October 13, 2025 • 57 mins
Join our host Lynn Hoffman with one of the most conic figures in comedy, the one and only Paula Poundstone. Always authentic and forever bold Paula shares the inspiration behind her work, her influences and how connecting with her audience drives her everyday. She shares her secrets on the power of laughter.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Comedy Saved Me. Welcome to Comedy Saved Me, the podcast
where comedians share the moments when laughter became their lifeline.
I'm your host, Lynn Hoffman, and today we are joined
by the incomparable Paula Poundstone, a comedy legend who's been
making audiences laugh for over four decades with her razor sharp,
observational humor and stream of consciousness storytelling. Paula is, let
(00:26):
me just tell you, a master of finding the absurd
in every day, whether she's dissecting the mysteries of laundry,
the politics of family road trips, or the existential crisis
of shopping at warehouse stores. Believe me. She is a
regular panelist on NPR's Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me, has
released multiple comedy albums, and continues to tour relentlessly, bringing
(00:49):
her unique brand of intelligent, improvised comedy to stages across
the country. But before she was cracking jokes about the
absurdities of modern life, Paula was navigating her own challenges,
and today she's here to share how comedy didn't just
become her career, it's quite literally saved her life. So
settle in as we explore the healing power of laughter
(01:11):
with the brilliant and always funny Paula Poundstone. Paula, welcome
to comedy save me. It is such a pleasure to
have you here.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Well, thank you very much, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
I want to start at the beginning and ask you
what was your relationship with humor like as a kid?
I mean, were you the class clown or did you
find comedy later in life?
Speaker 2 (01:34):
The first sentence of the summary letter written by my
kindergarten teacher, missus Bump and I believe it might have
been May of nineteen sixty four, perhaps it was sixty five.
I don't call said. I have enjoyed many of Paula's
humorous comments about our activities, So I don't remember doing
(01:55):
like a tight five one Plato, but I'm sure I did.
And I remember even before I started in kindergarten, I
was the youngest in my family and uh, my mother
not the happiest person in the world. She used to
get all the other kids off to school, uh, the
(02:16):
older kids off to school, and then she would go
back to bed, and I was just sort of left
to wander. And the truth is, much of the time,
most of the time, I suppose I eventually, you know,
gravitated towards the television, which in those days was not
like in the living room, was down in the you know,
(02:37):
in the in the basement, and I would watch. I
didn't much care for a lot of the children's programming
because this was even this was you know, pre Sessame Street.
Uh So I watched I Love Lucy reruns that were
(02:58):
on in the morning, and the Three Stooges. And I
still say to people that, you know, I was raised
by them.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
I find that fascinating. I had Tom Berger on on
the show a couple of weeks ago, and when I
told him that I was a huge fan of the
Three Stooges, he said that he's never met a woman
that admitted that that they were a fan of the
never no one's ever told him that.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Okay, but how often hasn't come up?
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Right?
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Yeah, I mean, it's just uh. I wish I could
remember Rachel Mattaw was interviewing somebody one night and they
were like, oh, damn it. I wish I could remember
the role that they had. But it was like the
second in command at the Department of Interior or something
(03:50):
like that. Something a little archaic like that. And she's said,
I don't know anybody who doesn't you know, who doesn't
admire the second command at the at the uh at
the you know, I think the warm the interior, and
I'm like, okay, But how often does it come up?
I mean, do people introduce themselves that way? Do they go, Hi,
(04:11):
Rachel's so nice to me, Oh my gosh, I love
the second and commander of the Department of Material And
in the same way I would say to uh uh
uh mister Burger on that. Uh, probably the subject just
doesn't come up. There's tons of women that like the
Three Stooges, probably, you know, not as many as you
(04:33):
know as man, and we probably see something different money
in it. I mean, I even as a kid, I
didn't particularly like it. I you know, I didn't want
I didn't want them to get hurt. Yeah. By the way,
one of the.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Scenes, don't tell me the one on the train where
Curly was came back from a stroke.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
No one of them. One of the scenes they were
climbing up and they had put like a table on
top of a table, and then they were climbing up
on top of that, right, trying to reach something up
high and it was all three of them and uh,
it was mud and of course they fall right. Yes,
it was long and they all and they all come
crashing down and Mo broke like three ribs or something
(05:18):
in real life doing this. And they just kept going, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Have you ever done that? Have you ever broken a
bone and then had to perform on stage while you
were still in pain?
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Well? I have, Actually you have. I didn't. Yeah, I
mean I break the bone on stage. I I broke
a rib coughing years ago, and I functioned with it
for for a while. I mean, the truth is, and
I find this kind of interesting. They I went to
(05:50):
you know, I went to an urgent care eventually when
the pain didn't go away, and I thought, you know what,
I think I have a broken rib. To go to
urgent care. And the doctor this urgent care says to me,
so what are you here for? Like, because they had
that kind of bedside manner and I saw, I think
I broke a rib. She goes, how do you think
you're broken rib? And I said one non profession for
(06:13):
you have going into ma'am, I said, uh, coughing, and
she goes, you can't break a rib coughing, which isn't
true at all when even I knew that. But so
they do an x ray and she comes back and
she goes, you know, we looked in the x ray
you don't have a broken rib. And I was like, oh, okay,
all right, thanks, and I apologize because I always he
(06:36):
wasting people's time. And I go away. I even worked
out that days I recall and the following morning, the
same doctor calls and says, yeah, we showed you xtra
ray to a rabio. Just you do you have a
broken rib? She said, And she said it's broken off
the rib cage and she said the gooddows is it's
(06:57):
not headed towards the lung.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Thankfully.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Yeah, And I'm like, well that is good news, thank
you for calling. And uh. But they they recommended they
go to orth and Pede. I went to the orthan
Pede and he's like, he was like, you know what,
it'll heal, don't worry about it's fine, and he said,
we really don't do anything for that anymore, which I
(07:21):
find really interesting. In the old Sea, they used to
tape people.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Do you remember that They used to takee people like
around the ribcakes when they broke a rib cake when
they broke a rib. But they don't anymore. And I'm
sharing this because I think it's important information for people
to have. Okay, they don't anymore.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Because when people's ribcage is taped, they can't take deep breaths,
and deep breaths are an important part of healing. I
always thought stuff like that was kind of whooo. You
know when people, you know, he said, people go, well,
breathe deeply. They sounded sounds like you come from the
nutty wellness community, breathe deep. But there's something to the
(08:02):
It turns out it is important to it. Wasn't want
to breathe to begin with, because without it.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
This would be an interesting conversation.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
I'm this close to being the head of HHS. Honestly,
my body of medical knowledge already beyond that of Robert
Kennedy Junior running for the hialth.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
All right, well, you've talked about growing up as a
kid in school kind of being silly and funny. But
you had a huge family, had like seven kids.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
No, I didn't have seven kids. No, I lived with
a family with seven kids, but no, my family was
a family of four, okay, and they were it wasn't.
It didn't feel like a It didn't feel like a
full rich uh not. I don't mean rich monetarily, but
it didn't feel you know, it didn't have a There
weren't a lot of storylines, you know, like in The Waltons,
(08:55):
which is one of my favorite shows growing up, there
were a lot of storylines because they had a bunch
of kids and every week it could now it could
be Elizabeth's problem or or you know, I don't know
Mary Kate's who. But our house had very limited storylines.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
There was no good night, John Boy or survive any Oh.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Actually we did do that sometimes put only kidd No,
there was none of that. No, there was a lot
of don't make me have to come in there, don't
make me get your father.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Oh that's funny. So did you try to like joke
your way out of things with your parents ever?
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Not in that way. I mean, you know, you know,
me and my sisters did kind of make fun of
my mother. Not not. We weren't so much joking our
way out of anything. But because at a certain point,
you know, you just like, okay, last or cry, yeah exactly,
let's just call out the absurdity. But yeah, No, it
(09:53):
wasn't one of those things where no, I'll tell you
there were certainly times. I remember when I was in
high school. I was in this typing class and you know,
you know by high school you were in you could
be a freshman in a class with a senior, you know,
it just depended what class it was. And so it's
in this typing class and there were these two girls
(10:14):
that were, you know, older than me, and they were scary,
and they they they were purposely scary, and they knew
I was scared of them, and so they would do
stuff like drop their paper on the floor and tell
me to pick it up, and I would pick it up.
(10:34):
And then one day I think I made a joke
about it or something like that, and I wasn't a
joke about the It was a joke about something in
this dynamic, and they thought it was funny, and all
of a sudden, all the bullying just went away. It
was great. It was like a you know, could have
(10:55):
been like in a in a television show.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
That's so cool. I can't I have to tell you,
I'm HARKing an experience same similar They were like the
tough kids. They wore the leather jackets smoke the cigarettes
and you like it was afraid of and that, Yeah,
how do I win these people over? And one day
I was in some play I can't remember. I think
it was like Reno Sweeney and anything goes and I
(11:19):
had to like make this grand entrance to the stage.
And I was so scared because all these kids were
sitting and they were going to judge me, and he
all came up to me. They were the loudest people
clapping for me in the audience, and I was like,
I won them over.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Yeah, isn't that cool?
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Yeah? Very cool.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
My son when he was in the fifth grade, I
think it was you know, you know, he didn't fit
in very well socially growing up and I and it
was a you know, it was hard for him. But
he they had a talent show one time in the
fifth grade and he he came out and did a
routine on the mushroom, which is the training device for
(12:00):
the pommel horse, and he had we had a mushroom,
like a training one, not a not a fish, you know,
a training one. And all these girls lined the front
of the stage and were cheering and bought a lunch here,
like okay, it was a lot easier to make jokes,
(12:22):
is my point. Oh yeah, because burning that mushroom, learning
the pump horse is like a god awful experience.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
You don't want to do that.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Yeah, but it works for him for at least for
that afternoon.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Well, that explains why guys like to be rock stars,
because you know, the girls love the rock stars.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
So you know, Moe said in his book Mo Howard
in The Three Stooges, he said that Curly became an alcoholic,
and most said that the reason was that he couldn't
get women. And I got to tell you from being
on the road when I was younger, I was on
(13:02):
the road with the skevest guys. Right, you had to
stay in the apartment with them for the clubs. Would
they were gonna have a middle act MC and a
headliner in for the week. What they did was they
rented an apartment and it was only going to be empty,
like one night a week. And that way there they
didn't have to pay for hotels. And so you're stuck
(13:27):
not just working with some of these guys, but you know,
stay in the same apartment with them. And I mean
they were gross. Many of them weren't particularly good comics
to begin with, but also just just gross and they
always they always had women after the show always. So
(13:51):
you know what, Mo, that's not why Curly became an alcoholic.
And by the way, I don't think you become an
alcoholic because of a problem to begin with. But also, no, no, Curly,
for whatever reason, maybe didn't hook up with women. But
it's not Ma was saying, it's because, you know, he
(14:12):
shaved his head to be Curly, and that he you
know that it was because of this role he played.
Oh no, no, he could. First of all, Curly was great.
And second of all, Curly could have not even been
good at being Curly, and he still would have had
women that would have thrown themselves at him.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
Grown at. I got to tell you, even as a
little kid, my parents were a little concerned with me
because I had a crush. These are the guys that
I had a crush on growing up on television, like
when you were watching TV, Harvey Corman, Tim Conway, Gene
Wilder and Curly, the three stooges, Like I'm little little yeah,
(14:54):
you know, apparents this close to going to the Jordan
Marsh charm School. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
My mother, My mother said to me, I forget how old,
he said. I think I was like a teenager. And
she said, the biggest mistake of her life. And this
is somebody who was, you know, married a few times,
and you know, we all have lives full of errors,
and you know, some of hers were bigger than others.
But she had a fair speed of ones that you
(15:22):
could point to if you chose. But she said the
biggest mistake of her entire life was not sending me
to charm school. I'd just say, I think she had
overinflated an unrealistic idea of what could be done through
a charm school.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
They don't have stuff like that anymore, do they.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
I don't think so. I don't even think. No, there's
no Civis, there's no charm school. It's all gone.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
I believe the store Jordan Marsh. I'm fairly certain that
the store Jordan Marsh had a charm school associated with it.
And it was a you know, it was a clothing
store and Jordan Marsh was that exclusive.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
For Boston because I remember that growing up.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
It was in the the Jordan Marsh was in the
Framingham Shoppers World, the one with.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
The little train you drive around the Shoppers World.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Native Shoppers World in the in the center it was
a it was an outdoor mall. It wasn't enclosed. I
mean there were roofs on the stores, but it had
a in the center of it. It was like a courtyard, right, yes.
And there was at one time a like amusement park
(16:36):
park Grides that was so.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Smart when you think about it. And then obviously it
grew up to the Mall of America, which is like,
you know, a roller coaster inside the mall while you're
your shopping.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
You can actually on the Mall of America, you can
ride on a roller coaster and grab a product off
a shelf as you go, and then pay for it
when you get off the road coast.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Nowadays you don't even have to. You just got your
phone on you. It charges, you know, just as soon
as you tie it's yours.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Yeah, a good point.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
It's all over.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Probably where all my money's going is. I probably just
keep touching the wrong things on my phone and it
just keeps taking money off.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Well, when we come back, we're going to find out
exactly how comedy saved Paula Poundstone stay with us. Comedy
saved me all right, Paula. The premise of our show
is that comedy has saved our guests in some way.
(17:31):
Can you pinpoint an exact or specific moment or a
period in time during your life when you realize comedy
wasn't just something that you did, but it was something
you needed to do.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
You know what? I fell for your even I have
a podcast and we say we're going to take a break,
and then we don't take a break because because the
break is put in afterwards. But when you said we're
going to take a break, you said it so professionally, yes,
that I really didn't think you were taking a break.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
At one point when I was in excuse me, I
looked on the screen even there because I have a
you know, phone on the wall, like like how it's
supposed to be, and it has an answering machine attached
to it, and I thought that, you know, I could
put up with the phone ringing.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
But then I thought there was going to be a
message left, so I thought we'll all go stop it,
but it stopped by itself, and therefore I sat back
down again.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Well, thank you for that, and also thank you for
having a wall phone, because that just warms my mind.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Yes, that's yeahs.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
I have the cord on the wrapping chord.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
I have one in the kitchen, one in my bedroom.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
You know, there's obviously great conveniences to having cell phones,
and I have cell phones, but in a way, I
miss the phone on the wall. I missed people not
being able to you know, now, if somebody calls you,
or you know, text you or whatever. I mean, I
don't text, but if now, if somebody calls you and
(18:58):
you don't answer the phone, they're just perplexed. You know.
It's not a law. You don't have to. I miss
answering the phone when it's convenient to me to talk
because I'm in my room and the phone rang and
I got the phone. I kind of hate I hate
(19:19):
being tethered to the cell phone the way that one is.
If somebody doesn't get you, they'll call me back five times.
What the fuck is that?
Speaker 1 (19:27):
It's so true?
Speaker 2 (19:28):
You know, listen, I don't want to run up against
the theme of your whole show. I you know, I
wish I could tell you that there was a you know,
a moment, and that there was a little like a
little sound effect that went with it, and maybe I
saw a bright light. I'm not sure. I'll tell you. Wait,
I'll tell you one thing, all right, okay, prior to
(19:54):
the stay at home order, prior which was you know,
obviously you know, trying to uh stop the spread of COVID.
Prior to the state stay at home order, I may
have and I'm saying I may have sometimes and certainly
not frequently, if at all, I may have complained about
(20:18):
traveling for my job.
Speaker 5 (20:20):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
And then along came the State at home order, and
there was I don't know how everybody else for me.
I had no way of knowing that we would ever
be able to gather in the kinds of groups that
you do in the theater, like so Audie and says
that a performer can and and the thing is, at
(20:42):
that time, this is when you know zoom attacked us.
You know, is a gallery review or portrait view by
There were all these organizations that that I have many
times done fundraise for em seed their fundraisers, and they
tend to happen in the spring. I don't exactly know why,
(21:05):
but they tend to happen in the spring. These events
and for multitude of organizations, all of which are terrific
and all of which, you know, I do what I
can for But as the year goes by, and they
would call me and say or email me and say,
you know, can you em see our fundraiser on the
(21:25):
blah blah blah night, and I would look at my
calendar and go, oh, I'm sorry, I'm not going to
be able to do this year because I'm on the
road that night. Well, when this stay at home order hit,
they all knew I was home every bloody day. You
can emails and phone calls saying will you do our fundraiser?
(21:48):
We're doing it online, We're doing it via zoom. It's
going to be a virtual gala, they all said. And
they were very excited about this idea, and and you know,
good for them, for you know, it can lemonade out
of lemons. But uh, what was in everyone's head was
that I was going to do stand up from my
(22:09):
living room via zoom. And at first I guess I
thought maybe I could. But let me tell you, once
you try that one time, it's you know, never again.
And the problem is what people understand. If I was
a musician or a poet, I could I can practice
(22:35):
what I'm doing at home by myself until I am
red hot at it, and then I can and then
I can present it anywhere I want. And I don't
need what I prefer to have an audience feedback, Sure,
but I don't need it. Stand up is different. It's
different than any other form of art. You simply must
(22:56):
have an audience, at least at least certainly the way
I work. I can't do it without it, and that
during the state of Home Order, when it dawned on
me like, okay, I have no way of taking stand
up and making it into something that I can do,
(23:17):
you know, in this sort of new world of zoom
and not knowing if we would ever be able to
gather in theaters again was terrifying, partly for economic reasons obviously,
but also because I could do like characters and make
videos that way, which I did, but I couldn't interact
(23:39):
with an audience and the loneliness of that. You know,
I guess it's kind of screwed up to say this,
but the audience is kind of my best friend all
these years, and I just found myself for all those
months just wanting to Snoopy cry. Remember how we cried?
(24:01):
Oh yes, yes, the tears will come.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Out flying everywhere.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
That was.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
That was a cross between Pee Wee Herman and Snoopy cry.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
It's just one of the saddest things you can see.
There's there's Snoopy crying and there's Kim Weschler crying on
the bus in Better Call Saul. That was. That was unbelievable, right, God, yeah,
well Snoopy does an ugly cry.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
It's just yeah, and it's very sad.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Years ago, met and Tom posting I forget why. We
were at some sort of fundraising everything in Orlando and
we were at disney World and they're like, oh, you know,
take a picture with Mickey Mouse. And of course Tom
and I were like, fantastic, Great, we'll do that, you know,
and so we both go stand and Mickey Mouse in
(24:52):
the center, and you know, have this picture taken. There's
the worst photograph because you know, Tom was a little patchy,
and I, you know, I you know, I'm not patchy,
but I'm Here's the thing, Mickey Mouse, the character that
(25:13):
walks around the park is the way they've painted him
is perfect for photographing, right anybody standing beside him.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Is that he doesn't need to be touched up, and
I don't.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Care how gorgeous you are. You could even probably have
on tons of makeup and you're still not going to
be perfect for the camera the way Mickey Mouse is
because he's designed that way. So Tom and I just
looked horrible and Mickey Mouse looks fantastic. I think Mickey
Mouse used that picture for his headshot. Yeah, to get work.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
I would have to agree with that. Well, nowadays you've
got that, you know what, you can be perfect.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
The idea of a I just nauseates me. And we're
marching down this path, you know, like, oh, it's a
good thing, and everything so far indicates that it's not
a good thing. That it's caused all sorts of problems already,
and the last thing we need is one more way
to fool the public. It's just stupid.
Speaker 5 (26:14):
What and the reason we're doing it is because China
is so if we you know, we don't want to
let another country get ahead of us in Ai, why
don't we wait till China destroys ourselves?
Speaker 1 (26:26):
I like that idea. I like that idea.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Yeah, yeah, Why don't we have to be why do
we have to be at the head of the path
it's like we're gonna make you know, just it's a
horrible idea. So anyways, in answer answer to your question, okay,
well that that surely is a point at which is
although when I got back out on the road again
(26:51):
after the Stay at Home Order, the rules in the
theater again trying to prevent this spread of COVID, the
rules in the theater were so so ridiculously stacked against
a performer, like, Okay, normally, if I'm doing a show
and say we don't sell a lot of tickets, say
(27:14):
there's a you know, a lot of spaces in between
audience members, you know, it might be that somebody who
who runs a theater or something would go out on
stairs say, you know what, we got plenty of rooms
down front with some of the people in the backroom
down front, right, because you want to collect that energy
into one place. It makes for a better show. Yes,
(27:35):
But this ended up being the opposite. When we got
back into the theaters after the and the clubs, after
they were pulling back to the stay at Home Order,
they would still insist that people sat like feet away
from each other, so be like and they would let
(27:55):
they would let you know, ticket buyers that came together stated,
but so there would be two people over here and
then this huge on a space before you got to
three people over here, and you know, it was just
and they weren't allowed to have the place to capacity.
So it wasn't even like, oh I couldn't sell tickets.
It was you weren't allowed to sell to capacity. And
(28:17):
oh my gosh, was it hard to do not to
mention that I hadn't performed in you know, what, was
it a year and a half by then, And it
does make a difference.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Yeah, So obviously what you're describing to me, at least
it sounds like and I'm not a doctor, but it
sounds like comedy is also a therapeutic for you.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Is therapeutic for everybody in a big way. I also felt,
you know, my friend Nils Lofgren one night posted just
a pitch just to assume me, a video of a
uh he plays with Bruce Briinstein a lot, and he
just posted a video from a long time ago, not
not a current because it was during the Stay at Homeowner,
but a video of you know, Bruce Springsteen performance and
(29:05):
Mills's performance, and at the camera kept showing the audience
and you know what a great time they were having.
There is something about experiencing a performance, be it a
movie or a you know, it could be a play
(29:26):
or a ballet, or an opera or a comedy show
or whatever, some sort of performance, when you're in an
audience collectively and you're having this shared emotional reaction, whether
it's it's something that's scary or suspenseful or said or funny,
you're having this shared emotional reaction and it reinforces that
(29:49):
you're a human being. When you're having the same, you know,
the same emotion as everybody else is, there's something about
that that can not be replicated. You know, almost anytime
somebody types lo l into their phone, they're lying. You
don't generally laugh out loud when you're alone. When I
(30:10):
watched The Three Stooges by myself, I never laugh out loud.
I acknowledge in my head that I think it's funny.
But when I used to watch I used to show
them to my kids, and a couple of times we
went to Three Stooges film festivals. Oh my god, is
that fun? Because you're in a whole audience of people
who love the Three Stooges, and so it's already this
(30:33):
powerful reaction from the audience, and.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Is everyone walking around like this.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
Moe used to talk about maybe it was Del Lord
who said, no, it was a bunch of guys that
were that were of that, you know, helped make the
Three Stooges, that's what it was. And one of them said, I,
you know, I made him what they were. He says,
I gave him this, and he did the two finger thing,
and the other guy goes, yes, but I gave them this.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
I love that. I didn't even know you were going there.
I just all I could think of was there a
big group of fans of Three Stooges, and there's probably
a lot of black and blue people leaving that party,
but unintentionally. Of course.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
The thing is, when we watched with the audience that
was there for this, there were waves of laughter. There
were you were children, you were you were like gasping
for air, laughing over stuff. And that's not how I
had ever experienced it before, because before I watched by myself,
(31:35):
you were home, and there's a big difference. So I
so I would argue that comedy is therapeutic for everyone,
not just the performer, although certainly that's true, but for
the audience too.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Yeah, especially for the breathing part of that. And of
course when you don't have a broken rib. Let's talk
about bombing though, because you I can't imagine this has
happened to you often at all, because you're just so
funny naturally anyway, But every comedian has those moments where
they just couldn't get the audience to see what they
(32:14):
were doing was funny. How do you bounce back? And
has that ever happened? I should ask you first? Has
that ever happened where everything just went side?
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Podcasts? Those moments where they couldn't get the audience to
see that what they were doing is funny. Well, it's
an objective thing, isn't it the And so that's the word,
subjective thing. Whether something is funny or not, who knows,
you know. Sometimes I have had arguments with uh, you know,
either people that are producing the show or say, uh
(32:45):
is somebody. There are situations where I might have written
something for a show and somebody will look it over
and want to rewrite it, you know, or add in
something or do tell me what to do, and it's
not it's not I don't feel like, oh, I know everything,
and so you can't tell me. That's not how I
(33:06):
feel at all. What I feel is, since it's me
on stage, I'm gonna be held responsible for what gets set.
I'm not gonna be able to, you know, say something
to that. Go, well, that wasn't mine. So so and
so made me say that. All right, I thought it
was better this way. You know, in the end, the
(33:27):
buck stops here, and so I do as And I
always say to people, I go, I couldn't. I'm not
gonna argue that I know what's funny. I'm just gonna
argue that since I'm the person that's gonna take the
heat for it one way or the other, then I
get to choose, simple as that.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
That's fair. I like that.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
As to what's funny, I couldn't possibly tell you. I
really don't know. Silly. I like silly, but I like
some both. Uh. I'm a breath mint and a cannyman. Uh.
And how I bombed? Yeah, I bombed many times? Oh
my god.
Speaker 5 (34:11):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Okay, So I I was invited years ago to perform
at farm Aid. They were doing uh you know, supposedly
they were doing a partnership with comic relief, which is
how they got to me because I used to comic relief.
Supposedly that's what they were doing, but in fact it
(34:32):
was it was farm Aide and there were I think
two comedians. It was me and another guy, and uh
it was at the super Dome in oh in New
Orleans and they were using like half of it, and uh,
(34:52):
I you know, I agreed to do it because I, well,
a was Willie Nelllson's event, and I love.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
Will How can you say no to Willie?
Speaker 2 (35:04):
Yeah, I mean we'd never met. He didn't ask me personally,
but I thought it was a Willie Nelson thing. I thought,
you know, like, crowd's got to be really cool if
you know it's a Willie Nelson thing, right, And and
also the Neville Brothers were playing, and I'm you know,
I honestly I would walk across Hot Stones to hear
the Neville Brothers or to see them. So my manager
(35:27):
comes with me, because you know, she wants to see,
and we fly down. We get to get the show
is already because it's a few hours shows. It's only
a six hour show or something, so it's already up
and running when we get there. And and she had
argued that I had to go on like towards the
end or something like because it was somehow prestigious. Uh
(35:47):
or maybe it wasn't even that, maybe they already knew
where they wanted. Because here's the thing. I went on
in between Chris Christofferson and Neil Young and so I
they introduce. And the other thing is, so we're walking
around this crowd before, you know, before I go on,
walking around, you know, listening to music, but walking around
(36:08):
the crowd, well, I what I hadn't thought about before
was there's beer kegs everywhere, and uh, you know a
lot of people have on like John Deere Windbreakers, and
uh it is by the time if it go on
later in the show, well they're more drunk. And that
(36:29):
that does not serve me. Uh So it's fine. And
as we're walking around and I'm beginning to see what
I'm up against, I was already like, okay, this is
not gonna be good. So I, you know, Chris Christofferson
(36:49):
finishes and uh you know, and by the way, same
dynamic here, which is as a musician, you can play
while people you can play while people are talking. Right,
I'm sure do they want to. Probably not, they'd probably
rather everybody stopped talking and just listen to them, probably,
But you can do it as a comic, you really can't.
(37:13):
So Chris christoffers and finishes, but you know, big, big applause,
And now I come on, somebody introduces me. Now most
of the crowd has no interest in seeing me, no
idea who I am, and and so you know, the
noise level rises right away with people just engaged in conversations,
(37:33):
just just checking out, just not paying any attention to me.
And I start to do right thing, and I've you know,
tried really hard, and behind me, I can hear very
loudly Neil Young's bands tuning up, so they were her.
So I'm barely able to talk loud enough to you know,
(37:54):
overcome the noise level in the room to begin with,
and now behind me there's I just couln't believe it.
And then I realized, Okay, that's what I'm here for.
I'm here to kill time while Neil Young warms up
and had nothing to do with them wanting me to entertain.
So now it's just it's really really bad. And my
(38:20):
manager is over on the side. She doesn't usually come
with me to it shows, there's no.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
But it's a Superdoman's farmte it was a big deal.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
It was a big deal. But you know, for the
most part, there's no reason for herticum with me to
a show. But in this case, she's standing watching from
from the side of the stage, and I'm you know,
as far as I'm concerned, I'm done right. If people
don't want to listen to me, why am I there?
That's okay. I don't need to force myself on that.
(38:50):
It's fine. But I don't know. I look over to
the side and there she is, and she's making the
stretch sign.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
Oh go longer, I'm.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
Going believe it?
Speaker 1 (39:03):
Did you?
Speaker 2 (39:05):
And I said, what the fuck are you talking about?
And she and she kind of came out a little
bit and she goes, they want you to stretch? And
I said, you come out here and tell me that.
Speaker 5 (39:20):
Did she?
Speaker 2 (39:20):
Did you watch stretch? And I don't know how many
people in the audience got how fucking funny that was.
I don't know if I convinced them that that was funny.
But as I'm standing there, people some people in the
crowd start to go.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
Neil, Neil, no, No, I know.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
That a lot of those people, you know, really were
done with me already and just wanted Neil Young to
come out. But this crowd was so drunk that I
also believe many of the people yelling Neil thought I
was Neil Young. No, they were messed up. So there,
that's a great bombing story. Huh wow.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
Well, I guess the positive is that you got to
open for Neil Young regardless, which is kind of really
historic in and of itself.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
By the way, YE found a new song, and it's
a good new songs. I haven't heard a big crime.
Maybe it is a it's a song about what's going
on in Washington, and it's got that you know, old
sort of rock and roll.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
Classic Neil Young.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
Yeah, it's got the you know, the the protest Neil Young.
It's a good song. I put on my flat thing.
Speaker 6 (40:41):
We'll be right back with more of the Comedy Save
Me Podcast. Welcome back to the Comedy Saved Me Podcast.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
Awesome. Well, you've been very open about your struggles with alcohol.
Since we're talking about people who are thinking that you
were Neil Young when you were at the super Dome
because they had their beer goggles on. But can you
tell us a little bit about how addiction affected maybe
your comedy and conversely, how comedy maybe played a role
in your recovery.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
Well, I don't think it's anything particularly unique to my experience.
But here's something about alcohol in general. It gets there's
such myths surrounding it. There's such myths about what a
good time people have, you know, when they're oh, they
(41:38):
have a good time. If I had my life to
do over again, I would never have picked up at all,
because I cannot, as I look back, remember so much
as one experience, not one where it made things better
in any way. And I think that's part of the
reason I kept going as a drinker, is because I
(41:58):
was like, I just haven't done it right yet, you.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
Know, Oh, you were practicing achieved.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
I haven't achieved. Like, it's not that oh you know what,
As it turns out, it really that's all advertising, and
it's it's advertising, and it's people who don't want to
It's people who don't want to admit it's the emperor's
who close. It's people don't want to admit that that
that the emperor is naked, that alcohol really didn't make
anything better for them, even though they wasted tons of
(42:27):
time and money on it, and so, uh so there's that.
Uh yeah, it's I don't have a lot to say
about I mean it obviously because it's never made anything
better even once. Ever, uh it it didn't, And.
Speaker 1 (42:47):
You can't think of one did you. Were you ever afraid, Paula,
that when you quit all of that, that you weren't
going to be.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
No, I was funny in kindergarten and I didn't drink.
Uh in my craft's box, in my in my velveda
box that had my crayons, I didn't.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
I didn't have a There was no like little.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
No. I didn't think that at all, ever, not once.
I wasn't a little concerned that I wouldn't play ping
kong as well? And that might Are you a good
ping pong?
Speaker 3 (43:23):
Well?
Speaker 2 (43:23):
I thought I was. I was a good backyard ping
pong player. I was a good basement ping pong player.
Was not ever an Olympic quality but uh but no,
I didn't. I didn't think it had any even when
I was, you know, stupid enough to be a drinker.
I didn't think that it enhanced my performance. I knew
(43:46):
that it did.
Speaker 1 (43:46):
Not. Well, I'm glad that you knew that you were
funny without it, because I would imagine that if you
were afraid it may have stopped you from getting back
into it would all be no, not not as happy.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
I mean, I wasn't you know, I wasn't sure what
was going to happen. But uh no, you know, my my,
my life, you know, my life improved. I would say
one thousand percent, but that would be Trump mask. So
(44:23):
I'll just I'll just stick with one hundred percent as
a result of giving up the devil drink.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
Well, all right, So now that we have got all
of this under our belts and accomplished, I want to
tell you that a couple of weeks ago I spoke
with a comedian and her name is Wendy Leep and
she loves you, apparently because she was talking about you
in our interview and I said I was going to
have you on and would you like to ask Paula
(44:53):
a question? And she actually had. She had one thing
she wanted me to tell you, and a question. Can
I play that? Su All right? Here we go? All right,
(45:16):
So inquiring minds want to know, including Wendy Leidman, why
do you talk to a chair?
Speaker 2 (45:20):
Okay? I don't talk to a chair. I have no
idea where Wendy got the idea that I talked to them.
Come on, for real, I don't talk to the chair.
I take a picture of a chair. Uh. And I
think it started because you know a lot of times
people are like, uh, you know, I'll get like a message,
(45:41):
you know that somebody wants to come backstage. You know,
somebody wants to know if they can meet me backstage.
And I don't mean like another performer, I mean like
a you know, an audience member wants to know if
they can. You know, it's somebody's birthday working to come backstage.
You know what, why does everybody want to come backstage?
It is so unglamorous, It is so it is. It's
(46:02):
this cement room and and a lot of the older theaters,
you know, there's just very little comforts in that room
or else the hotel, excuse me, or else the theater
will want me to come from the hotel like an
(46:23):
hour early because it makes them more comfortable to know
that I'm there.
Speaker 1 (46:29):
And they put you in this.
Speaker 2 (46:31):
Exactly. And I mean I'm not I'm not complaining. I'm
not suggesting for a moment that I need something more
than that little cement room. I do not. I am
perfectly comfortable in that little cement room. I don't need
to be there for an extra hour. I'd prefer to
be in the hotel room. But so originally I started
(46:52):
taking pictures of the chairs sort of to say like, Okay, look,
this is what it is. It's not fancy, meanly in
the lobby. If you want to talk to me, come
to the lobby. Don't come backstage. It's gross. So that
I believe that that was what motivated me in the
beginning to take a picture of a chair before I
(47:12):
went on. And I don't know at what point I sorry,
I would take a picture of a chair, and then
I say and I post. I say, I'm about to
tell them in and I tell the name of the
city that I'm in. And I don't know when I
started doing it, but it was a long long time ago.
And now if I don't post a picture of the chair,
people complain.
Speaker 1 (47:34):
Really, it's become a thing, a thing.
Speaker 2 (47:37):
It's an odd thing. I think people. Clearly Wendy created
this whole story around it in her own mind, so
I think everybody has a different idea of why I
post the picture of the chair, but to the best
of my memory, that's how I started posting the picture
of the dear. What's really funny is there are venues
(47:58):
that have gone out and found a fancy chair just
for you. Snug their chair. When I posted they can
be it? Can it conveyed them in glory? Wow, that
is so cool.
Speaker 1 (48:11):
I like the story behind that, and yes, I agree
with you one hundred percent. I never once I went
backstage working in this industry and saw what was going on.
I was like, why do people want to come back here?
There is nothing going on back here. It's not pretty
and usually it's dark. I mean Joan Rivers room, and
I remember it was in the basement of a comedy club,
in a little cement room like two by four and
(48:34):
there was nothing in there. I'm like, Joan, what, how
is this possible? She's like, yeah, we don't care.
Speaker 2 (48:40):
Like even the Tonight Show the first time I ever
did The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, right, you know,
growing up watching that show, it all looked so glamorous
and you get there and it's just like this is
what it looks like. So small, it's it's small, it's
it's it's just it's just not glamorous. It really is
(49:05):
the magic of television, you know. There's a way that
they light things and what they do with the camera
that makes puts out a particular image. And uh, and
good for them, I mean that's brilliant. But the dressing
room was like, it's a teeny little maybe it's not
cement at the tonight, I can't remember anymore, but I
remember it was very small. Uh, it's it's got it's
(49:31):
not it's not decorated. It's just there. It's just a
room you dress, you know, and big on big. You know.
I think they used to have a big liquor thing
in there. But that that never interested me one way
or the other, even when I started. We're gonna say,
oh oh. So one time I was in Lake Tahoe
(49:53):
and I think I was working somewhere, but also, uh,
I was with some friends. We stayed a couple extra
nights or something, and I think Mahamo's Hairs or something,
and Liza Minelli was working there. So before the show,
I take a napkin and I write a note to
(50:14):
Liza Minnelli, who doesn't know me from Adam, but I
write this note and I go, you know, I'm here
with my friends and I'm a you know, my performer.
My name is Paul Poundstone. I said, we wanted to
know if we can come backstage, and I don't know
at that point, I'd never been backstage there. I really
was expecting, you know, it's e Liza, It's going to
(50:34):
be glamorous, right, And I couldn't believe when whoever I
gave the note to, like a security guy or something,
and he comes back and he says, yes, you know,
come this way, you and your friends come this way.
You know Liza will you know, Lisa will meet with
you backstage. I couldn't believe it. So we go into
I can't remember. Maybe it wasn't it wasn't even the
(50:54):
dressing room might have been the bigger room, the green room,
but the green room also very like just on just
not interesting in any way. And so we come back
and she couldn't have been more gracious. She meets my friends,
she meets me, We sit around and chit. Yet and
later I thought about it, I was like, Okay, why
(51:15):
would she have done that? And I think it's because
it was depressing for her back there too. So she's
just like green room was so total strangers want to
come back, and I'm sure they made her be at
that place, you know, like you know, an hour and
a half early, and she was bored out of her mind.
So she was like, yeah, sure, come on back.
Speaker 1 (51:35):
I do want to tell her that's so funny. Yeah,
green room is just that, it's a room that's green
and sometimes it has have I have one more thing
when you want to share, thank you for your time,
and here's this all right, so you ready for this one?
(52:06):
This is this first of all? Is that true? Yes, okay,
she wanted me to let you know that her husband,
when he was seven years old, his parents used to
write music for movies, soundtracks and stuff, and he went
to school. When he came home from school, he told
his father that they gave him medicine in school. And
his father said, they gave you a shot, and he said,
(52:29):
oh no, no. They put the medicine on a spoon
and put a little sugar cube on it, and they
gave it to me that way. And the next day
her father in law and mother in law I think
or both wrote Spoonful of Sugar for Chitty Chitty Bank Bank.
Speaker 2 (52:44):
Well, noan it was a spoonful of sugar from Mary Poppins.
Speaker 1 (52:49):
I mean Mary Poppins. Sorry, I'm sorry, yes, wow, Sorry Wendy,
I screwed that up.
Speaker 2 (52:54):
So her husband because it was the Sherman brothers who
wrote that song, so.
Speaker 1 (53:00):
Maybe her her husband's father was one of the short.
Speaker 2 (53:04):
Wow I could have.
Speaker 1 (53:05):
Well, we'll have to get down to that wow.
Speaker 2 (53:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (53:09):
Either way, Wendy was a huge fan and I just
didn't want to waste a moment if I could at
least connect the two of you, and yes, two amazingly
talented women in this industry that is so difficult. Before
I let you go, you've maintained a career for over
forty years and notoriously difficult industry. What keeps you going
(53:29):
and what still excites PAULA Poundstone today?
Speaker 2 (53:32):
Well, again, as a result of that period of time
during the stay at home warder, I really know that
you know how awful it feels to not get to
do this, So I am genuine You know, travel does
get you after a little while. The cement rooms gets
(53:53):
you after a little while. But boy, the part of
being in front of an audience and just talking over everything,
you know, what's going on in the world, just talking
to individuals in the crowd and finding about finding out
about the you know, the area that you're in or
a job that somebody does, and having that. I always
(54:16):
say that I'm a proud member of the endorphin production
industry because that's what we do for a couple of
hours a night, is produce endorphins for me and for
the people in front of me, and it is. It's
a joy.
Speaker 1 (54:31):
Paula. Thank you so much for your honesty and your
humor and for everything that you do. And I'm so
glad that you are still is so much excited as
you were even back in the data still continue to
go out there and entertain people and make them happy.
And Lord knows we need a lot of it right now.
I mean a lot of laughter is.
Speaker 2 (54:51):
We donate a lot of it. And as we've seen,
comedians are telling truths right now. And I mean, I
can't swear that every single comedian is telling truth But
I recently got a kitten and I named him Colbert,
and I wrote to I tweeted out a picture of
(55:13):
him and I tagged Colbert Show, and I said, this
is not because you've had me on I said, because
in fact, I don't think you've had me on enough.
I name my kitten Colbert because Stephen Colbert is a
goddamned American hero and because he's said, you know, he's
telling truths.
Speaker 1 (55:33):
I love it. And one other thing, wait, wait, don't
tell me. We can hear you there often on npr S.
Speaker 2 (55:40):
That is correct, all right? And also where I have
a podcast called Nobody listens to Paula Poundstone.
Speaker 1 (55:47):
I was just going to say, where else can we
find more of Paula.
Speaker 2 (55:51):
I'm also doing a series of videos that you can
find on YouTuber, Instagram or any of those kinds of places,
but certainly YouTube is an easy to find. We're mostly
called hey Donald Trump, and they're just a couple of
minutes each or if that, and it's me talking to
(56:13):
Donald Trump, not oh boy, he's not in fact in
front of me. But that's the premise. The premise is
that I'm talking directly to Donald Trump. And they've been,
you know, fun to do, and I try to make
sure I'm working with facts.
Speaker 1 (56:29):
Listen, there's nothing better when you can just turn things
into comedy, regardless of facts, just just making people laugh.
If it's funny, it's funny Paula, right, I mean, it's
not meant to hurt anybody, it's just meant to make
you laugh.
Speaker 2 (56:43):
Yeah, well, good to have some facts in there.
Speaker 1 (56:47):
Yeah, occasionally Fall of Fownstone. Thank you so much. I'm
sorry I had you talk so much. You're choking at
the end of that. Did not intend to do that.
But best wishes to you and all of the future
your endeavors, and I hope that maybe our pass will
cross again. And thanks for spending so much time chatting
with me about comedy and your life and just being
(57:08):
so available and wonderful.
Speaker 2 (57:11):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (57:12):
I I don't want to let you go.
Speaker 2 (57:14):
I said, I had a great time. I appreciate it.
Comedy Saved Me. Welcome to Comedy Saved Me, the podcast
where comedians share the moments when laughter became their lifeline.
I'm your host, Lynn Hoffman, and today we are joined
by the incomparable Paula Poundstone, a comedy legend who's been
making audiences laugh for over four decades with her razor sharp,
observational humor and stream of consciousness storytelling. Paula is, let
(00:26):
me just tell you, a master of finding the absurd
in every day, whether she's dissecting the mysteries of laundry,
the politics of family road trips, or the existential crisis
of shopping at warehouse stores. Believe me. She is a
regular panelist on NPR's Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me, has
released multiple comedy albums, and continues to tour relentlessly, bringing
(00:49):
her unique brand of intelligent, improvised comedy to stages across
the country. But before she was cracking jokes about the
absurdities of modern life, Paula was navigating her own challenges,
and today she's here to share how comedy didn't just
become her career, it's quite literally saved her life. So
settle in as we explore the healing power of laughter
(01:11):
with the brilliant and always funny Paula Poundstone. Paula, welcome
to comedy save me. It is such a pleasure to
have you here.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Well, thank you very much, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
I want to start at the beginning and ask you
what was your relationship with humor like as a kid?
I mean, were you the class clown or did you
find comedy later in life?
Speaker 2 (01:34):
The first sentence of the summary letter written by my
kindergarten teacher, missus Bump and I believe it might have
been May of nineteen sixty four, perhaps it was sixty five.
I don't call said. I have enjoyed many of Paula's
humorous comments about our activities, So I don't remember doing
(01:55):
like a tight five one Plato, but I'm sure I did.
And I remember even before I started in kindergarten, I
was the youngest in my family and uh, my mother
not the happiest person in the world. She used to
get all the other kids off to school, uh, the
(02:16):
older kids off to school, and then she would go
back to bed, and I was just sort of left
to wander. And the truth is, much of the time,
most of the time, I suppose I eventually, you know,
gravitated towards the television, which in those days was not
like in the living room, was down in the you know,
(02:37):
in the in the basement, and I would watch. I
didn't much care for a lot of the children's programming
because this was even this was you know, pre Sessame Street.
Uh So I watched I Love Lucy reruns that were
(02:58):
on in the morning, and the Three Stooges. And I
still say to people that, you know, I was raised
by them.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
I find that fascinating. I had Tom Berger on on
the show a couple of weeks ago, and when I
told him that I was a huge fan of the
Three Stooges, he said that he's never met a woman
that admitted that that they were a fan of the
never no one's ever told him that.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Okay, but how often hasn't come up?
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Right?
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Yeah, I mean, it's just uh. I wish I could
remember Rachel Mattaw was interviewing somebody one night and they
were like, oh, damn it. I wish I could remember
the role that they had. But it was like the
second in command at the Department of Interior or something
(03:50):
like that. Something a little archaic like that. And she's said,
I don't know anybody who doesn't you know, who doesn't
admire the second command at the at the uh at
the you know, I think the warm the interior, and
I'm like, okay, But how often does it come up?
I mean, do people introduce themselves that way? Do they go, Hi,
(04:11):
Rachel's so nice to me, Oh my gosh, I love
the second and commander of the Department of Material And
in the same way I would say to uh uh
uh mister Burger on that. Uh, probably the subject just
doesn't come up. There's tons of women that like the
Three Stooges, probably, you know, not as many as you
(04:33):
know as man, and we probably see something different money
in it. I mean, I even as a kid, I
didn't particularly like it. I you know, I didn't want
I didn't want them to get hurt. Yeah. By the way,
one of the.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Scenes, don't tell me the one on the train where
Curly was came back from a stroke.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
No one of them. One of the scenes they were
climbing up and they had put like a table on
top of a table, and then they were climbing up
on top of that, right, trying to reach something up
high and it was all three of them and uh,
it was mud and of course they fall right. Yes,
it was long and they all and they all come
crashing down and Mo broke like three ribs or something
(05:18):
in real life doing this. And they just kept going, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Have you ever done that? Have you ever broken a
bone and then had to perform on stage while you
were still in pain?
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Well? I have, Actually you have. I didn't. Yeah, I
mean I break the bone on stage. I I broke
a rib coughing years ago, and I functioned with it
for for a while. I mean, the truth is, and
I find this kind of interesting. They I went to
(05:50):
you know, I went to an urgent care eventually when
the pain didn't go away, and I thought, you know what,
I think I have a broken rib. To go to
urgent care. And the doctor this urgent care says to me,
so what are you here for? Like, because they had
that kind of bedside manner and I saw, I think
I broke a rib. She goes, how do you think
you're broken rib? And I said one non profession for
(06:13):
you have going into ma'am, I said, uh, coughing, and
she goes, you can't break a rib coughing, which isn't
true at all when even I knew that. But so
they do an x ray and she comes back and
she goes, you know, we looked in the x ray
you don't have a broken rib. And I was like, oh, okay,
all right, thanks, and I apologize because I always he
(06:36):
wasting people's time. And I go away. I even worked
out that days I recall and the following morning, the
same doctor calls and says, yeah, we showed you xtra
ray to a rabio. Just you do you have a
broken rib? She said, And she said it's broken off
the rib cage and she said the gooddows is it's
(06:57):
not headed towards the lung.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Thankfully.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Yeah, And I'm like, well that is good news, thank
you for calling. And uh. But they they recommended they
go to orth and Pede. I went to the orthan
Pede and he's like, he was like, you know what,
it'll heal, don't worry about it's fine, and he said,
we really don't do anything for that anymore, which I
(07:21):
find really interesting. In the old Sea, they used to
tape people.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Do you remember that They used to takee people like
around the ribcakes when they broke a rib cake when
they broke a rib. But they don't anymore. And I'm
sharing this because I think it's important information for people
to have. Okay, they don't anymore.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Because when people's ribcage is taped, they can't take deep breaths,
and deep breaths are an important part of healing. I
always thought stuff like that was kind of whooo. You
know when people, you know, he said, people go, well,
breathe deeply. They sounded sounds like you come from the
nutty wellness community, breathe deep. But there's something to the
(08:02):
It turns out it is important to it. Wasn't want
to breathe to begin with, because without it.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
This would be an interesting conversation.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
I'm this close to being the head of HHS. Honestly,
my body of medical knowledge already beyond that of Robert
Kennedy Junior running for the hialth.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
All right, well, you've talked about growing up as a
kid in school kind of being silly and funny. But
you had a huge family, had like seven kids.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
No, I didn't have seven kids. No, I lived with
a family with seven kids, but no, my family was
a family of four, okay, and they were it wasn't.
It didn't feel like a It didn't feel like a
full rich uh not. I don't mean rich monetarily, but
it didn't feel you know, it didn't have a There
weren't a lot of storylines, you know, like in The Waltons,
(08:55):
which is one of my favorite shows growing up, there
were a lot of storylines because they had a bunch
of kids and every week it could now it could
be Elizabeth's problem or or you know, I don't know
Mary Kate's who. But our house had very limited storylines.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
There was no good night, John Boy or survive any Oh.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Actually we did do that sometimes put only kidd No,
there was none of that. No, there was a lot
of don't make me have to come in there, don't
make me get your father.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Oh that's funny. So did you try to like joke
your way out of things with your parents ever?
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Not in that way. I mean, you know, you know,
me and my sisters did kind of make fun of
my mother. Not not. We weren't so much joking our
way out of anything. But because at a certain point,
you know, you just like, okay, last or cry, yeah exactly,
let's just call out the absurdity. But yeah, No, it
(09:53):
wasn't one of those things where no, I'll tell you
there were certainly times. I remember when I was in
high school. I was in this typing class and you know,
you know by high school you were in you could
be a freshman in a class with a senior, you know,
it just depended what class it was. And so it's
in this typing class and there were these two girls
(10:14):
that were, you know, older than me, and they were scary,
and they they they were purposely scary, and they knew
I was scared of them, and so they would do
stuff like drop their paper on the floor and tell
me to pick it up, and I would pick it up.
(10:34):
And then one day I think I made a joke
about it or something like that, and I wasn't a
joke about the It was a joke about something in
this dynamic, and they thought it was funny, and all
of a sudden, all the bullying just went away. It
was great. It was like a you know, could have
(10:55):
been like in a in a television show.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
That's so cool. I can't I have to tell you,
I'm HARKing an experience same similar They were like the
tough kids. They wore the leather jackets smoke the cigarettes
and you like it was afraid of and that, Yeah,
how do I win these people over? And one day
I was in some play I can't remember. I think
it was like Reno Sweeney and anything goes and I
(11:19):
had to like make this grand entrance to the stage.
And I was so scared because all these kids were
sitting and they were going to judge me, and he
all came up to me. They were the loudest people
clapping for me in the audience, and I was like,
I won them over.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Yeah, isn't that cool?
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Yeah? Very cool.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
My son when he was in the fifth grade, I
think it was you know, you know, he didn't fit
in very well socially growing up and I and it
was a you know, it was hard for him. But
he they had a talent show one time in the
fifth grade and he he came out and did a
routine on the mushroom, which is the training device for
(12:00):
the pommel horse, and he had we had a mushroom,
like a training one, not a not a fish, you know,
a training one. And all these girls lined the front
of the stage and were cheering and bought a lunch here,
like okay, it was a lot easier to make jokes,
(12:22):
is my point. Oh yeah, because burning that mushroom, learning
the pump horse is like a god awful experience.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
You don't want to do that.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Yeah, but it works for him for at least for
that afternoon.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Well, that explains why guys like to be rock stars,
because you know, the girls love the rock stars.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
So you know, Moe said in his book Mo Howard
in The Three Stooges, he said that Curly became an alcoholic,
and most said that the reason was that he couldn't
get women. And I got to tell you from being
on the road when I was younger, I was on
(13:02):
the road with the skevest guys. Right, you had to
stay in the apartment with them for the clubs. Would
they were gonna have a middle act MC and a
headliner in for the week. What they did was they
rented an apartment and it was only going to be empty,
like one night a week. And that way there they
didn't have to pay for hotels. And so you're stuck
(13:27):
not just working with some of these guys, but you know,
stay in the same apartment with them. And I mean
they were gross. Many of them weren't particularly good comics
to begin with, but also just just gross and they
always they always had women after the show always. So
(13:51):
you know what, Mo, that's not why Curly became an alcoholic.
And by the way, I don't think you become an
alcoholic because of a problem to begin with. But also, no, no, Curly,
for whatever reason, maybe didn't hook up with women. But
it's not Ma was saying, it's because, you know, he
(14:12):
shaved his head to be Curly, and that he you
know that it was because of this role he played.
Oh no, no, he could. First of all, Curly was great.
And second of all, Curly could have not even been
good at being Curly, and he still would have had
women that would have thrown themselves at him.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
Grown at. I got to tell you, even as a
little kid, my parents were a little concerned with me
because I had a crush. These are the guys that
I had a crush on growing up on television, like
when you were watching TV, Harvey Corman, Tim Conway, Gene
Wilder and Curly, the three stooges, Like I'm little little yeah,
(14:54):
you know, apparents this close to going to the Jordan
Marsh charm School. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
My mother, My mother said to me, I forget how old,
he said. I think I was like a teenager. And
she said, the biggest mistake of her life. And this
is somebody who was, you know, married a few times,
and you know, we all have lives full of errors,
and you know, some of hers were bigger than others.
But she had a fair speed of ones that you
(15:22):
could point to if you chose. But she said the
biggest mistake of her entire life was not sending me
to charm school. I'd just say, I think she had
overinflated an unrealistic idea of what could be done through
a charm school.
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
They don't have stuff like that anymore, do they.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
I don't think so. I don't even think. No, there's
no Civis, there's no charm school. It's all gone.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
I believe the store Jordan Marsh. I'm fairly certain that
the store Jordan Marsh had a charm school associated with it.
And it was a you know, it was a clothing
store and Jordan Marsh was that exclusive.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
For Boston because I remember that growing up.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
It was in the the Jordan Marsh was in the
Framingham Shoppers World, the one with.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
The little train you drive around the Shoppers World.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Native Shoppers World in the in the center it was
a it was an outdoor mall. It wasn't enclosed. I
mean there were roofs on the stores, but it had
a in the center of it. It was like a courtyard, right, yes.
And there was at one time a like amusement park
(16:36):
park Grides that was so.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Smart when you think about it. And then obviously it
grew up to the Mall of America, which is like,
you know, a roller coaster inside the mall while you're
your shopping.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
You can actually on the Mall of America, you can
ride on a roller coaster and grab a product off
a shelf as you go, and then pay for it
when you get off the road coast.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Nowadays you don't even have to. You just got your
phone on you. It charges, you know, just as soon
as you tie it's yours.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Yeah, a good point.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
It's all over.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Probably where all my money's going is. I probably just
keep touching the wrong things on my phone and it
just keeps taking money off.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Well, when we come back, we're going to find out
exactly how comedy saved Paula Poundstone stay with us. Comedy
saved me all right, Paula. The premise of our show
is that comedy has saved our guests in some way.
(17:31):
Can you pinpoint an exact or specific moment or a
period in time during your life when you realize comedy
wasn't just something that you did, but it was something
you needed to do.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
You know what? I fell for your even I have
a podcast and we say we're going to take a break,
and then we don't take a break because because the
break is put in afterwards. But when you said we're
going to take a break, you said it so professionally, yes,
that I really didn't think you were taking a break.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (18:00):
At one point when I was in excuse me, I
looked on the screen even there because I have a
you know, phone on the wall, like like how it's
supposed to be, and it has an answering machine attached
to it, and I thought that, you know, I could
put up with the phone ringing.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
But then I thought there was going to be a
message left, so I thought we'll all go stop it,
but it stopped by itself, and therefore I sat back
down again.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Well, thank you for that, and also thank you for
having a wall phone, because that just warms my mind.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Yes, that's yeahs.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
I have the cord on the wrapping chord.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
I have one in the kitchen, one in my bedroom.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
You know, there's obviously great conveniences to having cell phones,
and I have cell phones, but in a way, I
miss the phone on the wall. I missed people not
being able to you know, now, if somebody calls you,
or you know, text you or whatever. I mean, I
don't text, but if now, if somebody calls you and
(18:58):
you don't answer the phone, they're just perplexed. You know.
It's not a law. You don't have to. I miss
answering the phone when it's convenient to me to talk
because I'm in my room and the phone rang and
I got the phone. I kind of hate I hate
(19:19):
being tethered to the cell phone the way that one is.
If somebody doesn't get you, they'll call me back five times.
What the fuck is that?
Speaker 1 (19:27):
It's so true?
Speaker 2 (19:28):
You know, listen, I don't want to run up against
the theme of your whole show. I you know, I
wish I could tell you that there was a you know,
a moment, and that there was a little like a
little sound effect that went with it, and maybe I
saw a bright light. I'm not sure. I'll tell you. Wait,
I'll tell you one thing, all right, okay, prior to
(19:54):
the stay at home order, prior which was you know,
obviously you know, trying to uh stop the spread of COVID.
Prior to the state stay at home order, I may
have and I'm saying I may have sometimes and certainly
not frequently, if at all, I may have complained about
(20:18):
traveling for my job.
Speaker 5 (20:20):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
And then along came the State at home order, and
there was I don't know how everybody else for me.
I had no way of knowing that we would ever
be able to gather in the kinds of groups that
you do in the theater, like so Audie and says
that a performer can and and the thing is, at
(20:42):
that time, this is when you know zoom attacked us.
You know, is a gallery review or portrait view by
There were all these organizations that that I have many
times done fundraise for em seed their fundraisers, and they
tend to happen in the spring. I don't exactly know why,
(21:05):
but they tend to happen in the spring. These events
and for multitude of organizations, all of which are terrific
and all of which, you know, I do what I
can for But as the year goes by, and they
would call me and say or email me and say,
you know, can you em see our fundraiser on the
(21:25):
blah blah blah night, and I would look at my
calendar and go, oh, I'm sorry, I'm not going to
be able to do this year because I'm on the
road that night. Well, when this stay at home order hit,
they all knew I was home every bloody day. You
can emails and phone calls saying will you do our fundraiser?
(21:48):
We're doing it online, We're doing it via zoom. It's
going to be a virtual gala, they all said. And
they were very excited about this idea, and and you know,
good for them, for you know, it can lemonade out
of lemons. But uh, what was in everyone's head was
that I was going to do stand up from my
(22:09):
living room via zoom. And at first I guess I
thought maybe I could. But let me tell you, once
you try that one time, it's you know, never again.
And the problem is what people understand. If I was
a musician or a poet, I could I can practice
(22:35):
what I'm doing at home by myself until I am
red hot at it, and then I can and then
I can present it anywhere I want. And I don't
need what I prefer to have an audience feedback, Sure,
but I don't need it. Stand up is different. It's
different than any other form of art. You simply must
(22:56):
have an audience, at least at least certainly the way
I work. I can't do it without it, and that
during the state of Home Order, when it dawned on
me like, okay, I have no way of taking stand
up and making it into something that I can do,
(23:17):
you know, in this sort of new world of zoom
and not knowing if we would ever be able to
gather in theaters again was terrifying, partly for economic reasons obviously,
but also because I could do like characters and make
videos that way, which I did, but I couldn't interact
(23:39):
with an audience and the loneliness of that. You know,
I guess it's kind of screwed up to say this,
but the audience is kind of my best friend all
these years, and I just found myself for all those
months just wanting to Snoopy cry. Remember how we cried?
(24:01):
Oh yes, yes, the tears will come.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Out flying everywhere.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
That was.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
That was a cross between Pee Wee Herman and Snoopy cry.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
It's just one of the saddest things you can see.
There's there's Snoopy crying and there's Kim Weschler crying on
the bus in Better Call Saul. That was. That was unbelievable, right, God, yeah,
well Snoopy does an ugly cry.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
It's just yeah, and it's very sad.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Years ago, met and Tom posting I forget why. We
were at some sort of fundraising everything in Orlando and
we were at disney World and they're like, oh, you know,
take a picture with Mickey Mouse. And of course Tom
and I were like, fantastic, Great, we'll do that, you know,
and so we both go stand and Mickey Mouse in
(24:52):
the center, and you know, have this picture taken. There's
the worst photograph because you know, Tom was a little patchy,
and I, you know, I you know, I'm not patchy,
but I'm Here's the thing, Mickey Mouse, the character that
(25:13):
walks around the park is the way they've painted him
is perfect for photographing, right anybody standing beside him.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Is that he doesn't need to be touched up, and
I don't.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
Care how gorgeous you are. You could even probably have
on tons of makeup and you're still not going to
be perfect for the camera the way Mickey Mouse is
because he's designed that way. So Tom and I just
looked horrible and Mickey Mouse looks fantastic. I think Mickey
Mouse used that picture for his headshot. Yeah, to get work.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
I would have to agree with that. Well, nowadays you've
got that, you know what, you can be perfect.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
The idea of a I just nauseates me. And we're
marching down this path, you know, like, oh, it's a
good thing, and everything so far indicates that it's not
a good thing. That it's caused all sorts of problems already,
and the last thing we need is one more way
to fool the public. It's just stupid.
Speaker 5 (26:14):
What and the reason we're doing it is because China
is so if we you know, we don't want to
let another country get ahead of us in Ai, why
don't we wait till China destroys ourselves?
Speaker 1 (26:26):
I like that idea. I like that idea.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Yeah, yeah, Why don't we have to be why do
we have to be at the head of the path
it's like we're gonna make you know, just it's a
horrible idea. So anyways, in answer answer to your question, okay,
well that that surely is a point at which is
although when I got back out on the road again
(26:51):
after the Stay at Home Order, the rules in the
theater again trying to prevent this spread of COVID, the
rules in the theater were so so ridiculously stacked against
a performer, like, Okay, normally, if I'm doing a show
and say we don't sell a lot of tickets, say
(27:14):
there's a you know, a lot of spaces in between
audience members, you know, it might be that somebody who
who runs a theater or something would go out on
stairs say, you know what, we got plenty of rooms
down front with some of the people in the backroom
down front, right, because you want to collect that energy
into one place. It makes for a better show. Yes,
(27:35):
But this ended up being the opposite. When we got
back into the theaters after the and the clubs, after
they were pulling back to the stay at Home Order,
they would still insist that people sat like feet away
from each other, so be like and they would let
(27:55):
they would let you know, ticket buyers that came together stated,
but so there would be two people over here and
then this huge on a space before you got to
three people over here, and you know, it was just
and they weren't allowed to have the place to capacity.
So it wasn't even like, oh I couldn't sell tickets.
It was you weren't allowed to sell to capacity. And
(28:17):
oh my gosh, was it hard to do not to
mention that I hadn't performed in you know, what, was
it a year and a half by then, And it
does make a difference.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Yeah, So obviously what you're describing to me, at least
it sounds like and I'm not a doctor, but it
sounds like comedy is also a therapeutic for you.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
Is therapeutic for everybody in a big way. I also felt,
you know, my friend Nils Lofgren one night posted just
a pitch just to assume me, a video of a
uh he plays with Bruce Briinstein a lot, and he
just posted a video from a long time ago, not
not a current because it was during the Stay at Homeowner,
but a video of you know, Bruce Springsteen performance and
(29:05):
Mills's performance, and at the camera kept showing the audience
and you know what a great time they were having.
There is something about experiencing a performance, be it a
movie or a you know, it could be a play
(29:26):
or a ballet, or an opera or a comedy show
or whatever, some sort of performance, when you're in an
audience collectively and you're having this shared emotional reaction, whether
it's it's something that's scary or suspenseful or said or funny,
you're having this shared emotional reaction and it reinforces that
(29:49):
you're a human being. When you're having the same, you know,
the same emotion as everybody else is, there's something about
that that can not be replicated. You know, almost anytime
somebody types lo l into their phone, they're lying. You
don't generally laugh out loud when you're alone. When I
(30:10):
watched The Three Stooges by myself, I never laugh out loud.
I acknowledge in my head that I think it's funny.
But when I used to watch I used to show
them to my kids, and a couple of times we
went to Three Stooges film festivals. Oh my god, is
that fun? Because you're in a whole audience of people
who love the Three Stooges, and so it's already this
(30:33):
powerful reaction from the audience, and.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
Is everyone walking around like this.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
Moe used to talk about maybe it was Del Lord
who said, no, it was a bunch of guys that
were that were of that, you know, helped make the
Three Stooges, that's what it was. And one of them said, I,
you know, I made him what they were. He says,
I gave him this, and he did the two finger thing,
and the other guy goes, yes, but I gave them this.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
I love that. I didn't even know you were going there.
I just all I could think of was there a
big group of fans of Three Stooges, and there's probably
a lot of black and blue people leaving that party,
but unintentionally. Of course.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
The thing is, when we watched with the audience that
was there for this, there were waves of laughter. There
were you were children, you were you were like gasping
for air, laughing over stuff. And that's not how I
had ever experienced it before, because before I watched by myself,
(31:35):
you were home, and there's a big difference. So I
so I would argue that comedy is therapeutic for everyone,
not just the performer, although certainly that's true, but for
the audience too.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Yeah, especially for the breathing part of that. And of
course when you don't have a broken rib. Let's talk
about bombing though, because you I can't imagine this has
happened to you often at all, because you're just so
funny naturally anyway, But every comedian has those moments where
they just couldn't get the audience to see what they
(32:14):
were doing was funny. How do you bounce back? And
has that ever happened? I should ask you first? Has
that ever happened where everything just went side?
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Podcasts? Those moments where they couldn't get the audience to
see that what they were doing is funny. Well, it's
an objective thing, isn't it the And so that's the word,
subjective thing. Whether something is funny or not, who knows,
you know. Sometimes I have had arguments with uh, you know,
either people that are producing the show or say, uh
(32:45):
is somebody. There are situations where I might have written
something for a show and somebody will look it over
and want to rewrite it, you know, or add in
something or do tell me what to do, and it's
not it's not I don't feel like, oh, I know everything,
and so you can't tell me. That's not how I
(33:06):
feel at all. What I feel is, since it's me
on stage, I'm gonna be held responsible for what gets set.
I'm not gonna be able to, you know, say something
to that. Go, well, that wasn't mine. So so and
so made me say that. All right, I thought it
was better this way. You know, in the end, the
(33:27):
buck stops here, and so I do as And I
always say to people, I go, I couldn't. I'm not
gonna argue that I know what's funny. I'm just gonna
argue that since I'm the person that's gonna take the
heat for it one way or the other, then I
get to choose, simple as that.
Speaker 1 (33:50):
That's fair. I like that.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
As to what's funny, I couldn't possibly tell you. I
really don't know. Silly. I like silly, but I like
some both. Uh. I'm a breath mint and a cannyman. Uh.
And how I bombed? Yeah, I bombed many times? Oh
my god.
Speaker 5 (34:11):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Okay, So I I was invited years ago to perform
at farm Aid. They were doing uh you know, supposedly
they were doing a partnership with comic relief, which is
how they got to me because I used to comic relief.
Supposedly that's what they were doing, but in fact it
(34:32):
was it was farm Aide and there were I think
two comedians. It was me and another guy, and uh
it was at the super Dome in oh in New
Orleans and they were using like half of it, and uh,
(34:52):
I you know, I agreed to do it because I, well,
a was Willie Nelllson's event, and I love.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
Will How can you say no to Willie?
Speaker 2 (35:04):
Yeah, I mean we'd never met. He didn't ask me personally,
but I thought it was a Willie Nelson thing. I thought,
you know, like, crowd's got to be really cool if
you know it's a Willie Nelson thing, right, And and
also the Neville Brothers were playing, and I'm you know,
I honestly I would walk across Hot Stones to hear
the Neville Brothers or to see them. So my manager
(35:27):
comes with me, because you know, she wants to see,
and we fly down. We get to get the show
is already because it's a few hours shows. It's only
a six hour show or something, so it's already up
and running when we get there. And and she had
argued that I had to go on like towards the
end or something like because it was somehow prestigious. Uh
(35:47):
or maybe it wasn't even that, maybe they already knew
where they wanted. Because here's the thing. I went on
in between Chris Christofferson and Neil Young and so I
they introduce. And the other thing is, so we're walking
around this crowd before, you know, before I go on,
walking around, you know, listening to music, but walking around
(36:08):
the crowd, well, I what I hadn't thought about before
was there's beer kegs everywhere, and uh, you know a
lot of people have on like John Deere Windbreakers, and
uh it is by the time if it go on
later in the show, well they're more drunk. And that
(36:29):
that does not serve me. Uh So it's fine. And
as we're walking around and I'm beginning to see what
I'm up against, I was already like, okay, this is
not gonna be good. So I, you know, Chris Christofferson
(36:49):
finishes and uh you know, and by the way, same
dynamic here, which is as a musician, you can play
while people you can play while people are talking. Right,
I'm sure do they want to. Probably not, they'd probably
rather everybody stopped talking and just listen to them, probably,
But you can do it as a comic, you really can't.
(37:13):
So Chris christoffers and finishes, but you know, big, big applause,
And now I come on, somebody introduces me. Now most
of the crowd has no interest in seeing me, no
idea who I am, and and so you know, the
noise level rises right away with people just engaged in conversations,
(37:33):
just just checking out, just not paying any attention to me.
And I start to do right thing, and I've you know,
tried really hard, and behind me, I can hear very
loudly Neil Young's bands tuning up, so they were her.
So I'm barely able to talk loud enough to you know,
(37:54):
overcome the noise level in the room to begin with,
and now behind me there's I just couln't believe it.
And then I realized, Okay, that's what I'm here for.
I'm here to kill time while Neil Young warms up
and had nothing to do with them wanting me to entertain.
So now it's just it's really really bad. And my
(38:20):
manager is over on the side. She doesn't usually come
with me to it shows, there's no.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
But it's a Superdoman's farmte it was a big deal.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
It was a big deal. But you know, for the
most part, there's no reason for herticum with me to
a show. But in this case, she's standing watching from
from the side of the stage, and I'm you know,
as far as I'm concerned, I'm done right. If people
don't want to listen to me, why am I there?
That's okay. I don't need to force myself on that.
(38:50):
It's fine. But I don't know. I look over to
the side and there she is, and she's making the
stretch sign.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
Oh go longer, I'm.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
Going believe it?
Speaker 1 (39:03):
Did you?
Speaker 2 (39:05):
And I said, what the fuck are you talking about?
And she and she kind of came out a little
bit and she goes, they want you to stretch? And
I said, you come out here and tell me that.
Speaker 5 (39:20):
Did she?
Speaker 2 (39:20):
Did you watch stretch? And I don't know how many
people in the audience got how fucking funny that was.
I don't know if I convinced them that that was funny.
But as I'm standing there, people some people in the
crowd start to go.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
Neil, Neil, no, No, I know.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
That a lot of those people, you know, really were
done with me already and just wanted Neil Young to
come out. But this crowd was so drunk that I
also believe many of the people yelling Neil thought I
was Neil Young. No, they were messed up. So there,
that's a great bombing story. Huh wow.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
Well, I guess the positive is that you got to
open for Neil Young regardless, which is kind of really
historic in and of itself.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
By the way, YE found a new song, and it's
a good new songs. I haven't heard a big crime.
Maybe it is a it's a song about what's going
on in Washington, and it's got that you know, old
sort of rock and roll.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
Classic Neil Young.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
Yeah, it's got the you know, the the protest Neil Young.
It's a good song. I put on my flat thing.
Speaker 6 (40:41):
We'll be right back with more of the Comedy Save
Me Podcast. Welcome back to the Comedy Saved Me Podcast.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
Awesome. Well, you've been very open about your struggles with alcohol.
Since we're talking about people who are thinking that you
were Neil Young when you were at the super Dome
because they had their beer goggles on. But can you
tell us a little bit about how addiction affected maybe
your comedy and conversely, how comedy maybe played a role
in your recovery.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
Well, I don't think it's anything particularly unique to my experience.
But here's something about alcohol in general. It gets there's
such myths surrounding it. There's such myths about what a
good time people have, you know, when they're oh, they
(41:38):
have a good time. If I had my life to
do over again, I would never have picked up at all,
because I cannot, as I look back, remember so much
as one experience, not one where it made things better
in any way. And I think that's part of the
reason I kept going as a drinker, is because I
(41:58):
was like, I just haven't done it right yet, you.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
Know, Oh, you were practicing achieved.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
I haven't achieved. Like, it's not that oh you know what,
As it turns out, it really that's all advertising, and
it's it's advertising, and it's people who don't want to
It's people who don't want to admit it's the emperor's
who close. It's people don't want to admit that that
that the emperor is naked, that alcohol really didn't make
anything better for them, even though they wasted tons of
(42:27):
time and money on it, and so, uh so there's that.
Uh yeah, it's I don't have a lot to say
about I mean it obviously because it's never made anything
better even once. Ever, uh it it didn't, And.
Speaker 1 (42:47):
You can't think of one did you. Were you ever afraid, Paula,
that when you quit all of that, that you weren't
going to be.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
No, I was funny in kindergarten and I didn't drink.
Uh in my craft's box, in my in my velveda
box that had my crayons, I didn't.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
I didn't have a There was no like little.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
No. I didn't think that at all, ever, not once.
I wasn't a little concerned that I wouldn't play ping
kong as well? And that might Are you a good
ping pong?
Speaker 3 (43:23):
Well?
Speaker 2 (43:23):
I thought I was. I was a good backyard ping
pong player. I was a good basement ping pong player.
Was not ever an Olympic quality but uh but no,
I didn't. I didn't think it had any even when
I was, you know, stupid enough to be a drinker.
I didn't think that it enhanced my performance. I knew
(43:46):
that it did.
Speaker 1 (43:46):
Not. Well, I'm glad that you knew that you were
funny without it, because I would imagine that if you
were afraid it may have stopped you from getting back
into it would all be no, not not as happy.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
I mean, I wasn't you know, I wasn't sure what
was going to happen. But uh no, you know, my my,
my life, you know, my life improved. I would say
one thousand percent, but that would be Trump mask. So
(44:23):
I'll just I'll just stick with one hundred percent as
a result of giving up the devil drink.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
Well, all right, So now that we have got all
of this under our belts and accomplished, I want to
tell you that a couple of weeks ago I spoke
with a comedian and her name is Wendy Leep and
she loves you, apparently because she was talking about you
in our interview and I said I was going to
have you on and would you like to ask Paula
(44:53):
a question? And she actually had. She had one thing
she wanted me to tell you, and a question. Can
I play that? Su All right? Here we go? All right,
(45:16):
So inquiring minds want to know, including Wendy Leidman, why
do you talk to a chair?
Speaker 2 (45:20):
Okay? I don't talk to a chair. I have no
idea where Wendy got the idea that I talked to them.
Come on, for real, I don't talk to the chair.
I take a picture of a chair. Uh. And I
think it started because you know a lot of times
people are like, uh, you know, I'll get like a message,
(45:41):
you know that somebody wants to come backstage. You know,
somebody wants to know if they can meet me backstage.
And I don't mean like another performer, I mean like
a you know, an audience member wants to know if
they can. You know, it's somebody's birthday working to come backstage.
You know what, why does everybody want to come backstage?
It is so unglamorous, It is so it is. It's
(46:02):
this cement room and and a lot of the older theaters,
you know, there's just very little comforts in that room
or else the hotel, excuse me, or else the theater
will want me to come from the hotel like an
(46:23):
hour early because it makes them more comfortable to know
that I'm there.
Speaker 1 (46:29):
And they put you in this.
Speaker 2 (46:31):
Exactly. And I mean I'm not I'm not complaining. I'm
not suggesting for a moment that I need something more
than that little cement room. I do not. I am
perfectly comfortable in that little cement room. I don't need
to be there for an extra hour. I'd prefer to
be in the hotel room. But so originally I started
(46:52):
taking pictures of the chairs sort of to say like, Okay, look,
this is what it is. It's not fancy, meanly in
the lobby. If you want to talk to me, come
to the lobby. Don't come backstage. It's gross. So that
I believe that that was what motivated me in the
beginning to take a picture of a chair before I
(47:12):
went on. And I don't know at what point I sorry,
I would take a picture of a chair, and then
I say and I post. I say, I'm about to
tell them in and I tell the name of the
city that I'm in. And I don't know when I
started doing it, but it was a long long time ago.
And now if I don't post a picture of the chair,
people complain.
Speaker 1 (47:34):
Really, it's become a thing, a thing.
Speaker 2 (47:37):
It's an odd thing. I think people. Clearly Wendy created
this whole story around it in her own mind, so
I think everybody has a different idea of why I
post the picture of the chair, but to the best
of my memory, that's how I started posting the picture
of the dear. What's really funny is there are venues
(47:58):
that have gone out and found a fancy chair just
for you. Snug their chair. When I posted they can
be it? Can it conveyed them in glory? Wow, that
is so cool.
Speaker 1 (48:11):
I like the story behind that, and yes, I agree
with you one hundred percent. I never once I went
backstage working in this industry and saw what was going on.
I was like, why do people want to come back here?
There is nothing going on back here. It's not pretty
and usually it's dark. I mean Joan Rivers room, and
I remember it was in the basement of a comedy club,
in a little cement room like two by four and
(48:34):
there was nothing in there. I'm like, Joan, what, how
is this possible? She's like, yeah, we don't care.
Speaker 2 (48:40):
Like even the Tonight Show the first time I ever
did The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, right, you know,
growing up watching that show, it all looked so glamorous
and you get there and it's just like this is
what it looks like. So small, it's it's small, it's
it's it's just it's just not glamorous. It really is
(49:05):
the magic of television, you know. There's a way that
they light things and what they do with the camera
that makes puts out a particular image. And uh, and
good for them, I mean that's brilliant. But the dressing
room was like, it's a teeny little maybe it's not
cement at the tonight, I can't remember anymore, but I
remember it was very small. Uh, it's it's got it's
(49:31):
not it's not decorated. It's just there. It's just a
room you dress, you know, and big on big. You know.
I think they used to have a big liquor thing
in there. But that that never interested me one way
or the other, even when I started. We're gonna say,
oh oh. So one time I was in Lake Tahoe
(49:53):
and I think I was working somewhere, but also, uh,
I was with some friends. We stayed a couple extra
nights or something, and I think Mahamo's Hairs or something,
and Liza Minelli was working there. So before the show,
I take a napkin and I write a note to
(50:14):
Liza Minnelli, who doesn't know me from Adam, but I
write this note and I go, you know, I'm here
with my friends and I'm a you know, my performer.
My name is Paul Poundstone. I said, we wanted to
know if we can come backstage, and I don't know
at that point, I'd never been backstage there. I really
was expecting, you know, it's e Liza, It's going to
(50:34):
be glamorous, right, And I couldn't believe when whoever I
gave the note to, like a security guy or something,
and he comes back and he says, yes, you know,
come this way, you and your friends come this way.
You know Liza will you know, Lisa will meet with
you backstage. I couldn't believe it. So we go into
I can't remember. Maybe it wasn't it wasn't even the
(50:54):
dressing room might have been the bigger room, the green room,
but the green room also very like just on just
not interesting in any way. And so we come back
and she couldn't have been more gracious. She meets my friends,
she meets me, We sit around and chit. Yet and
later I thought about it, I was like, Okay, why
(51:15):
would she have done that? And I think it's because
it was depressing for her back there too. So she's
just like green room was so total strangers want to
come back, and I'm sure they made her be at
that place, you know, like you know, an hour and
a half early, and she was bored out of her mind.
So she was like, yeah, sure, come on back.
Speaker 1 (51:35):
I do want to tell her that's so funny. Yeah,
green room is just that, it's a room that's green
and sometimes it has have I have one more thing
when you want to share, thank you for your time,
and here's this all right, so you ready for this one?
(52:06):
This is this first of all? Is that true? Yes, okay,
she wanted me to let you know that her husband,
when he was seven years old, his parents used to
write music for movies, soundtracks and stuff, and he went
to school. When he came home from school, he told
his father that they gave him medicine in school. And
his father said, they gave you a shot, and he said,
(52:29):
oh no, no. They put the medicine on a spoon
and put a little sugar cube on it, and they
gave it to me that way. And the next day
her father in law and mother in law I think
or both wrote Spoonful of Sugar for Chitty Chitty Bank Bank.
Speaker 2 (52:44):
Well, noan it was a spoonful of sugar from Mary Poppins.
Speaker 1 (52:49):
I mean Mary Poppins. Sorry, I'm sorry, yes, wow, Sorry Wendy,
I screwed that up.
Speaker 2 (52:54):
So her husband because it was the Sherman brothers who
wrote that song, so.
Speaker 1 (53:00):
Maybe her her husband's father was one of the short.
Speaker 2 (53:04):
Wow I could have.
Speaker 1 (53:05):
Well, we'll have to get down to that wow.
Speaker 2 (53:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (53:09):
Either way, Wendy was a huge fan and I just
didn't want to waste a moment if I could at
least connect the two of you, and yes, two amazingly
talented women in this industry that is so difficult. Before
I let you go, you've maintained a career for over
forty years and notoriously difficult industry. What keeps you going
(53:29):
and what still excites PAULA Poundstone today?
Speaker 2 (53:32):
Well, again, as a result of that period of time
during the stay at home warder, I really know that
you know how awful it feels to not get to
do this, So I am genuine You know, travel does
get you after a little while. The cement rooms gets
(53:53):
you after a little while. But boy, the part of
being in front of an audience and just talking over everything,
you know, what's going on in the world, just talking
to individuals in the crowd and finding about finding out
about the you know, the area that you're in or
a job that somebody does, and having that. I always
(54:16):
say that I'm a proud member of the endorphin production
industry because that's what we do for a couple of
hours a night, is produce endorphins for me and for
the people in front of me, and it is. It's
a joy.
Speaker 1 (54:31):
Paula. Thank you so much for your honesty and your
humor and for everything that you do. And I'm so
glad that you are still is so much excited as
you were even back in the data still continue to
go out there and entertain people and make them happy.
And Lord knows we need a lot of it right now.
I mean a lot of laughter is.
Speaker 2 (54:51):
We donate a lot of it. And as we've seen,
comedians are telling truths right now. And I mean, I
can't swear that every single comedian is telling truth But
I recently got a kitten and I named him Colbert,
and I wrote to I tweeted out a picture of
(55:13):
him and I tagged Colbert Show, and I said, this
is not because you've had me on I said, because
in fact, I don't think you've had me on enough.
I name my kitten Colbert because Stephen Colbert is a
goddamned American hero and because he's said, you know, he's
telling truths.
Speaker 1 (55:33):
I love it. And one other thing, wait, wait, don't
tell me. We can hear you there often on npr S.
Speaker 2 (55:40):
That is correct, all right? And also where I have
a podcast called Nobody listens to Paula Poundstone.
Speaker 1 (55:47):
I was just going to say, where else can we
find more of Paula.
Speaker 2 (55:51):
I'm also doing a series of videos that you can
find on YouTuber, Instagram or any of those kinds of places,
but certainly YouTube is an easy to find. We're mostly
called hey Donald Trump, and they're just a couple of
minutes each or if that, and it's me talking to
(56:13):
Donald Trump, not oh boy, he's not in fact in
front of me. But that's the premise. The premise is
that I'm talking directly to Donald Trump. And they've been,
you know, fun to do, and I try to make
sure I'm working with facts.
Speaker 1 (56:29):
Listen, there's nothing better when you can just turn things
into comedy, regardless of facts, just just making people laugh.
If it's funny, it's funny Paula, right, I mean, it's
not meant to hurt anybody, it's just meant to make
you laugh.
Speaker 2 (56:43):
Yeah, well, good to have some facts in there.
Speaker 1 (56:47):
Yeah, occasionally Fall of Fownstone. Thank you so much. I'm
sorry I had you talk so much. You're choking at
the end of that. Did not intend to do that.
But best wishes to you and all of the future
your endeavors, and I hope that maybe our pass will
cross again. And thanks for spending so much time chatting
with me about comedy and your life and just being
(57:08):
so available and wonderful.
Speaker 2 (57:11):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (57:12):
I I don't want to let you go.
Speaker 2 (57:14):
I said, I had a great time. I appreciate it.
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