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