GO LA: Andrew Lloyd Webber, Young Frankenstein and Other Horrors

What religious group hates you the most?
Christians get most airtime in my act but none are less retarded than the next. Alcoholics Anonymous might be the silliest in that they tell agnostics to invent your own god and then bow down to it. If you can’t tell that the religion you invented is fake, maybe drinking isn’t your worst problem.

What about you would most surprise your fans?
At home, I hang around with neighbor Dave talking about weed killer. I know the folks at Safeway by name and watch a lot of Wife Swap and Intervention. I’m producing a documentary about a local Bisbee guy trying to become the NFL’s oldest rookie.

Conductor Case Scaglione gets “Titan”-ic.

Mel Brooks needs Doug Stanhope tickets.

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More About

• Oliver Sacks
• University of California-Los Angeles
• Jim Beaver
• Musicals
• Classical Music

Is Obama joke-proof? Have you made fun of him yet?
He’s not inherently funny — he doesn’t inspire comedy. His election defused racial tension almost immediately so far as standup is concerned. But the role of government in our private lives is so completely out of control that it doesn’t matter who sits in the throne, those issues will always be omnipresent. Omnipresent. Like I’d ever use that word in a bar conversation. Pompous douche bag, fake intellectual wannabe. I probably misused it anyway.

I think you might be a comic genius. Comment?
Oh, I’d say I am without question a genius — until they come up with a stronger word, which I should really be working on inventing. I think I can be good at what I do, which is narrow in scope, attractive to a limited audience and, like most standup comedy, will be as timeless as organic mayonnaise in hot tropical sun. But for now it’s fun.

What’s the most intoxicated you’ve ever performed?
If I could remember, then I couldn’t have been that fucked up. The only times I remember that I was super out of control were in shows that didn’t matter (to me), where I wasn’t the headliner or it was a showcase 15-minute spot at an L.A. comedy club, etc. Times where it was gonna fuck up people’s entire night. I’m sure if I sat here long enough, I’d pull up some memory of someone telling me I’d never be back.

You won the Strathmore Press Award. Who else has won that?
Nobody. It was an award invented at the Edinburgh Festival by people who thought I deserved the Perrier Award, when I hadn’t performed the required minimum performances to qualify. It doesn’t matter. All awards are just somebody’s opinion, no different than the hate mail from some shithead who thinks I suck for whatever reason. But it’s something for Wikipedia to take the place of the bullshit.

You also said you’d like to end your career with an “End of the World” concert on 12/20/12 — the eve of the purported end of time according to the Mayan calendar. Is that still your plan?
I don’t know if it will be the end of my career, but we’re certainly gonna put on a fucking monster show down in Bisbee with only a very limited amount of tickets and one hell of an after-party at the house. Fuck the mess, it’s the end of the world. And if it’s not, I’ll be selling the Mayan Calendar Part II on Amazon the next day.

Anything else you’d like to tell L.A. Weeklyreaders?
Your coffee is getting cold and you’ve been taking up that seat for two hours. Maybe she meant she’d meet you at a different Starbucks.

Doug Stanhope performs at King King, 6555 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood; Wed.-Thurs., April 22-23, 8 p.m.; $20. www.dougstanhope.com.

Thursday, April 23

READINGS

A BEAVER’S TALE

Impossibly sad. That’s the immediate reaction to Life’s That Way, a new memoir by actor Jim Beaver (Harper’s Island, Deadwood, Supernatural), who shares the story of his wife’s cancer battle while dealing with their baby daughter’s autism diagnosis. However, the more of this tragic story you read, the greater the emotional payoff as you share Beaver’s nightly e-mail updates to a growing list of friends. The incredible outpouring of support the family gets is truly uplifting, and Beaver’s prose feels immediate and genuine. It’s a hell of a sad read, but beautiful, too. (Full disclosure: Our kids have hokey-pokeyed together.) “I wanted to share this story for two reasons: I was unable to ignore the amount of encouragement I got from readers of the original e-mails, who impressed me deeply with the sense that, whether I fully understood it or not, there was something meaningful and helpful about what I had written and how I had written it,” says Beaver. “And I wanted the world to know Cecily for the extraordinary, passionate, determined, loving and sparkling woman she was.” Also, to all you Supernatural fanatics: Here’s your big chance to get Mr. Beaver’s autograph for just the price of the book. Book Soup, 8818 Sunset Blvd., W. Hlywd.; Thurs., April 23, 7 p.m.; free, book is $24.95. (323) 659-3110.  —L.M.