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Page 8 News Street Roots • Aug. 14-20, 2015 Street Roots • Aug. 14-20, 2015 News Amy Miller: Making it in Bridgetown Portland's Funniest Person 2015, talks about poverty, feminism and ‘daddy issues' BY SUE ZALOKAR STAFF WRITER t’s official. Amy Miller is Portland’s funniest person — the first time a woman has won Helium Comedy Club’s top honor. Raised in the Bay Area near San Francisco, Miller grew up more wallflower, less center of attention. These days, though, you wouldn’t know it. Miller is captain of her own comedy ship. In the two years since Miller arrived in Portland, she and other buddmg comics have become a kind of glue that is forming the new face of comedy and putting Portland on the map as a serious comedy town. Miller’s presence in the Portland comedy scene is constant. She hosts a monthly comedy revue called Midnight Mass at the Funhouse Lounge in Southeast Portland. It features the diversity of Portland comedy. At Helium, Miller hosts a hybrid stand-up comedy/therapy talk show. She hosts a podcast called “Sorry About Your Dad,” which is basically talking to people about their “daddy issues.” Everyone’s got them, she says. Miller was one of four children bom to parents whose addiction issues and financial irresponsibility let poverty leak into their family experience. It has paid off in spades as fodder for a solid set of “white trash” jokes. Of course, like any driven artist, Miller produces comedy locally while also looking to a larger pool. She travels to other cities to do stand-up whenever her schedule allows, and she is one of 40 semifinalists in NBC’s reality comedy show, “Last Comic Standing.” The secret of her success, she says, is fake it until you make it. I Amy Miller: So much of comedy starting out is you just to have to fake being in control because there is nothing less funny than someone on stage who does not seem to be driving the ship. That is the room; that is the collective experience. If the person in the middle of it doesn’t seem in control, then it all goes off the rails. I can come off as quite shy — less so now. Sometimes maybe I come off as dumb. Sue Zalokar: I don’t believe that for a second. A.M.: Well, I don’t know, maybe some of it, a good chunk of it, is rooted in sexism. For whatever reason when people first meet me, they often think all of the same things: quiet, sweet, maybe not that smart. I don’t know what that says. Maybe it’s connected to the reason that all babies and dogs love me. S.Z.: K> m have a bit about being “white trash. ” Did you grow up experiencing poverty? it seemed like a really good environment to just practice and get better and perform as much as I can. And maybe have the opportunity to shine a little bit more than I would have if I had gone to L.A., or stayed in the Bay Area for that matter. S.Z.: It’s a good strategy. It makes Portland sound like a comedy A.M.: I grew up in the East farm. It’s cool that there is a Bay. Yeah. I mean both of my vibrant-enough comedy scene here There have been to draw comedians to be a part of parents, until my dad died when I was 9, which upped the 4 0 comedians i t ... even i f it’s on a path to the that have per poverty scale when we went larger pond. I don’t think from two incomes to one. But formed over the Portland is historically thought of before that, my parents were as a comedy town. last three weeks kind of like Working-class and the negative people who had four children. A.M.: That has been over the reviews are over past four or five years, and with On paper, we were not living whelm ing to the at the poverty level, but when the Bridgetown Comedy Festival you layer on top of that a lot of women. There is getting more important and also addiction and financial fust no way to feel the opening of Helium (in irresponsibility, then poverty Southeast Portland). Previously, lik e there Isn't a can leak its way in. Portland didn’t have an A-level very specific rea comedy club. Those two things This .was in the mid-’80s, Amy Miller, who was raised in the San Francisco Bay-Area and moved to Portland two years ago, won Helium Comedy Club’s Portland’s Funniest Person contest this year. the credit card boom. So I had son fo r th a t." really helped the scene grow. A M Y M ILLER credit card parents. It was a lot As these soft of second- and of feast or famine. third-tier comedy cities crop up On the surface, my dad was and get more attention, people are just didn’t think that there were certain topics that either (laughs). I just have to do whatever them. found was to me or one of the other women. a salesman and out in the world; you would making the move to a “middle city” before it is I’m gonna do, and then eventually all I put the recordings of our actual interview that I was allowed to talk about. To me, that They might claim that it is something else: not recognize; “Oh, that guy is poor.” He was jumping to New York or L.A., just to practice those old guys will be dead. sounds really crazy especially if you’ve ever online, and people were like, “Wow, I can’t “I hated your jokes" or “You’re being golfing with clients and things like that. But at essentially and be in a cheaper place for a believe this is real.” seen Norm MacDonald’s stand-up comedy. He disrespectful to your dad” or whatever it is ... home, we lived in a sort of abstract squalor. It while. When I got here, at the same time, S.Z.: Speaking o f— how about the All Jane He is a 100 percent real guy, and he was spares no group. that’s fine. But there have been 40 comedians was very dirty and very chaotic. We never Curtis Cook arrived and JoAnn Schinderle, Comedy Festival? When you were writing your nice enough to grant me an interview. He was that have performed over the last three weeks knew necessarily when there would be David Mascorro and a handful of other comics friendly to m e.H e is just extremely S.Z.: What about gender in comedy? How is it column “Fresh Meat” for Willamette Week, you and the negative reviews are overwhelming to all got to Portland like within the same six groceries again, if there would be groceries interviewed Matt Wolfe, who made this angry, misguided. that Louis C.K. can make a joke about the women. There is just no way to feel like again ... and then we would get a new credit months, all with the same plan and all from hostile poster mocking the all-female comedy When stuff like that happens that I feel pedophilia, but if a woman makes a dark joke, there isn’t a very specific reason for that. card with a zero balance. (My parents’) different cities. festival. people's feedback is really gendered. Where it’s suggested that maybe she shouldn’t be I certainly didn’t invent this idea, but it has working jobs kept us above the poverty line, discussing such dark topics? it’s like the immediate response is that I made S.Z.: What are your thoughts about the sexual worked out pretty well for all of us. but we lived as if we had no money. A.M.: It was really interesting because so this up. Why would that even be a thing? assault accusations against Bill Cosby? many people afterwards said that I fabricated I don’t know if it’s because I’m a woman A.M.: I mean, I think there were a couple S.Z.: It only took you two years to become S.Z.: You are in the top 40 on “Last Comic it and I’m trying not to focus too much on it factors. I think that they were judging me and A.M.: He’s a monster, and it’s really sad Portland’s Funniest Person ... But I get the Standing” on NBC. You received rave reviews especially right now, after “Last Comic” has and disgusting. It is tragic how much, aside from the judges, but Norm MacDonald... do you I was one of the few people to do any dark feeling that you miss the Bay Area. Why did you aired, because for the most part, all of my S.Z.: Really? People thought it was a joke? material. And that may have made me stick from his being a comedian, I think America as want to TP his house? head to Portland? feedback has been really nice and supportive. out a little bit more. I don’t think it was that a culture has some really serious undiagnosed A.M.: Definitely. People thought it was There are always a couple of bad apples, and edgy or crazy of material. “daddy issues.” It is so much more than him A.M.: (laughs) No! I love Norm MacDonald. A.M.: Partially for comedy, partially for a they’re all men. I always think that some percentage of a publicity stunt on the part of the festival, being a comedian or him being an intellectual He’s an absolute genius. He’s one of my job. But I knew I needed to get away from that I made it up. That it was an Andy feedback is going to be gendered in comedy. black man. Refusal of people to accept his favorite comics. He’s got really specific home, and where I was in comedy was way S.Z.: Really? All men? Whether or not that is true for Norm, I Kaufman-esque-level prank on everyone. guilt is more closely tied to him being one of comedic tastes. Even for a judge and even for too premature to be packing up and moving to don’t know. I know the show itself is run by all Which, I was like, “Oh, thank you for our cultural “dad figures.” a comedian, comedy is always going to be L.A. Not to say that people don’t do that, but A.M.: I think it makes some of them women, which was amazing and really comparing me to Andy Kaufman!” It’s hard to have a role model or a father, subjective. I wouldn’t expect to necessarily be it’s a little hard to get attention if you jump uncomfortable to see me or other women in refreshing — my first TV experience. I would have to have a lot of time in my life authority figure, and to see them as flawed. his cup of tea. On top of that, he did say really into this massive pond — technically, the that position. Maybe there aren’t a lot of female to pull this elaborate of a prank, which would It’s hard to see our own fathers as flawed a lot complimentary things, you know? They were biggest entertainment pond that exists. comedians that Norm really likes, and that’s I actually did a casual sort of search of be to put up fake posters, create a fake of the time. kind of buried in his comments. I had been up to Portland to do comedy, just sort of how it is. Is part of it because I’m everyone who was tweeting about “Last persona and then pretend to interview it. His It’s disgusting that he has quieted all of He says in the second bit of feedback that and I had heard of some comics who had a girl? Yeah, maybe, but I can’t really change responses were so dumb, I couldn’t even write Comic“ one night. Every negative response I these women for so many years — and we all either come from here or had recently left and all the jokes were good to great But that he Page 9 see the roots of this in our own comedy communities on a very small scale. If someone behaved inappropriately — and recently we have had some comedians in Portland be accused of sexual assault, as well — it’s hard for women in comedy, or any industry, to speak up because if you are a part of this community and someone has a lot of power in it, you don’t want to rock the boat. I’ve never been sexually assaulted — knock on wood — but I understand how it can be really scary to come forward. It’s disgusting that we have to be so strongly afraid of not being believed that we have to keep it under wraps. S.Z.: (Miller has described herself as “a dedicated/obsessed Dolly Parton fan. ”) What’s so great about Dolly Parton? A.M.: Oh! Speaking of feminism and people who have made their way through a male-dominated profession! She is very authentic, though some people like to argue against because she has had lots of surgery and she (projects a kind of Barbie doll image). One of my favorite quotes of hers is: “If I hadn’t been bom a woman, I’d have definitely been a drag queen.” But at the core, she is very authentic. And she represents someone who came out of absolute poverty and nothing but a supportive family. She made her own way, and she has always made decisions based on what she thinks is best for her, her music and the people who enjoy it rather than what people were telling her to do. A lot of those decisions upset some people. At one point, Elvis wanted to cover “I Will Always Love You” and he wanted half of the profits, and she said, “Absolutely not.” She thought someone else would come along that would do the song justice. And she was absolutely right about that. (Whitney Houston performed it as the theme song for the film “The Bodyguard” in the ’90s). She has always been very true to herself and very assertive. I think similarly to what we were talking about earlier, people have made assumptions about her, including that she’s dumb, and that she would be passive. And she has made her way through this industry on her own terms. She’s one of the best female role models. She has managed to be a feminist that also does all of these unfeminist things like using her sexuality many times and wearing all of this makeup and gets plastic surgery and talks about it. If it’s not for you, it’s not for you, but it’s what I like to do, and I can still be a powerful woman while fitting into these other (roles). She has used it to her advantage. She always says the way she got through country music and being in a male-dominated profession is that she distracts them long enough with her looks and while they’re thinking that she’s dumb, she’s already halfway out the door with their money. And I love that.
