My good three-legged christ, how deep the bullshit can get. I get a message yesterday from someone at MSNBC.com regarding my upcoming appearance at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. I'd recently been misquoted in a story in a U.K newspaper saying I was preparing to "ridicule" a play over there regarding the fallen heroes of 9/11 so I assumed this was the reason for the MSNBC call.
I should have guessed by the way she kept referring to it as the Edinburgh "Film" Festival rather than "Fringe" that she might not be a legitimate press person but I spoke with her regardless.
I told her that my comments were about blanket hero worship that wasn't based on any individual action but on simply having the job. I made it clear that I wasn't referring to actual 9/11 events but to the atmosphere since then. She laughed and yucked it up at all the jokes and when she was done abruptly hung up.
My wife asked how it went. I said "She was laughing and sounded like she gets it but I could almost see her drawing a hangman on a Post-It pad while we talked." I couldn't have been more right.
American comedian Doug Stanhope, who’s performing at the festival, tells the Scoop he’s preparing to ridicule the hero worship of the 9/11 rescue workers.
That's the bi-line that ran in bold red alongside the story. The cunt even used the same verbage as the UK paper - 'ridicule'.
Who in the fuck could be "anti-firefighter"?
I found out where the story was, not from her but from the stack of hate mail in my inbox. The worst part is that this cunt is a GOSSIP columnist!
She included some choice sentences from my original rant in my journal archives ( June 21 ) which I still think hold merit. Nowhere in it do I mention 9/11. This mudhole reprints them as though they were directed at actual WTC victims and it gets people a little irritated to say the least.
I'm used to hate mail but I get peeved when it's inaccurate. That's what makes me apeshit. This bang-job whore who wrote that article was the one exploiting 9/11 victims. She, like other media spastics, knows that tragedy and outrage sell papers. Hence the spin. If she can find another angle on it to act like one of the outraged masses, she wins and looks good doing so.
And you don't yank yourself thinking I am the only one who feels the way I do. Firemen are people just like any of us. I'm damn glad they do what they do but that doesn't mean I should be made feel like I should stop, drop and weep every time one passes me by or is paraded out to sing the National Anthem.
I used to live around the corner from a fire station in West Hollywood. One morning I was sitting behind a car waiting to pull onto the main street when a firetruck came out of the station behind me. No lights, no sirens. Just sat there behind me waiting. Soon the car ahead of me turned and as I started to pull forward, the firetruck hits his air-horn - not his siren but that bone-shaking horn they use going through intersections. I nearly went through the windshield and on knee-jerk reaction I flipped the bird high and mighty out the drivers side window. I took a right and after a block or two the engine came out with its sirens now running. I pulled to the side and it stopped beside me.
"You better watch who you give the fucking finger to!" says the fireman as though he's going to jump out and then drives on.
They are on an emergency call and stop to deal with road rage issues. Heroic. Point is that they are human and a lot of humans are cocks.
Firefighters started two of the biggest wildfires in Arizona and Colorado history this summer. That doesn't make them all shitbags but you then can't say that they are all heroes just for wearing the tin hat.
As for the statements in the article, I stand by them in context with their original format. I have to assume that it takes a certain thrill-seeker, adrenaline junkie mentality to take a job running into flames and that the idolitry involved with the position is the allure as much as any selfless compassion for humanity. Chicks dig firemen. My opinion. If you have a family, maybe you should consider a line of work that doesn't involve you cheating death on a daily basis. That seems like a no-brainer. If you're a cop who allows police corruption to go on without doing anything about it, you're just as guilty. No-brainer.
So there's my comments, sans humor. Not really all that controversial, I'm afraid.
Here's something for all of you to remember. This came from my journal on my home page of my website. I did not email my opinions to you, post them on a firefighters message board, tack them to your front door or yell them to you on a street corner. My website is for my friends and fans who are usually of a like mind. It's not a media outlet. You read a bad cut n paste job in a gossip column that included the latest hubub about Justin Timberlake and Boyz II Men. And you tell *me* to get a life?
So if you're only here because you read some drivel on MSNBC.com, read the whole story in the archives from June 22nd. If you're still all heated up - and you very well may be - remember I didn't invite you here, you came on your own. Go back and read about Madonna's latest tiff with Rupert Everett. It's near the bottom.
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Thanks to everyone in Portland who came out for the Dante's show. It was a fucking riot. We'll do it again very soon. If I can get enough people on the mailing list in every town I can make all my shows that much fun. Comedy belongs in dark, smokey, odd places like that - free of comment cards and tired acts. Special thanks the the folks at KNRK. Your threats of a regular gig there are tempting.
FAN LETTER 1
From: Kristy
To: doug@dougstanhope.com
Subject: In Response to your participation in the Festival in Scotland next month
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 06:59:48 -0700 (PDT)
Mr. Doug,
I would like to take the time to tell you what I think about your participation in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland next month. First of all I think that you are extremely out of line in making fun of the same country that you have used to make yourself famous. The American people may have helped you reach that success but those same people can just as easily let the air out of your popularity as well. Second I would like to express my complete discuss with you over your rude and obvensive comments concerning America's Firefighters and Police Officers. I found your comments very hurtful concidering that the man that I love with all my heart and soul is in fact a Fireman and even before September 11th I was extremely proud of him both as a fireman and as a husband and father. Because of my position I feel that I have the right to tell you that you are wrong in poking fun of the very people that help protect the American people. It is true that both fireman and p! olice officers choose this profession but it also takes a MAN or a WOMAN to promise that type of commentment to their job. If you feel that it is such an easy job then why don't you try it for a while and then come back and make those same comments (You couldn't do it) So don't knock it until you have tried it!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can understand why you would think that it is crazy for a person to run into a burning building when all other people are running out the same building or to chase after a criminal with a loading gun, each knowing what the outcome could be. i would say just from hearing you speak that you have neither the respect for the people that do this or the gutts to perform such a task yourself, instead you stand on a stage with your microphone and talk about these people. Oh, but I bet if you home was burning and your wife was inside you would want the fireman there as soon as possible to save your life or if you had been attack by a individual with a gun you! would be quick to ask "Where were the cops when I needed them?" A person of such your low calibore could never even begin to understand what a Hero is nor could you ever become one in your lifetime. Webster's discribes a hero as " a man admired for his great strengths and abilities."
To me the people that gave their lives on September the 11th had tremendous strength and outstanding abilities. But one must also stop to think about all of the heros from the tragedy of September the 11th. Everyone from the firefighters, police officers, EMS workers, doctors, nurses, construction workers, the residents of New York city, the people of the planes, both the ones that hit the Trade Centers and the Pentagon and the people that were aboard the plane that crased in a field because the passengers were brave enough to risk their lives to save the lives of other people, and most importantly, the people that lost their loved ones ,weather they be the people that are paid to protect u! or if they were the people in the gift shops of the Trade Centers, those people that lost their loved one's were Hero's as well because of their strong ability to give that person to the tragedy and still have the Ability to move on in their lives while still remembering the loved ones that they had to leave behind.
So has you get up on that stage next month in Scotland think about what "Hero Whorship" really is and exactly who all you are going to hurt when those rude comments come from your mouth. It will not only be the fireman and police officers and their families but it will be every single person that the attacks of September the 11th effected.
FAN LETTER 2
From: Susan
To: doug@dougstanhope.com
Subject: Edinburg Fringe Festival
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 08:08:35 -0400
Doug, I just read my MSNBC news alert which was a short article about the Edinburg Fringe Festival and your performance there. In the article they quoted you on some of your comedy routine. I was shocked at what I was reading. I especially did not like your bit about the police men "Serpico was a hero. The rest should get LUPUS." I could not believe what I was reading!!!! I have been fighting Systemic Lupus for 17 years now(I am 33 yrs. old) and will have to fight it for the rest of my life! How can you ridicule such a thing? I would never ever wish SLE on my worst enemy. Do you have anyone in your life that has Lupus? Do you have any idea what Lupus is????? Maybe instead of ridiculing it and making fun of it you should perform comedy routines as fund raisers to benefit the research into finding a cure!!!
SLE is a very serious illness?????? How horrible it is for you to do such a thing. Yea, you can say it's only a comedy routine, but, that's hard to do when you have an illness that can take your life away from you and that's not funny to me! I am sure there would be others that felt the same way. This letter may mean absolutely nothing to you, but, it's important that you think twice about what you are ridiculing!!!!!!! I just wanted to express my feelings to you.
Sue
FAN LETTER 3
From: paula
To:
Subject: your a fucking disgrace
Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 09:12:19 -0700
dougass,
you disgust me, your comedy routine reguarding 9/11 is appaling, you'll never make a dime off of me or anyone in my family, your not a comedian, your a uneducated fucking jerk, i pray that the next time you get on a plane it crashes, i have never wished death on anyone but in your case i'll make an exception.... i can't wait to see you dead.... this world will be alot better off without you.... your mom should be shot for even wanting to bring you into the world, you are a good argument for abortion.......death to you doug and i hope you end up dead soon, hey why don't you go to pakistan and then maybe you get your head cut off like Daniel Pearl did....you fucking cocksucker, i hate you and maybe if you ever do vegas i'll show up at your show just to make a seen, because going to jail is nothing new to me.... fuck off and die