Colin E. Woodward's Official Site

I recently saw Doug Stanhope in the comedy mecca that is the Virginia Beach.

Virginia Beach and I go way back. It’s the only real beach in Virginia, so if you live here, as I have for about fifteen years, it’s the closest ocean front property to Richmond. When I first visited back in 2007 or ’08, I saw a guy on the beach with a swastika tattoo. My guess is he became a big Trump fan.

They have a Funny Bone in what passes for a downtown in the VB. It all looks like it was built in a day. Yesterday, in fact. It perfectly reflect the soulless tourist trap that is Virginia Beach.

I hadn’t seen Stanhope for a few years. The show was an excuse for me to spend a night in Norfolk, a short drive from Virginia Beach. Norfolk isn’t big, but it feels like a mid-size southern city should. It’s walkable. They have a light rail downtown. And we saw a Wes Anderson movie on Saturday night at a great, old fashioned, one-screen theatre that served pot gummies. Perfect night for two white people.

Anyway, a few days before we left, I got an email out of nowhere from Doug Stanhope. I was like, wait, what? Why was he writing to me? Had he figured out, telepathically, that I was going to the show? When did I message him? Turns out I had asked him to be on my podcast back in 2017. He was just now responding.

Not one to lose an opportunity to talk to a comedy legend, I responded quickly.

Then Doug responded:

Ouch! Well, I wanted to keep the messages going, so I wrote back again.

And Doug said

So, things are already weird, and we are still days away from the show.

The big day finally arrives. It is, as advertised, a 12 pm drinking show. My wife had never seen Stanhope before. The “downtown” in Virginia Beach isn’t that big, but the Funny Bone was kind of hard to find. And you have to go upstairs to get in. Odd.

Should there be a Funny Bone in VB? People in Virginia Beach aren’t funny. They don’t want to laugh. They just want to go to the beach and eat shitty food and stay at an overpriced hotel. A Funny Bone should not be there.

And who wants to see comedy at noon? I guess I do.

The Funny Bone is about a third full. I haven’t seen one so empty before. Stanhope makes fun of it. He is rolling with it. He’s being funny.

And then Andy Andrist comes on. And he proceeds to have the worst set I’ve ever seen.

Not only is it bad, it’s long. I thought he was the opener. No. He’s co-headlining. Andrist’s set goes on for at least 40 minutes. I wasn’t really keeping track. It felt longer.

Andy is totally wasted. Drunk and high. He can’t even finish his jokes. Honestly, I’m not sure how great they would’ve been had he been sober. It’s a set that elicits pity. Not a good place to be as a comic.

The set is not just bad, it’s surreal. But I was rooting for him to finish without something truly awful happening. He wasn’t confrontational or angry. He wasn’t trying to walk the room. Still, the audience was lost. You could feel the confusion in the air. I admired people’s patience.

The funniest part of the night is Stanhope coming up after the disastrous set to do damage control. He finishes some of Andy’s jokes for him. Stanhope does a bunch of his own material, then Andy comes back on stage and Stanhope goes over the ill-fated performance again. The entire show is an hour and 45 brutal minutes.

Andy was wasted, Stanhope was drunk, but functioning.

I guess it’s classic Stanhope. You are pretty much assured something weird will happen when he does a show. Last time I saw him, in Richmond, he moved a guy in the front row who was bugging him. Stanhope seemed off his game that night. Same was true in Virginia Beach.

Being an Outlaw Comic certainly gives you freedom. Stanhope has always been a drinker on stage. He used to smoke, too, during his sets. But nihilism can work against you. If you don’t really care about anything, it might make your comedy suffer. The guy I saw that fateful Sunday afternoon was someone who seemed to have given up. On comedy. On himself. On life, even.

Stanhope is pushing 60 now, and he is not the intensely angry guy of his post-Man Show standup. He has mellowed.

I’m glad I saw him again, but there was something sad about all of it. Once it was over, I just wanted to go home. It was not the kind of show where you wanted to hang around the merch table afterward or get a picture with the guy. It felt more like a funeral for someone’s career.

It was only two in the afternoon, and the sun was beating down. Stanhope was hitting a bar next door. I know from experience: if you start drinking early, the rest of the day will involve drinking. Anything normal is out of the question.

Stanhope told us that he was in Gibraltar for six days, and the whole time he spent at a bar. Such is the alcoholic life.

I’m not sure if Stanhope is an inspiration for aspiring comics or a cautionary tale. He gave us a show that we won’t forget. I can’t say it was worse than when I saw a highly professional but bloodless Jim Gaffigan performance last year.

Was the Stanhope show comedy, or a kind of geek show? I wish I could’ve seen Doug and Andy in Richmond the next day to compare. But I was exhausted. I imagine they were, too. Funny or not, I don’t know how these guys do it.

So, I never got my Stanhope interview. But, he got my money. And I got something to write about.