Paula Poundstone is like a box of chocolates: You never know what you’re going to get (with apologies to Forrest Gump’s mother).
Poundstone can at times be a keen observer of social issues, a harried mother of two young kids and six neurotic cats, an unabashed fan of “Murder, She Wrote,” and a make-it-up-as-she-goes-along wit.
She also rambles on aimlessly, admittedly can’t close a show, and tiptoes toward some odd behavior.
It was a full box of Poundstone on display over the weekend at the Arts Center at College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn. But after more than 90 minutes, it was evident the full-house crowd was pretty sweet on the 15-year standup veteran.
Poundstone noticed that members of the National Rifle Association proudly bring up the constitutional right to bear arms. But she thinks when that particular passage was written, it meant that “not just Crazy Neighbor Bob could have a gun.”
Poundstone thought that, partly because girls were made to wear stupid-looking clothes when they were babies (especially those headbands), the women of today are “dunderheads”:
“We’re 52 percent of the population, we have six women in the Senate . . . are we that bad at math . . .?”
Poundstone recently took on a baby girl to go along with a foster son who’s less than a year old. She figures that with her kids and her cats, she doesn’t get a chance to lie down long to sleep: “I do slow pushups.”
Poundstone can’t understand how Angela Lansbury, as a mystery writer on television, can solve crimes with total cooperation from the police department. “That’s like if you’re having surgery and the guy says, `I can’t get that spleen out. Is that guy from General Hospital here?’ “
One of the 34-year-old comic’s strengths is her ability to make up jokes based on just talking to people in the audience. One woman told Poundstone her job was to school people on the customs of a native land when they have to live overseas.
“It’s too bad you didn’t talk to (former President George) Bush a couple of years ago,” Poundstone cracked. “`Don’t barf when you’re near the big guy.’ ” Problem was, Poundstone sometimes took too long with the people she joked with.
Poundstone is also known for doing such strange things as leaning over a stool and telling jokes. This time, her unusual behavior included stomping around the stage for no apparent reason, and lying flat on the floor and telling jokes.
“I am in the weirdest mood right now,” she said while on her back. “A lot of shows build to a big crescendo? I just sort of fizzle out.”
And that she did.
