Mike Stanley - Shiner (video)
Mike Stanley is back in the Rust Belt, deciding the promise of post-earthquake California looting had nothing on the beauty of late-afternoon Detroit sunlight glinting off the poverty. Even better, he’s got a present for you: an hour of audio, an hour of video, and a lifetime of wondering, “What if alcohol wasn’t his real problem?” On “Shiner,” his new special, Stanley shows that going dry has only sharpened his skills. His award-winning stand up calls to mind Dave Attell and Patton Oswalt, at turns seethingly untethered, relentlessly analytical, and charmingly conspiratorial as he indulges his audience in a biting, though never malicious, dispatch from his unending middle-America middle-weight bout. Dukes up, defenses down, friends: Mickey Bluejeans, Ol’ “Weatherbones” Mike Stanley is fixin’ to explain gay marriage to your kids and the sex appeal of female body builders to anyone who’ll listen.