Doug Stanhope

Yeah. Are we on?

But they're making ... They did a soprano. Well, at least in my early days, there was camaraderie. You got along. It's us against them.

Early days of comedy. You started ... I started in Vegas, which is the worst place to ever fucking start, but you don't know that. Except for New Orleans. New Orleans is pretty bad. Which has never had a comedy club that was successful. Including Green Bay Appleton, the only city that had a professional sports team that couldn't have a full-time comedy club.

And how the hell are... What are you doing in the city? Do you know Pat McAfee? Sure. He used to always wear, like, fucking tank tops. Tank tops. And you're like, who wants to see your arms? I feel the same way about women, like, anchor women that wear, like... What? Sleeveless fucking... Put some fucking... Cover up your arms.

There's no other city that has sports that doesn't have comedy other than New Orleans.

Oh, I played there once. Once? You? I got fucking booed off stage almost every night. What? Like, people throwing things at me, like empty cigarette packs. And I was following Chris Porter. Oh, he's a killer. This was probably 20-some years ago. Wow. So around 2000, because I was dating a comic, which, oh fuck, we'll talk. Judy Gold? No, no one famous, and she quit. Okay, great. Lucky you.

so Chris Porter just had it was very urban it was very ethnic Miami probably maybe 70% Cuban 20% black and then people who are not going to have my back The 10% are mute. Right.

And he just had every fucking reference to every fucking hip hop song. And he just, he was built for that room and he fucking destroyed. Yeah. And I would get up and like, that was where I was primed. Maybe it might've been after 9-11 because that was when I was really peaking on fucking anti-authority, fuck the government and like all this shit. They don't want to fucking hear it.

No, it doesn't play in Miami. Yeah, they're here to hear fucking Gloria Estefan. And it was like, just after the first night, I assumed I'm getting fired and I'm going, hey, it's, and they're like, why, why would you leave? Like, did you see what the fuck? They were throwing fucking empty packs of cigarettes at me and fucking just, like, not even like angry heckling, like that roll your eyes.

Yes, yes. Like dismissive, like, gee, get the fuck out of here.

He loves you.

I would if they had a decent one. But, yeah, I mean, here it doesn't matter. But on the road, would you prefer to stay next to the club or next to the airport on a one-nighter?

That's an insane show. We co-headlined when it was really shitty clubs, basically one-nighters, so you wouldn't even... It's hard to call it headlining, but yeah.

No, the first time I saw him was at a club called Knuckleheads in the Mall of America, Minneapolis, and... Lewis Johnson was the headliner. I was the middle act, and Hedberg was opening. And Lewis had seen him, and he goes, man, you got to watch this guy. This guy is fucking. And the first night, he did pretty good. But the rest of the week, he's just fucking. Because he has no MC skills.

He doesn't come out and say, are there any birthdays? Yeah. He's following da, da, da, da, da, da, da. Y'all ready for this? Da, da, da. And there's a laser light show for a club of 350, even though there's 18 people in it. They still have the volume up like it's a sold out Saturday. Come on, you can do better than that. No, they're doing their best. Yeah, right.

18 of them, and they're not even sat in the same areas.

No, and he was new, but it was still, as Hedberg, not quite as polished, but still you saw everything that you're fucking going to love in the future. So it was great to watch him morph very quickly into fucking great.

Oh, shit. Oh, yeah. Cheap shit. That's the cheap shit, but I traveled with it, which means I had to check a bag. But I bought these sleeves that you get at Duty Free. Are you not doing it? I'm going to go hot toddy. All right, fuck it.

I didn't even know that. I hate when you waste good shit. Yeah. And you go, all right, we're going to start. Fuck.

That was right before he fucking died. Wow, you can look at him. Pale. Were you worried? That was two weeks before he died because we did, ended up, I got booked with him to open for him at a college show in Maryland, which I was like, all right, by now people know I'm not college material. This does not happen. So I assumed he asked for me.

Because when you guys both headline, you stop seeing each other. Yes. And it sucks. That's why we do this. So I assumed he had asked me to do it, and then when the kid that booked it, who probably got fired immediately for having me on the stage, we're driving back to the hotel, and I told Mitch, I said, hey, thanks for setting this up, because college gigs pay a ton of money.

And I needed it back then, and he said... I don't know. And the kid driver said, no, you guys are my two favorite comedians. Whoa. I did this. I'm like, oh, fuck. All right. Hey. So we went back and we did, that's got to be the green room. But we went back and we're doing 2005. Wow.

Yeah, Terry Taylor, I think is his name. Yes, that was it. That's when Hedberg was just starting to peak, and he was selling a lot of tickets, but he was not a negotiator. And that guy from Giggles would sell all these VIP things and overcharge people. Everything, if he ran it past Hedberg, Hedberg would go, no fucking way. You can't overcharge people.

When I first heard Hannibal, I'm like, oh, Hedberg just stole from Black Pete. My mom loves those applause breaks. That's one of my favorite drunk pastimes if I ever get to drink with comics or doing a tell or a Hedberg and you just sit around the table and everyone's fucking throwing out their favorite fucking one-liners. Yeah. And Hedberg was kind of a household name if you were into stand-up.

Dude, I remember the first episode of this show I watched. I forget who the guest was, but all three are drinking fucking LaCroix. Oh, yeah. I'm like, really? Did they go sober, dude? Drunk is in the title, but it just took you a minute. Yeah, we got there.

Sure. You were definitely, back then before it really kicked off, before social media really kicked off.

And he would entertain people who would throw out jokes, like towards the end of the show. Oh, wow. Like, do the thing. And he would, all right, I'll do the koala bear bit. Man, you guys are very demanding of my time. But I'll do this for you. Damn. He really enjoyed doing it. And he enjoyed fucking drugs, too. He loved heroin. I've heard. Comedy.

He was great at both of them.

Yeah.

Try to compete in the marketplace in Austin. I know. But they said- When you have a fucking barn for a room. Oh God, I hated that room. It was a big room. Some of the best times, but just the height of the ceiling. Yes.

Yeah, the trash, the condo guy. Yes. I went on Bill Burr's podcast once, which I felt awful doing because I would listen to Bill Burr on the road back then. for a while until I started getting mannerisms, and I gotta stop listening to this, and ladies, and I'm like, stop. It's in my head. But I did his podcast, and I apologized up front, because I hate it when you have a guest.

I just want to hear you, Bill. So I apologize to your listeners for being here because they would fucking hate me for being on your show. But he was telling me that I was like the John Fox guy, like the guy that fucking sticks his dick in the mayonnaise jar at the condo. I'm like, I'm that guy now? Because before it used to be, who was that, Ollie Joe Prater? Oh, wow.

Wow, I haven't heard that name in years.

Yeah, and I worked with John Fox once and made the mistake of confusing an Ollie Joe Prater legendary story as him. And he's like, that's not me. John Fox was the most absolute fuck up, just awful, like repeating his joke several times in a set because he's so fucked up. But he was funny. Ollie Joe had the one I confused was where his nose started to bleed during the show from too much cocaine.

Yeah. Holy shit. And it's pouring down his face, but he doesn't realize, and the audience is aghast. And at some point, it's all on his shirt. He goes... Oh, what, nobody parties anymore?

Our town motto is, you only go around once in life, so I'm going around drunk.

Party is the wrong word.

Look at this guy. He did the same act for 40 years or something. Well, the act was in the way. Archibald Barrisol.

Yeah. No, I'm not like that. I'm not really a drug guy. I mean, I've had my drug moments. Here's the problem is a lot of your best stories come from nights on drugs. So when you have too many drug stories in your act- They think that you're fucking boof and trank in the morning. No, I learned that from you guys.

Yeah. True. So, yeah, I. Yeah, I'm a fucking go-to-bed-early guy. Well, day drinking will get you. I love it. It's a good day drinking town. I hate fucking New York City, but especially just the three blocks walking here, I came in with a good attitude. Like, I try to get out of my comfort zone and stuff. I fucking went to Ukraine. You guys were talking about that, dude.

Like there's sober people that don't remind you that you're a drunk. Right. That are great. Like fucking Tell or Norton. I fucking love Norton. Love Norton. Yeah. But there's others where you go, that guy's such a not drinker. Yes.

About when you... Comfort is so addicting. Yes. And, like, you get a nice house now, and you got the fucking wife, and do you really have a kid on the way? Yeah, yeah. I know. Brutal. Scary. But that'll get you uncomfortable, at least. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, and I have to force myself to, like, if I could just go to bed right now, why would I?

But that's, yeah, the three blocks walking here, I immediately fucking hated everything so much. I came in with a good attitude. I got in late. I was at midnight. I got in a hotel. There was not traffic to worry about. There were no personal space issues. I just walked three blocks and a fucking cop. I go, was 39th this way or that way? And he's pointing what I thought was the wrong direction.

And I'm like, oh, no, I'm sorry. I misread the fucking sign. And I'm already yelling at people in my head. And I'm like, oh, great. I could do this whole show with fucking...

Is it warm there? Yeah, yeah. It is crazy. Air on fire racing out of the Palisades. Yeah, shit is gone. I have not seen any of the footage. I just heard about this fucking Annie Letterman who said to say hi, and I go, I'll wait till we're on the air. Annie Letterman called. She left a message at one in the morning. And I'm like, maybe she's like, help save us. We're on fire.

Maybe she wants to come stay in Arizona. Holy shit.

I'm going to spit it in my fucking hot toddy.

Deadbeat Hero.

Yeah, that's fucking 20 years ago. But that was where I do. I support the troops on an individual basis was the premise of a bit. Great. I wish I knew how to do clips where I could just cut that bit out of that special and hashtag it with New Orleans and whatever the other.

Oh, geez. Those stories go way back.

You've got to clip that.

I get to a place where I go, I just was writing notes this morning and I'm going, I think I already did this as a bit, but now it's like whatever story where I'm going, this should be funny. And I'm like, I already did that about something similar. Anyway, I find myself stealing from myself. Right.

Was that when we were drunk dialing the most famous people on our phones? That definitely wasn't me. No, he pulled out a bunch that you go, I don't know if that counts. Right. Who was he dialing? The first time I met you was the airport thing, right?

I was in the Sky Club, so I just went out to have a cigarette, and I have to go outside, and there's a guy standing there with the Sam Morrill sign. And I go, if he's still here when I come back from this cigarette. And I gave him a 20 to fucking let me hold his sign. What?

Wow.

And I was suited up, too, because I was just, I always fly suited up. Sure.

You know what? There's manipulation afoot in it, too, because I always wear a fucking Delta, vintage Delta pin, and I have a fucking bag of fucking vintage Delta gadgets, and you will not get shut off drinking on a plane.

If you've given them a 1973 vintage Delta fucking this and that. Yeah.

Yeah. Thank you. Could I get a double?

Probably not if you use the word stewardess. Oh, sorry. That's where I lost you. Did you ever notice for a drinker's podcast that this is kind of like a... It's like a sneeze guard. Oh, shit. You're right. Get him a straw. Give me a crazy straw. Give me a hurricane with a crazy straw. You said you could make anything, right?

I usually start and go, okay, fuck.

We could whip that up. We might be able to whip up a hurricane. I have no idea what's in a hurricane other than diabetes. It's shit. I feel like I'm sounding like a telno. Fucking came in here so jacked. I woke up and I saw my face after. That's almost 12 hours of drinking for me to get here. Because I'm two hours from the airport, so I fucking leave early. And then I get for a 1 o'clock flight.

I'm there at 1130, so I start drinking at the bar. It's the only bar I'm a regular at is the Tucson airport. Like, Sam, what are you doing? Where are you going now? How's that thing that you did? And then, you know, in first class, if you get bumped up, or I usually buy first, but if I'm not making money where I'm going, I go, I should probably just, you know, roll the dice.

What? That's actually in one of my books. He forwarded me the email, Cliff, the manager at the time. Is that the Asian thing? No. And you know what it's called? The ringtone? It's called Comic. Oh, Wicked.

What's the point of chasing diamond status if you don't have the reward of getting bumped up? Good point. So I did get bumped up on the first fight, so I've had... Two drinks at the airport bar, and then I get your pre-flight drink, which I get fucking livid if they don't serve that. That's crazy. That's the whole point of first class. Yes.

Getting a drink before those other fucking simple motherfuckers. Yes. What did you say? It's a great peeve. Oh, peeve. Yes. All right. I thought you said pee. Oh. I try to hydrate. Get this guy a catheter. Well, what I did is I call them torpedoes. That size of water, if I could drink one of those in a day, it's almost half a gallon. It's 50-something ounces.

And that's what they recommend, at least a half gallon a day. So I chugged this fucking thing before airport security that I've driven with but ignored. And now I forgot. I got bumped up, but I'm in a window seat. Ah. I'm going to have to piss this whole flight. And I sit there and I get my drink. He pisses me. He pisses like an old lady. I piss like a motherfucker. But at least you get an aisle.

Yeah. You think ahead. I try. So this lady sits down. She has a hard hat connected to her backpack. Oh, boy. A woman of a certain age. And then she gets to her. Like me, she keeps her Delta fucking earpieces. So she plugs in her earpieces for the in-flight entertainment, pulls out her tray and opens up a laptop. And then they come to say, what would you like?

The vegetarian option or the chicken Cuban sandwich? And I'm like, and then she orders tea, hot tea. And I'm like. I already have to piss. Yeah. So before the tea comes, I'm like, lady, I'm sorry, but let me get this done before I'm going to knock over. I have this fucking overcoat on. I say, slank it. I'm going to knock everything off. And so she said, oh, it's okay.

And I just squeezed every ounce of piss out I could then. Yeah. Sorry, I just did broken special. I was so claustrophobic just being in a window seat knowing that I'm gonna have to piss again. I didn't, but I wanted to the whole time.

That's tough.

But I also don't have projects I'm doing.

Like, yeah. If you're going to have the whole fucking build a fucking thing.

If you've got a bit of book reading. I might have been on one of my CDs. That's how fucking long I've been around. I think three CDs, which I love every time you fucking belch. Oh, yeah. Or fart. The farting thing. Oh, tell that to David. Peeve is fucking eating on Mike.

You. Really? Yes. But the farting and belching I love. You showed the fucking Nate Bargatze's reaction to you farting. That's a fucking, that was a Hedberg peeve. One time at Acme Comedy Club in Minneapolis, we were co-headlining and we would just get hammered and the late show would get fucking, we just, if you remember, you could just walk back into the green room from the stage.

All right, so what happened in Apple? So, yeah, she wrote this scathing thing. We had done a benefit show for a friend of ours who is graphically obese and to pay for his stomach stapling or whatever, lap band. Yeah, Bobby Kelly. It was me and Sean Rouse and Andy Andrist and...

So we'd walk back and talk to each other in the green room and then whoever's on stage would go back out or we'd go back out together. We'd do bumps like on the mic, but in the green room with the mic. And one time I took the mic and I farted in it and Bargatze had nothing on how much fucking Hedberg bummed out. Really? Yeah. Really? That is so inconsiderate.

Oh, I wouldn't do it during someone's act.

Well, because he has to talk into the mic.

Yeah, the discomfort continues. Yes, yes. It's so awkward in there. He doesn't move past it. No, he hated it. I love that I missed all that. But yeah, my early CDs, because I was a beer drinker, so I would belch just raucously. Yeah.

And I'd just say that's my catchphrase because it wasn't like every scene. My last special, like fortuitously, I had a belch where I didn't really have a segue. Just, I'd rather be treated by a veteran. And then I'm like, oh, that gives me a fucking easy... I love myself. I hate myself most of the time. But one little thing like that can rope me back in. I love it.

I mean, it looked like Lenny. Is it Jeselnik? I put it together late, but doesn't Jeselnik have an album title where that would be a more fitting- Yes.

It is. Great cover. Yeah, that cover was, by the way, previous to his title, I had this cover.

So funny. Oh my God, so good. So yeah, she said, I went to that show and you think this, they were making fun of the tsunami and 9-11 and none of this is appropriate. And I wrote, so he forwarded me. So I had her email and I wrote her a long email. I'm so glad you have our back on this. I guess what you don't understand is when we play clubs, the management provides us with a script, right?

No, his new one. Sorry. Continue. I tried to watch yours, but it's on Netflix, and I got rid of Netflix, and I was so proud because it took that fucking Tyson fight, and I'm like, you know what? I want to get rid of Netflix anyway because I'm paying like $30-something a month to get the best package, no ads or whatever. It's like $31 a month.

I go, this is like one good thing a month, and I could just go on fucking Reddit and ask a fan for their password to see the one good thing. I haven't done that yet, but I will.

Dumbing down a forced backstory.

Comedian Mark Norman. I know all about you. You're born in New Orleans. Your wife's name is May. Wow. I have a child on the way.

Speaking of fucking knowing, where's Winnie?

I was going to bring dog treats for fucking Winnie, and I was late getting to the airport, and Bing was like, you've got to bring treats for Winnie.

She's all right. Is she doing road work?

I missed the joke. Okay. That's how I feel about you. Better not be the last time. Is that like a chuck? What do they call those? I guess it would be called a chug.

No, no, no. What it lays on. Like the pad. It's always on a pad. Is it making puddles?

That first book I wrote, the funniest fucking... Oh, God.

Not one offer based on that.

He's already talking about it. He doesn't need a segue.

No, he actually said he submitted that episode for the Emmys, and nah.

It was like it just yeah, and that was one of the best episodes He and we're not like friends or like but we're friendly But it's not like I see him outside of an occasional festival or something And that was like so he had no idea how on the fucking nose that was oh, yeah

And we have to follow that. And we voiced our concerns to management as well, because we are the ones that have to take the fall for this at the end of the day. It's a very long, just very professional written email. And she's like, oh, my God, I can't believe this is happening.

Like the dialogue, like I'd said a bunch of that shit myself, basically, not word for word, obviously, but I have talked about all that shit. It was like me if I didn't have money. Right. If I wasn't successful, that's still like I, you know, I don't know. I don't want to fuck anymore. I don't care. I have no desires for anything. And it's just, what's the point?

Just the nihilism in the character. I swim in that on a daily basis.

And that was like real open micers. Oh, yeah. He just said, okay, just do what you do anyway. Yeah. Yeah.

You know what I found out? I saw in myself watching Louis ever throughout. You always know how old he is. If you watch any set, and I go, oh, fuck, I do that too. You know, I'm 52. I'm 53. You know how, is this the most recent special? He should be 58 by now. Right.

I think it's just so good. I feel like it was... I've watched it. I've got to a place where I can watch myself from those days. I probably would never want... In 10 years, I could watch this podcast. But yeah, that's like a different you. When you're going back almost 20 years, I can watch it. And I was so annoying because I'm smoking and I'm drinking beer.

And so I'll have a beer like this as I'm, there you go. I have a fucking cigarette and I'm almost smoking it and almost drinking it. And I'm heckling myself going, drink the fucking beer or put it down. Don't do a punchline and go, hey, you know what I hate? That's just aggravating.

Wow. I brought you, oh, would you grab, in my backpack, there's a book in the main compartment I just brought to set on this stack. Put it on. What do we get? Oh, put it on top of fucking Natasha Leggero. Yeah. She hates me so badly. Why? I don't, I went to a party, which I never do. I went to Sarah Silverman's.

That's Deadbeat Hero.

That's weird, because usually I'm completely... Completely, I don't fucking know, but you just said three in a row that I know.

It does. Again, back to comfort, when you don't have hate. Like, now I feel kind of abandoned by comics, where you go, all these comics have, like, taken sides, where it used to be us against them. I hate it. Now, somehow, they fucking bought in, and they, like, picked, oh, you're either woke or this. I'm like, no, you... It's us against fucking Boulder, Colorado tonight.

And even if I hate you as a comic, all right, well, I hate the audience worse. Yeah.

I put that on my website. I go, hey, if I walked into a fucking airport bar and all my biggest fans and Dane Cook are in there, I'm drinking with Dane Cook. No, he doesn't even drink. No, he doesn't. I drink with a sober Dane Cook before my biggest fans because we have something in common.

It's like the Yankees and Red Sox. Yes. They'll fucking hang out after... They're not hanging out with the fucking... Cheap seats.

Yeah. Oh, my favorite was Patrice. Oh, that was a great one. And Bob Saget. Yeah, and Sandra Bernhardt, right? And Sandra Bernhardt and Roseanne. Roseanne. But fucking Patrice tried to fucking, like, there's, and we can talk scariest comedians, but Patrice was. Easily. Patrice and Norton, like, I would never want to, like, they could break you down so fucking badly. So good at it.

You know, at any point.

Yeah. And that's what we do. That's why I like when people say, oh, Rogan will fuck you. He could fuck you up. But he wouldn't. No. Rogan was not going to choke someone out. That'd be a bad episode. Yeah. Fucking Patrice. Patrice and Jim Norton would eviscerate you verbally, and no one could do it at a higher level. And Patrice fucking tried to call Saget out on that episode. Oh, yeah.

He's like, say something off the top of your head. Don't say the shit you fucking wrote in the back room. And fucking Saget came with it, and he went, all right. Right. He was like, fuck you, Bob.

That was the line for my show. Yeah, I'm like, oh, this is sketchy. Let's fucking go that way. And I'm like, oh fuck, that's the game.

legendary annual party and I like I met her twice I knew like two things about her and met her once and I just brought things up that evidently you know I didn't know that was a fucking rough thing like and she ran into Brendan Walsh who I'm good friends with the next day and just talked shit about me whoa that fucking asshole that stupid guy with the fucking suit he was a drunken asshole like I just does Appleton all over again

Oh, shit.

Oh, is Tim Dillon gay? Sorry, I just saw.

I love that Joe Rogan choking guy out leads you to, is Tim Dillon gay?

Cold case, decades, you murdered people perfectly, flawlessly. You know how to turn off the cell phone so it doesn't ping when you bury it in a body. All the basic, the one-on-ones, and you got away with it for decades to the point where now you're just retired in your 70s.

You had that mail-order pride you had since fucking 97, and you lived a quiet, peaceful life, only to be busted by a podcaster.

All right. We filmed it almost two years ago, May of 23. Oh, wow. And there was no... We get the footage, because they're built-in cameras, and... There's not any cutaways to, you know, crowd or anything like so to edit it. So, yeah, I get this Australian producer guy that I'm working with and I have all these old 70s small TVs. So he got very creative and creative. You have to look at it.

It's going to either annoy the fuck out of you. Just know if you're watching it, it doesn't change. I mean, it'll change to a different TV and there's like photographs of things I'm talking about beside the TV. Oh, cool. And he got really, really creative with shit.

And then so this year I was going to go back to it. I ended up not going, but she ran into Brendan Walsh and said, I hope that fucking asshole isn't going to be there again.

Yeah, it's all sorts of free. Hell, yeah. I wanted to ask you about that, because we didn't... He tried to, like...

He tried to clean it up, so I don't know how any of the monetizing on YouTube works, but he tried to make it monetizable, and he goes, he came upstairs, he lives downstairs from me, down on the next street, and he said, do you think, I can't do an Australian accent, do you think we could do this without taking that, the fucks? Now I'm Crocodile Dundee.

He said he just spent hours trying to clean it up. He goes, there's over 240 fucks in just the edit.

And that's not even the suicide rape thing, everything. And he goes, and I'm like, yeah, I don't fucking care. Just do what's easy and get it out there. Do the Doug Stanhope route to success and don't care.

Yes.

I don't know. I was going to ask you guys. It looks like it's doing great already. Sometimes, if I'm just watching clips, you kind of clean it up. So do you do a clean version to promote the... Not on YouTube.

Well, now I'm doing it. But the unaliving. Oh, come on. What are we doing? Promote an unalived hotline?

Yeah, I think my algorithm is unlisted. I don't seem to come up. in anybody's feed anywhere.

Yeah, no, I heard that if you keep the beginning of shit clean, they'll probably overlook – I have no idea.

I was going to say, I just watched. I didn't watch it all because I was about to fall asleep. And you go, I can't. It has that effect on people. No. Yeah, I guess that sounded bad. You were going to fall asleep before you put it on. He was about to un-live himself while he was watching. I don't sit down in an armchair and watch TV. TV is only for, you know, 4 a.m.

Did you guys write for that?

when I wake up and go, oh, it's too cold to go anywhere. Yeah. Or at night, but I won't sleep to stand up because you're going to go, fuck, was this my idea or is that something I heard subliminally because I've slept to a... So, yeah, no, it's paused right where I go, okay, I'm going to watch the rest. And you're on Netflix, which I... I gotta

He said it's an amalgamation. It's like the Louis thing. He said it's a lot of comics. Right, right.

It's so good. It's the best. My last book came out at the same time, and I just spent literally 20 times more promoting his book than my own because it was so good. And I don't like fiction, but that was truer about stand-up comedy than most stand-up comics.

books and there's really a there's a huge lack of i would love to read of ollie joe prater john fox etc biography about i always end up you know reading like punk rock i love fucking debauch yeah artists stories junkies i've never done heroin yet uh tonight's the night Boof and Trank and the heroin.

Oh, thanks.

What were you saying about, like, I wish that happened to me? Something that happened to your friend and he... Hit by a bus. Hit by a bus. Because I always used to say the worst stories are the best material. If I found out I had cancer, the first thing I'd do, I wouldn't go to an oncologist. I'd rush to a notebook. What's her name? Tig Notaro? Oh, yeah. I'm like, God damn it.

That's what I was talking about.

I want that to be me. I thrive in tragedy. I don't.

I look like I just heard that too like oh man dude you look so fucking James Bond suave in that yeah yeah I was trying to be fucking yeah it's funny Nate Bargatze was like wear a fucking suit this time I was like all right meanwhile it was fucking like it was a very like film noir 1940s that's what I was going for dude uh meanwhile it's Nate's new special he's not wearing a suit you piece of shit what the hell are you doing to me

Yeah, I did not dislike her at all. The one story I had, we had to do a photo shoot for, I don't know, GQ or fucking one of those Maxim. It was a comedy issue and it featured like 20 comics. And we had to do a photo shoot, which I loathe. I can't stand my just having cameras. Older rubber chicken. Yes, yes. And I'm like, all right, let's just get it over with. I only have one look.

That's why I was pointing out the, is Tim Dillon gay? Because I was just thinking that on the drive yesterday. I'm like, I think I'm way gayer than Tim Dillon.

That is the best response we've had to that one, though. I'm not quite sure. I mean, just surface, like, basic things. Like, you're fucking gorgeous there. I love football. For the uniforms. And if you have, like, if Tampa Bay and the Patriots were both playing in throwbacks, oh, my God, I'm the fucking gayest guy. And that's not even, like, putting things in my ass. Right.

I don't even, like, I'm not even sexual at this point. And I haven't been for years.

Right. Well, no, but I'm like, sexually, I would have, like, gay... things that I would be into. I never sucked a dick, but yeah, a lady's put a fucking dildo in my mouth more than once or things like that. You know, I don't know.

I don't want to make it an ageist thing, but at some point, even if I was having sex, I wouldn't talk about it. I wouldn't deny that I'm having it, but I remember... I don't want to name names. Bobby Slayton was the first time I noticed it, where you go, My wife won't fuck me! She won't fuck me! You're like a... Back then, he was the oldest man in the world.

Younger than I am now, but you're like, nobody really wants to picture you fucking your wife. No. At 55, 85 years old, whatever you are. Yeah. There's a certain cutoff where you go, ah.

Jesus Christ. Oh, God. I'm going to fucking find that episode. Oh, that was great.

Wait. Went to fucking, what? Not Epstein Island, but- Just the house. Like a party.

And he was like- I feel really bad for anyone that is connected like that.

Because who knows who's fucking P. Diddy? Yes. If you get invited to a P. Diddy party- I'd love to go.

I've- I got invited to, and they wouldn't say who it was, but my manager knew, to do a private for Banksy in England, in Bath, Bristol. And I went, fucking no way. Why? Because privates suck.

No, what a private does is the one guy likes you, and then he's going to show you off to his friends. And I know on a pie chart, the people who like my comedy is a very slim, diet-friendly piece of pie of people that will understand, get, or much less laugh at what I do. I'm a very genre-specific person. Sure. And, oh, I got to do Banksy. And I sucked.

I think you guys were just talking about something like this, where you fucking sucked in front of.

Oh, I thought. I think it was going to be just the most artsy fucking world. Oh, that's bad, too. People that, like, if you said. Well before, you know, the current climate. Yeah.

I'm not an action guy. I don't have poses. Just take the pictures. But it's five of us. And she's like, let's do one. It's in the comedy store. Let's do one over in the cloakroom. Let's do one in the... And she just kept belaboring this, not knowing how much I hate it. And that was the story that I... That's it?

He's always covered. That's why I couldn't know, but I knew because he knew, but I couldn't say it. And it turns out it was definitely Banksy, but I said no. You know what? I never wake up thinking, fuck, all those people hate me. Good point. Which is the best feeling in the world. But you're used to being hated by now.

Yeah, but that was the fucking last note I wrote in my notebook before I left for here was, you can do anything you want in life, just don't read the comments.

Did you write for a roast or something? We did a roast on Netflix.

It's just absolute silence. But it's a respect that you have to, once you've done it, you have to, like, I'm going back. I have to remember. They're going to stare at you blankly, and then you're going to have flop sweats. Then they applaud. Standing ovation at the end. They're like, where the fuck was this energy? Right. Because we're so trained to American bravado. Woo!

If you guys want to talk about me behind my back, I hydrated this morning, and I'm going to have to go find a pisser. Go piss.

I'll hold it down. Oh, hey, you know what? I got to do this. Hey, people, you ever want to eat healthy, but you're in a hurry? You don't have time to cook? Well, whatever they pitch while we're pissing, use promo code Stanhope. Don't use the drunk promo code anymore. That's for losers. Promo code Stanhope. That's right. Prize picks.

Well, just how much... I guess I was focused on how much I hate a photo shoot, and she took it as personal. I see.

So when you guys divorce. You got it. You're going to have to fight. I get this, and you get the Leggero.

Yeah, I had to change my number because of that.

that was for her yes jokes were disgusting put it together i told her she uh she after the show the last show of this chicago comedy festival and she's the last server there all the comics and servers are just leaving to go to the bar next door by zany's i forget the name of it right around the corner from chicago old town ale house Yes, that's the place. Great bar. And I said, are you going?

She goes, you know what? I saw your act and I want you to know, I think you're completely disgusting. And so I went, okay. This is before there was a comment you could avoid on YouTube. It's a live comment.

Can't erase that. So then I get booked back because I fucking killed. And then she's there. And I said, hey, let's make a truce, okay? I'm here for the whole week now. And... We got to deal with, again, it's us against them. You need tips. I need laughs. Let's just try to get along through this. Yep. Oh, that was the second to last night. The last night of the festival, she's working.

And so I started, hey, I started trashing her about saying that I was completely disgusting. And I go, and you're a little cakey with the makeup, but I didn't bring that up. I just... I teed off on her. So there was a beef in play. Uh-huh. So then we made up. Makeup is great. Very cakey with the makeup. It's like almost like one of those Geisha girls. Oh, wow.

When Natasha come in, we got it right here. My point about that duty-free wrapper for this shitty bottle of wine is I brought that because I got to get a bottle of bidet cat to take home.

Uh, so then we made up when I came back to do the week, went to a bar with the staff, got along, had lots of drinks, went fucked, uh, with her head out the window, which was weird, uh, to think that there's a downtown Chicago hotel that had windows that open. Oh yeah. But it was a thing. Sorry. You should have got on mic for that. You should actually have him mic'd twice. Yes.

You should give me a little crotch mic. Right. A little like a Garth Brooks.

You have more current references than me. And I was fucking her in the ass. Whoa. And when I came in her ass. Whoa. Wait for it. And I leaned into her and I go, I just want you to know I find you completely disgusting. Oh, that's great. So we remain friends. Yeah, of course. Yeah. But I wrote about that story in a book.

And then the Audible version, I had a lot of people come on the podcast style. So in the Audible book, it's being read. But then when it gets to certain places, I would have people that were there to tell their side of the story. So she came on. She's a fucking great chick, Patty. She goes, well, first of all, You came on my back. You didn't come in my ass. Okay. All right.

That's why we're doing this. Wow.

That would be way weirder. That was not improv'd.

He just had a notebook. But when did it hit you?

Good question. I have no idea. I really don't.

Yeah, that would be way creepy if I planned the whole thing. Usually I don't work for this kind of money, but I have an idea. Wow, Patty. I wonder if she's still there. No, she's in L.A. She's in my old apartment building. Oh, all right, Patty. Might be on fire. Should check in. That's true. Yeah, a lot of people, man. Where is the Palisades? It's by Malibu. I had to ask, too.

Put on my podcast and have it sitting on the camera. It'd be an honor. It'd be an honor.

It goes Malibu, Palisades, Santa Monica, Venice. Brentwood. Pasadena is also on fire. That's a P word. Whoa. Addie. Pussy.

No, that's... Anaheim.

Oh, man. This is Malibu. Wow, Beyonce. Hey, but since I dropped Annie Letterman's name, I'm also going to drop the fact that she said, yeah, my manager's house burned down completely, so now hopefully he'll try to get me work harder.

If you had to bail on New York City and L.A. and Austin were not options, where would you go?

Okay, let me add the addendum of you cannot come to any of those three cities to work. Wait, wait, wait. What do you mean? If you pick Rhode Island, you're within a couple hours of New York.

Oh, okay.

Florida has never had a comedy scene in my 35 years. Tampa, that club is pretty good. It's a club, but there's no scene there. That's true. I would have to.

That's true. I do love Chicago. If it's for work, yeah. There's so much right in that area. Like South Bend. I did like a full week of Michigan doing different cities. Kalamazoo, Lansing. There's just so much work there. You can drive two hours. That's true.

Crazy flights. Yeah. I did those even after I didn't really need the miles. I fucking love flying. It is nice. The two I did the same route twice was Tucson. This is where I fly out of to Atlanta without leaving an airport. Tucson, Atlanta, Johannesburg. Whoa. To Amsterdam, back to Detroit, Las Vegas, Salt Lake. Holy shit. 77 hours total, 57 in the air. You're like a terrorist. It's crazy. Wow.

Ocean Beach is, fuck, they have a dog beach, too, for Winnie. They have a dog beach where you can let your dogs just pack. of fucking everyone's dogs just running in and out of the ocean and fighting and waves and stuff.

Yeah, exactly. I remember you were talking about it, and I couldn't tell if you were talking about writing for Nikki or for a roast.

They go fucking chaotic. Like seagull scooper, you know, just carry her away.

Yeah, that's a solid nine pounds. That's true. She's girthy. A gallon of water is eight pounds.

Yeah, it's a little sketchy. A little bit. Sketchy. But they're hot homeless dudes. Don't leave change in your cup in your car. It's the kind of place they'd smash out your window to fucking steal your fucking dirty. Yeah. Speaking of, what kind of fucking weird car is that? Your car that got broke into. Oh, you heard about that, huh?

I bought, I forget what year, one of the three years it existed, I think, Pacer, with allegedly 4,300 original miles. Because I'm like, I want a cool car, but I can't fix shit. That's like a Wayne's World car. Yeah, and then I found out I got fucked, and it was like $104,000. It was gorgeous.

Yeah.

Yeah, no, it is. The Licorice. Do you have any Grey Poupon? Yeah. I think it was called Adobe Seats. Whoa. Some kind of Aztec Adobe. There you go. Is that it? First one.

He's funny. I fucking love Junior. You guys tour together, right? Yeah, we do. I'm going to start touring with Andy Andrist. Andy's, like, we're revamping our podcast with him. He had his own podcast issues with Andy, and I had my own. I'm like, why are we doing this separately? Like, he got burned out on his, and mine fucking needed him, and we should be touring together.

I get to a place where I didn't want to tour. I haven't in almost a year and a half. Hmm. You got enough money for that to not tour? Not when I'm doing the shit I've been doing. I've been bleeding cash like I'm making money, but I'm not. But if I could go back and tour the stuff I like doing, I mean... I know, like, the, whatever, the ballparks with Bert Kreischer and stuff.

It's just not my thing. I fucking hate it. Did he hit you up about that? Yes, one time, and I just... I'm sure he's a huge fan, you know? Oh, he loves you. Yeah, no, he's great. I went to one of his shows. We haven't... This podcast has still not been edited. And I'm saying that with contempt at my fucking editor. He did get Ukraine out. He's working on the Slab City.

But over a year ago, we went to a road trip. He was playing my hometown. And my best friend from when I was a kid, Chris O'Connor, not the fucking comic. I hate to... All right, don't get off track, fucking sketchy brain. We went, he emailed me and he goes, hey, your buddy Bert Kreischer's playing at this, what used to be the Centrum, where we used to sleep out.

We slept out, me and Chris O'Connor slept out two nights in the winter in February to get U2 tickets. Wow. And we weren't even that big of fans. We just thought it was cool to sleep out for tickets. Yeah. And so he's playing at this place. And my wife is she's the whatever organizer for the thing. Put in a good word for me so he knows I'm cool.

And I go, fucking Okie is going back to the fucking scene. So I packed up the kids, the cameraman and the wife. And we're like, all right, I'm going to get us in. I'll go backstage. I went on stage. I opened the show as the mayor of Worcester. I found out what his name was. Nobody knows who the mayor of their town is. I went out as the mayor. They introduced me as a mayor.

I went to a point where Bert had to go out at the end. By the way, that was not the mayor. Yeah. He could have gotten sued for this. You know what? Thanks for voting me back in office. I had the thing where, yeah, drunk driving. Who hasn't? And if I was sober, I would have killed that kid anyway. He came out of nowhere on that tricycle. And a few people know who I am and most of them don't.

They don't know me from the mayor. And we did this whole podcast, filmed it, and it took Chris O'Connor and I went on a tour of all the places that we vandalized as kids and we were the worst fucking evil children and places that we used to have fucking... There you go. I'm listening. I know. That's the light. Wait, you're from Worcester. Yeah. Okay. So we did this whole trip back home.

And I'm like, get that out before. This was December of 03. And I'm like, get it out before March so it looks timely since it's winter. Right. And he still hasn't cut it out. And then fucking Oki died. Fucking high age. He dies of a heart attack randomly. Sorry. You gotta fucking... He still hasn't cut the fucking thing out. We gotta get this footage out.

The second time I did it, I go, all right, that's it. It was funny the first time.

He does great shit. Have you seen the Ukraine stuff? No. We went to the fucking Ukraine. Me and Andy went to Ukraine. Fucking fired on the fucking Russians. What? Yeah. Pull that up. The biggest fucking... Piece of fucking machinery in the... There you go. What the hell? How did I not know about this? How did I not know about this? That's what I said, my fucking unlisted algorithm. This is 55K.

This should be viral. How was the... When was this?

I don't like fun. Three, two, one, fire!

No, and I went coach.

People say I like to travel, and they don't. They like to go to new places and meet new people. I don't like that. Do you like a 20-hour flight from Arizona? No, you hate that part. I love it. I take Xanax. I drink. I sleep like a kitten. You complain about the travel part. You want to go, oh, I want to see the cathedral. The cathedral. I want to just get out. I was in Donbass.

There is no better place to want to get the f*** out and travel. Then 11 hours on a train is beautiful. I'm going to watch this tonight. It's two parts, but the way you had to capitulate and cut out the baby dick sucking, I'm guessing it's a mole.

Yeah, Xanax, and very little memory of the entire thing. Other than back then, all of those airports, you could smoke in still. Still smoking in Atlanta, still smoking lounge in Johannesburg, Amsterdam, and Vegas.

Yeah.

But for this, we put it out on Patreon uncut for a week, and then our guy that got us into the front lines, this was not a sanctioned fucking thing. This was not like, hey, would you like to come over and get a call from the New York Times reporter? Call. A fucking email.

And she goes, hey, I did a story on Ukraine stand-up comedy during the war, and every single one of them said that you are revered over there. Would you ever consider going over there? They weren't paying for it, but in passing, I didn't know I could go over there. I didn't know you could just go to war. I'm like, why didn't you tell me that earlier? I would have been there.

Louie was booked there the Friday it happened. That's right. He fucking canceled. I know. Because I've been talking to a couple guys over there that are fans since the most recent part of the war started. Because this has been going on since 2014. Jesus. And so... Yeah, so I go, yeah, I'll fucking go. So, hey, pack up the fucking shit. Wow. How are the crowds? We're flying coach.

Well, no, I just went to meet the comic.

Yeah, it was open mic. They set up a whole thing. You'll see it in the, they set him all up. Like the one comedian I know that I've been emailing with, he set it all up. He's great. Vasyl Baiduk. And he's well known over there too. And he set it up and he had this duo from Eurovision. They had the number one pop hit.

going on so he wouldn't tell people all the comics why they're coming to open mic you just you have to be there so they come out and they think oh this is the surprise that they're fucking gonna do their number one hit at the end of the right and then they introduce me and oh yeah fuck that's so yeah the language barrier like i was doing a couple of small fucking bits but yeah it's no no point and then but hung out all night a couple of times and

But then we got to the front because of that guy, and they said when they saw us firing that fucking hyacinth, we assume on the Russians. We don't know. Oh, my God. They just pulled this and put on your ear things. Jesus Christ. I assume they can drink over there. In Donbass, they said alcohol is more illegal than even cocaine. Come on.

Well, because they get fucking hammered. They're at fucking war, and they're huge underdogs.

So, yeah, I was drinking.

So they asked us, I guess it's hugely illegal, probably on an international level, to let civilians come over and just... fire the biggest gun in their artillery. Was it fun as hell to fire that thing? I didn't know I was going to do it.

I had brought... They do auctions, and this is what Vasil had told me, that most of the shows that they do are... They do auctions at the end to support the military. Like, financially, they're paying for that fucking missile that I fired, an artillery shell.

To hit diamond status.

So, uh, when I knew there was doing auctions, I brought my mother's ashes, a vial of my mother's ashes, uh, because, uh, I couldn't sell those on eBay here. I tried to, I get the mother. I don't give a fuck. They're ashes. It's nothing. So I tried to sell them on eBay to benefit, uh, the, not the ASPCA, but humane society because mother was a cat lady. All right, that's a great place. And, uh,

within hours. It's fucking going up, up. I'm like, holy shit. And then that's shut down. Not only is it against eBay terms of service, it's against federal law to sell remains, which is bullshit.

What? For all that? Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. Damn, I wish there was like a hack and you could just kind of, I guess with passports. Well, they don't even do miles anymore. Now it's all dollars. Now you just have to spend the money. Now you have to look for the shortest flight that costs the most to get.

Wet guts. So I brought over a vintage ashtray with mother's ashes in it to sell at auction, which is addressed in the podcast. So then when we went to the front lines, I still had Vasil said, save some. So they had me put fucking ashes into the artillery shell, which they let us fucking film that. They said, it doesn't even matter if I talk about firing the fucking thing.

They just can't show the actual me pulling the fucking trigger.

Yeah. So I'm fucking, I'm just standing back the whole time. I'm like, no, no, you put the ashes into the shell. And I'm smoking. I quit smoking a year and a half ago. I started smoking for Ukraine. Ukraine doesn't matter.

yeah right i come up to put the ashes in the shell but i have a cigarette my mother like no no no no yeah yeah sorry it's been a while yeah and so then i step away again and like no sign the shell So I wrote Mother's Final Flight, I think I wrote, on the shell. Then I walk away again. I'm fucking, I don't like, I have an irrational fear of balloons. Things that might pop.

So fucking artillery shells. I'm backing up and they're like, no, no. No, no.

Use your left hand, your right hand, but stay to the left. Whoa. And then they're like, well, you can't show that part. So it's just that part. He actually figured out CGI to make us cartoonish just for pulling the trigger, and then it goes right back. You might have killed a guy. Yeah, exactly. That's addressed in there, too. A guy. Maybe a platoon.

I wasn't looking at the final outcome. Yeah, yeah. I had no part in the war part. You never know where your career is going to take you.

Yeah, in Ukraine? That's crazy. I was going to say it could have been North Koreans, but that was before they got there. Good point. Crazy. Do you know Yoshi?

He's got porn relations. No. Kind of a comedian. No, Asian guy? Yeah. I don't know Yoshi. Yeah, he's a comedian. Now he's like, oh, I'm going over there too. Yoshi. Oh, God, you're quick.

Oh, he said, oh, I'm going over there, too. And he jacked up Andy for our connection. And so Vasil sends a picture of him with Yoshi. And God knows what. You know, the guys that like Yoshi's never done anything bad to us. But you go, I think he probably spins a lot of yarns to get in the clubs. You know, the guy that's. Yeah, but that's not what I think of as networking.

But the point is, like, now. Yeah, but now he's- Don't hook up that Ukraine wreck. Andy was saying, like, why would you go now that North Koreans- Oh, yeah.

Yeah. He did the Paddington voice. Oh, really? He did the Paddington voice. Sketch. Oh, sketch.

He wasn't doing crowd work.

What the hell? I had said the night before we went to the front, because we really had no idea what to expect from the minute I said yes.

And that lady said, I could go. You can't even fly in there. We had to fly to Poland and then fucking take... Wow. We hired a car to drive us in and then took the train back when we left, 15 hours, and not like a fucking Amtrak. There's no dining car. It's like...

What's this?

Whoa. Oh, yeah, we get to do that, too. Whoa. Not kill people, but actually be controlling drones. just to see what it's like. And if you've done any VR, it's times you're like, I just ping-ponged the first time and fell over. Right. Oh, jeez.

Will this wind be so mighty as to lay low the mountains of the earth?

No. Come by the cellar, man. Yeah, you never do. Why? What about New York Comedy Club? No, I'm going to find a bar maybe between here and... Oh, my hotel does have a shitty bar. Where are you staying? This won't come out for a while. Three blocks away. I use points. It's Voco or...

Yeah, they're not spending money. You don't get the perks. Are you guys like...

He shot it. Does he still do the Killing Iguanas? Yes. We want to film that for a podcast. Yes. All right, this actually brings me back to where I lost track, where the day before we went to the front, I said, if it got to a point where I go, I don't think I could fucking kill Russians because I would think, hey, they don't want to be here. They're fucking drafted.

It was weird to be on that side of a war, where any war we know about, we were on their fucking backyard. So to think of it where these guys got fucking drafted, I go, I don't think I could cut to you. And he fucking got to fire next. And he did a full fucking curly from the three stooges after it went off because he fucked it up. He didn't pull it hard enough. So it kind of started a fire.

But it didn't. And he had to do it like three times. And then kaboom. And it's a flash that you have your eyes squinted. At least I do. It's like... And you can still see the bright orange fucking light. And it's so fucking like tremor. Like if I hadn't shit my pants.

And Andy does it and goes. Wow. That's a bucket list. God damn it. See, now you put me right back on fucking path and now I lost myself. Key West. Key West. Tom Gustin. Yes, that's okay. I don't know if I could kill an iguana. You could do it. I know I would have a harder time killing an iguana than maybe killing a Russian. Yeah, well, these are more people.

By the way, for you guys listening, iguanas are like fucking rats down there. Rats. They're pests and they're a nuisance. If you go when it's freezing out, the first time I went in a dusty place. We've never killed a rat. Well, you would if you haven't. I would. I would.

I think, doesn't he do it with a blowgun?

Yeah, he's got like an air gun. Oh, okay. I want to do it with a blowgun because I keep, I'm telling this story wrong and now my version's more interesting. I'm packing a blowgun. There we go. I think if I could hit an iguana with a blow dart, that iguana had it coming. God hated that iguana.

There's no dates for these things.

No, I think he's sticking with that. And he's Australian, so he knows what's up. Hell yeah. And we don't really have acts yet. That special that came out, that was pretty much it since the last time I toured Australia. So what I didn't put... in the special, I already worked out in Australia to decide it's not going in the special. So it's really the worst fucking...

Yeah.

No. You know what? It's weird. I thought, should I bring these? Yes. I can't sleep. All right. I guess you don't have a border here to have a connection.

I'm going to have to.

We're going to Australia for a reason.

That was good. Well, I write down... I wrote more shit in a notebook since I woke up at 10 a.m. Like, all right, this could work. Just being here with you, like, I'm going to go do this. I don't hang out with comics. I don't have comedy. There's no comedy club within fucking four hours of me. Wow. So I don't...

And I'm going to do this. There you go. Because you don't have the fucking Joe DeRosa seat. I understand why he wants to, like, all right, it's awkward to talk to him. If you want a seat over there, we can get you one. The early Rogan podcast where he did it at his house and it's just a couch and one camera and you're, like, trying to talk to each other like this.

Less than that. Yeah. No, I come here when it's a fucking cash cow. If I'm going to do comedy, I'm going to wait until it's tight.

Hang out! No, I hang out with comics. Every time I go to the seller, do you want to do a spot?

But you're one of the greats.

Yes. That's how I stay that way. I'm not failing miserably trying to do fucking 10 minutes, which I don't have. Walk the road. I can do an hour and 15 easier than 10. Good point.

With the lady that wouldn't leave? Yes. Again, I have no memory except for the really awful shit. Yeah, there was a lady that came as a guest of one of my good friends. Yes. They worked in finance. I get fucking Morgan Stanley or some shit. And she just hated me up front and wouldn't leave. You were just talking about a lady like this who was on her phone the whole time.

She hated you, but you said you did it right. Was that you? I think it was probably you. A lady. She was on the fucking right-hand side of the stage. And you tell her she hated me. And you do the whole thing. And at the end, you go, by the way, you must have hated me. No, that was Ari.

Oh, that was Ari?

Yeah, that is nice. Yeah, the right answer was how the conversation started in that, just leave. Yeah. You walk out, just, hey, it's not for me.

That's the only time I've ever been tempted to watch a... Fucking awards show. Yeah. There's just so like self-congratulatory. Just the, they exist bothers me. I remember they got an award. She was so fucking good on that Tom Brady thing. Yeah. Yeah. I think she got her boobs done.

Yes. I was going to ask you, how much, because the whole crowd work thing that is ubiquitous, how much do you think that's empowering the fucking audience? I don't think it's that. To think they have a say.

Is it locked in an algorithm that you can't get out of? Oh. We all are. I don't know if don't show me this channel or not interested is, but they don't work. Right. And you watched one thing once, and can I stop this?

Faces of death. That's old. All these women's butts. I'm like, gross. I'll say that off the air. Some things you don't want to fucking even give any attention to. Yeah, yeah. Don't do it. But there's one that a friend of mine sent me. It was from Rumble or something. Oh, boy. And now that was like months ago. And I watched maybe 10 minutes. I'm like, I can't do this. I was a kid, faces of death.

Yeah. And now that it's all real. I know. But like, oh, no, I can't. And it tortured me forever. Really? And now people are catching on because it got to other sites. Oh, boy. Can you give us a hint of what you saw? India. That's all I needed, Indian. And I'm in it because I had a fucking bit on my last special about Indian gang rape. And they just took the most racist-y parts of what I did.

You have to, if you're going to be racist or whatever, you have to do it quickly and have the, oh, that makes it okay part come right away. You can't make them wait for eight, ten minutes for the, oh, now I see what he was doing. No one has eight or ten minutes.

Yeah, well, that's how much money I have, to get back to your point, is where I'll just keep doing what I'm doing. As long as I can pay for fucking, Three cheap seats to fucking Warsaw to get to Ukraine and stay at a Holiday Inn.

Yeah. I want to break even and I want to go back to playing gigs that I love to do, which are small shithole, like the one nighter. I've never played Asbury Lanes.

I'm sure that's one of those gigs I'd love, but my own. I'd just go, hey, let's go, me and Andy, let's go have fucking fun like we used to and not give a shit about the money. I love it. Where people are just happy you showed up. Yes, here, here.

I'm not going to forget the bodega.

Promo code Stanhope. Buy bodega cap. Use promo code Stanhope.

Yeah, and I was nobody, obviously. I'm still nobody, but I was really nobody. And someone goes, hey, there's a party at Bill Maher's house. I had just moved to L.A., maybe 96, 95, 96. Had to be 96, because it was Fourth of July. And she's like, hey, there's a party if you want to go and crash it. And I'm like, yeah. I would do everything when I was young. It's free booze, and he's a comic. Yeah.

And I show up and it's all like just one of those industry parties where it's still kind of daylight and everyone's like, no one's really talking. And if they are, it's industry talking to industry. And you hope, oh, Jeff Cesario's here, but I'm fucking 19 and he's still 60. Right. And so at some point I drink enough of their free booze that I fucking, I used to get naked all the time.

That's why it's like when Louie pulled his dick out in front of people. I've had so many people have seen my dick. If there was a class action lawsuit, you couldn't pass out enough fucking mailers. Yeah. So I just jump in their pool naked. Yep. He's in the pool now. They're like, eh. I thought, hey, come on, I'll start the party. And nothing. And then he's not even at the party. He's upstairs.

And then he comes down like fucking, not Rocky Balboa, but fucking his opponent, Apollo Creed. He comes down wearing a fucking 4th of July top hat. Oh, man. And this is like politically incorrect. Right. But he comes down and he's just Hugh Hefnering. But as a troll, he's always been a troll and he's just grown into it so horrifically.

I remember seeing an episode of him making fun of Kim Jong Un's fucking hair. And you go, look in the fucking mirror. Yeah. You have a fucking helmet of this ridiculous bulbous nose. You're a fucking... And I'm not a person to fucking point... Fingers and awkward heads.

But it takes one to know one. He comes down, and now, oh, the party starts down. Everyone's, oh, Bill Maher's coming down his staircase. And then he jumps in the fucking pool. Then everyone's jumping in the fucking pool. And this one girl who was, I'm not being Fonzie, and I'm not sure if it was Sweden or Switzerland, but she was a Swedish... Flight attendant. That's a very Fonzie thing.

So I'm just hanging out with her at the other end of the pool. And LA, 4th of July, fucking sun goes, it gets fucking cold. So we get out of the pool when it's finally wrapping up and I'm fucking freezing. So I'm with her and we go racing. Let's jump in a hot shower. So we jump in a shower. It's not like he only has one.

It's the opposite of a pedophile. Feels like seven. Yeah, I feel like Gloria Gaynor trying to get her voice ready to do a show at the state fair now that she's 79. Is she a will survive?

But he found us in the shower. Hey, there's no shower scenes in my house. Let's wrap it up. Whoa. Because she was one of the only chicks left. Ah, he didn't like that. Hot shower with her. We weren't even close to fucking her out. Come on. We were literally freezing. Okay. No, I would have fucked her for sure, but she wasn't throwing off that kind of vibe. Got it, got it.

She was kind of like, no, we don't belong here. We both had that in common.

Which doesn't lead to fucking. again if i if i had game that night if i would have all right but then so i had to leave and it it was when i first moved to la so my manager was trying to get me on politically incorrect because it was kind of suitable for me and like yeah that's over now so so i i uh i i mailed uh

Letter to Bill Maher with a key to my apartment at 1204 North Curzon Avenue, apartment 9. Here's a key to my apartment. Feel free to show up anytime you want. Come in, drink all my booze, and fuck up my stuff, and use the shower. Doug Stanton.

God damn it. That guy was great. He's great. Done again. Yeah. I'm sorry. There's a million shout outs that I wanted to make on this and I didn't get to all of them. But that was nice because I've heard the name a million times. But to see that and then it was so confusing when he would like, are you playing Bill Maher on the fucking screen or is he doing it? He's doing that exact. He's that good.

Mike, what's his name? And Henry Phillips. Mike Judge? No, no, Mike. He's Mike McRae. Oh, yeah. He was the one who would be on Stern and could do a perfect... It's always great when they can do a perfect... A guy you don't know. Sorry, when you do that... I'm trying to get him to pull it up. Mitt Romney. Mitt Romney?

You almost voted for Mitt Romney because Mike McCrae could do this... How do you do someone who doesn't really sound like anything, but he could do it? And...

So Mike McCrae and Henry Phillips were on a podcast where he was doing Henry. Yeah. And it was back in the audio days. And you really couldn't tell who's talking to who. They're talking to each other.

The problem is no one remembers what Mitt Romney sounds like, so you can't do them. But to hear them back and back.

Let me go get my fucking... Oh, I got my bodega cat. That's all I came for. Hey, my special discount meet is free on YouTube, and this is the only podcast that I am doing promotion for it. Oh, my God. So if it fails, every click it doesn't get... It's on us.

That's not how I order it. Thank you. Even like an old-fashioned sounds cool in Mad Men era, but it's got a muddled orange in it. That's a good point. Your gal will take a sip and go, that's nice. I'll have one of those.

You know what I didn't know? People give you money on YouTube comments. Is that right? I never read the comments, but then I'm like, yeah. You go through the comments, and it's like Czechoslovakia. I got like 1,000 Czechoslovakian nuggets or whatever they're called. Fucking dogs or wangs or whatever.

Yeah, it's a great one. I'm just looking at everything center, hall, theater, and then the egg. That's the one I would like.

Yeah. What's that? It's just a- Tell me off the air. I'll tell you off the air. I've tried to close this like five times.

My go-to is vodka soda splash grapefruit or cran. Nice. That's a good drink. Fresh squeezed grapefruit. Can't beat that. But I try to change up, especially if I'm drinking out. I want something I can't make at home. Right. Oh, good point. I can't even make a Bloody Mary.

Well, not a good one. I'll drink V8 and vodka because it feels healthy. Yeah, right. And it is.

Yes. You know, I've heard you guys say that. It's not that bad. The sodium level is not really as bad as you think. I remember drinking tomato juice as a kid where my dad would put salt in it.

Oh, yeah. That's how he would pour it.

Clamato's pretty damn good. The gelatas.

Worcester. Remember when you guys were fucking showing a guy Fieri. Don't pronounce it like he does. Yeti. But you're drinking the Bloody Marys with the fucking lobster in it. Do you remember that? Oh, yeah. Good times. Yeah, I'm not putting bacon and shit. Exactly, exactly.

Bring it on. I'm not going to turn it back. It's kind of fun. It's a meal. There was a bar in Madison that used to do porn and eggs on Sunday morning where they'd show old 70s porn on the TV, kind of with plot. More plot than fucking, and they have that and a breakfast buffet with giant Bloody Marys. Heaven on Earth.

I never made it because we would just get so fucked up on Saturday night that no one's getting up. But I've tried to recreate it at my house. I've found some... Like flapper girl fucking 30s porn. Yeah. They've made compilations of, you know, the girls dancing. It's like softcore so you can invite your neighbors. It's a lot of pasties and an occasional nipple.

It's not like... But we did that for about three or four hours until everyone was kind of sauced with mimosas into Bailey's and Irish coffee and into Bloody Mary's and into sneak in some fucking hardcore tranny porn.

People have all stopped watching the TV. Oh, there you go.

That's why I have to face this way.

It's Tampa. Every fucking town you play, the guy that picks you up at the airport tells you, it's got the most churches and strip clubs per capita. If that tells you anything about Houston, Jacksonville, fucking every town. Portland. They have some. There it is. It's a great club. It's always unverifiable. You're like, Bethlehem?

Yeah.

Well, first of all, who else has their tits out in that photograph? Her and Mike Lauren.

You couldn't do porn and eggs at a strip club because everyone's going to turn away from the stripper. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of like you can't do comedy at a strip club.

Yeah, it was a... Teasers was the name of the place. And they have amateur night. It worked out because you just MC for the amateur night. It was just a contest. And it's just professional strippers from other clubs that come try to be ringers and win 50 bucks. But you'd go up in between them. Yeah, fuck with them, but they still didn't even like that 30 seconds of intro.

Well, I think it's slightly more complicated than that because essentially the idea is that it's perfectly legitimate for an aristocrat to succeed to the estate and the fortune and the titles and the glory of his ancestors. No one has a problem with that.

And so the pretense is that the August family, the family of Augustus, are just a family like any other, even though obviously what it brings is the rule of the world. So there is a kind of a veiled hypocrisy about it. You are right. Of course, effectively, it is a monarchy, but nobody wants to admit that. Augustus doesn't want to admit it. Tiberius doesn't want to admit it.

The Senate don't want to admit it. You know, everyone keeps it under a veil. And this will become important in explaining... Caligula's policy as emperor and why he becomes so unpopular with the Senate. But in the meanwhile, he is very exposed. So Tiberius does have a grandson of his own, who's a very little boy called Gemellus. But Caligula, he turns 18. He's summoned by Tiberius to Capri.

And Suetonius is... predictably very vituperative about what Caligula gets up to on Capri. So he writes, "...the island proved a treacherous place for him, rife with attempts either to trick or to pressure him into airing his grievances against Tiberius.

But refusing to take the bait, he behaved as though nothing had happened to his family and their ruin had quite slipped his mind, dismissed the wrongs done him with a straight face so convincing that it and was so ready to cringe and crawl before his grandfather and his courtiers that it has been said of him, quite justifiably, that never was there a better slave nor a worse master.

I mean, how can we rely on this? But

again the kind of the resonance of of the myth is so overwhelming that it kind of becomes historically significant in its own right so tiberius watches caligula it is said encourages him in you know joining in watching tortures or erotic floor shows or whatever and is supposed to have said of of caligula that he was rearing someone fated to prove a viper to the roman people

I mean, that's most improbable. Tiberius was, he felt that he was a deep patriot. He would not have wanted to rear a viper. But this is the perspective that will come to be put on it because, of course, Suetonius and other historians know what is going to happen, know the kind of man that Caligula is going to be. So 16th of March, 37, Tiberius dies.

Inevitably, there is what Suetonius describes as a plausible rumor that Caligula is responsible for it. So Suetonius says that Caligula poisons Tiberius. When he doesn't die, he then smothers him with a pillow. And then when that doesn't work, he strangles him. The death of Rasputin or something. Exactly. But presumably this is all taking place in an empty room. So how anyone would know?

I mean, you don't know. And so Caligula then becomes Princeps. Effectively, there isn't anyone else who can... take his place. Gemellus is still, I think he's eight or nine, something, so no way that he can succeed. And so he becomes emperor. And he does so as someone with very, very little experience of public life in Rome.

of how the Senate functions, of the role played by the magistracies, all of these kind of things, which, of course, both Augustus and Tiberius had absolutely been raised in before they became emperor. He also has no military experience. He doesn't really have any friends or allies among the senatorial elite.

And so you may wonder, well, that being so, how could this very young man possibly succeed to the role of the world? And the answer is, is that Caligula clearly has a very kind of unsentimental and you might say pitiless intelligence. And the reason that he hasn't bothered working out how the Senate behave or, you know, the role of the consuls or anything

is that he's recognised that that effectively doesn't really matter anymore, that there are much more significant centres of power in the state, of which the most obvious is this group of guards called the Praetorians. So a Praetorium is the military headquarters and the Praetorian guards are the guards that traditionally look after someone who is in military command.

And Augustus, in his role as supreme commander of the various legions across the empire, You know, he has to have his own Praetorian. And so he has his Praetorian guards and Tiberius has them as well. And he has built the Praetorians a great military base and the walls of Rome. And Caligula has recognized that this is what matters.

And so he's made sure to square them and particularly the head of the Praetorians, a guy called Macro. He also, of course, has the blood of the deified Augustus in his veins. So there's a touch of the divine there. And the people, as we've said, adore him because he is the son of Germanicus. And so when Caligula accompanies Tiberius's body to Rome... He is mobbed and cheered the whole way.

And again, to quote Suetonius, ecstatic crowds of well-wishers called him their shining light, their chick, their poppet, their baby boy. The senators, you know, they're watching this and thinking, oh, lordy. I mean, there's nothing we can do about this. And so they vote, the 24-year-old Caligula, all the powers that it had taken Augustus a lifetime to accumulate.

And obviously they're not particularly happy about that. They must stick in their craw. Yeah, there's nothing, you know, what can they do? They've just got to suck it up.

Yeah, he does. And again, I was thinking perhaps of Charles Spencer. That's not the first one.

No. But in that speech that Charles Spencer gave at his sister's funeral, which kind of really ratcheted up the sense of kind of melodrama and emotional intensity. Caligula, he recognises that his status as the son of Germanicus and of Agrippina is is an important part of his kind of mythos, of his image.

So the moment he's arrived in Rome and become emperor, no sooner has he done that than he's off on a ship off to the prison islands where his mother and his elder brother had died. And he scoops up their ashes and he returns to Rome and he sails up the Tiber. He's on this great ship with his standard fluttering proudly in the prow.

And he lands and he then walks, rather as his mother had walked with the ashes of Germanicus, he walks with the ashes of his mother and his brothers to the great mausoleum of Augustus on the Campus Martius where he lays them. And he does this, Suetonius specifies, at midday when the city was at its busiest. So he wants everyone to see him. And he then goes out of his way

to kind of issue proclamations, essentially saying, you know, the grim age of Tiberius is over. It's a golden age has come. I am a kind of shining model of munificence and benignity. So he issues amnesties to all those who are facing trial on charges that had been brought against them while Tiberius was living.

He revives the popular elections, so the elections, you know, for magistracies that Tiberius had abolished. This goes down well with the people. And he gives a solemn promise that he will never do anything to make anyone hate him and will never give ear to informers. So this is his manifesto.

Also in contrast to Tiberius, very pointed contrast to Tiberius, he lays on all kinds of spectacular shows. So we talked in the previous episode how Tiberius despises the things that the mass of the people like. He has no time for gladiatorial shows. Tiberius' idea of a good time is to have a kind of pub quiz. He likes setting quizzes on literary matters and things like that.

That's his idea of a good time. Not Caligula's. So there are gladiators, there are beast shows, there are chariot races. And Caligula particularly likes chariot races. You know, he identifies very strongly with one of the particular teams, kind of backs them very strongly. And he loves scattering largesse.

So he will do this thing where there are kind of tokens and he'll throw these tokens out into the crowd. And depending on which token you pick up, you will get something. So it might be, I don't know, just a barn or something, or it might be a villa. So he likes to sit there and watch people scrabbling and elbowing each other out of the way to grab them.

And so it only says he was tireless in promoting shows of every description on stages across Rome and sometimes even did so by night, making the whole city blaze with light.

Yeah, and the Roman tradition, which had been manifest throughout the Republic, is that it's brilliant to be old. So that's why Republican portrait busts, they're always showing themselves with kind of sagging jowls and crow's feet and everything like that. And there's an instinctive sense that young people...

are just kind of naturally violent and aggressive and haven't learnt to temper their appetites. And Caligula seems set on kind of illustrating this. So they resent the way that he kind of makes jokes and he sniggers loudly, which is obviously very off-putting if you're giving a grand oration in the Senate. They hate the way that he's always going on about chariot racing.

Caligula has a kind of thing, I mean, it's basically kind of a bit like driving a very fast sports car. He has an insane number of horses that draw him on his chariot through the streets of Rome. He's cutting a dash in a way that they find very, very offensive. And of course, you know, all these gladiator shows and stuff, I mean, it's expensive. Tiberius had been very, very abstemious and mean.

So the treasury is quite full, but Caligula's kind of burning through it at an absolute rate of knots. But they haven't really got any choice except to hold their breath and cross their fingers and trust that everything works. we'll be okay.

And it is a good sign for them that along with all his other kind of measures designed to make him look good, he said that he's, you know, there aren't going to be any more treason trials. We're not going to have them. So you can rely on that.

So the first eight months of his rule, you know, there were worrying signs, but there hasn't been kind of any major confrontation between Caligula and the Senate. And then in October 37, so as you say, eight months after coming to power, Caligula falls ill. And this is a very dangerous moment because this isn't a formal monarchy.

There isn't really, there aren't set rules establishing how, you know, when one princeps dies, a new princeps comes to power. And so the moment Caligula falls ill, it looks like he's going to die. All the heavyweights in his administration are scrabbling around trying to work out who his successor will be.

And the obvious successor is this young lad, Gemellus, kind of, you know, 13 or 14 by this point. Tiberius' only grandson. So they are going off and kind of paying court to him and preparing to elevate him to the throne. And meanwhile, there is this absolute toady, this lickspittle, a guy called Atanius, who swears a solemn oath that if only the gods will restore Caligula to health.

then he will go into the arena and fight publicly as a gladiator. And obviously, he doesn't expect that this would happen. It would be unthinkable for someone of his rank and age to go into the arena and fight a trained killer. But he's basically hedging his bets. If Caligula survives, then it'll be great. He'll approve of his loyalty. And if he doesn't, then no one will remember it.

And then he gets murdered by his own guards at the age of 28. And in that time, he doesn't win any great military victories. He's not responsible for any great monuments. And yet, as you say, I mean, he has to be up there with Julius Caesar, Augustus.

Caligula does recover, I think, against the odds. And he rises from his sickbed and he's informed what Artanius has done and also more significantly what the captain of the Praetorians and his leading senatorial backers, what they've been up to going around and paying court to Gemellus. And he moves with absolute lethal dispatch. So first off, he sends two soldiers to Gemellus.

who sit the boy down and take out their knives and show Gemellus the best way to kill himself and then stand there and watch while Gemellus kills himself. And that's the end of him. Gemellus's would-be patrons, including the prefect of the Praetorians, are likewise ordered to commit suicide, which they do.

And Atanius, this guy who has vowed that he will fight a gladiator if only Caligula recovers. Well, so this is what Suetonius says happened. Caligula takes him at his word and he forces this poor guy. I mean, he's not at all the kind of person who is fitted either by background or I think by physique to face up to a trained gladiator out into the arena. Atanius is killed very briskly.

He's dragged off with a hook across the sand. His body is dumped and Caligula's sense of humour has this kind of bloody punchline. And People in the arena undoubtedly found it funny. I mean, it's exactly the kind of joke that would have appealed to a crowd of people gathered to watch blood sports.

But it also sends a pretty chilling message to the Roman elites that, you know, there's no more Mr. Nice Guy. And there's the definite sense that Caligula has been biding his time And now that he has the evidence that some of the Senate have been conspiring against him as he sees it by kind of going after Gabellas, he is ready for the kill.

And Suetonius, he has this kind of wonderful pivot in his biography. It's one of, I think, the single greatest line ever written in any biography ever. Where he writes, enough of the princeps. What remains to be described is the monster.

Nero as one of the most famous Romans who's ever lived. And as you say, I mean, right up to the present day, complete byword for cruelty. And also for sexual depravity. Yeah. Because he was, what was it, that thing, that kind of sub-porn film. From the 70s. Where John Gilgit embarrassed himself by... Sitting in a bath.

One of my green flags is if I meet someone who loves John Lennon, I know we're going to be great friends.

As the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise. Discover your relationship green flags with BetterHelp. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com slash rest is history. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash rest is history.

So there are various examples that Suetonius gives of the character of a monster that he says Caligula has. Perhaps the most shocking is that Caligula demands worship as a god. So Augustus is worshipped as a god, but not in his lifetime. Augustus had really stamped down against any thought of that. But Caligula, Suetonius says he's all in.

So Suetonius reports that Caligula orders some of the most famous statues of the gods from Greece. Brought to Rome, he replaces the heads of the gods with his own head. Senators compete to serve him as priests. They offer up all kinds of sacrifices to him. So Suetonius specifies flamingos, peacocks, black grouse, two varieties of guinea hen, pheasants.

There are times when Caligula will dress up as various gods, so sometimes as Jupiter, even shockingly as Venus. And there are other times where he will claim to be talking to Jupiter. So this is all clear evidence of either monstrousness or insanity or both. Suetonius says that he essentially goes out of his way to humiliate the elites in every way he can.

So, yeah, so the kind of the flavour of scandal and depravity hangs over him. And some of the episodes from his life, I mean, you know, they're very well known. So he's said to have slept with his sisters, turned his palace into a brothel. Yep. He likes to humiliate senators, so he'll have them kind of run by his chariot or serve him at dinner, kind of dressed up as slaves.

And obviously the most humiliating thing that you can do to a senator is to treat him as a slave.

So Suetonius specifies that he would brand senators, equestrians who had offended him with branding irons, after which, Suetonius writes, he would condemn them either to the mines or to the building of roads or to be thrown to wild beasts or to be shut up in cages on all fours like animals or to be sawn in half. So none of that's fun.

He takes his vendetta against the elites, even to the extent of toppling their ancestors. So statues of famous men from Rome's past, Suetonius says, are toppled and smashed to pieces. And he also says that members of the aristocracy with famous names, they're told to get rid of these names. So the Pompeys, for instance, Pompey the Great, they have this name Magnus.

They're told they can't use that anymore. That would be the kind of example. And there's also very kind of pointed sexual humiliations that he inflicts on them. So he will invite senators and their wives to dinner. And while they're kind of lying there, Caligula will appraise the various wives of these senators.

If there's one that he particularly feels drawn to, he'll take her away, sleep with her. and then send her back to her husband, all kind of disheveled and is making it very clear what's happened. Caligula will then come back and offer a kind of commentary on her performance. And the wretched husband just kind of lies there looking a bit sick.

And this is where the detail comes in that Caligula sets up a brothel in his own great palace on the Palatine Hill above the Forum. And he staffs it with married women and boys, both of whom are of very high status. So, I mean, all good stuff.

Yeah, that's right. And so it is difficult to kind of to get a sense of it as a narrative. But I think it's just about possible if you map Suetonius' account with the various other fragments of evidence that we have to kind of get a narrative of Caligula's reign. So, you know, he comes to power first eight months. It's kind of OK.

There's nothing particularly shocking from the senatorial point of view that's happening, even though there is a sense of menace. Then he falls ill. When he recovers, he eliminates Gamalus, his own conceivable rival, and anyone who he thinks might be a kind of particular figure of opposition to him.

And he continues in the wake of his recovery from that illness to pay lip service to his partnership with the Senate in the way that Augustus had done, in the way that Tiberius had done. But then it seems that two years into his reign, he's finally had enough and there is this most spectacular showdown. And he summons the Senate and addresses them

and expresses to them in the most bold, uncompromising way, his utter contempt for everything that they represent. He strips away all these hypocrisies that we were talking about earlier, this pretense that the Senate in some way have any autonomy or power. that Rome is a partnership between the Princeps and the Senate. He says this is absolute nonsense. It's ludicrous.

The idea that Rome is a republic, madness. I am a monarch. I have complete authority over you. You are nothing. You are worms. And just for good measure, he then announces that he is reintroducing the treason trials that he had announced were cancelled with such trumpeting two years before. And the Senate, are so stunned by this that they don't really know what to say.

And Caligula sweeps out and they all just kind of sit there, ashen-faced, as Private Eye would put it. And the following day, they all kind of reconvene and... They pass a formal vote in which they formally thank Caligula for his sincerity and the intelligence of his comments. They praise him for his piety. And they say, such wonderful clemency from Caesar.

The consuls forget his birthday, and so he sacks them. And probably the most notorious story of all at least this is how it's understood, is that he made his horse in Catartus a consul. Yes. Actually, that's not quite what Suetonius says, but we'll be looking at that and perhaps teasing out what that whole story might have been.

Even though we're worms, he's still, you know... We should offer him multiple sacrifices as a way of expressing our gratitude for his clemency and his general all-round decency.

He has the Praetorians. He has lavished bribes on the Praetorians. They are the only soldiers in Rome. So as long as he has the Praetorians on board, there's nothing really that the Senate can do. He also has lavished money on the legions because ultimately,

One of the other many hypocrisies that Caligula is kind of ripping to shreds is the idea that the role of the princeps is as anything other than a military commander. He is basically, I mean, he's not drawing attention to it deliberately, but he is making manifest

that the underpinning of the entire system that Augustus has set up, which is supposed to be this partnership between the emperor and the Senate, is actually founded on the support of the legions. That's what matters. And so it's not surprising that senatorial opponents of Caligula recognize this as well. And of course, the commanders of the legions are themselves senators. And so Caligula

There is a conspiracy against him. And it's not surprising that it's focused not in Rome, but on the Rhine, which is where you have the highest concentration of legions in the entire empire.

And it seems to have involved numerous senators, two of Caligula's sisters, interestingly, and most dangerously of all, the guy who effectively has the command of the legions on the Rhine, who is a very seasoned general and a very experienced guy at kind of negotiating all the various changes in regimes and things, a man called Gaitulicus. And...

Again, the accounts of this are very garbled, but you can kind of piece together that Caligula is alerted to what's happening and he moves with very, very impressive energy and speed. Sets off from Italy for the Rhine. It's his first trip outside Italy as emperor. Descends and surprises Gertulicus, who is arrested and executed. Caligula sisters are sent to prison islands.

So that thing you read at the beginning about Caligula saying to them, you know, I have swords as well as islands. So in other words, stay on the island and stay put or else I will have you hacked to death with swords. And the Senate then endures this absolute reign of terror. So Caligula Caligula goes to Germany. This is when he raises more legions.

It's when he does that whole thing with the shells on the shore of the channel, which we talked about in our series on Roman Britain, and which I frankly said then, and repeat, I've no idea what's going on with that. I mean, there are so many theories. We don't know. It's an example of, I think, of just how garbled lots of the stories that are told about Caligula becomes.

And when you were reading that, people on the YouTube will have been able to see that, but when you talked about having throats cut, you turned and kind of grinned at me in a menacing way. And I think there is a slight element of kind of very, very dark comedy there. About me or about Caligula, or are we the same?

But anyway, he then comes back from Germany in Gaul. And while he's in Gaul, he's met by various emissaries from the Senate. And Caligula tells them, I no longer acknowledge your authority. I despise you. I do not recognize that you have authority. any kind of role to play in the running of the empire.

And it's on his return to Rome, it seems that the horrors and the outrages that Suetonius lists, which we just went through, that they seem to have been perpetrated. And it's a reign of terror that works because the Senate is effectively left completely broken. You know, they feel powerless before him. They grovel before him and just, you know, like,

And I think that that's why he has the fame that he does. So in recent times, he's become almost a kind of existential hero.

So this notion that politics is purely about power and Caligula is perhaps the emperor who most brutally demonstrates that, most brutally recognizes it. But having said that, he does make one terrible mistake. So you ask, well, what's the basis of his power? The basis of his power is his popularity with the Praetorians.

And so it is foolish of him then that he can't... Caligula does seem to have loved a joke. And he can't resist making a joke even about Praetorians. And there is one Praetorian in particular, a guy called Cassius Kyria, who's actually rather like me. He's massive, you know, huge gym toned body, enormous rippling muscles. but has perhaps a slightly effeminate voice, a slightly soft voice.

And so Caligula finds the combination of, you know, the muscle man and the kind of the slightly female sounding voice very amusing. Yes. And so Suetonius writes, Caligula would make priapus or Venus the watchword. And sometimes when the tribune had reason to thank him for something, Caligula would hold out his hand to be kissed, then make an obscene gesture with his fingers.

It's obviously very funny for all Caligula's hangers-on. You do that with Theo. I do, I do. So the time will come where he will inflict a terrible vengeance, because what happens is that Cacicairea and various other Praetorians organise a conspiracy, and this is much more fatal. As is proven on the 24th of January, AD 41, Caligula is about to leave for Alexandria.

About you, about Suetonius' account, and perhaps about Caligula himself, wouldn't you say? I mean, there's a kind of quality of grand guignol. About all three of these people. So I think Suetonius is clearly revealing. I think there's a certain quality of black humor there. And actually, when I was translating, I felt it very, very kind of vividly.

So there's, you know, if you're a conspirator, you need to get a move on. And that day he's staging a games in this great temporary theater on the Palatine. Caligula seems to be in an absolutely brilliant mood. He hasn't reserved any seats for the senators, so he sits there and enjoys watching them scrabble and try and get the best seat. He finds that very funny.

Also finds it very funny when a flamingo is sacrificed and the blood of this flamingo splashes all over one of the senators, you know, blotting his robe. And so Caligula has a good laugh about that as well. Lunch comes, he decides he'll go and eat in the privacy of his own palace. So he stands up and heads off towards his own private quarters.

He's just about to go inside when he's approached by a courtier who tells him that some Greek boys of very noble background have been rehearsing a musical in his honour. And so Caligula turns aside to inspect them. And actually, I think that's the kind of interesting example of Caligula not as a monster. I mean, that's quite, you know, he's told these boys have been rehearsing.

He kind of breaks off from going to lunch to go and hear them because, you know, he clearly recognizes that they will appreciate that. And he's walking down this passageway to go and listen to these Greek boys when he runs into Cassius Kyria. And Cassius Kyria asks for the day's password. And as usual, it's an insulting one. So, you know, I'm a massive girl's blouse, something like that.

Cassius Carrieri is not amused. He draws his sword and he strikes at Caligula's neck. It misses and hits the shoulder blade. Caligula stumbles, crashes down onto the ground, but he's still very much alive. He's followed by his litter bearers. They have kind of great wooden poles and they come to the rescue of Caligula.

Again, a kind of illustration of the way in which he can command a degree of loyalty, but there's no prospect of them being able to defend Caligula because Cassius Carrieri is backed up with Praetorians who have They have hard steel. And Caligula is soon kind of on the ground being slashed to pieces by a kind of hail of swords. He's dead. Cassius Chaerea decapitates him.

We're told that several of the Praetorians stabbed their swords through Caligula's genitals. So again, this idea of kind of sexual humiliation, which Caligula had repeatedly practiced, and now it's kind of inflicted on him. And there are even rumours that some of them pick up and eat his flesh, which I'm sure is exaggerated. So this is where Josephus comes into his own, the great Judean historian.

He has quite a detailed account that seems to draw on quite authoritative sources. And so Caligula perishes as he had lived, kind of shadowed by horror, by horrific rumour and by kind of malevolent jokes. And that is the end of him. And so as we approach the end of this episode, it's probably time to just try and kind of go through and work out what kind of credibility can we put on this?

How can we make sense of all these seemingly mad stories that are told about it?

But it's clear that this is often Caligula's as well. So there was one particular account which I absolutely loved because it actually reminded me of the malevolent dwarf Quilp in Charles Dickens's old curiosity shop. And it's Suetonius' description of Caligula standing in front of a mirror.

Right, so there is one... Obvious example of that. There's one story that's told about him that we can be, I'd say, kind of 99% sure isn't true. And that's the story that he committed incest with his sisters. So he has three sisters and his favourite is called Drusilla. And he is clearly devoted to her.

When he falls ill, he names her as his heir, which is a striking thing for a woman in a society as patriarchal as Rome to be appointed the heir of a princeps. She then dies and he does genuinely seem to have been kind of crazed with grief and he proclaims her as a god. And we know that that happens because we have kind of independent evidence for it.

But the idea that he'd been sleeping with her or that he'd been sleeping with his other two sisters, we can be confident that that's not true. I think for two reasons. The first is that the notion that a powerful Claudian, and Caligula is, as well as being a Julian, a Claudian, sleeps with his sisters is an absolute stereotype. It's told about Claudian after Claudian after Claudian.

So it's an accusation that is just kind of waiting to be served up. I mean, you might still say, well, I mean, that doesn't prove that it didn't happen in this case, but it kind of does. And I'll quote you a German scholar, Alois Winteling, who's written brilliantly about Caligula. He points out not only that Suetonius is the first to mention it.

but also that there were contemporaries of Caligula who were familiar with aristocratic circles in Rome and well-informed and who heap invective on the emperor, they would hardly have failed to mention such a charge had it been in circulation then. So they would have mentioned it.

Suetonius is the first person to mention it. Therefore, we can be fairly confident that that accusation isn't true. But that explanation doesn't wash with everything that is told about him. because there are substantiating reports that suggest that some at least of these stories are true. So how do we explain them?

And another possibility, which again, Suetonius is the first to suggest, is that Caligula was mad. So Suetonius writes, it is my theory, and I have no doubt it is the correct one, very modestly, that his mental infirmity was due to the coexistence within his personality of twin but directly contradictory flaws, extreme self-confidence and abject timidity.

but again if he'd been mad contemporaries would have pointed it out they don't Is there not a claim when he fell ill? Yes, it's a popular theory. I don't think there's any evidence for that at all.

Though he had a naturally off-putting and hideous face, he worked diligently in front of a mirror to make it even more so, contorting it into all kinds of fearsome expressions. Yeah, that's what I do. People who've watched the YouTube will be able to see. So I guess the question is, pretty much as it was where we were talking about Tiberius yesterday, is what is going on?

Right, so that's why Suetonius mentions that he's both extremely self-confident and abjectly timid. I mean, I think that's exactly the kind of... example that suggests it. But I mean, that could be true, but it doesn't mean he's mad. And in fact, Caligula seems to have had considerable political acumen. I mean, what he does to the Senate is very, very brutal, but pretty effective.

And when there is that military uprising against him, I mean, he outsmarts a seasoned military commander. So, you know, he may be malevolent, he may be pitiless, he may even be sadistic, but

But I don't think you need it as an explanation because I think it's actually fairly clear where Caligula is coming from. And we've already hinted at it in this episode, which is that Caligula is a populist, or to put it in Latin, a popularis. And we've talked before, both in this series and in the podcast more generally, about how politics in Rome is about vibes rather than about policy.

It's about whether... you appeal to the kind of traditional elites or whether you appeal over their heads to the masses. And you've got to remember that the autocracy established by Augustus has only been in existence for 60 years. And the concrete hasn't set. People who are ruling as emperors are trying to work out what policy they should adopt, what role should be.

I mean, and the people all around him are as well. And Augustus had embodied the popularist tradition and the kind of the more aristocratic traditionalist perspective. Tiberius had been a traditionalist. Caligula... I think partly out of temperament and partly because he correctly recognises the weakness of the Senate, goes all in with the popularist tradition.

So his instinct is to kind of flatter and woo the people, to give them the entertainments that he himself enjoys. And of course, the spectacle of his enjoyment... makes him very, very popular with the people and conversely to kind of turn against the Senate and rather than to appease senators, to crush them. And it's a strategy to which he brings very distinctive qualities.

And I think that one of them clearly is a certain relish for cruelty and domination. I think that the sources are just too insistent on that for us to kind of, you know, whitewash it. I think he clearly was, you know, In that sense, a completely terrifying man.

A very nasty piece of work. And with a particular focus, I think, on sexual humiliation. Again, even if the stories about him sleeping with senators' wives in dinner parties or setting up a brothel on the Palatine are exaggerated, the fact that these stories are told... clearly are drawing on authentic memories of the trauma that senators were made to go through.

And for reasons, again, that we've talked in this series, striking at an aristocratic Roman sense of sexual self-respect is absolutely devastating to their whole sense of status. Caligula correctly identifies that as the way to really kind of break them.

How do we explain all the horrors and the depravities and these kind of grotesque anecdotes that sometimes shade into the kind of the blackest kind of comedy? Did they actually happen? Yeah. If they did, what's the explanation? Was Caligula mad? Was he a sadist? Or is it a bit like we decided, I think, that Tiberius was? Has he been the victim of fake news?

It's so shocking that... Obviously, some of his supporters, some of the people who are prone to support him, just kind of laugh in admiration at how far he has pushed things. And this is a strategy that Nero will adopt as well. And it was a strategy in a kind of much more modulated sense that Julius Caesar had done too.

You know, that you shock people and the shock becomes kind of politically charged. And...

Right. And I think also it's the fact that they have the blood of a god in their veins. And so they can cast themselves as being somehow more than mortal. They're doing the kind of things that gods would do or heroes in Greek mythology. This is very overt with Nero. But it's, I think, pretty clearly the same with Caligula. I think he is kind of blazing that as a policy for an emperor to follow.

I mean, you have to basically be a descendant of Augustus to do it, which is why when Nero dies and there are no more descendants of Augustus to rule as emperor, that tradition ends. But both of them are kind of making play with it. And...

He fuses that sense of essentially behaving like a God, behaving like a kind of, you know, one of a hero from Greek myth with a genius for spectacle and an eye for recognizing how to undercut the privileges and assumptions of the Senate. And the single best example of this, again, a very well-known story,

is that he builds this huge three-mile pontoon bridge in the Bay of Naples, or specifically in the Bay of Bailly, and he then parades across it. First time he rides on a horse, and then he rides in this kind of great chariot. And Suetonius offers this not as an example of his monstrosities, but as one of the good things, you know, one of the positives of his reign.

And in fact, Suetonius' grandfather had watched it and had said how amazing it was. And we don't know exactly when he does this, but I think the likeliest date is when he comes back from Germany and Gaul, because I think it's pretty clear that what he's doing is staging a triumph to upstage all triumphs. Because to hold a triumph on the sea, I mean, that's the kind of thing a god does.

But also triumphs, there's a set route in Rome that you follow, and it's up to the Senate to license them. And Caligula is saying to the Senate,

So this is the last kind of attribute that Caligula brings to his model of kind of targeted terrorism, you might say, which is that he's funny. And people like humour in a domineering political figure. You know, there's kind of contemporary evidence for that, I would say.

And Caligula is, you know, we've said all along that there is a kind of vein of dark comedy in Suetonius's portrait that I think derives from Caligula himself in large part. Suetonius, I think, doesn't get the point of Caligula's joke about his horse. So it's popularly said that Caligula made his horse a consul. That's not what Suetonius says. Suetonius says that he planned to make Incartatus.

a consul. He also claims that Suetonius loves incartatus, which literally means hotspur. So he gives incartatus a stable fashioned out of marble, an ivory manger, purple saddlecloths and collars studded with jewels. And he bestowed as well a fully furnished mansion. Now, all of these are basically the markers of senatorial status. It's what senators want and have.

And to be a consul is the ultimate dream of any ambitious senator. And Caligula, by giving Incitatus a palace and by saying that he can make him a consul, is effectively undermining all the pretensions of the senatorial class. He's saying, you know, I can make my horse a consul or I can make you a consul. It's very humiliating for the Senate. It's very funny for Caligula.

But of course, in the long run, the joke is on him because actually nobody today remembers the joke. It just confirms his reputation as a madman. And it's, you know, the other example of the joke being on Caligula is the fact that Cassius Carrier ends up killing him. And my own suspicion is... I mentioned I went in and talked to the writers of Succession, the Murdoch's as the Caesar's drama.

And I talked all about this period of Roman history. And one of the markers is that Nero and Sporus are constantly being name checked. But I think that the character of Roman Roy, I think, has quite a lot of Caligula in him. I haven't asked specifically whether it was an influence. But he is called Roman. Yeah. He's the most Roman character. I mean, it's literally his name.

Upfront payment of $45 for three-month plan, equivalent to $15 per month required. Intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See full terms at mintmobile.com.

And his character is quite... He's a Caligula who's still waiting in the wings, I think.

Yeah. And I guess that's why Suetonius' portrait of Caligula has been so influential, because it absolutely that idea that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Caligula seems to be the model illustration of that. So since Suetonius is so important to our understanding of Caligula and it's played such an important role in propagating the image of him as the kind of ultimate mad, bad emperor.

I think it's important to trace in some detail exactly what it is that Suetonius has to say about his life and reign. And one thing that will strike anyone who reads it immediately is how incredibly important in Suetonius' account of Caligula the emphasis on his bloodline is, on his pedigree, on his ancestry. And the reason for that, of course, most obviously, is that he comes to power.

He becomes emperor, he becomes princeps, the first man in Rome. by virtue of his descent from Augustus, who is not just the first emperor, but by this point is a god. And Caligula is descended from Augustus very much through the female line. So his grandmother is Julia, who was Augustus's only child and herself got destroyed in a sex scandal.

And his mother is Agrippina, who was Augustus' last surviving grandchild, who we heard about in the previous episode, falls out with Tiberius. Tiberius imprisons her on an island. She goes on hunger strike and dies of starvation. But it's not just the female descent. It's not just the descent from his mother's line that amplifies Caligula's status as the best-bred man in Rome.

There's also his father. And this is a guy who is so dashing, so heroic that throughout his life and in the decades that follow, he is commemorated as the absolute darling of the Roman people. And this is a guy who rejoices in the name of Germanicus. And Suetonius tells us that when Tiberius dies, there is this great kind of upsurge of public, almost ecstasy.

And it's not, Suetonius says, just because Tiberius had died, but because the son of Germanicus has come to power. So he writes, the entire mass of the people classed the memory of his father, Germanicus, to their hearts. So it Suetonius recognizes this, and in his biography, he gives us a very detailed account of Germanicus.

It's almost a kind of biography within the broader biography of Caligula. I mean, you could almost say he's the 13th Caesar.

So he writes about Germanicus in the way that you, if you had a fake Reddit account, would write about yourself on the Restless History Reddit account.

No, of course you don't. But just suppose, just suppose. So this is what Suetonius has to say about Germanicus, who, as you say, he thinks he's absolutely brilliant. It is the broad consensus that no one has ever combined all the blessings of body and spirit to the degree that Germanicus did.

Conspicuous equally for his good looks and his courage, he was brilliant, both as an orator and as a scholar, in Greek as in Latin, celebrated for his generosity of spirit and remarkably successful in his endeavors to secure people's devotion and inspire their affection. I would write that up myself.

Although even then, Germanicus bulks them up. It's a bit like me with my trainer. I've bulked my legs up. It's uncanny. I've bulked them up so much that I'm ripping my trousers apart like the Incredible Hulk. Right. Right. Okay. So Germanicus, he also has a brilliant pedigree, which of course Caligula then inherits.

So he's the grandson of Livia, who is, you know, who marries Augustus, which makes him the nephew of Tiberius. And he's, you know, as we said, he's the absolute golden boy. And so this is why Augustus marries him to his own granddaughter, Agrippina. Basically, Germanicus is being groomed to succeed Tiberius.

And the sense is, certainly with Suetonius, but more generally with Roman historians, that if Germanicus had managed to live, then this would have been brilliant. The world would have been great. Everyone would have been happy. So Germanicus is kind of deliberately trained to be kind of schooled in all the arts required to be an emperor.

So he is sent off by Augustus to succeed Tiberius as commander of the German legions, because obviously he To be a Caesar above all, you need to be able to command the loyalty of the legions. And he does very well, or at least it seems that he does. So his name Germanicus is a kind of honorific.

He gets it because he is marching out across the Rhine to exact vengeance on the German tribes for their massacre of Varus's three legions. And he's endlessly burning villages and putting German tribes to the sword. And back in Rome, they think this is brilliant. So they call him Germanicus.

Although actually, it's evident that Tiberius thinks he's a bit of a show pony and thinks it's actually all a bit of a wasted effort. But the point is that it creates a great stir back in Rome. And so... makes people love him even more. And he's popular not only with the Roman people, but with the legions themselves who were stationed on the Rhine. He's very charismatic.

He's a very successful general. He clearly cares for the legions. And one of the markers of that is that very unusually, and in fact, almost illegally, he has his wife Agrippina and their children with him. And this includes the very young Gaius. Gaius is just a kind of little toddler at this point. And the soldiers, you know, he's their little pet.

And so they make him a legionary outfit and he kind of walks around, toddles around the camp in his armor and his military boots, which in Latin are caligae. So they call it caligula, which are little boots. So that's where the name Caligula comes from.

And in fact, when Augustus dies, there are mutinies all along the line of the Rhine because they're unsure what the kind of political situation is. And they're threatening essentially to reject Tiberius as emperor. And The only thing, Suetonius says, that stops them from launching a full-scale rebellion is the appearance of Caligula.

And Germanicus says, if you don't calm down, I'm going to remove Caligula from the camp because I can't trust you to look after him. And this, Suetonius says, shames them into behaving a bit better. Do you think that story's true? Well, there's a much fuller account of this in Tacitus. And yeah, it does seem a trifle more complicated than that.

They're clearly very sentimental about him. And that vein of sentimentality about Caligula as this darling little boy is definitely a part of...

And that's where it all goes wrong for Germanicus. Again, very detailed account of this in Tacitus. Suetonius gives a much more truncated account, but essentially what happens is Germanicus is sent out to the east as Tiberius' plenipotentiary, but Tiberius has also sent out one of his kind of aristocratic mates, a guy called Piso, to be governor of Syria, basically to keep an eye on Germanicus.

And the two of them have a spectacular bust up. Germanicus falls ill, dies, and on his deathbed accuses Piso of having poisoned him. And the news that their favourite has not only died, but quite possibly been poisoned when it reaches Rome. I mean, it has a devastating impact and a great kind of rolling surge of sentimental grief completely takes Rome over.

Quite analogous to kind of the Princess Diana situation, which Agrippina then massively ramps up by returning to Rome, holding the urn with Germanicus ashes in it, kind of walking into Rome, clutching it with her, you know, tear streak face and her disheveled hair. And everyone in Rome just goes completely berserk with grief and anger because they blame Piso for his death.

And this anger also kind of involves Tiberius because they think that Tiberius isn't showing adequate grief. So rather like with the queen. Yeah, exactly. So Piso ends up committing suicide because he knows that basically he's doomed. And Tiberius, who is not a sentimental man at all, views it with utter contempt in a kind of Duke of Edinburgh style perspective.

And so it's no wonder that he and Agrippina don't get on, having had that kind of, you know, that kind of relationship. And of course, in due course, Agrippina ends up dead and Caligula's two eldest brothers end up dead, presumably on Tiberius's orders. So... The whole Germanicus story ends very, very sadly with Caligula's two eldest brothers having been eliminated by Tiberius.

He is now the sole surviving son of Germanicus and the sole surviving great grandson of Augustus, which makes him the obvious successor to Tiberius, which in turn makes his position very, very exposed and precarious.