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Drew Hastings’ life through the years has included everything from trading stories on “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno” to shoveling manure on his cattle farm in Hillsboro, Ohio.
In between are a range of other roles from rug salesman to honest-to-goodness muskrat trapper, not to mention a two-term, small-town mayor.
And actually, it’s especially worth noting that, as quirky and one-of-a-kind as the 67-year-old standup comic is, he is hardly the one and only. His father, also named Drew Hastings, left the family early, remarried, and fathered another son — also to be named Drew Hastings.
“Suddenly there were three Drew Hastings,” Hastings said. “Me, the one who left me, and the one who replaced me.”
Such is his stark realization in his just-released autobiography “Chasing Drew Hastings: A Memoir,” from Caleb Hill Press. The performer will read from that work and tell a few stories in a one-hour appearance at 6 p.m. Feb. 17 at YES Cinema, 328 Jackson St. in downtown Columbus.
Tickets are $5 at yescinema.org and benefit the nonprofit Lincoln-Central Neighborhood Family Center’s Angels of Love program that provides holiday gifts to the less fortunate.
Hastings has long been a favorite on the nationally syndicated “Bob and Tom Show,” and regularly has sold out shows at YES in which he is known as a storyteller rather than a joke teller.
The native of Morocco who was raised in Ohio spent four years on the book.
Lincoln-Central’s Diane Doup once quipped that “nothing is off limits with Drew” in his onstage observations. Much of that same perspective seems to apply to the book, according to publicity material.
Before one of Hastings’ last shows at YES, he assessed himself as “a good comedian … and a really good humorist.”
Even his website text at drewhastings.com is peppered with wry seasoning, describing his departure from a 12-year foray in the Hollywood area with this line: “At the end of the day the sun doesn’t set in L.A. — it just gives up and drops into the ocean with a bitter hiss.”
