Page 32 - the NOISE December 2013

NOWHERE MAN AND A WHISKEY GIRL
Doug Stanhope in 1992 was a 25-year-old comedian with a mullet struggling for a break. He had only been doing standup for a few years and his drunken, abrasive style was in the larval stage. Basically he got loaded, grabbed a mic, and spewed whatever was on his mind.
He was performing in Sheridan, Wyoming when he picked up a sweet young thing, no more than 20, after a gig. She agreed to come back to his motel, but first she needed to go to her part-time job, which was playing piano in a church. She promised to stop by on her way home.
Playing piano in a church? Sweet Jesus, that’s sexy.
She arrived at Doug’s room and the two hit the bottle and had some laughs. When they finally tumbled into bed it was brief and unsatisfying for both of them. Too much booze. As she was leaving, Stanhope snapped her picture. He had got- ten into the habit of documenting the women he screwed while on the road. The cute ones, anyway.
Later, when pasting her shot in his photo album, Doug drew a blank on his conquest’s name. God, they were so drunk ... what the hell was it? Annie? Emma? He couldn’t re- member, so he wrote “Church Piano Girl” under her picture and moved on to the next town.
In 1995, Doug Stanhope won a comedians’ competition in San Francisco, beating out Dane Cook. He released his first album in 1998. He had a short-lived program on Fox called In- vasion Of The Hidden Cameras in 2002. He appeared on Spy TV and Girls Gone Wild: America Uncovered. In 2003, Doug & Joe Rogan were hired to host The Man Show, then in its 5th year.
Unfortunately, Stanhope & Rogan were replacing the popu- lar Adam Carolla & Jimmy Kimmel and audiences did not take to the new duo. It didn’t help that most of the writers had flown as well. After two seasons, The Man Show was canceled. Many viewers blamed Doug & Joe for the program’s demise.
Around this time, Stanhope met Amy “Bingo” Bingaman, a pretty little nutjob with blue hair who liked to get plastered as much as he did. They moved in together. Doug’s drinking and drugging continued, but his carousing stopped. The pho- to albums were boxed away.
Doug’s mother became seriously ill from emphysema in 2004. Ma Stanhope was a salty old broad who chain-smoked and swore like a truckdriver. She reviewed porn movies on The Man Show occasionally. Doug and Bingo moved with her to Bisbee, Arizona, a freaky burg of 6000 on the Mexican border.
Ma Stanhope had been in and out of hospitals for years and was fed up. She announced she was going to kill herself. Doug said she couldn’t do it on a Sunday or Monday because those were football nights and that would be rude. So she picked a Friday. Doug had the hospice install a bed in his living room.
They had a going-away party. Doug and Bingo made White Russians and put on Bad Santa, one of his mother’s favorite
films. They roasted her mercilessly until the three of them were shrieking with laughter. Doug’s brother called to say goodbye.
Toward the end of the evening, Ma Stanhope ingested ninety morphine tablets, washing them down with White Russians. As she swallowed the last handful, Doug cried out,
“Mom, stop! They just found a cure!” and it made her crack up. She was still alive when Doug and Bingo passed out on the couch in drunken stupors.
In the morning, Doug’s caretaker entered the house and found her dead. He called the paramedics. When they ar- rived, they went straight for Bingo’s body. The caretaker had to tell them no, not the drunk blue-haired girl in her 30s, the OLD LADY IN THE HOSPITAL BED. They were crimson with embarrassment.
There was no funeral and no grave. Doug and his brother donated their mother’s body to science. A few months later, Stanhope’s old drinking buddy Mitch Hedberg died of a her- oin overdose.
With his mother gone, Doug and Bingo were free to move back to Los Angeles, but they decided to stay in Bisbee. They became fixtures in the community, especially at the bars and coffeehouses downtown. Doug performed his act at locals- only shows.
One time, a friend told Doug that there was a Bisbee mu- sician who claimed to have slept with him back in the day. Stanhope figured it was probably true. He had lost count of all his conquests, forgotten most of their names. Still, he was curious. He found out she had a duo with her husband called Nowhere Man And A Whiskey Girl. He searched online and found a promotional shot.
Doug squinted at the picture. Nice looking chick, her face was familiar. Stanhope racked his brain and eventually un- boxed his photo albums. He found her: she was Church Piano Girl from Sheridan, Wyoming, the one he’d been too drunk to lay properly! Holy sh*t, that was nearly fifteen years ago! How did they both end up somewhere like Bisbee? He looked back at the promo shot. What the hell WAS her name?
Ah yes, of course. Amy. Just like his current girlfriend.
A few months later, Doug caught the tail end of Nowhere Man And A Whiskey Girl’s performance at the Bisbee Farmers’ Market. They closed with a seriously depressing song from Pink Floyd’s The Wall. Doug chuckled at the audacity of laying such a bummer trip on the happy oblivious weekend shoppers.
Stanhope was not a music fan (“It interrupts my conversa- tions”), but he liked what they were doing. Man, she could re- ally sing! It looked like these two had a good thing going. He couldn’t think of anything to say to them, so he left five bucks in the tip jar and walked away.
Several years passed.
Bingo wanted to see Roger Waters perform The Wall live in Phoenix for her birthday. Doug hated concerts and tried to
32 • DECEMBER 2013 • the NOISE arts & news • thenoise.us