Paula Poundstone
written by Ken Carlson
May, 2006. Tom Hanks was a guest on NPR’s weekly quiz show, Wait Wait...Don’t Tell Me! On this episode, they played a game announced by Carl Kasell, “You’re the meanest, cruelest, nastiest, drunken out in Hollywood.”
Peter Sagal, the host, asked Mr. Hanks three multiple choice questions regarding famous film star miscreants. The second question involved Errol Flynn, renowned womanizer who was married three times. “His third wife,” Sagal said, “at least had to know what she was in for because he met her how? Was it A) She was selling refreshments in the courthouse where she was tried for statutory rape. B) She was a nurse working in the ER when he came in with a social disease complaint. C) One night he landed in her gardenias when he got drunk and fell out of a second story window.
After some back and forth between the panel members and the host, Mr. Hanks asks, half seriously, “Do they sell refreshments at a courthouse?” “YES!,” interrupted panelist Paula Poundstone, to howling laughter and applause from an appreciative audience and all those in the cast. In that moment, everyone knew she was referring to her much publicized legal difficulties, and the response was as much about affection for her as it was about comedy.
In her book, “There’s Nothing In This Book That I Meant to Say”, Paula wrote candidly about her problems with the law and alcohol abuse. She also responded through her material which can be seen on YouTube from her appearance the Late Show With David Letterman. “I had a bit of a drinking problem,” remarked Paula. “I don’t know if you heard, it was kept pretty hush hush. I was ordered to Alcoholics Anonymous on national television. Kind blows the hell out of the second ‘A.’”
“It’s been driving me crazy,” Paula said in a recent phone interview, referring to her finally releasing a comedy album/CD after over two decades of work. “My manager asks me to listen to it. I’m not much help in the process.”
In this era where new technology and marketing savvy raise the propensity of working comics to release a CD right away, even Paula recognizes the need to get her material more available. “I hear from people all the time,” she admitted, “do you have a new CD? Well, I have Bonnie Raitt around here somewhere… oh, you mean by me?”
“It’s a night of comedy,” Paula said about her first CD, “I HEART JOKES: Paula Tells Them In Maine” “We recorded two shows, most of it’s taken from just one. The recording has been edited down for time. There’s a lot of audience stuff, hopefully people will get the picture. It’s kind of like when Bill Cosby recorded his albums in clubs. I listened to them growing up, you hear the clinking of glasses, but I thought he was talking to me!”
“Paula was such an important part of the early comedy scene in Boston,” recalls veteran comic DJ Hazard, who was part of 80’s comedy boom. “She was funnier than half the guys on the scene. She was so great at working by the seat of her pants when the unexpected would happened. Somebody in the crowd would sneeze, and she’d go off on a tangent that was pure extemporaneous comedy.”
“One night,” DJ continued, “she was killing in front of a packed house at the Ding Ho comedy club. Suddenly, some idiot yelled out, ‘Show us your tits!’ The crowd came to an immediate hush and looked to see how Paula would respond. She paused for just a second and said, ‘You know, I would, but that would be reinforcing negative behavior.’”
“I never liked being on the road,” Paula confessed, “One time I flew back home to Florida for just two hours so I could pet my cat. Now, I have kids. The road is a mixed blessing. I miss them, but it’s the only chance I get to sleep or get work done.
I recently caught Paula’s act at the John Lyman Center for the Performing Arts in New Haven, CT. A good-sized crowd came out on a particularly cold night. The audience was a mix ranging overly pierced punkish college students and 70 year-old women in reindeer sweaters, bemoaning the fact that their nephews actually voted for McCain.
Paula’s act ranged from topical with a liberal touch to personal jokes about being a mom. She has three kids, twelve cats, and reads bedtime stories over the phone. Her style is very conversational, easy-going. Where she draws her biggest laughs is in her crowd work. On this night she seemed truly confounded by what some of the students were majoring in, like studio art, and what how some fans made their living, like testing submarines. Her skill at speaking easily, naturally in front of a crowd, like the start of the Carol Burnett show or a gentler, quirkier Don Rickles; combining earnest curiosity with impeccable improvisation. When an older woman raises a hand to aplogetically ask a question, Paula responded, “It’s OK ma’am, the whole show is one big interruption.
“It’s about wisdom,” she says, “I’m 48. I’m been alive long enough to know I have the best job in the world and am so excited to do it. I appreciate the people coming out, more so now, with the economy in turmoil and people out of work. I’m just glad to have a job, this wasn’t out of planning.
“I’m going to sound like Jackie Gleason,” she continues, “but I have the greatest crowds. Even when I was coming up, as a middler, other comics wanted to be on my bill. They wanted to talk to my audiences. My core group is funny, smart, and well read. They may not know who the Partridge Family is, but if I mention them they’ll come along for the ride. I’m a conductor in the room. It’s kind of magic; to stand before a group of people that come out to laugh. They’ve unplugged themselves from whatever electric media to listen. When you walk out there, you already ahead.”
“I’ve known Paula Poundstone,” says writer Rich Freedman, “about twenty years. She’s one of the nicest people around – creative, clever...she does two hours nonstop with no opening acts or intermissions.”
“About a thousand years ago,” Pauls said, looking back on her early days in stand-up, “I entered a San Francisco Comedy Contest. I have a better sense now of what’s important. Now I can tell my kids, it’s a bad idea to judge myself based on anyone else’s opinions. I’m not everyone’s taste.”
Wait, Wait...Don’t Tell Me from NPR has played a big role in Paula’s resurgence and brought out legions of new fans. Her stand-up skills, persona, and politics make her a natural for the show. “They called me,” she said in describing how the gig came about. “It was kind of a mundane arrangement. I hadn’t even heard of the show at that point, but my nanny had. He said I should do it. They sent me a tape and it sounded fun. Back then, it was only occasionally performed live, other times they had us hooked up, by wire if you will. I did it. Had a great time. They brought me back.”
“It’s kind of like Shirley Jones’ career. She did a play. It was successful. She did another. It was successful. I have had so much fun (on Wait, Wait),” she confessed, “doing it. It’s also given me the chance to work with the same people. I don’t have co-workers (in stand-up). Occasionally, I do a show at a theatre where the stage manager is the same guy from two years ago. Now, by complete accident, I’m the Village Idiot on that show, not by planning. I’ve been on for several years. The show’s been around for ten. But, because each show has three guests, we’re never all together. They recently had a ten year anniversary where they read of a bunch of statisitics; how few stations ran the show at the start, how many more were running it now. Then they asked how many times, a guest received no right answers in the lightning round. It happened once… it was me. I didn’t know that, which is ironic, because if they had asked me that on the program, I would’ve gotten it wrong then too!”
For more on Paula, visit PaulaPoundstone.com.