Dave Stone

Dave Stone on stage looks like a guy who might try to sell you a used engine, but his mind belongs entirely to alt-comedy. He speaks in a slow, patient Georgia drawl that forces the room to adjust to his rhythm. There is no urgency in his delivery. He will spend three minutes detailing the exact dimensions of an oversized cooler a fifth-grader brought to school, trusting the measurements are funnier than a quick punchline. When a joke involves taking mushrooms and writing gibberish in a notebook, he leans into the microphone and reports on his inadequacy with baffled amusement.

He is a lifelong road dog and a favorite among other working comics. He gathered a loyal audience by touring on his own schedule and co-hosting The Boogie Monster podcast with Kyle Kinane, where the two traded theories about cryptids and barbecue. He works the country strictly on his own terms. To afford his early years taking stage time in Los Angeles, he lived in a retrofitted cargo van rather than sign a lease.

His material plays against his appearance. He has the booming voice and thick beard of a Southern stereotype, but he uses them to mock macho posturing, complain about fast food, and talk about his love of fruit. The joke is almost always on his own physical form or his strange past lives. He was an Atlanta police officer, a grocery store security guard, and a singing waiter before trying open mics. He never tells tough-guy stories. Instead, he describes his imposing frame like a clumsy vehicle that he just has to steer through a confusing world.