{"id":2455685,"date":"2020-03-12T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-12T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=322448"},"modified":"2020-03-12T09:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-03-12T15:00:00","slug":"stand-up-comic-paula-poundstone-returns-to-aspen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/stand-up-comic-paula-poundstone-returns-to-aspen\/","title":{"rendered":"Stand-up comic Paula Poundstone returns to Aspen"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The stand-up comedy mainstay Paula Poundstone has played Aspen regularly over her decades doing stand-up \u2014 as far back as the 1980s and as recent as her Aspen Laugh Fest spot in 2018.<\/p>\n

But no show was as memorable as a 1992 set at the Wheeler Opera House.<\/p>\n

This was during the backlash against Amendment 2, the state legislation that sought to prevent laws banning discrimination against gays.<\/p>\n

Many artists and performers were canceling Colorado shows over the bill, and Barbra Streisand organized a boycott campaign titled \u201cUndo 2.\u201d Poundstone had booked a show at the Wheeler and mulled canceling it in protest.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Barbra Streisand boycotts Colorado it means something,\u201d Poundstone, who headlines the Wheeler on March 12, said during her last stop in town. \u201cIf I do, it doesn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

She decided to go ahead with the gig, based on the fact that Aspen did have long-standing gay-rights protections on the books.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt didn\u2019t make sense to me to screw over the guys that asked me to work there and also to paint Aspen with the same brush as the rest of the state,\u201d she recalled.<\/p>\n

But rather than pocket her payment for the show, she spent all of it on billboards in Colorado Springs, where the conservative group Focus on the Family had hatched the anti-gay campaign. Her signs ended up covering much of the Front Range town.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t realize how small Colorado Springs was,\u201d Poundstone recalled with a laugh. \u201cSo it was dripping with these Paula Poundstone billboards.\u201d<\/p>\n

The comedian\u2019s pushback made statewide news and rankled the conservatives pushing the discriminatory legislation. On the day of her Wheeler performance, someone called in a death threat to the historic theater. Poundstone decided to go ahead with the show despite the threat. But then, in the middle of her set, there was a blackout in the Wheeler.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the lights in the theater went out and there was a minute when I went, \u2018Well, it\u2019s been a good run,\u2019\u201d she recalled.<\/p>\n

But it was a simple coincidence. The lights went back on moments later and nobody, it turned out, was trying to harm Poundstone.<\/p>\n

In 2017 she published the memoir \u201cThe Totally Unscientific Study of the Search for Human Happiness,\u201d in which Poundstone did experiments with activities believed to cause happiness. Of all the things she tried, Poundstone said, she\u2019s stuck with three: practicing taekwondo, dancing and volunteering at a nursing home.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor most of the chapters, I did whatever the variable was for that period of time, and then I didn\u2019t do it anymore because I wanted to isolate the variables,\u201d she said. \u201cBut with the nursing home I just didn\u2019t feel right saying, \u2018Well, I have what I need. Bye!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

As for dancing, she likes the shock value: \u201cI think I like the look on people\u2019s faces when I say that I tap dance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Along with regular touring, Poundstone is a regular panelist on the popular NPR show \u201cWait Wait \u2026 Don\u2019t Tell Me!\u201d and host of the \u201cNobody Listens to Paula Poundstone\u201d podcast with Adam Felber.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now part of what defines a human being is that we have a long gestation period, we don\u2019t eat our young and we have a podcast.\u201d<\/p>\n

Poundstone returns to the Wheeler this week with new material and the brilliant crowd work that has become her signature, riffing with audience members. Most nights, Poundstone estimated, about one-third of her set is based on crowd work and completely unique to that night.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do it in the time-honored way of \u2018What do you do for a living?\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cLittle bios of audience members emerge and I use that to set my sails.\u201d<\/p>\n

atravers@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The stand-up comedy mainstay Paula Poundstone has played Aspen regularly over her decades doing stand-up \u2014 as far back as the 1980s and as recent as her Aspen Laugh Fest spot in 2018. But no show was as memorable as a 1992 set at the Wheeler Opera House. This was during the backlash against Amendment […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2455685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-18 11:02:56","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2455685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455685\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2455685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2455685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2455685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}