Comedian Doug Stanhope almost always performs drunk, or “well into his cups” as they say in places where alcohol is served in cups, apparently.

That’s because he said he needs to numb himself to an essential fraudulence that he sees in stand-up comedy – the idea that every audience wants to think the evening’s jokes were written specifically for them and that the comedian’s routine is closer to an off-the-cuff conversation than a well-rehearsed speech.

“That’s why, except for very rare occasions, I’ll never do two shows in a row or two shows back to back,” Stanhope said in a phone interview. “Because you’ll have people who will go to both shows, thinking that you’re talking off the top of your head.

“The second time, it’s like they’re underneath the trap door of that magic show,” he said. “‘Oh that’s how you did it.’” The ‘ta-da’ is missing.”

Stanhope will bring his “magic show” to the Tiger Room in Calhoun Street Soups, Salads & Spirits on August 26.

Alcohol isn’t the only consciousness alterer that Stanhope regularly ingests and he isn’t shy about admitting that.

He isn’t shy about much.

Stanhope said touring actually keeps him from drinking more than he otherwise might.

“Stand-up keeps me alive to some extent in that it gives me a time that I can’t start drinking until,” he said. “At home, I’m like, “(Expletive) it. It’s 11 o’clock. I don’t have anything to do. There’s nothing on Netflix.’

“Someone comes over who I really don’t have anything to say to,” Stanhope said. “I have no social skills without alcohol. It’s only the postman, but he chats for a minute or two. So I need a drink.”

Stanhope is known as one of those comedians who “says things other comedians are afraid to say.”

It’s a cliché that doesn’t really cover what Stanhope does and who Stanhope is. Stanhope isn’t a shock comic – he is not some clown who wakes up every morning and complies a list of ways to offend people.

Stanhope is a guy with a genuinely dark and sardonic worldview and a nearly nonexistent sense of decorum.

When his girlfriend, Amy “Bingo” Bingaman, suffered a head injury during a drug binge late last year and slipped into a coma, Stanhope did what any boyfriend would do: he continued to work and posted irreverent comments about the situation on Twitter.

If you know anything about the notorious Bingo, you know she probably wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

Stanhope is a product of an exceedingly unconventional and unfiltered upbringing that is detailed in “Digging Up Mother: A Love Story,” his book about helping his grievously ill mother to commit suicide in 2008.

Stanhope’s mom was the biggest influence on his comedic sensibilities and he said he still hasn’t fully accepted that she isn’t still around.

“I still have times where I go, ‘Oh I should call…’ When there’s something where I specifically want to call my mother, I still…I’ve got that beat,” he said. “Or my father, who died in 2001. That quick knee-jerk…I don’t know if that ever goes away.”

Another big influence on Stanhope (and another guy who was known for crafting material designed both to entertain and challenge his audiences) was the late George Carlin.

Carlin once told an interviewer that he had 1,300 separate files on his computer filled with notes and notions.

Asked about his creative habits and rituals for coming up with new material, Stanhope answered, “Panic.”

“It’s literally – when I get to a place when I just did a special and I don’t have material to replace it — it’s like if you were on Gilligan’s Island and you had to build a boat,” he said. “I go through every scrap of old notebook and lines that were funny but didn’t fit in anywhere and that chunk I edited out of the last special.”

Stanhope likens the process to dressing up a skeleton.

The cities Stanhope prefers to visit are ones I must euphemistically refer to here as “crap towns,” places that aren’t widely considered to be entertainment meccas. He said that patrons tend to be more appreciative in these sorts of places.

“(Expletive) Vegas,’ he said. “Walk up and down the street. There, you have 10,000 options, all begging for you to come.”

Crap towns also have the best thrift stores, he said.

Yes, in addition to being dedicated consumers of illicit and fermented substances, Stanhope and Bingo are also thrift store devotees.

Stanhope’s least favorite part of touring is the merch table.

“It becomes longer than the shows sometimes, because everybody wants a (expletive) picture now,” “Who are you going to show it to? Your friends don’t know me or they’d be here right now. I have a very unattractive head. I don’t know how to pose. You don’t know how to use your camera.”

Stanhope said he is perfectly happy with where his career is at the moment: stand-up, podcasting, a few acting gigs.

He has no grand ambitions. He said he has actually been looking at ways to dial back on his touring schedule.

“We’ve talked about making this the last tour for a while and then taking a live podcast out,” Stanhope said. “That way, we could just end this (expletive).”

Stanhope knows that stand-up is the only vocation that could support they way he prefers to live when he’s not doing stand-up.

“It would be a lot more difficult if I had any kind of real responsibilities,” he said, “or a workload that required anything more than me yelling at people. My days are unproductive, let me put it that way.”

Given his wild lifestyle, Stanhope said he has no illusions about his own mortality.

“I consider (death) every morning I wake up,’ he said. “Where is it coming from? There’s a sniper out there somewhere but you don’t know what tree it’s in.

“I could quit smoking but she’s probably up in that drinking tree,” Stanhope said.