That’s the Way Her Pop-Tart Crumbles : Comedian Paula Poundstone Feeds Audience an Act Grounded in Reality

If you have seen Paula Poundstone perform quite a bit, the first thing you notice when you enter her apartment here may well be the box of Pop-Tarts.

Sure, it’s a bit unusual to see Pop-Tarts in the living quarters of a single, 28-year-old woman. But after a few minutes around Poundstone, on stage or off, you begin to expect the unusual. So it’s more than that.

That box of Pop-Tarts pretty much encapsulates two of the traits that distinguish Poundstone as a comedian par excellence .

At a time when just about everyone and his funny uncle is a comedian--and too many of them are telling too many jokes about 7-Elevens, PMS, televangelists, McNuggets and other generic joys--she’s like a blast of fresh air. Poundstone--who performs next week at the Irvine Improvisation--doesn’t fool with any of that stuff, preferring to address such topics as . . . Pop-Tarts.

Furthermore, spotting those Pop-Tarts lends credence to the notion that the best comedy is rooted in truth. It’s not like she spins this yarn about polishing off a box of Pop-Tarts for the sake of being “wacky”--and then goes home to munch Oreos.

She talks about eating Pop-Tarts because she eats Pop-Tarts . And if seasoned Poundstone watchers sense that Pop-Tarts have been an especially frequent topic during the past year or so, that’s grounded in reality too. “I always did like Pop-Tarts,” she explains. “But for about a year now, I’ve been back into them heavily.”

Her whole act is like that: remarkably honest (some of her topics are much heavier than Pop-Tarts) and distinctive, and very funny. If she only had those things going for her, she would deserve a spot at the head of the stand-up class. But she belongs in a separate category for special achievers: While her shows don’t always bring the house down, they regularly reach a level of understated brilliance.

Like virtually no one else in stand-up, she reinvents her act every night, weaving anything that happens to her that day, or in the audience that night, into the fabric of her act. She’s like a great jazz band--no two shows are the same. Moreover, she’s warm and winsome: It’s a rare night that people in the audience, regardless of age or gender, don’t leave absolutely smitten with her.

Someone who is that extraordinary on stage--and of course, she has all the key credits: multiple appearances on “The Tonight Show” and “Late Night With David Letterman,” a shot on “Saturday Night Live,” a few HBO specials, the new “Women of the Night” album, etc.--isn’t likely to be just some ordinary, run-of-the-mill person off stage.

Sure enough. Various amounts of time spent with her in various circumstances--taping a forthcoming HBO special, taping a “Tonight Show” spot a few weeks later, a relaxed chat over Sunday brunch--might not have revealed all of what makes Poundstone tick. But it did divulge a few tidbits that were surprising (she didn’t finish high school) and a few that weren’t (she really is estranged from her family, as she often mentions on stage), all of which were pretty interesting pieces of a pretty interesting puzzle.

STARTING STAND-UP

Poundstone was born in Alabama, grew up in Massachusetts, lived in Florida for a few months, came back to Boston, then--at 19--relocated to San Francisco, where she developed her craft. She still keeps a place there but now lives in Los Angeles with three cats (Balou, Smike and Haskell) and a Ping-Pong table in the living room.

Her first crack at making cracks on stage came 9 years ago during open mike night at the Comedy Connection in Boston. “I felt like it went well,” she recalled over scrambled eggs and pork loin. “It’s funny, though. I have a tape of it, and my recollection at the time was that it went well. But then I listened to it 4 years later in San Francisco, all by myself, and I was embarrassed by myself .

“It was nowhere near as good as it had felt, which is interesting ‘cause I think that happens when you first start out. I think it’s like a protective thing because otherwise you wouldn’t keep going. It isn’t like being a musician where you learn to do it in your house and feel pretty good about it before you present it to other people. You have to learn to do this in front of people, so you are forced to (be bad) publicly at one time or another.”

Yeah, well, it didn’t take her too long to get the hang of it. Five years after that “embarrassing” first stab at stand-up, she appeared on “Saturday Night Live” and did her first “Letterman”--in the same week.

UNEASY STREAK

Poundstone’s panicked.

She’s at San Francisco’s legendary Fillmore Theater, taping an HBO special. And she’s worried about Kevin Meaney.

Meaney is also taping a special that night (as part of the cable network’s new “One Night Stand” series). He’s a bow-tied, extremely animated performer who in the first show sang, mocked himself, ran outside the theater and did street comedy, and by the end had the crowd going bonkers, laughing, applauding and singing his song.

The problem, as Poundstone sees it, is that in the first show, she opened and Meaney closed, but the order is reversed for the second show. “There’s no way I can follow him,” she says as the HBO photographer clicks off pictures of her. “Did you see him? He killed . He was very funny--I was laughing in spite of myself.”

Ah, two more traits.

First, she seems subtly but highly competitive. “I think I actually am,” she concedes later, grinning. “I can remember when I was in the waiting room of the pediatrician and comparing my behavior with that of the other children, thinking, ‘I’m the best-behaved child in this room.’ ”

Second, while insecurity is endemic to comedians, you are surprised to see Poundstone that professionally unsure. After all, she has been at this about a decade, no less a figure than Robin Williams has long considered her brilliant, her credits are cream of the crop, her career is guided by the same people who manage Woody Allen and David Letterman . . . there is some evidence that she’s pretty good at what she does.

Yet, she’s uneasy right this minute--more so, perhaps, because Meaney just turned in another strong, rousing set. The announcer introduces her, she walks out, pulls up her trademark stool and starts in with prepared material.

But it’s not long before she departs from the material and starts chatting with the audience, making Muppets references while mentioning the Fillmore’s balconies, addressing the box of Pop-Tarts that a fan brought her.

Her set is wonderful. To equate the evening’s performers with rock acts, Meaney would be U2 (big, broad, powerful) while Poundstone would be Tom Waits (scaled-down, quirky, visionary). Afterward, someone approaches Poundstone and says the show went great. “Thanks,” she responds, smiling ever-so-slightly. “It felt pretty good.”

TRUE STORIES

The first time Poundstone played the Irvine Improv last April, she got lost on the way to the club. So the opening portion of her set was a very funny anecdote about getting lost on the way to the club.

One night last month after a show at Cobb’s Comedy Club in San Francisco, she returned to her apartment, heard some ominous noises as she was coming though the garage and called the police. Turned out the noises were just her neighbors coming down the stairs. But she talked about the incident the next night at Cobb’s, turning it into a nice, mildly self-deprecating bit.

At the Ice House in Pasadena last July, before a performance that would be recorded for the “Women of the Night” album, she was telling some people that she craved a chocolate milkshake. Once onstage, she mentioned her craving a few times and ended up suggesting that everybody leave to go get shakes together. The milkshake comments didn’t make it onto the album, but some of her conversations with the crowd did. Which brings us to another trait that distinguishes Poundstone:

Where most comics recording an album or taping an HBO special would stick with their best prepared material, leaving nothing to chance, she’s intent on taking chances, on keeping things fresh and spontaneous, on reinventing her act and holding round-table discussions with the audience--regardless of the circumstances.

That’s just the way she works and has been for some time. “Actually, from the very beginning,” she points out. “The first time I went on, the first words out of my mouth were something about what the emcee had said. I always did a lot of that. Part of it was nervous habit.”

Like other comedians who are good at interacting with the crowd, from the caustic Richard Belzer to the ultra-nice Jimmy Brogan, Poundstone developed the talent over long evenings of emceeing.

“At the Other Cafe here in San Francisco, I used to emcee their open mike nights a lot. Which really would be such a long night--there would be 20 acts on the bill--that I’d really be forced to (think on my feet) and be more sensitive to where the crowd is at and discuss things sort of realistically at the moment, as opposed to something prepared that really has nothing to do with the moment.”

COMIC’S RELIEF

Some of Poundstone’s outside interests really are outside--like sky-diving. She recently began playing the saxophone and takes lessons whenever and wherever she can. She collects films on videocassette and now has more than 200 movies. She listens to a lot of contemporary music: She’s a longtime fan of NRBQ, and her current favorites include the Traveling Wilburys, Hothouse Flowers and “Stay Awake,” the collection of Disney film music performed by such artists as Suzanne Vega, the Replacements and Los Lobos. When she can, she plays a lot of basketball and Ping-Pong.

PAULA’S PARADOXES

There are times when Poundstone seems like a small bundle of contradictions.

Sometimes it involves minor stuff. Like making her sweet tooth quite obvious during brunch by describing her fondness for Pop Tarts, Ring-Dings and a chocolate bundt cake the L.A. Improv used to serve--as she knocks back three packets of sugar. But what does she drink constantly? Diet Coke.

Sometimes it involves more significant stuff. She’s enormously humane and gentle with a very kind heart. There are plenty of stories around about her loaning money to friends and acquaintances in a jam--in some cases, knowing full well she won’t be repaid.

She misses her cats so much when she travels that sometimes she flies out late the last night of an engagement, rather than the next morning, so she can be with them sooner. (“It’s good to go home Sunday night. That way you can get a lot of your petting done. Otherwise, I’d start to do other things the next day, feel trapped by guilt and be forced to pet them.”)

And while you get the impression she’s no stranger to depression, she’s generally so sweet, sunny, engaging and solid that you are taken back a little to learn that she really is bitterly separated from her family (she’s the youngest of four children)--that the on-stage references to hating her parents are every bit as honest as the Pop-Tarts bit.

Any armchair psychologist would conclude that her family was pretty dysfunctional--or at least that she suffered some deep emotional wounds growing up--after hearing her sprinkle conversations with a number of uncharacteristically chilly comments.

Perusing a menu and discussing baked goods, she says, “My mom makes great corn bread. It would almost be worth speaking to her.”

Asked if things are so unpleasant with her family that she doesn’t speak to them at all, she replies, “Well, they’re pleasant because I don’t speak to them. If I talked to them, things would be unpleasant.”

So you don’t have any contact?

“Uh-uh. My mom called me about a year ago to say that she didn’t like it that I made fun of them publicly. That wasn’t all she said, but that was really the gist of it.

“She’d called to invite me to my sister’s wedding. But it was sort of a weird invitation, since no one told me where it was or when it was. . . . I was an hour away--I didn’t go.”

With the possible exception of one sister, reconciliation isn’t likely. She already tried that. “When I was younger I sort of swore off all of them altogether. Then I unwisely reneged on that and did spend more time with them later, and it was always just uncomfortable and bad. I really should have gone with my initial instinct.”

The reason for such hard feelings remains a mystery.

“I don’t know why. I mean, I really don’t. I’m paying a shrink thousands of dollars a month--I still don’t know why. . . . We just don’t get along. They don’t seem to enjoy my company, and they know that I don’t enjoy theirs. They’re critical of my looks and that sort of thing, which is not pleasant. . . . I’m just not a believer in that because someone’s related to you, it means you have to hang out with them.”

TALK SHOW TRIBULATIONS

Gently, the observation is made that 5-minute stand-up spots on “The Tonight Show” or “Letterman” aren’t the best forum for her, that she’s not particularly good at them. Poundstone readily agrees.

“I think that’s true. They’re very restrictive. First of all, I can’t talk to the audience.”

About 3 weeks later, she’s booked on a fairly last-minute basis to appear on “The Tonight Show” when Jay Leno will be guest host. She’s glad she will be on with Leno but doesn’t expect the set to go well.

Among her concerns: In a nightclub, she typically starts slow, taking 5 to 10 minutes to warm up and be funny. But the whole “Tonight Show” spot will be less than 5 minutes. “I wish I could come out and begin in the middle of my set. Just start off, ‘As I was saying before. . . .’ ”

In her “Tonight Show” dressing room before the taping, Leno pops in to say hello and wish her well. Sipping a Diet Coke, she seems relaxed--except for when she and her manager argue over the red jacket Poundstone wants to wear. (She wears the jacket.) A handful of people are in her dressing room: Some of them know she doesn’t usually excel at these appearances, and Poundstone has mentioned it to the others.

But wait! After visiting with Kirk Douglas and Eva Marie Saint, Leno introduces Poundstone, whose stand-up set goes well. Then she sits down and chats with Leno--and that goes well too.

Backstage, her visitors are elated, and most feel it has been her very best talk show appearance. After the taping wraps and the guests file backstage, Leno congratulates her, as do her visitors. Even Jim McCawley, the longtime “Tonight Show” associate producer who books the comics--and who is no pushover--appears pleased. He says, “It was one of her two best, if not the best.”

Of course, her assessment is a little different. She is asked a few days later if she felt it had gone well. “No, I never feel that way. If I didn’t talk to anybody at all when I got offstage, I would just go home hideously depressed. But when other people said they thought it went well”--out comes a quiet little laugh--”I was very pleased.”

Paula Poundstone will perform Wednesday through Saturday and again Dec. 26 at the Irvine Improvisation, 4255 Campus Drive, Irvine. Show times: 8 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday and Monday; 8:30 and 10:30 p.m. Friday and 8 p.m. Saturday. Tickets: $6-10. Information: (714)-854-5455.