The Doug Stanhope Podcast - EPISODE #30: Hennigan pt. 2
Episode Date: June 17, 2014Doug continues his conversation with Mr. Brian Hennigan.If you have a story for Doug you can leave a message on the Burner Phone,(520)366-1078.Links:Bisbee Blue Baseball: http://bisbee.pecosleague.com.../Saxx Underpants:Â https://www.saxxunderwear.com/Recorded June 7, 2014 in Doug Stanhope's backyard in Bisbee with Doug Stanhope (@DougStanhope), Brian Hennigan (@mrhennigan) and Greg Chaille. Produced and Edited by Greg Chaille (@gregchaille). Intro music "Don't Cut Yr Hair" by Mishka Shubaly. Closing song "Party Time" by The Mattoid. Both available on iTunes.Check Doug's West Coast tour dates at dougstanhope.com. Take a moment to register for 2014 Stanhope Tour news in your area, including the USA, UK, Europe, Australia and more. Register now so you don't miss out.Support the show: http://www.Patreon.com/stanhopepodcast
Transcript
Discussion (0)
You are listening to the Doug Stanhope Podcast.
The potato peelings in the sink Did not turn into vodka as I had hoped
I only start to need a drink
After the liquor stores have closed
I heard you change your name again
But don't you change your hair
It was the only thing I liked about you
In the end
La la la I liked about you in the end.
La, la, la.
Hey, this is part two of the Brian Hennigan
Aftermath podcast.
Only now it's weeks later
in Bisbee, Arizona
in the Funhouse
as we try to make it quick
to get to the game.
Hey, hey, hey, how's that? Is that too hot? I got one more complaint email. Let me read it here. I
don't have my laptop in front of me, but it said, hey, the sound sucks. Get better equipment.
We don't all have whatever sound system in our cars. Well, you know what? Get that sound system because we actually do have new microphones, though.
I think we have shitty guests.
I refuse to wear headphones because I can't stand the sound of my own voice.
And it kind of cramps me up when I'm trying to do this dumb podcast.
So we get new.
Oh, look, they do this.
Yeah, it's like a radio station and whatnot.
I don't know if you can hear me on your fucking Vespa.
But you get a complaint, but more specific.
I mean, you can yell, be funnier.
No, he was talking about the equipment.
But it's usually someone who doesn't know how to stay on mic.
But that can't really. Okay. From the listener's standpoint, yes, it's usually someone who doesn't know how to stay on mic. But that can't really – I mean, okay.
From the listener's standpoint, yes, it's frustrating.
From a producer's standpoint, it's fucking maddening.
And that's why we have the new booms and the new mic.
You know what?
If every podcast was just comedians talking to comedians, which it seems to be, yeah.
comedians talking to comedians which it seems to be yeah but a lot of people have uh great stories that aren't used to talking with a microphone near their face so yeah we try our best i'd like to
address the issue of certain quality that was so funny in the room seven feet away from the
microphone let me tell you about these microphones by the the way. They just have to be up in front of you like, oh, shit.
Let me tell you about the microphone.
He touches the arm and the whole thing falls off the table.
This is normal.
Now, what about putting beer on the table?
Yes, it's okay.
It's okay now?
Now I'm off mic.
Sorry.
Who's on first?
It's all right.
It's a great beginning to this podcast.
Which has to be broadcast.
Yes.
She's throwing a blue sheet tape.
Uh-huh.
I don't have headphones on.
You may or may not.
Oh, shit.
You want me to hold it? You may or may not hear this podcast in order with the last podcast we did with my manager slash business partner
as I announce you on the road so as to not confuse people yeah between Chaley
and Hennigan because they want to break Chile for decisions I made I bet that
happens quite a bit keep this I'm not touching it I wouldn't touch my chair
has wheels and I can maneuver issue of things and people writing in and stuff like that,
can I just...
If you're going to write in with an idea for a place we should play,
like a place where Doug might want to play,
maybe include some facts with your suggestion.
Okay?
Don't just write in with like,
hey, I've got this...
No love for Scranton?
Yeah.
It's like, if you've got a specific suggestion,
maybe include all the facts you know when you write it.
Yeah, how many seats does it hold?
Yeah, things like this.
No, it's not.
I've got this cool...
Here's an email exchange I actually had.
I've got this cool venue that Doug would love.
Work around Chaley.
He's trying to adjust your mic.
There you go.
So this guy writes in, I got this cool
venue that Doug would just love
and it's this, that, and the other.
And so I just wrote back, hey,
thank you very much. That's a very interesting email.
What's the capacity?
And the email I got from him was something
along the lines of, it's on 8th street!
No, no, it was
It's people like you that are ruining comedy
It's like, what?
Really? I couldn't just ask for
like, what's the capacity?
Yeah, they think that you're the
barrier between
me and that guy
knocking the fucking ball out of the park
and scranting If I could just avoid all these between me and that guy knocking the fucking ball out of the park in Scranton.
If I could just avoid all these fucking human toads and get a commission.
Yeah.
Where is Scranton?
Pennsylvania.
Why haven't we played Scranton?
Well, this guy wrote in.
No, I think we tried to get a gig in Scranton.
We tried to get a gig. scranton we tried to get probably we'll take gigs anywhere
we're playing we're you're playing roanoke park in sonoma county never heard of it yeah
i don't even know existed if it's a good venue if it's good for comedy yeah find out like statistics
how many does it hold and again we don't care if you're new to the business you don't have to be
new to the business to know how much it holds or,
you know,
has it got a history of comedy?
Has anybody played your town before?
Yeah.
That's probably,
that's probably more important than anything else is have they done comedy
before?
Yeah.
That,
that,
that,
if there was going to be one question I'd like to know before going into the
situation,
because Doug and I are the ones walking into the situation is if they ever done comedy before yeah and there you go yeah they had neil hamburger i go i know
a is they have cool people there b oh this is going to be a shithole
and i can't wait to show up yeah so we don't want to be overly demanding just you know don't make us
tease the facts out of you just put everything
you know up front including
the fact that you're a complete beginner
some complete beginners are great
to work with
example
Scranton
I can feel it in my bones
there's a beginner out there in
Scranton Pennsylvania
I'm almost ashamed
at how much I
enjoy playing these shitty
towns. A lot of these towns,
we've had cool ones. I think we might
have talked about it on the last podcast.
Mobile was cool. Hattiesburg,
Mississippi at the Thirsty Hippo.
Thirsty Hippo was great.
And once again, never
really doing comedy. that that room was
brand new for uh but like well now we have we have a billion people in the fucking uk that
tweet and uh email every fucking day one of you coming to the uk and it terrifies me to go to
i love playing little tiny shitholes here in the States. I think it's the lack of pressure, but I have more fun.
There's no expectations.
By the way, just a shout out.
We don't want to play little tiny shitholes in the UK.
Don't bother writing it.
No, no.
It's not going to happen.
No, that won't ever happen.
We're not flying across the UK on a Jeep.
Good work. Yeah. happen you know we're not flying across the uk for on a jeep yeah good work yeah speaking of flying brian hey let's let's shoehorn this story and yeah which one brian yeah actually yeah this
is probably pointless to the listener but chaley was he's gonna get the credit card with the mile
so we'll talk about that off air oh yeah yeah right i just did my last crazy trip to get uh uh top status on united so now i get it on delta united and i
get to get it again for next year on delta and then we go after american the shittiest of the
three majors but uh yeah we did uh american is the pga have we done a podcast since the whole
no we haven't we haven't done a podcast since last one we didn't all right this is what i did i had a
couple weeks where we flew to la and did like five different podcasts quickly including beginning
with going to marilyn manson's house and just getting entirely fucked up.
That was for the Doug Stanhope podcast, this podcast,
where we talked on microphones for like four hours.
Maybe 25 or 30 sentences are arable,
which I will eventually listen to and break down,
and we'll just throw in clips into different podcasts because it will never make sense.
It's going to be like the Bible where you have to build up the whole mythology
based on a few bits of Sanskrit that are left in the sand somewhere.
Exactly.
So that's how we started.
And leaving his place at 5.15 in the morning to sleep for two hours.
Bingo went into a catatonic
thing again.
By the way, don't write in saying that the Bible
is based on bits of Sanskrit.
I know it wasn't. It was based on Aramaic.
Okay?
Alright, good cover. So then
Hennigan has to pick me up in his dumb
little two-seater sports car, his
L.A. mobile, reeking of booze in a dumb leisure suit.
No, you were reeking of booze.
That's what I'm saying.
Yeah, yeah.
So I turn up to pick you up to go to Bill Burr's podcast.
And it's like during an LA heat wave, it's 95 degrees.
And you're like, put the fucking top down. And I'm like, no, it's 95 degrees. We're like put the fucking top down and i'm like no it's 95 degrees
we're gonna bake on the highway i want to get it so you make me put the top down and i the top is
coming down and i say i can smell the booze on you and you're like from the sidewalk the sidewalk
and you know as the top comes off the car it just felt like such a beautiful
la story where you're like because i had told chaley all weekend i gotta get the manson thing
out of the way because i gotta be fresh by the time i get to bill burr who was basically the
catalyst for going there you had four booked and bill burr was definitely one that you really had to.
That was the primary.
Yeah.
And my only suggestion to you was don't wait until the last minute with this Manson thing because you don't want to go in bleary-eyed and fucking hungover.
You're not going to leave Manson's house without being fucked up.
And so I'm like, let's get it out of the way on Saturday and Saturday,
and maybe later, hang on, something came up.
Sunday, 7 p.m., all right, we'll do this at 7, make it 8, make it 9,
5.15 in the morning, I come out of there, I get an hour's sleep, maybe two,
Hennigan picks me up to go to bill burr's i'm still in
the same dumb leisure suit stinking with a clogged nose and just weeping of alcohol and you're also
slightly in the mood because of bingo's behavior yeah our first airbnb uh and the landlord guy
shows up to fix something bingo's the only one awake she's still
to a point of you know catatonia where again she believes none of us exist we're all figments of
her imagination her mental illness is kicked in hard and uh she will not respond to the landlord
talking right to her face where finally chaley he called and said i
will be very courteously called and said i'll be coming over with the cable guy probably around 11
and he called about 9 30 i said great i'll uh i'll be aware the door will be open and bingo is sitting
right like six feet from the door looking at the wall and staring at her phone and he knocked
hailed her from the door hello hello and nothing and then i got another phone call
i remember waking up as you're sprinting down the hallway to get him and you came back
and evidently after she wouldn't respond so many times to her, his face that close to, he asked if she was deaf.
I can't even remember what I said.
It's kind of like what I say sometimes when it's like we go through the whole
thing of ordering food for bingo.
When I, like, she's got to really diet.
I can't explain what it is because it's not like,
it's not like gluten-free or something like that.
It's just a weird way that she orders food.
It was the same here.
I'm like, I really don't know why she didn't answer you.
She's communicating on social media.
Maybe you should have Facebooked her.
She has a constant reality-free diet.
But Airbnb is one of those things like Uber where they rate you the same way you rate them.
And I'm like, this is my first time using it.
It's really cool.
It's worked out.
And you're fucking...
But just to give a bit of feedback there,
I was hanging around the place
when you guys were picked up by the car
to go to the airport.
Ilyan was there, the Airbnb guy.
He couldn't stop raving about you.
He was like, lovely people,
nice people, great people to stay.
And it's like, how shitty are the people that normally stay with you because i'm a kiss ass i'm a great suck up i
and i will pat myself on the back yeah you have manners yes yeah yes manners is important emoticum
you know what that's weird because i was raised calling them manners and somewhere I drifted into saying suck up.
But it's still manners.
It's the same thing.
Exactly the same.
It's basically what you do.
Yeah.
It's like not cussing at the dinner table at Thanksgiving
when you're a kid and you know all the cuss words.
You've got to turn it on and off.
Yes.
So we do, Manson just starts,
once you get that fucked up,
we did this on a tour, the Shittown tour.
Was it?
No.
It was the tour with Jeff Tate and Brett Erickson, where the second night we got fucking annihilated in Peoria.
And you couldn't catch up.
It was three weeks of going, I'll never catch up from how bad I fucked myself right off the bat.
Just getting a 10-run deficit in the second inning.
I'm not going to pull.
Never going to dig your way out.
So then we do Bill Burr.
The Shining Light was after Bill Burr.
Then I started day-cocktailing myself out of the hangover at a perfect time with Burt Kreischer,
who's still, I want to call him.
I want to have a reason
to call him just to go oh i had so much fucking fun you did this my new best friend you did burr's
podcast sober which was great that was no i was still drunk okay i know i was stinking yeah and
it's a small room and i know bill burr has a i listened to his podcast so i know what he probably
smells me he probably wishes i was some nobody so he could
complain about me on the next podcast but it was good because i i don't know i know you don't know
but i'm saying it was good because that's one that counts we listened to it and you went in there
saying look i already know these suck when you got a guest that's how you started which was
perfectly disarming you went in and then the burke crutch one i don't know if you know this
that's a two-parter.
Yeah, no, we kept going.
It would have been a three-parter if he didn't have kids
because after the podcast, I stayed and had dinner
with his wife and children outside and goofed on his kids
and played with the kids like shit I would never do.
I think I was probably feeling like I was going to die,
so I should be like, I don't know.
But I had such a great time with Bert.
Then you did Next Day Complete Contrast, Brett Easton Ellis.
Brett Easton Ellis, who's the author of American Psycho, which is one of the rare fiction books that I've read.
I've read almost no fiction.
Sure.
And for the record, you guys that send me shit, I love you. Thank you read almost no fiction. Sure. And for the record,
you guys that send me shit,
I love you.
Thank you.
I get all this stuff.
I never, like,
think to try to track you down
and go, hey, thanks for the dumb shit
you send to our house.
And great art.
If you send me fiction,
I will never read it.
Some guy just sent me,
I'll plug your book right now.
It's called Assault Rifles and Pedophiles.
Hey, and you signed it to me.
And I'm never going to read this fucking book.
But I appreciate that.
I'm sure it's a fiction.
But you have read American Psycho.
I read American Psycho.
So I went on Brett Easton Ellis' podcast.
It was good.
It was good in a different way, though,
because people who hadn't heard you before,
and you're talking in a way that was kind of out of your comfort zone.
Evidently, his producer was into my stuff and turned Brett onto my stuff.
That's the only reason you were there.
Yeah.
And again, this is all conjecture,
but in my head,
he probably saw one bit
that sounded really smart,
which probably took me a year and a half
just to develop that five minutes
to sound like I know what the fuck
I'm talking about.
And he wants to go in depth about it.
And I go, that's the depth I had.
Everything I say on stage is the entire depth of my knowledge on the subject.
And then I write a segue when it gets too difficult
into the next surface knowledge I talk about.
So that kind of, I didn't have a bad time.
As soon as the producer kicked in.
He quoted an older material when he was asking you questions.
That was a weekend that, I mean, those four podcasts, that was a big deal.
Hang on, we got to speed through this weekend because we have a Bisbee Blue baseball game to get to.
This podcast is brought to you by Bisbee Blue Baseball.
Come on and root for the blue.
Get down here.
Be one of the 18 people in the stands.
I'll be the guy yelling.
Everyone else will be moribund sitting there.
And bring your own bottle because somehow they don't have beer service anymore.
So, yeah, just smuggle your sneaky bottle in your pants,
scream at the opposing team, and leave.
Yeah.
And there will be blue games throughout the summer.
All the way until, yeah, third week of July, I believe.
Yeah, July 24th, I think is the last.
Yeah, Pecos League.
Yeah, so after Brett East and Ellis was Rogan, we did Rogan.
That got postponed until night.
We did that with Tom Rhodes.
Always good to see Tom and Joe.
And then we had to fly to Hawaii.
Yes.
Had to.
Yeah.
Had to to get the remaining amount of miles I needed to get to the top level status matching with United.
To fly to Hawaii, day drank with Roseanne Barr.
That was the highlight of the entire thing.
By the way, in case anyone's interested, the reason you need, how can I put it?
You get to the top level of United or Delta or wherever because you fly a fuck of a lot.
It's not because you're flying business class all the time.
No, it's to get bumped up.
Exactly.
So people might think that there's some sort of deluxe thing going on here.
It's the opposite.
Yeah, no.
I'm on the road enough that you want to get bumped up.
You want to cut the line because you're coming out of Pittsburgh on two hours sleep with actual fire coming off of you from the alcohol fumes.
You don't want to be stuck next to a TSA guy for so long that he goes, this guy can't possibly be able to fly smelling like that.
So the point is, this is a very pat down his liver it's a very
practical thing so that on shitty flights from nowhere to shipsville you can get you know a lot
of it's very impractical to be honest brian i like it's become a like a not even a goal an obsession
uh a grudge i've faked cerebral palsy twice with bingo when i was on an airline i didn't have
status where they go if anyone needs to pre-board and i'm pissed off that i don't have status on
that airline so twice i have faked i used to do it with a southwest early when just to be funny
as a kid before 9-11 pre-9-11 airplane hijinks.
A lot different, yeah.
But, yeah, just completely.
I can do, call me, I'll do cerebral palsy on the spot for you.
I can do a wicked cerebral palsy walk.
It's like when they do the,
welcome to United Flight blah, blah, blah, or whoever it was,
and they want the pre-boarding. Pre-boarding.
Will be those who need assistance.
Anyone with special needs assistance Anyone with special needs
With special needs or kids
Please walk up
And I monkey up my hand like this
And I carve up
And I give up my tickets
And the first time I did it
Bingo's like don't do it
I'm like we're fucking doing this
I'm not waiting in line
Bingo the crazy one
Yes
Is actually giving you some sane advice
And then I just start humping up
With everyone staring at me.
And I handed the lady the two tickets
and I turned around and bingo,
it's 20 yards behind me with the group.
And then I have to start
gimp motioning her over.
Hello, honey.
Hello.
And then she's on the spot.
And then as soon as I give the lady my tickets,
I start walking down the jet way perfectly normal. Because, you know give the lady my tickets, I start walking down the jayway perfectly normal.
Because, you know, the lady is looking forward and all the crowd behind you is staring at you walking perfectly fine.
Everyone who made no eye contact when you walked by.
Both times it was my morning still drunk but angry now.
And by the way, listener, Doug is and can be a cunt to travel with.
I have actually walked away from him in airports. And by the way, listener, Doug is and can be a cunt to travel with.
I have actually walked away from him in airports.
You know, when you're in a cunty mood to travel with,
you are the worst person in the world.
It's the morning thing.
If you can find something, you pray that when you wake up in the morning,
some idiot is going to either call the room or there'll be something wrong at breakfast
to where the vitriol is expelled like it's like like it's like it's popping some crazy blackhead
like that scene in the green mile when they get the stuff out the fat big guy the bees come out
of my mouth yeah yeah that's exactly it then after that you're like all right man milkshakes for breakfast
i'm a great time look at this we just need to fight a cancer patient who needs resurrect something
or someone goes i i there's gonna be a credit card's not working how to slaughter and not a
sacred one either and if it's not bingo or i it's and unfortunately for sometimes for doug
the cow to slaughter might just be some dumb Delta guy saying, well, I don't think
you're ready to board yet, sir. At which point
the guy basically walks into
a propeller and is like
I hope your kids die in a
fire. Yeah. Doug's standing there
like wiping blood and guts out of his eye
and goes, hey, let's go to Scranton.
I'm good now.
Okay, so we're let's go to scranton yeah i'm good now yeah okay so um where we go to live we fly to hawaii i caught eddie ift for the first time who is hilarious very funny man hope
i didn't fuck that show up at one point it just to me again this is after we had flown from honolulu
on a day drunk two day drink withanne, who is absolutely fucking beautiful.
I absolutely love that woman.
And I've watched Last Comic Standing.
And so when she tells you that she's really funny, well, it's kind of cheapened now.
Because she tells everyone on that show they're really funny.
I thought I was special. You just met her over there you there was no plan right she was no we went over there anyway
we're just it was a hey let's go to hawaii we'll get the remaining mileage have a couple days on a
beach which i never went to the beach ever when i go there it's just clogged with fucking shitheads
uh and then she on twitter she said, oh, she
lives in Hawaii, part-time
at least. She has like a macadamia nut farm?
Macadamia nut farm on the Big Island.
And so we've been flirting with getting together
for a good day drunk, and she happened to be
in town on the Big Island.
She's like your West Coast Margaret Cho.
Yes.
Yes, she is.
So you're on Oahu, she's on on the big island we flew just for eight hours we flew
onto the big island met them at breakfast day drank had a fucking blast laughed my ass off
like i had for eight hours and then flew back to the eddie ift show that night on in honolulu
so at that point i'm really tanked and And Eddie Ift, I don't know,
maybe subconsciously
I thought he was stealing my old
bit because he pulled his nuts
out in front of this horrible audience and I go,
oh, I can't let him do that alone. So I
ran up beside him and pulled my balls.
I don't know. It seemed appropriate
at the time. Yeah, yeah. And what's amazing
is that a few of his fans posted
it on Facebook and Twitter and things and then even they took it down. They were like, they were like, oh, no, yeah, yeah. And what's amazing is that a few of his fans posted it on Facebook and Twitter and things,
and then even they took it down.
They were like, oh, no, no, no.
No, this is just, no.
No.
That old man ruined his balls.
We like Eddie Ift.
He's a surfer.
That old man pulled his balls out
and ruined Eddie Ift's balls.
Yeah.
And then you flew on to Howard Stern.
Yeah, then we flew direct from Honolulu to Newark.
Is that a straight flight, Honolulu to Newark?
Yeah, 10 hours nonstop.
But we hit our status.
Yep.
And then Stern was fantastic.
I enjoyed Stern.
Yeah, it was nice having cocktails this time.
Yeah.
You don't usually do
that i've never yeah what do you mean never drank on stern i guess you can walk in with anything you
want right you always say you treat it with such uh reverence you know i should be sober for this
but that's not what i do i'm selling a completely different product if i show up sober oh for sure it's like you know kiss unmasked
normally it's a different product nobody wants it it's like what yeah yeah
i love it yeah so yeah and again you in new york it was okay went to rodney dangerfields oh we crashed
dangerfields on a monday night and uh that's the comedy club not as fucking yeah uh where he lies
i mean it exists i didn't know it still exists wasn't it a franchise that had a couple
i don't know i thought there were right in listeners but the point is
uh i'd got there the night before kind of couldn't it's just luck coincidence that the hotel we're
booked in was around the corner from danger fields i walked past it so there's no correlation between
the times they're open on the door and the times they're open on the internet and there's nowhere
on the internet full stop that you can find out their lineup it's like this it's meant to be
apparently america's oldest comedy club and it seems to be keen on staying in that position by
maintaining it can't be older than the melrose Improv. Really? Oh, I think it says 40 years.
Maybe it's the oldest building that is hosting comedy.
Anyway, the point is that you can go onto Time Out New York site and like who's on where and what club.
For comedies.
There isn't even a listing for Dangerfields.
We show up there.
I don't know how many people.
I was shit-faced, but 12?
Monday night.
It must have been 12, 14.
Yeah.
It looked like their marketing was working, by the way.
We walk in, but I'm dressed like I dress leisure suit.
Yeah.
Loud plaid leisure jacket, and we try to sit in the back and not stand up.
But then, of course, the guy on the stage sees the leisure suit,
and then all of a sudden you're the focus of, oh, what's up with that?
You got to turn that jacket down.
I'm like, I can't heckle you back.
I'm a comic.
But I just roll with the punches, I guess.
But it just kept coming back to the jacket.
And I'm like, oh, geez.
It was more than just that once?
No, no.
Then they tried to charge us like $25 a head to be there on a Monday night.
And then I remembered, oh, wait, the only reason that we came here from the hotel bar where we're shit-faced is I found a coupon for two in the toilet on the floor.
And I came out of the toilet of the hotel going, hey, let's go to that Dangerfields.
It's right around the corner.
And I'm not arrogant enough to think that the world knows who you are because we know
that's not true right but the point is the uh like we walked in that play i don't think i've
ever been in a comedy club where there was a sort of how to put it a palpable non-recognition of
doug like they just thought he was an odd guy who'd come in off the street with a couple of people.
At the end, they go, you look like Doug Stano.
Well, first of all, there was a kerfuffle with trying to cash in this coupon.
There were three of us.
I'm not paying $75.
You go beat the dog.
I'm not going to pay $75 to sit in the back of basically an open mic.
All you want is a place to drink.
Yeah, and we're buying drinks.
Yeah.
We showed up.
You're supporting comedy.
Right.
So then I have to go find my toilet ticket.
And the maitre d'.
The maitre d'.
He looks like, you know the guy that's the pawn dealer,
the pawnbroker in Requiem for a Dream?
That's who he looked like.
Is this classic Jewish character actor?
That's who the maitre d' looked like.
He was some Eastern European.
He all but had the twirly mustache from a cartoon.
Is his name Chico or Chiro or something?
Like a carnival barker?
Yeah.
I mean, he was like that $75.
Sorry? Yeah. thing like a carnival barker yeah yeah i mean it was like that's 75 dollars sorry yeah so we don't and meanwhile this is causing a stir because the 12 or 14 people are now looking in the back because
we're trying to because despite the fact he's the maitre d let's call him that in a comedy club he
doesn't in the 40 years that apparently he's been working there since he was
fucking paroled or whatever they he hasn't understood that you don't talk at full volume
when you're serving people in a comedy club so i i race him out because he can't keep his
fucking mouth down so i race him out to the bar which is still kind of connected to the showroom
and then the comic on stage starts giving me shit
like i'm walking out for the razzing about my jacket and i'm like no i'm trying to shut the
fucking maitre d who is also the headliner when that comic gets down the maitre d goes up and
tells cornball fucking street jokes in an eastern european dialect to people who are so fucking bored they
just want to get out of this stupid club and then after people leave the one of the comics or i
don't know who it was said you look like doug stanhope i go i i had to pull out my id
like that wasn't it wasn't enough that you had to prove it I was quite drunk so I don't remember a lot of this
But they
So was the maitre d'
Yeah and then like downstairs
There are photographs of this
On Doug's Facebook page
There are photographs on your
Official Stanhope
Facebook slash official Stanhope
I do have a Facebook page
I don't use the personal one
I'm never there
I took this picture downstairs
it's like a David Lynch thing
there's a guy in the far end of the corridor
where the bathrooms are
who's naked from the waist up
and he seems to be like washing himself
you know
where are we
apparently we're next
Airbnb
we're next to the Roosevelt Bridge, we're next. No.
Yeah, we're next to the Roosevelt Bridge.
What the fuck is the bridge called?
I have no idea.
There's so many bridges in New York. I never know where I am in New York except for Times Square and we weren't there.
So that was the 10 days.
In the middle of that, we did a podcast with Brian Hennigan.
That's me.
And the next morning, bingo, who was out of her fucking tit the whole time.
Yeah, she's the arbiter.
I hope you don't put that up.
That was just dreadfully boring.
Wait, you did one in New York with Hennigan?
No, in L.A. with you.
You're in this whole whirlwind fucking trip.
We're talking about that one.
No, they just heard that.
Oh, yes, sure.
Of course, of course.
You've heard that now.
All right.
Yeah, you either have or have not
heard that no i thought it was fine but brian all right so there's so many stories brian has so many
stories this is part two yeah hey this is part two of the uh brian hennigan aftermath podcast
and leave that part in so they know we edit that out and put it at the beginning and this
will be a callback to them.
Hey, I remember when he said that in the beginning.
20 minutes.
Yeah, I know.
We're going to wedge in your Asia story.
Hold tight, people.
It's a fucking great story.
I know, but.
We can segue it from, without cutting this, frequent flyer miles.
You're a traveler.
I'm a traveler, yeah. I'm a traveler yeah i'm a traveler
you're better at it than me i'm i must admit i vote to very few people in terms of my knowledge
of travel booking that's the one thing i always want to bring up because i'm i'm so removed from
comedy that i'm starstruck by people i know personally. Like now, like
Louis, that would be like the first
if we sat down for a drink, I'd be going,
hey, what about freaking Flyer Miles?
Who do you have status with?
He probably doesn't give a shit as much as
you know, like Big Leah probably has.
God damn it. Well, Louis probably
thinks it's bingo.
Hang on.
Hey, we're in the middle of a podcast.
Come over if you need me.
Bye.
That's bingo.
Going to the Bisbee Blue baseball game.
Might be sweeping the Raton Osos tonight.
We'll find out.
We're going to show up a few innings late.
See, I'm trying to do my own Bill Burr podcast where I include sports,
but only local Bisbee sports.
Yeah.
People in Bisbee will still hate you.
So, yeah.
So, Hannigan.
We've discussed Hannigan's past.
Before he managed me, he was this, that, and the other.
Yeah.
Nissan in Amsterdam.
We talked about that tonight.
All of that. All of that whiskey. Why. Nissan in Amsterdam. We talked about that tonight. All of that.
Whiskey.
You're in Asia for what?
Was this when you were teaching?
I taught English in China.
All right.
And I was staying in...
I made a...
I resolved very early on that I was never going to leave the People's Republic of China
for the entire duration of my one-year contract.
Because that's what,
going outside of China for a month or so during the Chinese New Year holiday,
that's what everyone did.
So I thought, no, no, I'm going to stick it out.
And it almost destroyed my sanity, frankly.
It's like the Edinburgh Festival,
where you're from
and everyone would leave Edinburgh
during the festival
because they don't want to...
Well, no, no, it's more cases.
In China. The whole
Chinese New Year thing is very odd.
Anyway,
so,
I'd been staying there for a long time, and there
were teachers, other teachers, arriving
and leaving every now and then, and there
was this guy that arrived from Alaska,
and he taught for
seven years in Alaska, because at that
point, if you taught for seven years on this rural outposting teaching position, you got a pension for life, basically.
For life.
He's American?
He's American.
Let's call him Michael without a surname or family name.
So Michael arrived. Last name? I can't. That's the whole point. I don Michael without a surname or family name. So Michael arrived.
Last name?
I can't.
That's the whole point.
I don't know a surname.
I mean, in Alaska, they're not teaching in like the Anchorage public school system.
They're working in a fucking village that you can only get there by a snowmobile in winter or a float plane.
So he was teaching on these,
do you call them Native American?
Native.
Native village.
And most, by the way,
just to give you a little information,
most teachers last two years,
three at the most.
Right.
So this guy had lasted seven to get his pension for life.
Right.
And the point is...
Context.
And he told us that,
you know,
the whole thing about these villages is not only are you teaching in the middle of, anyway, there's nowhere and there's Alaska nowhere.
Two different things.
These villages were legally dry.
No alcohol was allowed in the villages.
You would be searched when your little plane touched down to make sure you weren't bringing alcohol in.
So he'd survived.
Now they search you to make sure you're not bringing another reality show into Alaska.
Anyway, so Michael, I say he'd survived that because clearly he hadn't.
Because there were things not right about Michael. Twitch in his eye. Yeah, there were things not right about Michael.
Twitch in his eye.
Yeah, there's things not right about Michael.
But anyway, one day,
the whole thing about China in this period
was that you just discover bizarre things.
And I was walking along this street in Lanzhou, Gansu.
Gansu is the poorest buttfuck area
of people's public of China.
So, I mean, there are people even now who still live in caves there.
When the train was bringing you into Gansu province, population 24 million.
Caves all I could get on short notice.
There are people who appear to be tending sand.
Like they had a hole and a plow.
And it looked like their guys are...
And that's what they were doing.
They were fucking sand farmers, I imagine.
Anyway, the point is, it's very poor.
Very, very poor.
But there's still bizarre things.
How poor was it?
It was so poor.
I just said they're fucking farming sand.
Yeah, they're farming sand.
So one day I was walking on the street
and in the shop window,
there was a bottle of Johnny Walker red label.
And I was like, what the fuck?
A bottle of Johnny Walker?
It's like, you couldn't,
it's like, this just makes no sense.
It's like the argument for the existence of God, but there's an eye on the surface of Mars. You knower it's like you couldn't it's like this just makes no sense it's like the argument for the existence of god but there's an eye on the surface of mars you know it was like
oh my god it's a bottle of johnny walker you know red label so um i bought it immediately and i go
back to um the the foreign teacher's place i'm living with michael the insane guy from alaska
and it's like hey we really need to drink this so we'd heard about this this like a very decent chinese restaurant in china now that sounds very
funny but it's not because all the any good chinese cook that's that's that's that's your
passport to leave if you're a good chinese cook you leave fucking china and you go to you know
you know if you can you go to hong kong or america wherever so surprisingly there's not a lot of great chinese people cooks in china
asian gardens bisbee arizona right beside the safeway yeah so um we go there we go to this one
place and we we bring in the bottle of whiskey as a BYOB affair.
You don't have to pay the BYOB tax.
And we drink the entire bottle between us.
I can imagine Brian Hennigan showing up, a young Brian Hennigan, with a bottle of Johnny.
We must drink this.
We have to drink this now.
Did you do that move where you take off the cap and just put it under your foot and crush it?
And go, we're finishing this bottle.
No.
I don't know that move.
I know.
I like the way you swing there, Charlie.
You can see why Tracy likes you.
When I find out I have cancer, I'll be doing that.
So we drink it all.
And now we're in a... So we become...
We're at this stage.
Because we're also having beer. we become we're at this stage because we're also having like beer
we are obnoxiously drunk and i am particularly obnoxiously drunk i can be obnoxious without
being drunk you know just like julie seaborn my wife and uh and so they cut us off from the bar
i am then producing foreign currency from my pockets. It's the equivalent of the entire wage staff for the building for a month saying,
more booze!
And they still wouldn't give us any more booze.
They wouldn't have it, right?
They wouldn't have whiskey.
No, no, but they wouldn't give us any more beer or anything.
We've drank all the whiskey.
If we get shut off in China in a town where people live in caves,
that's pretty shit-faced.
So we go outside and it's like, how are we
going to get home now?
As you know in China,
if you've read any fucking national
geographics, there are long lines
of bicycles everywhere, which are
all over the place. Obviously, but they're also owned
by other people.
Why should that stop us? So, here's
the thing. They're not
always padlocked.
So I go up to the line of bicycles that are just there,
like a stereotypical image, and I pick up the first one.
I mean, pick it up.
It's locked.
So I throw it on the road.
I then pick up every bicycle and throw it on the road
until I come to one that's unlocked.
And that's our ride
home so um we we try a couple of ways and it's clear that um uh michael are i have michael's
kind of rotund so he can cycle better than he can stay on the back of the bicycle so i'm on the back
of the bicycle i pictured you sitting in the basket no no and
i'm on the back he's on and michael's like buddy yeah buddy or did you sit on the seat and he stood
up no no you know he was sitting so i was like holding back okay so like there's probably like
a bike rack yeah exactly exactly and uh i could i could manage like 10 seconds and michael said
afterwards he said it was like he'd suddenly become aware that i'd fallen off he'd turn around
and he's always possible to find me because there were like um i was just lying in the middle of the
road with like 12 chinese people around me looking down because they didn't know what the i was as a
strange foreigner lying in the middle of the road so anyway drunk drunk as a skunk lying in the
middle of the road on a stolen bicycle yes so. So we keep going. And then eventually at some point we think,
you know what they make this night go really well?
Fireworks.
Because we're in the international world home of fireworks.
I knew the word for fire.
I mean, at that time I could speak Chinese.
So I knew the word for fireworks.
I still remember from that night, I think is being pow, okay
being pow, that's what it's like
being pow, no it's being pow
being pow, and obviously that's
Mandarin, I thought that's how they
got to shoot the gun in his mouth at the end of
Deer Hunter, yeah, so that's, being pow
so, fireworks, being pow
we're going along
sorry, I'm going along the street
just rapping on the door or window of every
shut retail outlet shouting
Big Pow! Big Pow!
and obviously nobody's
so eventually though I remember
where they do actually sell fireworks
oh so you were in the bakery district
asking for fireworks
yeah yeah yeah so I yeah
but there I'm like oh I remember
where the firework shop is so we go to the firework shop obviously surprise surprise they're shut
it's fucking 10 30 at night uh but but obviously you know how china works which is that people live
above their stores so let's just wake the guy up so up we go to this the apartment that's above the
store sure enough the guy comes out ultimately terrified there's two four bear in mind it's a city of two million people there are maybe five or six white foreigners
live in it that's how rare foreigners are and there's now two of them on this guy's doorstep
at 10 30 at night shouting fireworks fireworks so he comes downstairs and says i'll take you to where the fireworks are now i should have been
more alert but i wasn't because quite as all he was doing was leaving us i should have been more
alert while i was stealing bicycles banging on random doors trying to get fireworks from sleeping
asians and and but i wasn't blocking the street with any bike that was locked. I love that part. What he does
is he's very sly. He leads us
further and further away from
where he lives.
Then eventually we realize he's ahead of us
and he's the same level of us.
Then we turn around and he's running in the other direction.
Because all he's
done is lead us
away on this very
elaborate snakes and ladders path so
we can't find our way back to where he lives and now we don't have our fireworks um but what we
did have was the notion to realize we all we needed was something that was like fireworks
in terms of causing a fray so i you went to a gas station and bought a lighter. No, no, no. I went to a stall, like a
street stall. Like a food
vendor or something? Yeah, yeah. And they sold
tins of beer. Okay?
So I loaded up with like
I don't know, 12 to 16
tins of beer. Sure. By the way,
at this point, I think I was alone. Michael had
disappeared. I think 12 to 16, that's a night
cap, right? So I then take
these down a passageway
that's next to the main street.
Okay? And I then proceed
to lob them like shooting
ducks at the fair at passing
cyclists. So I'm
literally just, I'm not opening the beer cans,
I'm just throwing them
at people who are cycling
by. How old are you
then? Younger. 12, 13 yeah no no it's like 21 oh wow oh
wow uh so um it puts it in context though 21 looking for fireworks you don't picture a teacher
being 21 years old so i am once i run out of fireworks like my cans uh I realized it's time to go home I was like oh
so the fun's over now uh and so there was no there's very few taxis in that town I tried the
bicycle thing I knew I couldn't stand type so I this is where I become foolhardy I walked I still
sorry I think I had about I had about three or four sorry I remember now I had about three or four cans of beer left.
And that's valuable currency.
Beer cans were expensive.
I walked out into the middle of the main thoroughfare
and stopped what you guys would call,
I would call them a truck or a lorry,
like something that transports. Delivery truck. Delivery truck or box truck, cube truck you call, I would call them a truck or a lorry. Like something that transports.
Delivery truck.
Delivery truck or box truck, cube truck.
Yeah, huge truck.
I just stood them in the road.
Like more than two axles?
Yes.
Fucking Tiananmen Square this.
A semi.
Yeah, I stopped a semi.
I basically put my hands up and stopped this guy.
And he was terrified.
Wouldn't that be hilarious if Brian was the guy from Tiananmen Square
and had blacked it out?
He thought the tank was a semi-truck from Walmart.
So this truck stopped.
I don't even give the guy the option.
I just climbed in the cab.
What?
I just climbed in the cab.
You're a mental patient.
Are you serious?
And again, I spoke Chinese at the point
and I just said, take me to Lanzhou University, please.
And I gave him all my beers,
which was a lot of money.
And he dropped me off at the front door of Lanzhou University.
He took you?
Yeah.
Well, yeah, what else is he going to do?
Well, I don't know, his job?
His route?
No, no, here's the thing.
Even less so now, but very much so then,
foreigners spell nothing but trouble.
So if you're a native Chinese person, less so now, but very much so then, foreigners spell nothing but trouble.
So if you're a native Chinese person,
you don't want to fuck them,
not because you think you're doing anything wrong,
but just because anything that could go wrong is going to get blamed on you.
There was a notorious...
If I get caught with you in the cab,
they're going to blame me.
Lead them away from my shop
because if there's a ruckus at my shop,
then that guy gets busted.
And there's a notorious case
where there was a couple of Japanese tourists
who'd left a video camera on a train
and the guy that found it
and didn't turn it in was executed.
Fair enough.
He drops me back at Lanzhou University.
I go back to the... Obviously, I don don't remember this but i woke up the next morning and i feel like somebody's taking a cricket bat to me
and beating the shit out of me and i stayed on the campus without going outside a cricket bat
for the uh listener at home is uh like a baseball bat but it hurts more yeah and so because i wasn't
wearing pads and uh and uh i just i just saw i
remembered all these things and i just didn't leave campus for like two weeks until i felt that
it was safe at some point during this story i realized that i led him into a completely
different story or he went into a completely different story than i was leading you into this is you know what that'll be the next brian hennigan podcast because he's got a
million and he never wants to tell him travels with hennigan travels with hennigan okay there
we go the story i was talking about is uh when you were so drunk you almost overslept a flight
oh that's japan that's japan i should have known because
the chinese wouldn't do that that's the one i wanted you to tell but that's gonna have to wait
till next time this was a doug stano podcast thank you for repeatedly emailing me or tweeting me
saying put out another fucking podcast because i i listen to that I just did so many podcasts in a row.
I thought all my stories had been told.
You're just talking about what's, as Joey Diaz says,
the church of what's happening now.
So I thought I'd done that doing five podcasts in three days and then Stern.
So yeah.
All right, now we're catching up.
We're going on the road.
Check out the road dates at DougStanhope.com. This is a West Coast tour starting in Irvine, ending in Seattle, everywhere
on the West Coast in between. Road trip with your friends. Most of the shit's already sold out. So
maybe this podcast is too late, but go there. Support the Bisbee Blue road trip to Bisbee,
Arizona and catch a game.
And now we have a phone number because a lot of people that have interesting stories.
Hey, if you're anywhere, we're going to be on the road.
Or if you just have comments, just try not to fucking abuse it.
We have a phone number now, 520-366-1078.
366-1078.
I'd love to fucking talk to like a murderer,
weird people on the road that can control a microphone.
Somebody's got a gig in Scranton.
Here's the thing.
A lot of you guys can write well and you email me a story and you go, hey, I got a great story,
but you can't fucking speak.
And we don't know that till we get you on the air
and you go, oh, this is unusable because you...
Speak up!
So yeah, now we'll be able to tell if you can talk
at 520-366-1078.
And I think, what else?
I was going to mention one more thing.
Saks Underpants sent me a fucking box of underpants.
That's a fucking that's a tacit sponsorship.
And Henneken, you can start walking there if you want.
Yeah, get the fuck out.
You're sorry.
We don't have a producer.
It's over.
We don't have a producer like Stern that will guide you out and gently glad hand you in the fucking green room.
It's not over for us
there's plenty to do we're doing the doug stanhope wrap-up show all right we gotta go see if the
bisbee blues sweep this fucking dreaded ratona osos and then we gotta get on the road pack our
shit all right anything else we missed oh chad shank that's why I've been looking over there. Chad Shank. Thanks for the stolen Bibles.
Chad Shank went on vacation and this guy's the monster fucking Bible stealer.
He'll just say, I'm having a Bible study with 35 people in my room.
So we're going to be flush with stolen Bibles on this tour.
Demand is up.
So demand is up.
It's our best selling item on the road
and it's uh it's great because it's zero cost and they are legitimately stolen i'm a fucking
stickler for quality control oh this is the big seller on the road in fact i'm going a hundred
bucks on it a fucking hawaii it's the teachings of buddha which we've never seen in a hotel but all the
japaniards come over to hawaii so i guess yeah so we got a one fucking teachings of buddha
that's it go to go to hell i hate my audience
all right that wraps up yet another podcast that you clamor for.
Keep your phone calls and emails coming.
This is Doug Stanhope.
Yeah, right.
Hey, Chaley, play the mattoid.
You've been listening to the Doug Stanhope Podcast,
recorded live in Biffy, Arizona in the Funhouse with Doug Stanhope, Brian Hennigan, and Greg Shaley.
Produced and engineered by me, Shaley.
This podcast sponsored by Saks Underpants.
Don't forget to check out Doug's upcoming dates at DougStanhope.com
Thanks for listening.
Drink your drinks and eat your eats
It's party time Thanks for listening. Dance your dance and shoe your shoes, it's party time
Howl your howls and suck your socks, it's party time
Oh baby, crap your craps and fuck your fucks, it's party time
Crap your craps and fuck your fucks, it's party time
Crap your crap, Sam, fuck your fucks, it's party time
Crap your crap, Sam, fuck your fuck, party time, party time, party time, party time, party time, party time, party time,
hey!
Party time, yeah!
Party time!
Party time!
Party time!
Party time!
Party time!
Party time!
Party time!
Party time!
Party time!
Party time!
Party time!