Amarillo Comedy Club, Part 3

This will hopefully be the end of the Amarillo story. Turns out (or so it seems) that Kevin Moran, possibly the 4th biggest racist I have met, didn't send the racist email in the first place. His brother Kelly, who said he owned the club but now says he doesn't and never has, sent the email. So I offer my apologies to Kevin, who told me he'd never have another nigger work his club, for accusing him of sending me that email from his club's email account.

Racism bothers me, but not as much as you may think from all of this. Racism just shows how fucking stupid you are, how little you really think. I, after all, am not a victim of it. To a degree it's the same way I feel about religious people. I have met racists that I couldn't help but like outside of their ignorance but I would always look at them as less than whole because of it.

Same with God-heads, folks who just accept some religion, some fable as fact because it was pushed into their head as a child or because it came from a group that finally accepted them. Racists and Jesus-consumers are usually just comical and deserved to be fucked with when they slip up, like the way they did here. Outside of the extremists, the fanatics, they're usually just fun to laugh at.

The true catalyst to pushing this issue this for were the things I deleted from the original email that were personal attacks on my manager, my friend, that no one could say to you and think that they were "just kidding". Problem is, my managers feelings aren't newsworthy and racism is. Fortunately, the email threw in the same racism that had been spewed at me for three days when I worked Amarillo, allowing us to make this a bigger deal than it may have seemed without it.

Final words from Amarillo (hopefully) -

From: "Amarillo Comedy Club"

To:

Subject: your website

Date: Sun, 5 May 2002 22:04:24 -0500

Doug, by now you no Kelly sent that email without my knowledge. Your website has caused hundreds of hate mail sent to my Club. Including, threatening my families life. I no you won’t call me (why I don’t know). I want my name removed from your website. Please stop this slander of an innocent man. Remove my name now !!!

Kevin Moran

Kevin!

I have posted most of your emails on my site, allowing you to tell your side of the story verbatim. (Verbatim means word-for-word). I will also post a link to Kelly's admission and subsequent apology. (Subsequent means 'right afterwards'). As you can imagine, I will not be performing there in July or any other time. But if you are planning on sueing Kelly for using your club's name and email account to slander you, please let me know if you need me to be available as a witness.

Douglas Stanhope

From: "Amarillo Comedy Club"

To:

Subject: your website

Date: Sun, 5 May 2002 22:04:24 -0500

Doug, by now you no Kelly sent that email without my knowledge. Your website has caused hundreds of hate mail sent to my Club. Including, threatening my families life. I no you won’t call me (why I don’t know). I want my name removed from your website. Please stop this slander of an innocent man. Remove my name now !!!

Kevin Moran

Amarillo Comedy Club, Part 2

If you haven't read Part 1, read the May 2 update.

Steve Marmel is a genius. After receiving the original email from the Amarillo Comedy Club, I forwarded it around to a few people who might take exception to it. Marmel was one of those people, for obvious reasons. He put it into the form of a press release and sent it out on the wire to every newspaper, radio and television station in the country. How spotting a racist in West Texas might be considered newsworthy, I had no idea until I read the press release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

May 2, 2002

Comedians call for boycott of Amarillo Comedy club due to racist and anti-semitic booking policy.

There's something very unfunny in Amarillo Texas, and it's happening at the Amarillo Comedy Club. In a scathingly racist and anti-semetic E-mail sent to LA based Comedian Doug Stanhope, the Amarillo Comedy Club informed Mr. Stanhope they wouldn't be needing his services because they don't work with "Heebs" and "C**ts."

Stanhope, who has performed in his own Comedy Central special and is a recurring guest on the Howard Stern Show was not surprised. He had alreadyexperienced their negative attitude on minorities. "In 2001, one club owner made references to the "n***ers" around those parts," Mr. Stanhope recalls. "He sensed my immediate disgust, and then told me he wasn't racist, saying 'that's just the way folks talk around here.' "

A highly popular comic on the nation's comedy club circuit, Mr. Stanhope was negotiating to perform in Amarillo through his agents at the Agency for the Performing Arts (APA) when he received an E-mail on April 25th abruptly canceling a July performance.

The E-mail stated "We don't want to deal with the Jews," and that "Your gig, originally scheduled for July 11, 12 and 13th is invalid because of the Jews. We want to deal with you and only you.......Comedy Club to performer....NO MIDDLE HEEBS OR C*NTS!"

The date, which Stanhope had on the books, was then pulled from his calendar.

Reaction in the comedy world has been swift. Late Night Talk Show Host Steve Marmel (TNN) is calling for a nationwide comedian boycott of the Amarillo Comedy Club. "If you work this room, then you are supporting the kind of racist, discriminatory garbage these people spew," Marmel said. "In any business, it's unacceptable." Marmel and other comedians will be reaching out to performers, asking they cancel their date until the club either changes their policy, or changes hands.

Doug, in the meantime, has no intention of returning to the Amarillo Comedy Club anytime soon. "I'll never need their money that bad," Stanhope says.

For further information on this story, please E-mail Doug at

Now it sounds like news! Not big news, mind you, but on a day where Britney Spears makes front page for smoking a cigarette it was certainly news in Amarillo. I immediately get a call from the NBC affiliate in Amarillo who want me to do a satellite remote interview from the CNN station here in Los Angeles, which I did gladly. From what I have heard, news crews from all over were in front of the club that night, television and radio and Kevin Moran was going apeshit, calling everyone in the world trying to get hold of me or Marmel.

Then I get an email from Kelly Moran, the comic & co-owner of the club, whom I assumed was the innocent bystander in the whole thing. He wrote:

Doug,

This is from me.........Kelly Moran. I should have signed the e-mail Kelly Moran. Then maybe you would have taken it as a joke, you know tongue in cheek.The fraternity of comics I realize is as sacred as many close friends you may have.If I would have signed my name maybe you would have taken this as a joke. In defense of the Comedy Club and the e-mail our walls are plastered with pictures of all racial persuasions and sexual preferences alike. I am sorry if you took any of Kevin's racial epithets in a serious way. I informed him before your arrival that you were one of the coolest yet vile and disgusting comics I know.I dig your stuff. After hearing one of your CD's people would probably have a few choice things to say negatively about them. I however am a great fan and a friend, I thought.You should have taken it up with me. I would have settled any conflict. It is creating some negative publicity for the club. As you know! that can go either way. I hope that you reconsider coming back to the club and plan to be treated with the utmost respect.I will most certainly be present during your next visit if you so choose. I am upset that you jumped to conclusions as to who wrote the e-mail. For someone who is so concerned with hatred I was surprised that you didn't investigate this any further. Hopefully we can discuss this thing personally. Please call the club and they will give you my personal cell phone number. This is between you and I now. I want to clear this up ASAP! I am sorry if this Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor, George Carlin type of shock humor on the e-mail was misinterpreted as a serious post. Thanks, your shanty irish beer drinking whiskey lush lucky charm eating the english depise my ancestry friend and fellow comic, Kelly

Immediately followed by one from Kevin Moran -

Doug, I need you call me emergency !!!! I didn't write that email, I've been promoting you coming here. *** ***-****

Now, I re-read the original email trying to see where Kelly, who I never really knew very well and haven't spoken with in many years, may have sent it as a "joke". I couldn' find the funny. All I can see is "We cancelled your date because of the Jews". An hour later, I get this email from Kelly:

Doug,

You have no proof who sent the e-mail.It could be a number of comics who have access to our club computer. A privilege to say the least. Kevin did not write it and we don't know who did.So his lawyer has informed us to let you know to pull the front page of your website or he will take you personally to court for slander, since there is no proof who wrote the crap. The last slander suit this lawyer handled won a $60,000 settlement for the same type of suit. He is the Gerry Spence of Texas. So let's don't let this grow into some big ugly thing because some smartass bitter comic took liberty to stir up a little shit.Thanks again, Kelly

Gee, is it the same lawyer who helped the cattle folks sue Oprah down your way? Heh. Maybe his lawyer should have told him not to write the "I wrote you that email" email before you wrote the "I didn't

write that email" email. Absolutely brilliant, these guys.

Now they keep coming, from Kevin now:

Please remove my name from your site. Someone else wrote that email and you are slandering me Why ?????? Pick up the phone !!!!!!!!!

and

Can you of all people not have the guts to pick-up the phone and call. ***-***-**** Kelly & I are coming to your next gig to meet you in person.for you to hear our side. You are slandering me on a lie. I never sent you that email. Pick up the phone and at least hear the truth. We let all the comics use our email, we let you use it when you were here. Your contract was sitting on my desk. Give me a date and i'll find out who sent this email. I did not send that and don't even know some of those words. Just pick-up the phone ***-***-****

Maybe I would have called him but how am I supposed to know these emails are really coming from him???

Now Kelly:

Doug,

I really don't have that much to do with the club. Please, let me give you fair warning.....you are dealing with honest to goodness badass shitkickers. I have been on my cell phone with them all night. They are wickedly pissed and like bounty hunters they will track you down. So, I don't want to see your life turn in to Richard Kimball's, fugitive on the run. They are putting fear in me. For your sake and safety please call me or e-mail me soon. I am telling you please don't let this go ay

It ends short like that, as though he just slammed send in exasperation. Kelly and Kevin really should have got on the same page at some point because shortly after the "badass shitkickers will hunt you down" email from Kelly, Kevin writes:

I expect you to fulfill you original contract. You are coming to Amarillo no matter what. I am a private person and you slandered me Over fifty times. I will be filling charges on Monday morning in Federal court. So you are coming after all. I also demand a public apology from you on your website. You don't know me or what I have done in Amarillo. If you don't call me I will take action on Monday morning. Be a man and call me.

Kevin Moran

I guess he doesn't realize I was cancelled because of the Jews and that there is no contract, never was, because the Jews asked for

too much money. Kevin again:

Have the guts to call me I never wrote that Email and I don't even know these people in That email. Anyone can sign an email !!! Call ***-***-****

I guess he meant "I don't even know any HEEBS or CUNTS!"

They keep coming, from one or the other. It's getting ridiculous. So maybe Kelly wrote it or maybe Kevin did and Kelly was trying to cover for him or maybe evil trolls broke into the club and sent out one tarnishing email to make possibly the most racist person I have met in person seem like a racist over the internet, as they

suggest is the case. Maybe those same trolls have sent every single one of these emails and both Kevin and Kelly are sitting home wearing yamulkes and tit-feeding black babies, completely unaware of any

goings-on whatsoever.

Now that you have both sides of the story, you can make up your own minds, even if their side of the story has many sides of it's own.

stanhope

Amarillo Comedy Club, Part 1

Last year sometime I did a gig at the Amarillo Comedy Club. If you asked me about it last week, all I would be able to remember clearly is what a racist stupid fuck the owner was. I remember that it was a shitty looking venue in an abandoned downtown area. I know the hotel I was put up in was on the 'dry' side of town, i.e, no liquor. I remember I had started smoking again. But mostly I remember the racist shitpile that ran the joint.

Let me clarify that there are two owners, one being a comic that I knew briefly a long time ago, Kelly Moran, who was a cool guy and the reason I did the gig in the first place. He is not the shitpile to which I refer. He was out of town that week. His brother Kevin, the other owner, was there.

The first night he made references to the "niggers" around those parts. Sensing my immediate disgust he backpeddled, saying he wasn't racist, "thats just the way folks talk around here", as though he'd just picked up the local flavor. I didn't respond and as the weekend went on he talked about "niggers" more than waitresses talked about bad tips while cashing out. Bragged to me that there were no niggers on his line-up and the only nigger he'd had was Jimmie Walker and if he had his way that'd be the last. Nigger, nigger, nigger.

I like the word "nigger". It's the one word left that you can say in a carload of your most vulgar and hardened friends and still give someone the creeps. I use it a lot in circles of people who know I use it for shock value and without hate. Like any word, it's just a sound you can make with your mouth. You may get upset when someone says "cunt". That's because you were trained when you were young to react negatively when you heard that sound come out of your mouth. You are Pavlov's dog, trained to bark at certain sounds. Ruff ruff. It's the intent that is important. This pinhead in Amarillo would still be as vulgar if he'd said he'd never book an African-American in his room. What would the difference be? Fuck, he could call black people "the superior master race" and it wouldn't make it any less racist in context with his views.

So I worked for this guy and didn't say shit, took the low money and went on my way. I ignored his subsequent emails asking me to come back and he finally went thru my agent and booked me for an upcoming week in July. I didn't cancel it immediately though I had no desire to go back. Apparently the contracts went over to my managers and then I get this email from the Amarillo Comedy Club -

Dearest Doug,

First of all we, as a Comedy Club, as people love you. We, as a Comedy Club, as a people want to deal directly with you as a people when it comes to booking you. We don't want to deal with the Jews or your little waste of cum manager either. Your gig, originally scheduled for July 11, 12 and 13th is invalid because of the Jews mostly. They agreed to a certain price over the phone and when receiving the contract it was more money than agreed to over the phone. We want to deal with you and only you.......Comedy Club to performer....NO MIDDLE HEEBS OR CUNTS! We want you back. We want your comedy, we want your personality, we want your love. We want you to walk our customers, we want the world to know about Doug Stanhope. We want you to make all the money. We don't want you to share with dumpy little fucks....I guess that includes everybody that you work with. We hate them. Do not forget.....WE LOVE YOU! Please call us soon. We will work something out with you and only you! With great love and admiration......Amarillo Comedy Club

Feel the love? You'll notice that he used the word "love" four times, one time in CAPS! Yet somehow the love missed me. That's because "love", like "nigger", "heeb" or "cunt" is simply sounds you can make with your mouth. All the words in the world wouldn't get me to go back to that cesspool of comedy.

Or maybe you'd like to go see a show there to support your Aryan brother. If so, that's perfect because I have been told that there is a nigger working there next week. And I bet 100 bucks and a blow job that Kevin Moran tells him he loves him.