Two Questions with Doug Stanhope |
After 16 years as a comic, Doug Stanhope knows he'd rather play rock clubs than comedy clubs. He knows living in an a Arizona border town will guarantee quick escape when the government begins quarantining citizens in bird-flu camps. And he knows "Girls Gone Wild and The Man Show might have been nice money, but it was a stain on my resume." This week, Stanhope will be at Tommy Rocker's in Las Vegas, proving why he's the closest thing modern comedy has to Bill Hicks.
You're throwing your hat in the 2008 presidential race with the slogan, "Drunk with power."
The people who know me pretty much know where I stand on most issues: Giving idiots and white trash incentives to sterilize and neuter themselves. If you're willing to tie your tubes, we will give you a few free years of basic cable. You can go hunting with Ted Nugent if you cut your ball sack. And lower the drinking age to 18. The average age of the troops is 19. If you want to support them, don't give them a yellow sticker, give them a f--king beer. Pardoning nonviolent drug offenders.
And I'll be running on the Independent ticket, yeah.
Any advice for bookers at chain comedy clubs or the audiences who frequent said clubs?
People have said, "No one does stuff like you anymore," but there are so many comics out there doing interesting stuff, but bookers aren't willing to touch them. When you look at what's popular in this country, you don't want to be part of it. I mean, karaoke's the No. 1 show on television. If those songs came on the radio in your car you couldn't shut it off fast enough. We just want to see someone lose and be humiliated so you don't have to take a risk in your own life. No one does anything anymore. We just watch everyone else try something and fail. This country loves an underdog like a coyote loves a three-legged cat.
DVDs |
Born Under Libra (NR) (4 stars)
$29.95
With each project, Iranian filmmakers navigate a minefield of political, religious and cultural threats: Director Ahmad Reza Darvish was left to die in the desert for making Born Under Libra. Yet the nation's cinema has found intriguing ways to probe the limits of intellectual freedom. Americans don't think of Iranians as possessing free will, but the students who debate university policies in this film would suggest otherwise. Born Under Libra asks serious questions about gender politics, love and propriety, interpretations of the Koran and the futility of war. As the film opens, we're made aware that conservative Daniel is in love with reformist Mahtab. When a love letter from Daniel is read by Mahtab's stern father, it sets off events that force Daniel into internal exile and Mahtab on a mission to heal their romance. They wind up in a ghostly battlefield in the marshes separating Iran and Iraq. Their struggle to survive amid the skeletons and unexploded munitions mirrors their fight to preserve romance. (Available at Netflix and Facets websites.)
The One-Minute Ballet Critic |
Nevada Ballet Theatre closed its 34th season last weekend: The evening began with The Class, by Bruce Steivel, a fast-paced piece about life in the dancer's studio that showcased the group's increasing technical depth. But the main event was Kathryn Posin's Scheherazade, danced on opening night by an elegantly seductive Yoomi Lee as the clever bride, partnered by a strong and fierce Baris Erhan as her sheikh. An enchanted silent movie set to familiar music by Rimsky-Korsakov, the ballet's narrative is sometimes murky, but works in most of the framing story and, particularly, in the tale of "Aladdin and the Magic Lamp," danced by Jared Hunt as a spunky Aladdin and Cathy Long as his beleaguered mother. The well-designed sets and costumes evoked a magical world where it seemed natural that Scheherazade and her sheikh could move in and out of the various tales and where, in medieval Persia, partygoers could dance a transcendent Viennese waltz.
Random Sentence from a Writer Whose Reading You Should Attend |
"Stinky Yoshimoto."