Paula Poundstone leaves pets at home, brings laughs to Pittsburgh

Paula Poundstone

Carnegie Library Music Hall, Munhall, PA

Saturday, Sept. 19, 8… Paula Poundstone

Carnegie Library Music Hall, Munhall, PA

Saturday, Sept. 19, 8 p.m.

$27-37

Veteran comedienne Paula Poundstone will perform Saturday at the Carnegie Library Music Hall in Munhall, vitalizing the crowd with her unique personality and off-color, conversational brand of comedy.

While not a regular visitor to Pittsburgh, Poundstone has a number of memories of the city from childhood.

“I used to have cousins that lived [in Pittsburgh],” said Poundstone, “and they used to hand me down the laundry chute they had in their house.”

Far from being a traumatic experience, though, Poundstone recalled being “quite willing.”

While Poundstone is best known for her stand-up and the persona crafted along with it — her penchant for pantsuits, ties and vests, as well as her endearingly self-deprecating humor — Poundstone reaches far beyond the world of stand-up in her modern career, infiltrating numerous other media.

A regular panelist on “Wait, Wait … Don’t Tell Me!” — an hour-long weekly radio show involving a comedic quiz-show approach to current news topics — she can be heard on National Public Radio or on podcasts. Having been a panelist for years, Poundstone rates it well above many of her other gigs.

“The great part [of the show] is that I get to make jokes about real facts and that nearly the whole thing is improvised,” Poundstone said. “It’s like being a batter in a batter’s cage. There are no limits imposed by the producers, no pre-written, terribly unfunny comments I’m told to read. I love it, even though I currently hold the record for losing.”

In addition to her comedic materials, Poundstone is also the co-author of three children’s mathematics workbooks intended for middle school kids.

“When I had to help my [three kids, Toshia, Allison and Thomas E.] with math problems, I usually ended up solving the problems for them before I could teach them how to do it. As a result, I ended up writing word problems to help teach them the concepts and making them funny — to the best of my ability,” Poundstone said.

“I also got frustrated with how awful the math workbooks I bought for my kids were, so I talked with my high school math teacher, with who I remained friends after high school, and this kind of just happened,” she said.

On a personal front, Poundstone’s life is filled with her children and her veritable stable of pets: “Thirteen cats, two bunnies, a German shepherd mix and a bearded dragon lizard, just to name a few,” Poundstone said.

“That equals about two to three hours a day of just dealing with animal waste, and it gets hard sometimes making it seem interesting to my kids and my fans,” she said.

While her work certainly keeps her busy — between touring, writing and her various media commitments — Poundstone claims that she easily works more when she’s “not actually working.”

Poundstone has also evolved into a viable internet presence by learning the intricacies of computers in order to know how to regularly update her Twitter and Facebook pages.

“I try to update three or four times a day, but it’s hard to get things done when I’m at the computer. A friend of mine once called his boat a hole that he dropped money into. In the same way, I think computers are holes that you instead drop minutes of your life into, never to be seen again,” she said.

Poundstone recently released her first comedy album, I (Heart) Jokes: Paula Tells Them in Maine, a recording of a particularly interesting show in Maine.

“It was just where someone happened to have a tape recorder,” Poundstone said. “But the crowd was great. I asked one guy what he did, and he said he was — he was a ‘snow ranger’. I’ve been asking people their professions for a long time, but I’d never heard of a snow ranger! Unfortunately, now that the states are bankrupt, I doubt he has a lot of job security.”

Citing it as a good experience, Poundstone hopes to put out similar albums in the future.

As for her Pittsburgh show, Poundstone promises jokes about her busy life with her kids and animals, her desperate struggle to remain an informed citizen and competent voter and her dueling, equivalent loves for Abraham Lincoln and the Hardy Boys. However, a large chunk of Poundstone’s shows — and, by her admission, her favorite part — is the improvisation she does when she interacts with the audience.

“I’m not sure why it’s my favorite part — it’s like asking why those giant green beetles can fly — but great things always unfold,” she said. “My shows aren’t totally unscripted, but they’re a lot like cake batter — adding in dry ingredients until you get something delicious.”