Doug Stanhope thinks ‘brutally honest’ is overused ahead of Foxwoods gig
Nobody can deliver a stand-up comedy set quite like Doug Stanhope. He’ll get up on stage and joke about various aspects of life through an observational lens. He also usually does this with a beer or some sort of cocktail in his hand. It’s what made him a fixture in comedy for over 30 years and he has a dedicated fan base that laughs along to what he has to say. On Sept. 4 at 8 p.m., Stanhope will be performing at the Grand Cedar Showroom at Foxwoods Resort Casino.
Originally from Worcester, Massachusetts, Stanhope has spent most of his adult life living on the West Coast and he currently lives in the small town of Bisbee, Arizona located 11 miles from the U.S.- Mexican border. He moved out there because he hated living in one particular city and he also enjoyed the dry heat climate.
“I came down here to make it big,” he jokes about moving to Bisbee. “I lived in L.A. for 10 years, I hated it, I never wanted to leave my house, I hated traffic and the show business there wasn’t anything I wanted to be involved in once I knew what it entailed. I don’t want to be on TV all the time, it stinks. I found this town and it’s small but it’s not redneck and it’s been 16 years since I moved here. I love being home and I loved COVID-19 because I didn’t have to deal with people. Cold is pain and pain is something you don’t get used to, I love the heat and we’re a mile high so it’s not brutal.”
“I’ve lived out west for most of my adult life,” Stanhope adds. “I’ve lived in Vegas, Idaho, L.A. and Arizona twice and I’m all about it. When it’s 109 degrees we’re playing tennis.”
Out of the many terms that have been used to describe his approach to comedy, there’s one phrase that Stanhope thinks has been overused. He also isn’t afraid to admit that his views on things are always subject to change.
“‘Brutally honest’ is really overused, although I know I had it in my bio at one point,” he said about the phrase. “I’m brutally honest but I can also be brutally wrong, I tell it how it is to me but even for me that could change on a 24-hour basis. Whatever I was yelling about that night might not be that big of a deal in the morning. It’s about having an awareness with the endgame being to make it funny. COVID-19 has been such a beautiful excuse for a lot of things, because of it I thankfully don’t have to talk to people after the shows.”
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“Occasionally people will send me a (expletive) email or a tweet if I’m checking Twitter at all,” Stanhope adds. “If I’m on the road, Twitter is outgoing only because I don’t have time for other people’s opinions. Generally, the people that get upset are usually the ones who think you’re going to pal around and close down the town after the show when I actually have to work, get up in the morning and fly. They’ll tell me I suck but I can’t hang out with 600 people after a show.”
The time off from the road due to the COVID-19 pandemic has given Stanhope time to come up with a bunch of new material. He felt like he had to go back to the drawing board but now he feels reinvigorated in his craft.
“I’m at an age where I feel no need to stay out late but going back out is exciting in that I almost feel like I’m starting comedy over from scratch," he said. “After a year and a half, I don’t even remember the bits I was doing when everything got shut down but it’s a lot of (expletive) work. After 30 years, your act just naturally evolves like losing dead skin cells and regrowing new ones. Your act just evolves, but after taking a hard break like that it made me get a new notebook and maybe half of it or a third of it is stuff I was doing when they shut it all down. The rest is new stuff and it’s fun every night because you’re not dull to it, you have to be present and there’s no more autopilot to go on.”