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Paula Poundstone's cats are forcing her into the campaign season - their own

SAN DIEGO -- The first time I interviewed Paula Poundstone was last summer, just before her appearance at Anthology the weekend after Pride. She is coming back to Anthology for her third appearance, this Saturday, July 2nd for two shows: 7:30 pm and 9:30 pm.

Last week Poundstone took a break from her busy schedule to chat with me again. That busy schedule includes touring up to four days per week, testing out her jokes on Twitter, bantering with her three children and cleaning the cat boxes of her 16 felines.

I was supposed to interview her again last February in advance of her appearance at The Dinah in Palm Springs, but our schedules kept creating conflicts and it never happened. This time around, we had similar conflicts but we finally made it happen. I was glad, because she is very entertaining to talk with and there is always a lot of laughter.

In fact, when interviewing to Poundstone, even more than most comedians, you find yourself wading through levity and at times very stoic conversation. It's often difficult to ascertain when she is offering a nugget of real truth, because most of those nuggets are wrapped in her clever humor.

Cats and kids

Let's get back to those cats. Yes, according to her own admission, she has 16 cats. Last year she would not confirm or deny the number of cats she had, but the rumor I presented at the time was 13.

Apparently she's finally resigned herself to the reality that she does have a large number of felines and most people know. Ironically - or maybe not so ironically - one of her daughters works for an animal shelter. That news was funny in itself, since it appears her own house is a shelter of sorts.

Even as we spoke, several cats were running circles around her. I shared that having only two cats, 16 is hard to fathom, especially when considering the amount of cat litter that is involved. She didn't skip a beat.

"I'm in constant servitude," she said. "I have shifts all day long."

Although she admitted having a clan of cats is a "pain in the ass," they make great fodder for her monologue. I could also tell she has great affection for each and every one of them and misses them when she is on the road.

She even claimed to watch their eating habits via webcam while traveling and was watching while we spoke. Someone has to monitor the food intake of 16 cats. That gets expensive and after all, one or more might be stealing from the others.

Provincetown Town Hall

Hardly, if people are complaining about theft from AT&T, by the customer, then the very same people should be complaining about theft from the customer by AT&T. That is what this incorrect data usage accounting amounts too. AT&T charging people for data usage that they did not use and that AT&T can not prove they used (based on the experience of customers calling AT&T and their usage of the AT&T management website). I figured I'd use this wonderful Easter Sunday (a day spent celebrating the beginning of Spring and absolutely nothing else), to pose a question that I have.... What's the deal with religious people? After many a spirited thread about religion, I still can't wrap my head around what keeps people in the faith nowadays. I'm not talking about those people in third world nations, who have lived their entire lives under religion and know of nothing else. I'm talking about your Americans (North and South), your Europeans, the people who have access to any information they want to get (and some they don't) who should know better by now. And yet, in thread after thread, these people still swear that their way is the only way. No matter what logic you use, they can twist the words from their holy books and change the meaning of things to, in their minds, completely back up their point of view. Is it stubbornness, the inability to admit that you were wrong about something so important for so long? Is it fear? If I admit this is BS, I go to hell? Simple ignorance? Please remember, I'm not talking about just believing in a higher power, I mean those who believe in religion, Jews, Christian, etc. Subtract the individuals affiliated with gangs and the mentally unstable and we're staring at a long list of homosexuals murdered by "mainstream" individuals, many of whom attended church on a regular basis and were in fact catholic. That their religious affiliations are not immediately telegraphed is not evidence of absence, but rather of the fact that 76% of the population self-identifies as Christian. To stretch my own analogy, it also ignores that the men who put on white hoods and terrorized black people were not "mainstream" white people either, but they were nevertheless acting on the attitudes held by "mainstream" white people. They were radical, but saw themselves as the ones with the strength of will to enforce the true will of the "mainstream.

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