Winging it

Poundstone’s creative genius takes flight at Concert Hall

by Missy Votel

Talking with Paula Poundstone is a little like trying to keep up with a verbal ping pong match between Steven Colbert and Erma Bombeck.

And with a house full of pets, kids and regular visitors, as well as a full-time career (several actually), this single mom is more of an “Urban Bombeck,” if you will. Poundstone, who calls Santa Monica home, is known for her wry wit as a regular on NPR’s weekly quiz show “Wait, Wait ... Don’t Tell Me” and her highly improvisational, one-of-a-kind stand-up routines.

Lest you worry it is all an act – if, like some celebs, she has as much off-stage presence as a self-absorbed sponge –  you can breath a huge sigh of relief. Truth be told, Poundstone is as much the queen of wacky conversation on the stage as she is off. During a precious 20-minute interview Monday, this reporter found a lack of a basic “Q&A” net completely irrelevant. In fact, it was hard to keep up with Poundstone, who chatted like an old friend covering topics spanning from fontal lobe development (she has a 16-year-old son and two daughters, 20 and 23) and pets (16 cats and two German shepherds) to computers (despises ’em) and sea turtles (bizarrely fascinating.) 

Although often lauded for her “razor-sharp” wit, Poundstone’s humor is seldom cutting in a mean-spirited fashion (with a possible exception for politicians.) Rather, it can be likened to more of a laser – quick, bright and to the point. And maybe a little all over the place.

Poundstone will be bringing this hallmark recipe for humor to the Community Concert Hall at Fort Lewis College on Saturday. This will be her second appearance on the local stage – she played to a full house in early 2012.

“I had a great time last time,” she said. “I’m excited to come; it’s a beautiful part of the country.”

Poundstone, who tours practically every weekend, in between taping for “Wait Wait,” said she finds her plan of no plan typically works best.

“I start by asking an audience member, ‘What do you do for a living?’ and use that from which to set my sails,” she said. “I usually just pull something out of my hat. Sometimes I’m right and sometimes I’m wrong. Generally speaking, I have really good audiences and 99.9 percent of the time, it’s nothing but a romp.”

An obligatory inquiry into what Poundstone thinks of Colorado’s newly minted recreational marijuana law only blows more wind into the aforementioned sails. She immediately launches into an NPR segment she recently heard that featured a 60-something woman partaking in one of the newly offered pot shop tours in Denver. Needless to say, the “tour” ended abruptly after the first stop, 4 where the woman bought a joint and a chocolate and was soon rendered “incommunicative.”

“The whole idea of a tour of pot places makes no sense,” said Poundstone. “Why would you get anything else after the first store?”

Poundstone – who didn’t exactly indicate which way she leans on the topic of pot – assured no mind-altering substances would be required to make her Saturday night show funny. “My audience needn’t be stoned to have a good time,” she promised.

Poundstone’s cats – of which there are 16 – are often fodder for her occasionally self-deprecating humor.

Perhaps that’s because Poundstone, 56, was been practicing her art for more than a quarter of a century. Born in Alabama but reared in Massachusetts, she was a high school drop-out who began nurturing her comedic talent in 1979 in Boston. She hit the road in the late-80s, making her way West on a Greyhound bus, stopping at open mics along the way. Eventually, at the behest of recently departed fellow comedian Robin Williams, she settled in California.

From there, Poundstone’s career took off, with an appearance on “Saturday Night Live” and multiple HBO comedy specials, one of which won her a Cable ACE Award, the first woman to ever to be awarded the honor.

 In other firsts, she was the first woman to entertain at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, and further accolades include a second ACE Award, as well as an Emmy, an American Comedy Award, a Peabody Award (for “Wait, Wait”) and induction into the Comedy Hall of Fame. She also was an “official correspondent” on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” as well as a regular on “The Late, Late Show With Craig Ferguson” (who is rumored to be returning in an earlier time slot in 2015.)

And in between it all, Poundstone is a writer. In addition to regular columns in the LA Times, Mother Jones and Glamour, she wrote a book, 2006’s There is Nothing in This Book That I Meant to Say. Described as “part memoir, part monologue, part laugh-out-loud biographies of historical figures,” she is now working on its follow-up, which she describes as “memoir-ish.”

“When I finished the last one, I realized I was still alive,” she said of doing a second book.

Perhaps all this – heaped on top of a busy homelife (the 16-year-old is a “lifer,” the 20-year-old is in college and the 23-year-old is “grounded off shore, she explains), constant jet-setting, the joys of aging, as well as her signature bag of neuroses – would explain Poundstone’s constantly firing synapses. She has to be quick – there’s not a moment to spare.

And maybe that is what endears her so much to her audiences. Paula Poundstone is just like us, a crazy cat lady and “NPR geek” who wages the daily computer battle with her teen, posts funny pictures of her pets online and tweets her insecurities that no one will come to her show, making her “look like a dolt.”

Fortunately, Poundstone will find herself in friendly NPR geek territory on Saturday (the show is sponsored by KSUT, which counts thousands of local members, including yours truly.)

“Of all the types of geeks there are to be, that’s a good one,” Poundstone quips. 

And if you go, maybe, just maybe, you’ll get to hear the rest of the story about the sea turtles.