Where To Go

Wherever you go, there you are. And I gotta get the fuck out of this here. July 1st the lease is up and thank primitive gods that the lease won't be renewed or it would be easy to stay another year to avoid the decision of where to go.

But the decision still hasn't been made. Austin has taken over for Milwaukee as First Choice. Boise has been mentioned and Reno would be right up there if not for the fact that Renee still has to be there when I'm on the road and that joke would get old quick. Bisbee, AZ is perfect except that its 2 hours from the closest small-market airport. Portland or Eugene except that fucking rain. The mid-atlantic and northeast are out of the question.

Costa Rica eventually. But not July 1st.

One day you have a studio apartment with cable tv and nothing to do but fuck off and write jokes. Now I got a lot of shit I don't want and no time. I gotta get rid of shit, get out of this town and get life going slow again. Turn down some dates and do something new. Where did all these people come from? Lawyers and agents and managers and buyers and sellers and everyone who is supposed to simplify life that only serve to sit in oversized chairs in my head and confuse me.

"You been busy?"

"Real busy."

"That's good."

No, it isn't. Maybe thats good for some people but that ambition-for-its-own-sake mentality has always been lost on me. I don't want to die with frequent flier miles.

Los Angeles has sucked now for ten years and those years don't move laterally. Every time I have made plans to get out, something cockblocked it. It'll take quite a fat girl to stop me this time. Now I just have to wait for a direction. No sense making any plan now. Two months is a lifetime in this world. The only thing close to a plan is a garage sale on June 18th. If you need some unwanted shit, it's all gotta go. Having shit is cumbersome. Doing shit is everything. Having shit can cause you to stop doing shit by forcing you to work on shit to pay for shit. That shit sucks. Let's do something fun.

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Talk about policing the room.

I'm at the Hi-Tone in Memphis when an irate Christian woman - not passive Christian-labelled but a studied zealot - approached the stage upset about my comments regarding the pope. I gave her equal time to speak her mind and then sent her on her way before continuing the topic, somewhat at her expense. This drew out her husband - both had been back in the pool area playing 8-Ball for Jesus - who stalked towards the stage in a manner that could have been menacing except that I already knew his Message. He had his pool cue in hand and held it like a shepard as he stood an inch from me at the stage edge. He made some lockjawed and angry comments about his faith while I watched for a trigger finger. And as the moment grew tense, I saw the barrel-chested skinhead doorman approach on his kill like a leopard until he was right up on his back... where he carefully removed the pool cue and walked away, leaving it perfectly as a fair fight.

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You need to sign the mailing list. With the state of radio and the FCC, it may be the only way you'll ever know if I'm in your town. We are trying to put together a tour of The Unbookables - a tour of some of the best comics that are drowning in this sea of chunkless vomit that passes as entertainment in this country - comics that you may never hear about otherwise. Comedy isn't dying. Audiences are. That's because comedy venues are less and less inclined to upset the American Idol-viewers apple cart by booking something different. Therefore all the new talent that has something to say has nowhere to say it - without getting the stink-eye and pink slip from the mediocre headliner who does fine selling you wet shit on a paper plate - are stagnating.

We just have to have a way to reach you. Sign the mailing list, cocksucker. Don't count on the comedy club to notify you - we may be at the ugly pub right behind your house.

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Who are The Unbookables? There's a lot of em. Comics who people that go to see Killer Beaz don't get. Comics who get fired for "being drunk". Comics who scare people in Cedar Rapids. Comics who will have to sneak onto stage and get paid under the table because they aren't American. Comics who would be the teeth of this generation save for that this generation has been slated for 1950's-era tedium.

Theres plenty - from all corners, in all stages of development. Brendon Walsh, Brett Erickson, Mack Lindsay, Sean Rouse, Lonnie Bruhn, Travis Lipski, Daryl Lenox, Norm Wilkerson, Brendon Burns, Jim Jeffries, Sean Quinn,Andy Andrist, J Scott Homan, Matt Beardon, Jerry Rocha - these are just ones I can remember off the top of my head. Brian Holtzman has made me laugh harder than any comic I have ever seen. Ever, at any time in my life. Heard of him? No - because he's crazy. And thats no reason that a comic shouldn't be out there.And for everyone I know, theres a colonload I haven't seen yet. I hate to say it but - send a tape. A tape of you dying is even better.

Interested venues - email me at doug@dougstanhope.com. Interested sponsors can simply send me a check or Paypal me fuckloads of money.

The line-up will rotate depending on who is available and where we are but it'll always be good and when it's not it'll be beautiful chaos.

Lets do something fun.

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Thanks to everybody in Austin and especially Dudley and Bob on KLBJ. You guys always come around right when I get to burning my notebooks. I'll be back soon - hopefully around the First of July.

Sorry and Thanks

I'll be playing Caroline's in NYC May 12-15.

Unfortunately, that means I have to reschedule Sauget, Ill and Minneapolis but that will be sooner rather than later.

If you've emailed or called and I haven't got back to you in the past couple weeks, I apologize. I've been out of the loop, so to speak.

You understand.

Thanks to everyone that came out to the memorial for Mitch in Los Angeles. If I didn't get a chance to say hello, it's because it was hard to talk.

You understand.

I'll write more soon when all my head comes back around.

R.I.P. Mitch Hedberg

Mitch Hedberg died on Wednesday. I don't know how. It doesn't matter. Andy Andrist does a bit about how people will always try to blame you for your death. Andy says he wants to be mauled to death by a bear so no one will say it's his own fault. Mitch wasn't mauled by a bear. But it doesn't matter. Nobody has asked me how Mitch lived. And Mitch lived like a motherfucker. More than most any of us will live. That isn't sad or tragic.

March 15, 2005 - Mitch & Doug performed together at the UofM

Mitch was the kind of comic that was funny even when nobody was looking. It wasn't just for the stage, the ego or the random congratulations. He was funny when he was alone.

And now the deluge of people who will try to fault him for his demise, as though if he'd spent his days on a treadmill, logging his mileage for tax purposes and avoiding red meat he would have been the same comic that you all loved. Everything Mitch did made Mitch who he was. I loved Mitch for all of it.

I don't know how Mitch died. I know how Mitch lived and he lived brilliantly and by his own rules. The number of years next to his name is trivia. The contents of those years is inspiration.

Go out today and make someone very, very happy.