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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
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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.