DS: Well that’s what I do for a living. I’m constantly touring. So it’s just a matter of trying to route tours around Libertarian events and conventions and functions and do both.
SC: So you’re not going to change your act at all?
DS: Oh, I’m not going to change my act at all. I’ll write new material, but it ain’t gonna be all about politics. Any more than it already is. But if I’m speaking at a Libertarian function, I’m not going to do a lot of t*t f*ck jokes… But so much of my material already fits into the Libertarian platform.
SC: So, what does a successful Presidential candidate need to focus on, in 2008?
DS: Well, what’s your definition of successful.
SC: Good response. You’re already getting the hang of it! Successful, in a getting-to-the-White-House sort of way. Getting the votes.
DS: It’s the Libertarian Party. Most people who sit down and look at the doctrine, they say, “Well yeah, that makes more sense than anything I’ve ever heard.” But they still vote two-party because they don’t want to throw away their vote. And I think it’s just a matter of getting that platform out to people and I have some unorthodox and unprecedented ideas for doing that, that I can’t tell you about just yet. All of it’s a matter of timing.
SC: So you’re coming back to Worcester soon. Any family up here?
DS: Nope, my dad died in 2001 and he was the last one left in Worcester. You know, I’ll drive by the old house and hopefully get to go fishing down at Cook’s Pond and ah, tear it up at Ralph’s. That was my first underage drinking hole. I can remember getting snuck into it one night. It didn’t last very long, because when I was 18 I looked like I was 12. But I got a beer in me there, goddammit.
