50 JUStjOUt
OCTOBER 6. 2006
Hail Mary, Full of Jokes
Fallen nun makes the transition from kneeling to standup
by Malka Geffen
f you didn’t catch her at August’s Hot Flash
Beach Party, you might have heard the
comedic stylings of Kelli Dunham on Sirius
Satellite Radio. If not, you need to get her
CD, go to her shows and become a stalking
fan. This ex-nun dyke is hilarious.
A new transplant to Portland from
Philadelphia, Dunham grew up near Hartford,
Wis. “Originally all my comedy was about my
childhood,” she says. “1 used to have a 15-minute
piece just about my mother’s cooking, which usu­
ally included alcohol.” Dunham’s joke about her
mother’s “Jell-O salad,” which the rest of the world
calls a Jell-O shot, appears on her debut comedy
CD, I’m NOT a 12 Year Old Boy.
On the album she also discusses her nun years
when she was surreptitiously known as Sister Mary
Bulldyke. “Not a fair amount of people can relate
to being a nun, but everyone can relate to making
a bad choice,” Dunham says. “People ask how you
get from being a nun to a standup lesbian comic.
Comedy is about bringing people together and
creating community, and that’s what being a nun is
about.” Dunham hastily adds, “But there’s more sex
and less praying in comedy.”
Dunham, 38, says she always wanted to be a
comic. Growing up in the rural Midwest, she used
to tell jokes to cows on the way home from school.
“That was a hard audience,” she says, “but a lot of
comedy is rejection.”
I
According to her Web site, Dunham never
considered performing or writing comedy profes­
sionally until she attended a seminar called “A
Laugh a Page" at the 1998 Outwrite LGBT Writers’
Convention. She recalls that lesbian comic “Kate
Clinton said, ‘My reason for wanting people to
laugh is to subvert the dominant paradigm and
knock it the hell over,’ and 1 couldn’t believe what
1 was hearing. 1 never thought of comedy as some­
thing that could change the world.”
Comedy definitely changed her world. Touring
I'm NOT a 12 Year Old Boy, Dunham did more than
100 shows in 11 months. Unlike her comic influence,
Eddie Izzard, she performed everywhere, from atop a
ladder at a queer business expo to a livestock auction.
No matter where she’s performing, Dunham
revels in the comic life. “1 love those moments
onstage where you can joke about something real­
ly difficult—like an alcoholic family, illness or get­
ting kicked out of your convent—and people let
down their guard and laugh.” In a very wise Master
Po kind of way, Dunham explains that when you
laugh, you breathe. “When you take a breath in,
you take other stuff in, too.”
Dunham started performing every weekend about
three years ago. As she did more shows at Pride
events, she included more jokes about the queer com­
munity. “1 call us on our foibles and idiosyncrasies,
such as ‘all lesbians have cats,’ ” says Dunham. “But 1
go further into it—the lengths we go to for our pets.
If I hear of a dog on dialysis, 1 know it
belongs to a dyke.”
Telling jokes to a straight audience
isn’t so different, according to Dunham. “I
can’t stand up and not just say, ‘Hi, I’m a
big huge dyke’ since they will think I’m a
pubescent male. 1 have to do some gay
stuff so they relax a little.” Dunham also
points out that everyone can relate to hav­
ing their body commented on and that gay
people aren’t the only ones to get kicked
out of their families or have crazy parents.
Everyone can enjoy Dunham’s comedy
on I’m NOT a 12 Year Old Boy, which is available
through her Web site and at her performances. Her
next CD, Almost Pretty, will be recorded at a live
show later this year or in early 2007. The title of
the album comes from an encounter between
Dunham and the woman she was giving her cats to
in Philadelphia. “This professional cat sitter had
never seen someone like me. She didn’t know what
to expect and said that 1 am almost pretty. Luckily,
my cat didn’t care if she’s homophobic.” ©
KELLI D unham performs during Gayety—a new
night of spoken word, improv, standup and trivia with
fabulous prizes —8 p.m. Nov. 18 at Haven Coffee,
3551 S.E. Division St. She will also be doing a few
house concerts in the area. For more information visit
www. kellidunham. com.
"People ask how you get
from being a nun to a
standup lesbian comic.
Comedy is about bringing
people together and
creating community,
and that's what being
a nun is about.
But there's more sex and
less praying in comedy."
—Kelli Dunham
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MN
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