GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #263: A NOT-SO-AVERAGE MOM

I just finished reading Doug Stanhope's book, DIGGING UP MOTHER. It's a wonderful book, and I recommend it to you all. Here is my Goodreads review of it. I think it will show a side of me that you're unaware of. Most of you. I pride myself on being an open book, but sometimes I forget some of my darkest moments. There have been four people in my life who have been able to get me angry enough at them to be cruel to them. Two of them are dead. One of them was my mother. I wish I could apologize to her, but . . . well . . . she's gone into the big nothing.



This is possibly the greatest autobiography I've ever read. I've been a fan of Stanhope's comedy for many years, and I know how brutally honest he is. He is even more brutally honest in this book than ever before. I like to consider myself an open book, but if my mom jerked off cats and dogs just to make 'em feel better? You would never hear about that from me. If I tortured and killed animals, again, you would never hear that from me. You can hear it from Stanhope, though.




I, like Stanhope, am a hearty drinker who despises the idiocy of AA. Also, I am the product of a severely alcoholic mother (she died of cirrhosis of the liver and was as yellow as a Simpson when she passed). As you can imagine, this book hit really close to home for me. It also taught me something about myself.



Stanhope was angry with his mother for most of the last years of her life. I was angry with Mom during that period, too. I never really thought about how much of a jerk I was to her, but reading about him berating his mother for being a burden brought back some memories that I probably shouldn't remember. I was horrible to Mom. I yelled at her. I never called her names, but when I'm driven to the point of no return, I can be an exceptionally cruel man. I know exactly the worst things to say in any given situation, and I will say them if I'm angry enough.



(The only time I yelled at Mom that I don't feel sorry about was the time I came home to find her racing downstairs to the living room, where she lived at the time--ironically in the exact same spot where her father, my grandfather, died--with a glass of what looked like alcohol. Specifically, MY alcohol. I ran upstairs because I had two bottles: a handle of Ten High and a fifth of $75 scotch. Sure enough, she had opened the box and hastily wrapped the paper around the bottle. Almost all of the scotch was gone. The Ten High? Which is a mere $13 (at the time) for a handle? Untouched. I ran downstairs and berated her for a good ten minutes. Why did she have to steal my expensive scotch? The cheap shit was right there! If she had stolen from the Ten High, I wouldn't be upset in the slightest. I ranted and raved. I'd been saving that bottle for the end of my DUI trial because I had a good chance of being found not guilty. I made her cry, and that made me feel good. I know, I know. I'm a miserable human being for it. But that scotch was so important to me. I'm getting kind of heated up thinking about it now. I still think about the absolutely defeated look on her face by the time I was done. It makes me a bit queasy now. No wonder I blocked out the memory. PS: I was found not guilty of DUI. One of the few, the proud.)



This book is amazing. All the wild parties, heavy boozing, hallucinogens, the not-your-average-mom, everything. Even Extreme Elvis makes an appearance. This is the most savage love story I've ever read. It's honest to the point of lunacy. I hope Stanhope checked to see if the statute of limitations was up for all of the crimes he talked about committing. You need to read this book.

Thank you, Doug Stanhope. This one got into my skin as if I'd lived it. Some of it, I did.