Contemplating My Navel

Los Angeles is one of the few times that I'm glad to be back in comedy clubs. Although we've done well financially there doing alternative venues, it usually turned out to be at your expense. We get the door, they get the bar and you get the standing-room placed in front of the seated people so you can stare at a fat man's ass while you try to listen.

But you tolerating all that gave us the ability to cut the same deals with clubs where you can actually get seats and cheap parking. So thanks for that. And tip your waitstaff, etc.
 
Irvine Improv is Wednesday, Sept 22nd and the Jon Lovitz Comedy Club is Thursday and Friday. I'm trying to pull Sean Rouse out of hiding for the LA shows but it's never a sure thing with Seanny. Saturday is at Winston's in Ocean Beach - it isn't a comedy club and it's one of my favorite places to play but it's small and might already be sold out.

Try eBay.

Or we can trade out.

Here's my point.

This belly-button thing has sincerely become a problem. I know it's sounds strange having such a silly sounding thing as a "belly-button" causing me this much horrific anxiety but it's getting pretty bad.

The medical terminology is "umbilical hernia."

The fact is that it is your intestines pushing through your navel.

And that's pretty gross. I was going to add a picture but I don't have that thingy that attaches the camera to the laptop but i found one that looks just like mine - gut n all - on Google images.

I've never been able to feel my intestines before without going
directly through my asshole. Going through the gut bypasses your prostate altogether, making it not just uneventful but awful and yet another reason to kill yourself.

My navel has always stuck out a bit. An "out-y" or however you'd spell it - a word that makes "belly-button" seem coarse. It would always get red first when I was out in the sun and today it glows like a giant clown nose on my beer gut. Not long ago I showed it to my friends in Bisbee at a weekly poker game - I don't always know what to say in mixed company so the obvious default is to show your most disgusting body part - and someone suggested it was an umbilical hernia.

So when I went to the doctor to refill my prescriptions, as an aside I lifted my shirt and asked if it was indeed a hernia or simply an out-y. He said it was definitely herniated, and that I could get surgery but that if it didn't bother me, I shouldn't worry about it.

 

No, it doesn't bother me. It bothers other people when they are trying to play poker or make eye contact at the pool when my shirt is off but it doesn't bother me.

This was the same doctor who prescribed Rid to our friend Father Luke to get rid of scabies. Rid is an over the counter medication but, Luke didn't know that until he handed in a scrip from a doctor at the pharmacy. That is like writing a prescription for soap. But he gives me the pills for my "flight anxiety" so why question him.

My friend Nurse Betty (still known as Mayor Betty in some underground circles) saw it again last night.

I told her that the doc said I shouldn't worry about it. Then Betty
went on to inform me of all the possible doomsday scenarios involved with belly-button problems - it could prolapse or pinch off, etc etc but the one word that she said that disturbs me every minute since is "necrotizing."

That can lead to death, she said, but death doesn't bother me.

"Necrotizing" bothers me enough that I would consider surgery,
something I said I'd rather die than have on even the most minor
problem.

I am a comedian which means, of course that I don't have health
insurance. And I don't know how to go about getting surgery as a walk-in nor do I know if some states are cheaper than others when it comes to surgery so I can schedule it around a road gig.

So long story short, I will trade you your choice of two tickets to
any show or a signed DVD and CD - in return for surgery to repair an umbilical hernia (or "belly-button ow-ee") and I'll throw in a "Fuck the Yankees" jersey as the cherry on top, so long as you wear a large as that's all I have left in the crawl space.

Email me at doug@dougstanhope.com if you are a surgeon that has a CD player and some free time. This is really fucking with my head.

In the meantime, get your tickets to the show.

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Thanks to Dag Soras - not only for being a hilarious working with me in London - but for giving me the book "Everyday Drinking" by Kingsley Amis. It inspired me to bring my drink in from the hotel pool and write for a minute.

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Other thanks from Canada to Oregon/Washington to London are overdue and I probably won't get to them but you know who you are and I love you all.


stanhope

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