Comedian Paula Poundstone makes a pit stop at The Egg on 7/25

For more than four decades, Paula Poundstone has been one of America's most distinctive comedians celebrated for her quick wit, improvisational style, and hilarious conversations with audiences that make every performance quite unique. A longtime favorite on NPR is a regular panelist on Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. Poundstone remains one of stand-up's most recognizable voices. She continues to tour nationally, bringing her sharp observations on everyday life, politics, and family, and the absurdities of modern living to audiences across the country. She's bringing her show to The Egg in Albany on Saturday night at 8 p.m. and she joins us this morning for a preview. Good morning, Paula Poundstone. How are you? Morning, Joe. Good. I am well. I am thrilled you're coming back to the egg.

But have I been to the egg before? I can't remember. I, well, here's two things. I think you have. And two, I'm, I only question that now because I would think you'd remember it. Because it is, it is an egg. It is, it's really an egg. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um. I don't know. Sometimes I'll say like, you know, I'll go, oh, I've never been to this place before. And then, you know, and then they're walking me through the backstage and there's like autographed posters of me. I'm like, okay. All right. Maybe I have been. You're right. You would think that the egg part would stand out. Yes. You know, who knows? On the other hand, my memory is a little. Not so trustworthy any longer. Maybe it never was. I've put a list in each room of my house of reasons why I may have gone in there. And that's been helpful to me. When did you start doing that? Oh, you know what? The summer before. the summer before the last presidential election. I was a little stressed. And when I'm stressed out, my memory goes. And so I've turned to various coping mechanisms. But you know what? I realized that, you know, we're all aging if we're alive. And whenever I say, oh, boy, I have a terrible member of people go, oh, you know, that's what happens. It's been like this forever. Yeah. When my kids were little, if they had like, say they had like to take a medication or if I did. And like you had to take it with food or something. And so I have to wait until they're done eating. But I've already got the meds in my hand. What I used to do is tape. tape the pills to my shirt because I knew that someone would say to me at some point, what's that on your shirt? And I would go, oh, yeah, come here, take this pill. It's a very helpful method. Or same thing. If there was like a paper I had to bring to the school or something like that, I would just tape it to my shirt knowing that someone would recognize that it was odd for me to have a paper on my shirt. Well, very helpful and also a lovely fashion accessory. Well, yes. And of course, now I'm known for my fashion. You know what? One time, wait, wait, don't tell me. Peter likes to make fun of what I'm wearing. And Peter, Zagel being the host of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. So one time, the not my job guest was some sort of fashion guy. And Peter said something about how I was dressed. And the guy said, oh, no, Paula Poundstone is a fashion icon. Oh.

And boy, I wished I had that on a loop. I would have loved to play that for my daughter, who also enjoys making fun of how I dress. I was talking to Tom Papa the other day. Hello. Tom Papa. Tom is great. He loves you. And it was really a very nice conversation I had with him. He's also in town. He didn't get to play the egg, but he was in town. And I was, he said something that I thought was interesting that his act. His daily, his everyday stand-up act does not feature politics prominently, which is one of the reasons that he likes weight, wait, because he can exercise that muscle that he normally would not. But you do a little bit more of it in your act. My act is largely autobiographical, and so I talk about what I'm thinking about, what I'm doing. And these days I am thinking a lot about saving our democracy. Yeah. And so... Yeah, it does come up for me now. It didn't always. And there's periods in our lives where it doesn't, because it's just not so prominently, you know, facing out and, you know, on my brain. But now we are, we're in a pickle, and I'm doing my best to, I make two daily video series. One, I started a year ago, August, and I've made one every day. I call them, hey, Donald Trump videos. And the premise is that the video is me talking directly to Trump, that I begin everyone saying, hey, Donald Trump. It's like we're FaceTiming. And I give him advice. I tell him what I think he's doing wrong, but I give him advice. And they're very friendly. They're not, generally speaking, they're not, you know, sort of caustic or adversarial. I almost always tell them that I like him. And then I do another daily series that is a countdown until November 3rd. And wherein I try to give everybody something we can do every day towards saving our democracy because hand-wringing is not really helping.

And so, you know, all those people who talk about, you know, how we're doomed and how, you know, there's nothing we can do. And, you know, it's all so awful. I try to give them, including myself, something we can do so that we're not just whining. Well, I find that as an NPR talk show host, people will often ask me, what do we do? What do we do? You talk about this stuff every single solitary day. What do we do? And I assume for you also being on NPR and having this platform that people also ask you what to do. It's a hard thing to. always answer. What have you employed that has allowed you to come up with this list that you can present every day? Well, A, let me begin and I tell my viewers this as well, which is I am not an expert. I'm somebody just hanging on by a thread trying to keep up and figure it out. I go to a variety of sources. I may... I just love Heather Cox Richardson, and I hang on her every word. I, you know, I scour the Internet for various voices that I sometimes replicate. I go to Indivisible.org a lot, who are the people who organize the no-pings rallies. But I'll tell you what I've found in the course of, and let me think how many I've done now, 100. I guess I've done 193 of them now, counting down. And I know that because one of the things I did from the very start, and I'm not quite sure why I did this, but one of the things I did from the start of the countdown videos, was I said I've made a commitment to add a pogo on my pogo stick every day until we take back the House and the Senate. And I know that it was 133 days ago because that's how many pogoes I did yesterday. And by the way, 193 pogo sticks is really hard to do. But... In the course of the 193 days, I mean, eventually what we can do gets kind of repetitive. I try to encourage people to, you know, stay informed. I'll tell them about various, you know, podcasts or articles or things that they should listen to on, you know, on the Internet. But a lot of it boils down to, A, get in the streets, you know. Grab a sign. You don't have to have a group with you. Just yesterday, I went out to an overpass by myself. You don't have to wait for to be joined by hundreds of people. What you need to be is a pebble. What you're trying to do right now in terms of, you know, public stuff is spread courage.

And you can do that by yourself or you can do it with the group. So there's that. I encourage people to get in the streets. I encourage people to donate both to the Democrats, but to candidates that they, if you've had your primary already, by God, go on your candidate's website and buy a t-shirt and, you know, where to, so to, you know, put your voice out there. A lot of it is calling your senators. and your representative, which is something, by the way, that I've done a handful of times in my life. And I'm really nervous doing. Even if you're just leaving a message, I feel nervous doing that. But a lot of times... I tell people it's perfectly normal to be scared and do it anyways. Because the situation will be in if we don't is so much worse than the situation of feeling some fear right now. So those are, you know, those are mostly the things. And it's kind of the same thing, you know, over and over again. After a little while, some of the things are very similar. A lot of calling your Congress people. Because you know what? They are our employees. And if they're not doing what we ask them to do, then they need to be voted out. But they at least need to know what we're asking them to do. Absolutely. So those are mostly the sorts of things. Right now, I really encourage people to read Andrew Weissman's book. What is it called? Liar's Kingdom, I think. And it's really good and he's got a great idea. Paula Poundstone is our guest. She's going to be at the egg on Saturday night at 8 p.m. And you can find out more by going to the egg.org, the egg.org. When you make the videos, the face-time videos, if you will, to President Trump, what do you think that does for you personally and also for the audience in viewing that exchange? That one-sided exchange. Well, I actually feel like I'm talking to him sometimes. So for me, it satisfies, yeah, it satisfies an odd fantasy. For the audience, I get, you know, in the comments, people, I probably would have quit a long time ago. But people write to me all the time and say it's getting them through. It's helping them. And I'm happy to serve. They each take, the combination of the two, take about six hours a day. So. You know, there are nights when I'm on the road, for example. Well, if I'm on the road, I have to bank some of the countdown ones because they frown on pogo sticking in the hotel room. So I bank those if I'm going on the road. But the hey Donald Trumps, I do from the hotel room when I'm in a hotel room. And most nights on the road, I just don't get any sleep at all. I get back from the theater.

I write the video, I make the video, and I'm lucky if I'm all the way packed by the time I have to go to the airport. But I don't know, I feel like they're pretty good and they seem to be helping people. They're really, I try to make them informative. I mean, I try to put in some facts. But mostly. I'm making fun of them. And according to Ruth Ben Guiat, the author of Strongman, the book about the authoritarian and dictators, I don't know the difference, but dictators and authoritarians, that could be like six of one, half dozen of another, that phrase. But according to Ruth Ben-Giott, they hate to be made fun of. And so, you know, it's one of the few arrows in my quiver. As you look at the, you used a word a while ago in our conversation, and that was courage. Do you feel that that has, the courage that you have developed has come over time, that you've become more confident? Yes. Yeah. I do, you know, one of the things I started doing before I started making videos was protesting by myself on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. I would walk with a two-sided side. I would walk an hour up to the famous 405 entrance during rush hour and then stand there for about 30 minutes. and then walk an hour back. And the first few times I did it, I was really, I don't know what I was afraid of, but, you know, when you're carrying a big sign, you're attracting some amount of attention, and I'd have people drive by me and honk and yell mean things at me, and I'd have, you know, some people that had... Support of honks. Sometimes, by the way, I can't tell the difference between the two and I don't see that well. By the time I can focus well enough to recognize that someone is flipping me off, I've already waved and thanked them, which I think really annoys the flipper offers. One day, I was walking and two boys about, I don't know, where they maybe 12 years oldish, something like that. Yeah. On bicycles came up to me and they go, put that side down. And of course I didn't. I just kept walking. And they started like yelling at me and circling me and reaching and grabbing for the sign. And honestly, I didn't quite know what to do. I'm like, well, I'm not going to, I'm not going to, I, I didn't, I didn't, I was in this position where I felt like I had to defend myself physically, but I just, I didn't do anything or say anything other than continue to walk. And as luck would have it,

There was a cop up ahead of me that, you know, was there for some sort of traffic-y thing of some sort on Wilson Boulevard. And I walked towards the cop as if I was going to say something about these kids. I wanted the kids to think that I was. And I didn't. And I wouldn't have. I didn't want to get them in trouble. But I'll tell you, there was a moment where it was kind of scary. Yeah. And... I was one time protesting in Billings, Montana when I was working there. And it was the day after the shooting of Renee Good. And I had a sign, and I forget now what it said, but it said something in support of Renee Good. And some trucker drives by and yells to me, I think really coincidentally, the last words that Renee Good ever heard. And there was something about it that was kind of jarring. Yeah. I mean, I don't know that I felt physically threatened in that moment, but it was, you know, it's funny, because I don't yell stuff out my car window. I'm just, I think there's two kinds of people in the world. There's, well, there's the kind who like the teaky birds at Disney and there's the kind who don't. So maybe there's four kinds of people in the world. There's people who yell out their car window and there are people who don't. If I'm in support of somebody who I see protesting on their own, I would certainly honk to show support. But this idea of, you know, rolling my window down and shouting my, you know, my oppositional thoughts to somebody walking with a sign, it just wouldn't occur to me. In the same way, if I'm going to leave a show because I don't like it, I would just quietly leave. I would have no need to stand up and testify. So where do you stand on the teaky birds? I like the teaky birds, but I'm aware that, like, a lot of couples, I think. And I don't imagine any marriage counselor has the sensitivity to do this. I don't think it's possible for someone who likes the Tiki Birds to have a successful relationship with someone who doesn't. And I think that is the key to a lot of marital friction. Even if the subject never comes up, there's an undercurrent. Yes. Do you find that in comedy, in being on stage or even doing wait, wait, is that... Has your view changed at all? Has it had an impact of because of a concern, because of this underlying worry about the state of democracy? Does that change humor? I don't know if it changes humor. It's changed my approach in some ways. I've always done like a handful of political jokes. Maybe not even every night, but I've always had sort of, you know, a handful in my head somewhere. I mean, probably, you know, since Reagan, I used to do a John Anderson joke. There you go. That's how long ago. And, and.

I used to do some Bill Clinton jokes. And I did some original George Bush jokes, and so on and so forth. And I had an audience that was mixed between Republicans and Democrats, certainly more Democrats, for sure. But the reason that I know that I had Republicans in my crowd is because they came up to me and told me so. And I would always thank them for being there. And sometimes people would whisper it to me. Sometimes people would come up and meet me and they'd ask for a hug and I'd hug them and they'd go, I'm a Republican. But I'm talking about Republicans now. I'm not talking about this thing, this Trumpism that's come to us. And when I first started, you know, when Trump first came down the golden escalator and I first started making, you know, Trump jokes, the crowd responded differently than they ever did to any jokes I did about Republicans in the past.

In fact, I mentioned the thing about leaving if I didn't like a show that I would leave a theater quietly. I have any number of times, like, several years ago, I don't have it now. But I did at one point have where a whole group of people would get up sort of very drawing a lot of attention to themselves and storm out. I remember reading an article. about Wanda Sykes having the same problem around the same time. And there was this shift for a lot of us, where all of a sudden it was this sort of... angry adversarial response that we had never gotten before. Because it's Trumpism. It has nothing to do with Republicans. It's Trumpism. And so I went through this phase where I sort of, I would put out jokes, but they were, but I would almost apologize before I, I'd make this little speech almost apologizing before I did it. And finally I got to a place where I realized, you know what? We need to be speaking out. And the time for courage is now. And... You know, the time for apologies or, you know, or sort of explaining my point, it's gone. We blew past that a long time ago. And so now I, you know, I prefer to just say what I feel like saying. And by the way, sometimes people ask me about the Hey, Donald Trump videos. They go, how can you do it every day? And it's a little challenging to do every day, but not because there's a shortage of stuff to say. Oh, no. No. He's a, he's a, he's a chocolate fountain.

Apparently plans can't land there. Apparently plans can't land there right now because of the algae. What can they expect on Saturday night? Well, A, we don't talk about politics the whole time. It's sprinkled. Beattie, I don't really know because... My favorite part of the night is just talking to the audience. I do the time honored, where are you from? What do you do for a living? And in this way, little biographies of audience members emerge. And I use that from which to set my sales. And so I never know exactly, you know, what we're going to talk about. As you said in the introduction, my act on average, I can't help but talk a little bit about travel because it's such a large portion of my life. But I talk about... You know, trying to keep up with the news well enough to cast a halfway decent vote. I talk about my employment history. I talk about, you know, sometimes I talk about raising a house full of kids and a house full of animals. Here, hold on, don't wait. All right. Well, it was picking up a, oh, a beautiful cat. This is Larry. Larry is a black and white cat, beautiful. Larry has his own. fans because I got him. about two years ago, I guess now. Yeah, maybe around two years ago. The only adult cat I've ever brought home, and I brought Larry home because when I saw him, I had gone to the animal shelter looking for a kitten. But when I met Larry, he was 23.9 pounds. He was the largest cat I've ever seen in my life, not a Maine Coon. Just plain fat. And I looked at him like, that cat's going to die like that. So I took him home and I've been helping him lose weight. And the last time I weighed Larry, he was 11 pounds. Oh, wow. Yeah, he still seems sturdy, though. That's a, that's great. That's a great looking. Yeah, he's a big old black and white male. Yes. That's a great looking cat. And it's funny, he's still, he's in the countdown videos. I always begin them saying, you know, it's just me, Paul, stand-up comic Paula Poundstone, and this is my cat Larry. And then I say, Larry and I love democracy. And then I put Larry down. I'm sitting on a bench at the time, and I put Larry down. And the viewers,

really enjoy the sound of Larry hitting the ground. You know, we're on a bench. We're not that high up. He jumps that high, you know, three times that up onto the counter every day. But... He still thinks of himself, I think, as very heavy because he still jumps fat. He seems to have no idea that he's really much later on his feet than that now. But, yeah, so I tell Larry's origin story. And I don't know, whatever comes up. Well, Paula Poundstone will be at The Egg in Albany on Saturday night. It's 8 p.m. You can find out more at TheEgg.org. Paula Poundstone, it's always a pleasure to talk to you. I love having you on the air and love having you in town. Thank you so much for joining us as always. Oh, thank you. I really appreciate it. Be well. Again, Paula Poundstone at the Egg, Saturday night, 8 p.m. You're listening to the Roundtable on WAMC.