Comedian Doug Stanhope mines uncomfortable topics for provocative material

Comics are supposed to make you forget your troubles, right?

But if laughter's the best medicine, as the cliche goes, Doug Stanhope's brand of humor is an eye-wateringly bitter brand of it, the comedic equivalent of battery acid and bourbon, poured in any and all open wounds.

He's flat-out funny, one of the best stand-up comedians of his generation, worthy of being mentioned with fellow firebrands such as Richard Pryor, George Carlin, Lenny Bruce and Bill Hicks, all abundantly skilled at mining the mirth in misanthropy.

Stanhope's brand of humor is bayonet sharp and topical -- he riffs on everything from abortion to gay marriage to illegal immigration in pugilistic, nonpartisan fashion, and, like the sting of a needle delivering some needed inoculate, it may hurt a little at first, but you'll be better off for it in the long run.

Stanhope on the plight of starving children in Africa, from his latest CD, "From Across the Street": "If you impregnate someone under those conditions, they should abort the parents. ... The only legitimate excuse you could have for having a baby in those dire, war-torn, famine-struck conditions would be to eat it."

You're either chuckling or wincing right about now.

Either way, Stanhope knows how to push buttons.

"Most comedy is based in hate," he says from his home in Arizona on a recent Wednesday afternoon, his voice as bright and good-humored as his act is dark and maltempered. "It doesn't have to be violent, 'American History X'-type of hate, but it deals with annoyances. That's the reason comics say, 'Don't you hate it when ...' rather than 'Don't you love it when ... ."

Or course, attempting to manufacture punch lines out of societal ills for a living, day in, day out, carries with it a psychic toll, which Stanhope readily acknowledges.

"I just have to keep myself in check," he says. "Sometimes I go, 'Wait, I actually sound like just a miserable person. I'm just walking around complaining about everything.'

"It can be cathartic," he adds, "but at the same time, if I've been doing a bit too long and I'm no longer passionate about it, but I don't have a new bit to replace it, then you have to work yourself into a bad mood," he says with a chuckle. "I've had to really toy with that balance with being angry onstage without being angry in life."

None of this is to suggest that Stanhope's gigs are dominated by sad-faced, woe is me scab picking -- far from it, Stanhope's a foul-mouthed fireball of self-aware filth, candid to a fault, but always conscious of leavening the social commentary with the kind of dirty jokes that old men tell each other in dark, smoky bars.

"I try to keep a good balance of just plain old American gutter smut in there that doesn't have a point, because that's what makes me laugh," he says. "I have no delusions of artistry where I can't break up the monotony of talking about what's wrong with the world."

Besides, Stanhope himself is a three-day bender incarnate, regularly performing with a beer in hand, getting loaded right along with the crowd, embracing drug use, conjuring good times from bad habits.

"At shows, I'm hammered, I'm partying," he says. "But I'm no Hunter S. Thompson. I don't think I'm that hard living, I think the times that we live in are that soft that I stand out."

True to his words, Stanhope definitely doesn't fit in easily with much, especially any stereotypical notions of comedy as escapism.

He performs mostly in rock clubs and other nontraditional venues for stand-up acts -- last time he was in Las Vegas, he played a dude's backyard.

He'll never join Dane Cook types in headlining arenas, but Stanhope's not completely oblivious to the mainstream.

After all, he needs something to thumb his nose at.

"If I wanted to make it on that level would I be doing it with this material?" he asks. "If I had that standard of success and that's what I wanted, was to sell out stadiums, do you think I'd be doing it with rape and abortion jokes?

"You might not think I'm funny, but do you think I'm that dumb?" he says, laughing. "I'm lucky to have a very loyal, small, niche fan base of school shooters, degenerates and malcontents from every walk of life."

Contact reporter Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@review journal.com or 702-383-0476.