Paula Jane Newman

Drew interviews Paula Jane Newman who is a comedian, author, actor, and the founder of Aware Meditation and Rise Up Comedy.  We talk everything from Comedy, to her sharing a few tales from being in Pirates of the Caribbean.

For more information about Paula, please click the following!

https://www.paulajanenewman.com/

https://riseupcomedy.org/

https://awaremeditation.org/

Transcript

it's very hard to find the right tone for something.
And that's why I'm grateful for the clean comedy collective
because my experience only thus far has been,
I have been able to find more people who have been
throbbing, who are attracted to a clean comedy network
than not.
♪ You're listening to the podcast, clean comedy chats ♪
♪ With your host, Drew Davis ♪
♪ It's gonna be awesome and we'll change your life forever ♪
♪ You're welcome ♪
♪ You're welcome ♪
Hello and welcome back to the second episodes
of Clean Comedy Chat with Drew Davis.
I'm your host, Drew Davis.
And for those of you that are brand new,
which would make sense because this is only our second episode.
This is a podcast where, while back I started
the Clean Comedy Collective with some friends
last year, we went nationwide.
And here we are now with over 200 comedians
from across the states.
And it's just an opportunity for me to get to know them better
and for you, hopefully, to get to know them
and maybe discover your new favorite comedian
or entertainer in the process.
Last week we had co-founder, Shanti Hughes.
This week we have a brand new guest.
I'm very excited to introduce you all to Paula, Jay Newman.
How are you doing, Paula?
- I'm all right.
This morning, how you doing?
- I am good.
I'm very excited that you're on this podcast.
I feel the need to let you know,
like after like doing a deep dive on you and stuff like that.
I also have been already met you and talking to you.
I feel like we're kindred spirits.
Like I feel like we're best friends in a different life
or maybe we have the same spirit animal
or I'm very much not an astrology
but maybe we have the same signs or I don't know.
But like because, and here's why, you do so much things.
Like so, Paula is obviously a comedian
and we're gonna get into it more,
but she's also an author.
She also runs a nonprofit.
She's also an actress.
She's also works with like meditation and breathing exercises
and we're so much stuff.
And as a comedian myself is also trying to start
get feeling like I'm a jack of all trades.
Like I look at what you've done and what you're doing
and I'm like, that's what I wanna do.
And then when we had our first conversation,
afterwards I was like, man, what a cool person.
So all that to say, I'm so glad you're here.
I'm gonna open up with the same question that I ask everyone.
My whole two guests, this is the question
that we always start off with.
I plan on continuing to ask this question.
It's very important to me.
The question is simply, from your perspective,
who is Paula Jane Newman?
I feel like all the time in life we're always being told
who we are, we have this expectation
based on other people's standards.
So I don't think enough times do we ask ourselves
specifically who am I, who are you asking?
So here on the clean comedy chat is true.
That's the first question we ask all the comedians.
Who are you?
- All right, okay, well first of all thanks for having me.
I really appreciate it.
Yeah, you know that's funny that who I am.
I really think that I'm someone you can't put in a box.
And I think one of my biggest challenges in life
is on my head of the curve.
'Cause I was like, I will come up an idea
and I feel like I talk people blue in the face
and I don't understand that concept.
And then I turn around and someone's making
bucket loads of cash doing what I have been talking about
like four years.
So on the inside, I would say I feel I'm not understood.
But on the outside, the people always would say,
oh, you're the real deal.
And I would be confused because to me,
I would be like, who's not?
Why would you not want?
What?
Yeah, people really who try to psychoanalyze me
get into a lot of trouble because they just get,
they get more confused because they start to,
they come along with all this psychological
analyzation of boxes and boxes and boxes.
And the more they talk to me,
the more they realize that I'm not in that one box
or maybe I'm in another box or, you know,
and so I drive them up the wall with that.
So I would say, you know, if you would have talked
Kindred spirit, what is this word?
Okay, we're gonna get airy fairy.
They call something like star seeds.
People have come down from another planet to be here
to observe the human race and make the world a better place
because sometimes, you all, I just don't feel
I belong anywhere.
(laughs)
- That's fair.
- I've never heard that star seed.
You're a star seed.
I don't like calling you a seed.
Is that too much of it?
- No, it doesn't.
I mean, if you say early and now your videos
can get flagged.
- That's true.
(laughs)
But yeah, I just have this, if you wanna talk with astrology,
this very aquarium viewpoint, you know, of the world.
I've always had this outside view.
I remember in my early team spending my breaks
talking to my history teacher
and talking for philosophy.
We didn't have philosophy in our school as a subject then.
But always had this sort of more worldly view.
And also at the same time irreverence,
like this irreverence sense of humor to theme.
And also, like, I get very emotional effective
at the same time.
I can let it almost be next to me
and like, oh, okay, that emotions run through.
That was an interesting experience.
- It's interesting you're talking about
is I am you're talking about not being like to be put in boxes
and being a hard person to put in boxes.
One of my current life goals just with how I am
is trying not to define myself on like my job
or like what I do for so long in my own life,
I was the youth pastor or I was the comedian
and I'm realizing now as I get older,
like those are parts of who you are.
But if you define yourself by any one thing,
it can get bad when that one thing isn't going well.
Because then you feel like you aren't doing well.
So maybe I'm also trying to not be limited to boxes.
That being said, you have a lot of boxes we could put you in
with the stuff that you've been doing.
You've got a very, and I wrote down just a few.
I mean, you're a stand-up comedian.
You're also a comedy show producer.
You produce an online show that is connected
with the Clean Comedy Collective.
And I've been on it before and I absolutely love it.
You're an actress.
You're also a teacher.
You're also an author.
You also run your own nonprofit.
I know, I know I'm missing some.
But I'm just wondering out of all the things that you do,
obviously you probably like them all.
But is there a one that's kind of like your first love
or like the thing that, man, if part of you just wants
to only do that?
Yeah, I think you missed out the box.
I've exhausted.
I've got to be a bit...
I would say my first love would...
If I could make...
This is what I wanted to do when I was younger.
Make enough money through good stage and film
to then do my philanthropic work.
And what happened was I got to a point where I realized,
even though I made money and I could make a living
which through the Screen Actors Guild
is only 5% of members at any time,
was that why was I not being philanthropic?
If that's what I really wanted to do,
I can do that right now without having to be this famous person
with all this money and then do it.
And I wanted to fuse it all.
At one point, it was...
So I find the entertainment industry just soul depleting,
even though you've got a lot of people who are very open-hearted
and are very aware of their own soul's path,
the actual business of it and the trudge and the hustle
can be very depleting because the repercussions
to be able to survive and live are very hard,
I'm sorry, rewards, it's very hard to attain
because the value of what we do is not equated,
which I address more in the Pain to Punchlines book
that right now I'm re-updating because my father passed
and I felt this block, I'm like,
why am I not really pushing this thing?
And then I realized after he passed, I came back,
oh, I was holding back, I wasn't really writing my own voice fully,
I was trying to write something that people don't understand,
my concept and my ideas.
There were times that I wish I could made a full-time living teaching meditation
and help upgrading people's consciousness.
And there's a person down the street who would get more meditation students
and I would think, "Well, I'm nicer than them.
Why? I don't understand why this person gets."
And then I was just take it up to the God and the cosmos,
like, "Why am I not being recognized?"
And this will run through with comedy as well and all the fields.
And then I had to understand that power, money is a neutral element.
If it wasn't neutral and only went to good people,
then we wouldn't see the world, the way the world is, right?
And then I have some stuff for me to sort out
and I thought, "Well, if I want to do something to help people
and things work better when I help people,
that's when I turned the meditation teaching
into a complete non-profit."
And then COVID came and that's when the comedy came back
because I stopped, I did comedy for a year, it was too toxic
and I was raising a child at the time
and I know you don't get time back with children
and I was not willing to spend hours at a club
to try to gain favors of the males who are dominating the scene
whether they could get some gratification from me
and whatever means that could mean to you who's listening.
I wasn't willing to do that.
I made my money in the entertainment business.
I was what's called successful enough to live by just doing,
you know, acting and voice work, you know?
And so I didn't need validation to be famous in the comedy world.
I was doing it as a way to express my voice, speak my voice.
And plus people told me some of them are dead now, actually,
but in the industry, in the comedy industry,
like you need to do this for a while
and I just kept ignoring it.
And so when I knew we needed to laugh
and laughter is related to breathing,
we brought in the comedy element to the nonprofit.
And so then I fought for a year coming back to comedy.
I fought it, I don't want to do it.
It was painful, but what was happening was my body was healing
from a long-term muscular, repetitive stress injury
and I had to acknowledge that something was going on
by doing this comedy in my body, in my physiology.
So I then said, well, I don't, I just get a head trip
when it's just about me.
I don't make money when it's just about me.
If I'm doing something for a cause
and I'm the producer of it and you get a nominal fee,
then it will work, then community comes together.
And so that's where rise up comedy came up and out.
That's where it blends in with the nonprofit for the meditation.
That's where it brings in my yoga teaching
with lasting yoga, it's all coming down to one thing,
which is shifting our consciousness,
lifting our vibration or changing us from fight or flight
to the relaxation state.
So we have a moment to unstress, be present
and listen to who we really are.
All of this stuff that's happening in the world
is such a great distraction to listen to that inner voice.
And that's, you know, I feel with your work, like, to be a pastor
and then realize that part is finished,
you can always still have your faith.
That is a big, big revolutionary example for people.
And the generation, you know, the generation Z or Z,
they know they're going to have to have multiple jobs,
multiple careers.
So why not have this facet is what I do here?
This is what I do here.
And it's like the kid that I raised, they're now almost 24.
They just picked up the guitar and started writing songs one day.
And I was like, oh, I'm making you do that.
I don't know.
I wonder if I could do it because there was no judgment
on doing that at the same time.
Whereas I come from, you do you want career,
you've got to be successful with that.
And if you're not a successful actress,
oh, well, that's why you're doing that because you're not successful.
So a lot of it is the fighting of my inner voice
of what you're told you were supposed to be or how you're supposed to be,
which I feel is like every time a woman goes to the doctor, honestly,
like you're just saying, OK, but then there's this thing, you know,
because a female body is considered, I think it's like a typical
or the abnormal body, like the male body was the normal one.
So the female body is, and you're just like, what a horrible way
just viewing the world, you know, period.
And that's a very long answer.
And so the chat's over.
Right.
Well, you've solved it all.
We would rest everything.
It is interesting that we were talking a little bit about comedy and entertainment
and perhaps it's true about a lot of different careers or jobs in this world,
just learning to look past the toxicity of things.
And oftentimes, subliner people or organization is kind of telling you,
this is what you should do.
This is what you should be and recognizing like you were saying, like,
that's it was really insightful.
When you say like, why do I have to wait till I'm rich or whatever before I start doing
Phil Phil, Phil, Phil, Phil, Philanthropy.
I'm you get what I'm saying.
Wait, before I start doing good, Phil, Phil, Phil, Phil, Phil, Phil, Phil, Phil.
You know what, it's so funny because my dad's name was Philip.
Right.
So we're stuttering over the Phil's.
Phil, he's he's with us in this chat right now.
So a lot of what I like about what you do is that it goes back to the positivity.
It goes back to the encouraging others.
It goes back to helping people.
And we'll talk about, we'll kind of zoom in on a lot of the different things you do here in a second.
But it always comes back to positivity.
And I think that's really cool.
That's something we have in common with what we're doing to clean comedy collective.
You know, even before we became a nation wide network of comedians, when we were just here
in middle Tennessee, when we started, it was just mean a few other people that wanted
to produce shows and want to create space where there was just less BS in comedy.
There was just less, you know, we wanted our shows to be positive.
We want how we interact with comedians to be more positive.
And I really do feel like especially when you look at like our first few open mics, you
know, we used to run this one in a juice bar.
That was a very little mic, but people came and like women said, we feel safe coming to
this mic.
People felt comfortable being brand new comedians and just getting up there and it was such
a weird little juice bar.
But I feel like it was able to help us kind of create a more positive identity for what
we were doing.
You do a lot of cool things.
And so I want to kind of zoom in on a few of them and let you talk about it a little
bit.
Starting with you had mentioned already your book that you're doing another edition of.
I've had the opportunity to look at the first edition.
I think I had an entry in the edition and I just realized that it's from pains, pain to
punchlines.
And so I'd love for you to tell us a little bit about this book and really connect it with
your own story.
Because I know you've had to go through a lot of pain and punchlines yourself.
So.
Yes.
Right.
I think something everyone can relate to.
So it's called pain to punchlines, stand up comedy, a transformation, super power.
And it came about because I wanted a document.
I was tired of trying to explain to people why my body was healing by doing stand up comedy.
And I was basically going through and I discovered my CPTSD and I'm reliving the trauma in comedy
but I started to create an environment through rise up comedy with people who would take
my class, which is very different.
Yes, there are punchlines, but it's emotional class as in you just naturally things come up.
I hardly work for the comedy.
It comes up, stuff comes up for people and then they perform it in a loving space.
So we say positivity.
I like to get say real true positivity comes from one space and that is a space of love.
And I'm talking about that divine unconditional love and not everyone in the world has ever
experienced that.
That is actually the archetype of the divine mother, but not everyone has a mother that
gave unconditional love.
Right.
So that's the space that true positivity comes from.
Sometimes people overcompensate by trying to be positive because they're so fake.
Or they just have psychiatric issues.
I can't decide sometimes.
Maybe a little bit of us.
Maybe, maybe.
And the, the, I just wanted to forget it out.
I want to get it out.
I've done an ebook before and as I was going through it, I realized it was way more than
I thought.
And you know, because it's almost like I'm not a big star, right?
I don't have all these names and accolades for people to want to know about my standup
comedy class and why should I take an online standup comedy class from this?
And I have that voice from how I used to be when I was 20, you know, who are you?
Which is valid in this world.
And the point was I wanted to be able to express in a way the change.
And that included people who had taken the class and had experienced a change in their lives
as a result of doing it.
And then people who had thought were good souls in the comedy world who understood power
of laughter.
And this is where Margaret Cho came in willing to give a quote for the book.
Now I have read the one that's out right now and I'm horrified at the syntax and the grammar
and it doesn't work.
I'm also horrified at formatting.
And we're also changing it where, you know, we're keeping images out for just for other reasons
and keeping all the quotes and stories in from people.
Because I want to bring together a community, a community of laughter, but a community
where people are the best way you make the world a better place.
Yeah, I give people food, they need food, but what we need to do is shift the consciousness.
Unfortunately, in my lifetime, it's not going to happen.
The powers that be will always want to put other people down.
We can look around globally and see that this is happening.
It's not just in one particular country.
So we need those bad days like food and medicine, for example.
But ultimately, the true medicine is if we listen and learn to our own vibration and
the only way to be our true selves is we have to break the cultural conditioning.
We have to break what we came into this world and find out who we really are.
And so the book, Painter Punchlines, was through my chronic pain and then through learning
to do punchlines, which I always feel I could do more of is how I started to do this healing
and speaking my truth.
And I documented that and then I have the moving through of CPTSD and the healing elements
not only of laughter, but what happens when you speak your truth and then you speak your
truth with a supportive environment because most of the time when we speak our truth as
a child and we're shut down, we remember that.
We have that neurological programming.
Oh, I decided to speak my truth.
I was shut down and we go inside.
And here we provide a space, they're not only do you speak your truth with people that are
supportive of you getting up there, do it.
They're raising money for a good cause.
So they're feeling good by helping people by being there and then they're helping you
help people and in addition, they're laughing.
This is a trifactor of healing.
And so, you know, I can't say they're massive fundraisers, but I can tell you when it comes
to the world of comedy and making money, it makes more money than normal in ratio to those
people who spend loads of bucks, right?
And the comedians, I try to work really hard on finding that it's very hard to find the
right tone for something.
And that's why I'm grateful for the clean comedy collective because my experience only
that far has been, I have been able to find more people who have been through it, who
are attracted to a clean comedy network.
And not, that's probably got a lot to do with you.
My experience of writing clean comedy is it's harder to do, can I get to the real funny
without a swear word or without too much talking about people being naked?
Can I do that?
What's really missing, which is maybe I should talk about, help and create, is the family
clean comedy.
At the end of the French festival, there are gaps for people who are able to do 10 a.m. Saturday
shows for people to bring their kids to.
You will set out if you have a show that you can do that with.
And my friend who runs a very successful or sort of theater or theater education, whatever
you want to call it in, a Kuala Lumpur, said to me a couple years ago, "Holar, based
on your energy."
My thing is, based on your age, I'm not 18, trying to be famous.
This is the market that is desperate.
You have a lot of energy and positive, just a positive, bright force to bring parents
and have the double entendres that the parents get but the kids do.
You need to be writing this family comedy because I'm telling you there's a gap in the
market.
Maybe I'm telling myself now because after my father passed, I want to write my one person
show about that for Decon Costa Mouille.
Costa Mouille is so famous now because of the white lotus, but that's where my dad lived.
And the hilarity that ensued of just, comically, I'll tell this one interesting story.
So when my grandmother died, my father brought this piece of paper and they were saying, "Oh,
I paid for this plot where my dad was.
We should go out."
Now, Exeter is not, you know, it's the Southwest and we were dead south.
And if you don't know coming from another country, it can take the day to get down to Exeter.
It's four hours in windy roads.
You've got to stop for lunch.
It's not like in America you drive through Texas in the same amount of time and you've
gone somewhere.
And I said, "Shouldn't you just give him a ring?"
No, no, no.
And we go there and we're walking around trying to find the plot because Granddad's name
is not listed on any of the plot.
And it's like rose bushes and you have a little plaque, you know?
And so he says, "We'll just wait here."
And you know, we weren't that young.
I had got my own place.
So I was in my 20s, brother and my brother and I were in our 20s.
And my dad comes out, "Oh, half of them, half of them."
You know?
And he stands next to us and he is right.
When I say "run", you're going to do it faster than you've ever done in your life.
Okay?
So they said, "I haven't paid for it."
So they're not going to let me have the plot.
And I think this is it and he gets the earn, opens it up, dumps it and he goes, "run!"
And we just bring it all the way across the cemetery into the car.
And we like, "It off outside of the premises, right?"
And now we get to close and movey Thailand where my father has a Buddhist, a Thai Buddhist service
and he's cremated.
And then the next day you get out early at the temple, five o'clock in the morning.
And he was fascinated.
And when am I going to do that?
You get the monks blessing.
Now they do another service again.
And white envelopes are passed for donations.
Fruit is food is bought.
You've got saffron robes that are purchased and everything.
And then we have this.
It's all wrapped up is, didn't know that when you get cremated, the hit bones are very hard
too.
You know, they're like, "You know, these are all blessed."
It puts some of this big thing, like swaddling in a manger.
It's like, "They're all heavenly, right?"
So, "Okay, you're going to go on a boat with the monk and you must only think positive
vibrations about your father."
So when these ashes reincarnate, they will have a positive effect.
Okay.
Then she forgets the paperwork.
And then before I know it, we're pulling over to the side of the road by the ocean.
And I said, "So no boat.
No boat.
Couldn't get the boat.
We come out."
And there's her sisters and they're looking at this other person by the ocean and they're
talking and they're talking and they're standing uncomfortable.
And I thought, "I know what's going on."
And so they take us back.
They look around and they throw the ashes into the ocean.
And I start saying what they taught me to say, like, "Well, safe journey, Philip.
Wishing you a best for the next lifetime.
Come back, you know, more evolved."
And she goes, "Shh."
And then we get out of the ocean and we run back into the car.
And if that isn't karma, I don't know what is.
Right?
They were, yeah, they were rectifying what happened with your grandfather.
That's interesting.
Also, I don't know at that point.
Let him go.
Let him go.
Very improperly.
You know, like, it's fine.
But wow, what a story.
Thank you for sharing that.
You are English.
When did you come here to the States?
I came to know.
I came to the T-N-A-JS.
I've been here for 30 plus years.
I am.
Yeah.
So you're more American than British than I think it's safe to see?
Oh, yeah.
You know, go back.
I went and did some comedy last year in England because I wanted to face my stuff and see how
I would do in England.
And it was the worst time of the year to go because everything shuts down when the holidays,
my stepfather had a significant birthday, so I went for that.
And somebody wrote back, "Well, yes.
I've seen your footage and it's, you know, lack of a better word, very American, which is
basically insulting."
Yeah.
I know what that is.
But then he was almost like he sort of went back on his word in the same email who said,
"Yes, finding your place, getting seen, standing out, excellent tactics, but probably one
work here in England."
And I was like, "Okay, because do you have anything else to send?"
So that worked really hard on some other stuff because a lot of it is I'm a Brit in America.
Americans love British accent.
They love me making fun of being a Brit in America.
And this is the market I'm in, right?
They accept that and this, let's have that on the lineup.
It's different.
So go with the flow.
And so then I sent in a brand new thing that I'd done.
It was when I was in Bangkok actually performing comedy and he never watched it.
Oh, you set it up in a way where you can definitely tell when they watch it or not.
I don't even want to know.
I send things and I never look back.
But that's smart though.
So.
And especially for him, I had one link for it.
I only had one view which is me watching afterwards and he never watched it.
That's, that's a bummer.
Well, it's just that we'll poop all you by saying do this, do this, do that.
And that's terribly English.
And my experience in England was very mixed.
My experience was the independent shows.
It was absolutely fine.
What I was doing.
They enjoyed it.
When I went to bigger places, I went to like a gong show thing and I just went into my
CPTSD and I blanked and I froze.
And the whole point is they blew you off.
Right.
They told them comment about the fires back home in London, you know, back, they did not
like that.
And I was like, but I lived there.
It's my home.
And then just decided to boom you off.
And I was like, oh, that's so fast.
Faster than the man with a diaper on.
They're bragging rights.
I guess, I don't know that, but you know, it just goes to show you there is different
genres to everyone.
Everyone has different interests.
It's subjective.
Sometimes it's like.
And so as growing comedians, we have to realize as our career develops, we are not for everyone
and we do have our crowds and then we have our not crowds with people that don't like
ourself.
And the more unique and more developed your act gets, the more some people are going to
absolutely love it.
And then other people are going to prefer the man with a diaper, which is really a weird
thing because I don't want to say it's humbling.
I don't sometimes I'm like, why?
But also it is what it is, you know, what they would be wielded.
That's why you can keep an audience from building it off if they're bewildered long enough.
Yeah, that's true.
They're like, where is this going?
Where is this going?
And then at the end, it was like, whoa, well done.
You did that for five minutes, chopped.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But I feel you're absolutely right.
And someone said this to me who's quite a successful comedian.
And they were like, what you want to do is do your one person show have that grounded
with comedy in it.
And then you're going to find people who find your vibe.
Absolutely.
When those people find your vibe through that, then you get your stand up.
But then I will also tell you that same person who is very successful in Australia, a friend
of mine, said, I don't know now what I would tell people who are starting out in comedy.
I tell them you have to be wealthy.
Because they then said, there's a social media.
There's the hustle.
There's the writing of it.
Then there's the traveling to get into all different places.
And I said, it's becoming that way.
Yes.
And it's almost like there are certain things where you see a lot of people who are tired,
who have that retired income, but like, I always wanted to try this.
It's okay.
I know friends now who live in this city.
I can stay with them and try some comedy.
Why not?
And that's why when with what you're doing, you're filtering through and your talents.
The admin, no one understands the admin skills required to be a performer when you do your
own thing.
When it comes to stand up comedy, you are on your own.
Yeah.
It's not just on the stage, but it's off the stage too.
You have to figure out all the things.
At first, other forms of entertainment, you have a whole company or a whole bunch doing
everything that a lot of comedians have to do when they start out.
And it's great when you make it big and get to pay people to do certain parts and expand
what you're doing.
But it is for new comedians, for people trying to arise, for people trying to make it.
There is a lot of heart considerations and a lot of them, a lot of people do decide to
go with financial security over chasing their comedic dream or waiting for the opportunities
as they're doing something else and being paid and they're able to put that money back into
their career.
But it's hard because sometimes when you're doing that, it feels like you're not really
being true to like, oh, but this is what I want to do.
I want to ask you one more comedy relay question before I get to some other questions.
And that is, tell me a little bit about rise up comedy and tell me a little bit about
aware meditations.
I feel like they're connected.
I know anytime I see posts, they're both collaborating on the same post.
So it's hard to tell from my perspective, where one ends in the other big A.X.
But I'd love for you to share a little, I think it's wonderful, but I'd love for you to
share with our listeners and viewers.
And that's excellent question.
They are part of the same.
So the 501 C3 nonprofit is under the name of where meditation, right?
And where meditation's mission is to help bring stress reduction techniques to allow for
shifting consciousness that does that isn't from anything mind altering.
So all of the techniques have to be tried and proved scientifically.
So we have meditation that's been proved scientifically.
We don't endorse any mind altering drugs from what we do.
We include wellness talks, which of course we talk, you know, when people talk and give
experience from wisdom, it helps other people.
We do laughter yoga with that.
And part of that element is the rise up comedy on its own.
And rise up comedy is designed to help lift up everyone through an event.
If someone is a feature and wants to be a headliner in a small space that I think they're right,
we'll give them the headliner spot.
If a headliner is only used to doing more sort of put down comedy and says, I'd like to do
a clean set in the environment.
We give them the opportunity to do that.
We try to lift everyone up through the experience of so we're starting to try to shift the consciousness
of comedy, moving away from its toxicity and goals to being able to be present in the
moment.
And then when we film the sets for the people, they have probably maybe not the best filming,
there's always something with sound that can go wrong, but they have the best audience
that makes them more open and vulnerable than they can often find at a club place.
And so that's the idea behind it and really with fusing wellness, I call it well wellness
and art collide.
They collide together.
They are part of the same element because they're all about shifting people's consciousness
and not lifting them.
So the rise up comedy has the online classes, aware meditation has a big YouTube and on
the YouTube channel you can see a broad spectrum of things.
You'll see marathons that we did during COVID where you've got yoga, you've got wellness,
you haven't got a gardening section, anything that helps reduce stress for the individual.
You've also got videos about meditation, including our group meditation with topics like how
to deal with holiday stress or Valentine's Day coming up.
You know, then you've even got some astrology stuff because for me, scientifically when you
get into astrology, not just reading a Sun sign, it's actually been very healing for me.
So the rise up comedy pathetic YouTube channel is usually the sets that people let us do
and we will also stream the show pain to punchlines.
So as I believe in a globally reaching out to people where we're not, people who are
shut in, people who are in more rural areas might not have access to attend a comedy show,
might not have the capability to understand meditation.
So this is why we do the online show.
We try to bring in global people.
You've had a feeling as the comedian, the vibe of just being on that little event, even
if there's only three people there, people come away with getting each other's numbers
to be on their shows or it's a very heartwarming experience for everyone when they're on
it because it's something greater than myself is happening energetically when I'm in
this space.
Yeah, I loved it.
I loved my experience on the show with you all.
It was a fun show.
I also made some friends.
I reconnected with a few other comedians that I met, maybe like a festival somewhere else.
And then I was able to go do their shows too.
And something I like, well, two things I liked about what you're talking about here is
one, I love the idea of providing comedy to the people that we often forget about.
So by doing a virtual show, you can absolutely, someone can tune in who couldn't come to a
comedy club.
And those are often people we don't think about because they're not the ones usually buying
tickets or they're not the ones we see at the clubs, but especially going back to a lot of
your kind of mission with what you do, those people need laughs just as much as anybody else.
And some of them might be home for a very sad reason and they might be exactly the person
that you want at your show benefiting from your comedy.
And then another thing you said that I really like and I feel like I can relate to with the
Clean Comedy Collective is you talked about how you give features of chance to headline or
maybe if it's a headline or who usually does more crass comedy, they want to work clean,
you give them the opportunity to work clean with their sets.
A lot of times, you push the prize when I talk about the Clean Comedy Collective that we
don't exclude like, there are some comedians that are exclusively clean and they're part
of our network too.
But we also look for people that work can work either or but at least when they're doing
one of the Clean Comedy Collective shows, they know how to work clean.
Like it's not a prerequisite to be in our network if to only work clean.
I have several friends here in middle Tennessee that are part of the Clean Comedy Collective
that I've seen them work just as much not clean and I've seen them work clean but when
they've been on my clean shows, they've absolutely killed.
And so it's like for me, I'm like if they can play ball the way we want to do and they want
to be part of the group, then let's have them.
I don't like the idea of just separating people because they also work not clean.
Like if you can work clean and I, so all that says I love what you do with how you help your
comedians out.
And so I think.
Oh, thank you.
Yeah.
I would like for it to be bigger.
You know, I'll get more people who want to take.
I mean right now the classes are so cheap as well because I believe it being offset.
So rather than paying $300 for a comedy class, it's like half the price and then the class
finishes at the fifth week and we have two weeks before the show.
And that's when we finesse the actual set and you know, we started at level two and one
person, she was from from Russia, she was like Paula, I have been profoundly affected by
this class.
Like I'm not ready for the next one.
And it's because of all the stuff that she stuffed down.
And I want you to know, I don't make anybody do anything they don't want to, right?
And then they started talking about an event that happened in high school prom and I said,
you know, they got back to me and they said, I realize I'm still dealing with basically
the wound, not the scar, right?
And so I'm going to see outside help.
I said, that's great.
We are going to find something else for you to do.
And me not having the fear that what they're doing isn't enough and they ended up doing
this story set.
Hilarious about working in the fundraising department of Princeton.
Okay.
That's fun.
Yeah.
What's like, what?
Yeah.
People and the community who are on that were like, what the, that's like it was funny.
And I said, I told them I said, you have a recording now that you could send off to a storytelling
or comedy festivals.
And even if you don't get picked, that person watching will be like, wow, that is so.
And that's what we want people's stories to be out there with truth and lightness because
something happens when you speak or truth.
So I love that.
I try to, I actually try to give away classes and, you know, auctions for nonprofits and things
as well for people to have the opportunity to take it.
And then people give a donation to help pay the headliner for the online show.
And, you know, I just hope it will, I believe I feel that in the next few years,
I'll have all these random things that people are like, oh, that's what you were building
all this time.
And at the same time, I'm not killing myself because my body will drop and the consciousness
will not have evolved, you know, I'm not going to kill myself with a sake of charity.
But part of who I am is to help make the world a better place without being aggressive
about it.
People working charities and it drives them crazy.
They become very manipulative, very aggressive.
They have to do either a lot of pills or whatever to get through it.
It's also, it's the story of the pastor who he doesn't have enough money because there's
not enough people coming to their church.
Right.
Right.
Yeah.
How do you do that with, I'm still keep this, this message that you're carrying.
So it comes in ebbs and flows and I just put it out there and if anything, it helps attract
people like you to me by saying, oh, look, you're doing this thing or here's this video of
this thing.
Does it mean it turned into something not necessarily?
But it's about doing that.
And even when I come to charity shows that I do for 12 step programs, they have the one meeting
hall I work with, it's online and I try so hard to reach out to rehabilitation or sober
living like you can dial in online because the advantage of that is an audience member is
you can put it on mute.
You won't be attacked.
They're not going to attack you.
You're observing the show, but you can still laugh and you can still have some joy from
it and then make a donation.
So I, the last one we did at the end of last year, I tried really hard and I reached out
to so many people.
I've talked about at least 100 emails and I have a repetitive stress injury so I have a
limited amount of time I can do on the computer.
Nothing came back.
Nothing, nothing at all.
But does it mean it's wasted?
No, we're trying.
I'll try a bit more and then usually what happens is I sit back, let it go and then I
get busy here and then suddenly there's a knock on the door because we don't know at
any time how we're changing or affecting people, we just simply keep doing it.
Yes.
And I think that's the important part of what we do and it's true for any creative, he's
trading anything, whether it's in comedy or any other form of entertainment, you keep doing
it and you are wise to say like you're not going to kill yourself in the process of doing
you have to know your limits, you have to set your boundaries, you have to know when
to you know, care about other parts of your life.
But for anyone who's building anything, we don't know what it's going to be until it's
there.
Like you're working on something right now that you may not see the fruits towards for several
years maybe and that's okay, but you'll be able to look back and be like, oh, I see now
why that was that went the way it did.
So I love all that.
And for anyone wondering, all of the links to Paula's stuff, whether it's rise up comedy,
awareness, meditation, or her personal website, they're all going to be in the episode
notes.
So you can, however you're listening to us or if you're watching us on YouTube, you can just
look down at the description and you'll be able to click on whatever to get to get to get
to any of this because you might be hearing this.
Well, I want to take one of these glasses or I want to check out one of the shows and we'll
we'll have all that available where you can check it out.
I want to shift gears because I feel like this happens every time we talk, Paula, we get
so into the weeds of comedy and life and stuff like that.
I don't get to ask questions I really want to know about.
And it's around your acting career, all right?
I spent some time on your IMDB yesterday just looking it up and you're in so many things that
like I've washed before and enjoyed.
So I didn't write down a nose, but I can remember.
So you were in Pirates of the Caribbean, you were a voiceover in Andorra.
No, you weren't.
That wasn't the cartoon that you were in Andorra.
You were in an Eragon.
I didn't see it, but I saw that you were cast as the annoying girl in a movie named caffeine.
So I don't even remember what that is.
But it's just so you've done a lot of cool or at least for me, cool acting things.
I'd love to know more about your acting experience and if you have any, especially if you have
any fun stories about Pirates of the Caribbean or like if there's anything I six out to you
and so and also do you still do voiceover work in acting?
Is that still something that's part of your life?
Yeah, and my dream was, you know, when I went to Carnegie Mellon University for acting and
at the time they had no showcase in Los Angeles and I was like, at one point in Pittsburgh,
it was minus 45 with wind factor and I was like, I can't be in a cold anymore, grew up in
England, I need to be in the sunshine.
So I have to create the first Los Angeles showcase and they've done one ever since.
That's how I ended up in LA and I, you know, had an agent or whatnot, but I was really bad
at auditioning.
I'm so bad at auditioning.
I just, I am a much better actor than I am auditioner and I never got into doing any comedy
for it.
I only ever booked stuff for friends and then I had a fake manager that we were bunch of
actors that we clapped together and that's how I got Pirates of the Caribbean.
And I, I remember the audition.
I had the final audition, the third final audition, or fourth was the read through and I sat
next to Johnny Depp and Jerry Brookheimer and they needed to meet me before I could get
the part.
Now I had just got hurt very early, early that month with my repetitive stress injury.
I could only put my arm out.
I had to have heat things on my wrists here for tendonitis and I was like, I can't
put them there.
So I took my wrist splints.
I had custom made splints and I sat there and I was just like, please don't let them know.
I'm in so much pain.
I was supposed to read the lines of Zoe Saldana and I forgot to, I was lost is the casting
director did it.
And during the process, Johnny Depp had the Vipo room at that time in LA and he was drinking
I think it was like 10, 13 in the morning, red wine.
That was a flash, that's early.
Oh yeah.
And had Bob or for himself.
Of course he was like, I was doing, I'm doing a drink.
I was like, no, I'm fine, thank you.
Like, that will not get me the job.
And at the end of it, he was like, is everything comfortable?
I said, well, it is a bit cold.
And he was like, what?
I was like, it's a bit cold.
And he was like, oh, okay, we can work on that.
Well, yeah, we'll hopefully see you soon.
I was like, I don't really think so.
He was like, what?
I was like, well, we're not in any scenes together, are we?
It was so taken back, right?
It was like, yeah, but I'll probably see you around.
I go, it's really not likely, is it?
[LAUGHS]
And he was like, well, no, I think that we will.
I was like, well, best laid plans then, Johnny.
And that was my conversation with Johnny Depp.
And I got a call late that afternoon that I did get the job.
So I was, I shot early on.
And I shot not in the Caribbean, no.
I was down a Manhattan Beach studios.
And I begged my boyfriend at the time to use his car
because I had stick shift.
And I just couldn't drive for my 6am calls.
And we got there.
And they said, well, we'll put you in your course, it.
And I said, no, no, you won't.
Not until it comes to my scene.
They were like, well, you need to be ready.
I go, well, you're going to give me ready
when they set the lights up for my scene.
And so the first day, I did nothing.
I sat in my trailer because they never got to my scene
because Orlando Bloom had such bad jet lag.
He kept forgetting his lines and with the swords.
And that one afternoon, Kira decided to, Kira
nightly decided that she could keep the course
it on and have a lunch.
And of course, it was on so tight in the afternoon
that she fainted.
And so the next day, when I said, yeah,
won't you put my course on?
No, no, we're not going to put your course on unless you need to.
And I'm like, they learned.
You knew ahead of time.
Oh, yeah, I've been in a lot of courses and a lot of--
and of course, it was the one time I was in a Shakespeare
Festival playing Helena.
And they wanted me to come early to film.
And I was like, when are you ever in a Shakespeare Festival
and doing a movie at the same time?
You know, they were thinking of trying
to move my date sooner than not, but they didn't.
And my last story, Kira and I, our scene was almost cut,
which is a lovely, nice scene between the two of us.
But the director wanted to keep it.
So he fought Gowr-Vibinsky fought against Jerry Brakheimer
to keep the scene.
If anything, because there were hardly any scenes with women,
I'm like one of four women in the whole thing.
And now, now I get asked on Cameo to do a few little things
for people here and there as they remember.
I mean, I had no idea at the time.
I was in so much pain during that.
I had no idea if people had inventions for the characters,
the empires, and people would rest up as my character, which
is Australia, which is a Spanish name, which I thought
was very funny that you would cast a deficit.
Usually you need a bunch of minorities going for the mage.
So this time I got the maid.
You got the raw for the Spanish maid.
Yes, that was so funny, because I would often
be auditioning in the--
we don't know what to do with you category, right?
So it would be me in a bunch of minorities,
because they knew they had to put minorities in the show
somehow, but they didn't know where.
And usually I would not get the part.
And so this was funny that the one time I did get the part,
it was with a Spanish name.
Right.
Yeah, I don't know.
When I look at you, I don't see Spanish maid.
But hey, it worked.
Well, that's fun.
Thank you for sharing those stories.
I just thought to ask you about your acting,
and it didn't have gotten to it.
Now, the last questions I want to bring up to you
are actually-- I don't even know.
We got our questions from our audience.
These has come to us through threads, through Facebook,
and through Instagram, periodically, whenever
I'm close to running out of questions.
I'll reach out and see if you want to give us more questions.
And anyone who's listening, you're more than welcome to comment.
And if this is YouTube, or there's actually
an option you can pick on any of the podcast platforms,
where it says, like, send us a comment or question.
If you have a question, you'd like me to put on my list
to ask the comedians, send it my way,
and we'll get it on the list.
So Paul, the way it works is we have--
you'll be able to pick a number one through--
we're at 39, one through 39.
So you pick a number, and then I'll ask the question
and tell you all who it's from.
So whenever you're ready, give me a number.
27.
27.
All right.
This one comes to us from Facebook, from Joe Widey,
who's also in the Clean Comedy Collective.
And her question is-- and it's pretty open-ended,
so answer it however you will.
Where do you find your inspiration?
I find inspiration often after I meditate or when I go for walks.
Awesome.
I get that especially about the walk-in,
something about doing something where it's mindless,
like for me it's driving or even getting ready in the morning.
That seems to be when my brain starts being the most creative.
So I'll look at that.
All right.
Give me a number, number one through 39, but not 27.
21.
21, all right.
This comes from Fred James Mac who's also a comedian,
he said, who would you want to play you in a movie?
Would we have the end of the time?
I have to do my look like it.
It has to be held at a bottom corner.
OK.
I can look like her for so long.
And I think she's just fabulous in everything she does.
So I don't care if she's playing me 13,
and she looks like she's 60, I still 100 play me.
She would do great either way.
I love that.
Good answer.
All right.
Let's see one more question, anything one through 39,
but not 21 or 27.
Six.
Six.
All right.
This one comes to us from Instagram, from Bo Cowan,
as Nashville-based comedian.
He says, you can tell he's listening to my other podcast.
He's asking, do you think Vin Diesel is too old to try
to stand up comedy?
No one is ever too old to try stand up comedy,
as long as you can't-- you don't even need to stand to do
a stand up comedy.
I've taught people with a walker.
Yep.
That's true.
I'd like to follow up questions.
Do we think Vin Diesel would do good at stand up comedy?
I would just watch him to see if he could remember the punch line.
If he couldn't remember, he'd just punch something.
I think he could-- I'd like to hear him do a routine
about not even about fast and furious and acting and being an action hero.
I want to hear him talk more about his opinions on Dungeons and Dragons,
because he's like a huge geek with Dungeons and Dragons.
And I think that would be the routine.
That would be--
I did.
I helped one girl.
It was so funny because she was working on,
as a PA on one of Jason Bateman's things.
And so she was around a lot of comedian righteous.
And one week she came back and she
did this sort of set she was reading.
I said, that's great, but that's not you.
And she's like, what?
I go, that is not about you.
These are good jokes, but I need you to write your jokes.
She ended up doing a funny set about being a--
people think that she's a hobbit and how she may work at the Renaissance Festival.
And they took her profile picture when she was foraging from mushrooms for a game.
And it was just like, you just kept going further and further and further
into the whole nerdy geek world.
That I was like, I love that.
Now, this is your comedy, right here.
And she did fantastic for the first time ever doing it.
It was really funny.
That's awesome.
I give the same advice to people I teach as well,
because especially when they first start a lot of comedians feel the need to be really
crossed, to be really vulgar, to be very polarized or have opinions.
They're like, I don't--
the best way is I don't think this is the most accurate way, but to be like jerks on stage
because they feel like they have to be, right?
And oftentimes, when I'm in those first few lessons, I'm like, you could work on that,
or you could do something a little bit more relatable, a little more authentic,
a little bit more you, and it probably will be better.
And so oftentimes, and usually it's by like, less than three or four that I start
hearing them do jokes.
I'm like, wow, that's the first time I've heard you do something like, well, that has potential,
you know?
And I think it's because they feel more comfortable sharing parts of themselves,
versus what they feel like, you know, quote unquote, a stand-up comedian should be doing, you know?
I don't know so many people who take 10 years to even start to do that.
I'm still working with it too, because there's what I need to be able to get time
with what people want to hear from me, then what I want to do.
But ultimately, what we're doing when we help people do this is help them listen
to that true vibration of who they are in the world, and that is healing not only for them,
but for the vibration, everything is sound and vibration of who, the world.
If we listen to who we are, be true to who we really are on the inside, not what we're told,
we start to help heal everything, and that's what you're doing.
You're helping people provide that space, and you know, a lot of being a pastor isn't just
creating the speeches, you're listening, you're trying to help people guide them to their truth.
Yeah, absolutely.
Do you have anything you'd like to promote, or anything specifically you'd like to tell our audience
where they can find you, or just anything of that nature?
Oh, that's lovely.
Please always go to PaulAjaneNuman.com and even hit it on your VPN,
so it looks like people around the world actually care enough.
That would be fantastic.
The YouTube channel needs work again.
That's PaulAjaneNuman.
Awaremeditation.org is that, and that will have the links to riseupcomedy.org.
And you can reach out to me for classes or whatever, or what are ones, or how we can help bring
comedy in spaces that's needed, even if it's online.
And to do that, we're actually have my proper mic set up and everything.
Yeah, that'll be great.
I'm sure those are awesome classes.
I love your virtual shows.
I love, we promote them on the Clean Comedy Collective channels as well.
And they're just, I keep meaning to come back even just to watch.
I was actually the recent one you promoted, which will probably be happening after this episode
airs, but like I have it on my calendar from around on Sunday, I'm going to pop in just
to see and watch and all that kind of stuff.
That was, I was right off with not too long off of the plane.
After my dad died.
So I was like, I don't even know anything else saying it's funny, but we're doing the show.
Yeah.
And it all happens.
Sometimes that's, you know, sometimes when we're in certain kind of head spaces, that's
when our best stuff comes out or not.
Sometimes it's like, oh, no, or not.
Like it's one or the other.
But sometimes, sometimes it's really, and you end up thinking like, oh, I needed to do
this.
So, well, listen, everyone who's listening, part of it, thank you so much for listening
to our second episode of Clean Comedy Chats.
Thank you, Paula, for being here.
We appreciate you.
Just a reminder to everyone who's listening, feel free to check out CleanComedyCcollective.com.
You'll be able to see previous episodes, which in this case is just one previous episode.
You'll be able to see all our whole network of comedians depending on what state they live
in.
So maybe you'll find your new favorite comedian.
You'll be able to look up Paula as she's in our California section and you'll be able
to see more of her stuff.
We also have all of our stuff in the episode notes.
There's also other things you can do if you're a comedian that wants to apply for the
Clean Comedy Collective.
You can do that.
But shows we have coming up if you want to maybe reach out about us potentially booking
a show with you.
That's something we can do.
And lastly, there's ways to donate if you're just like, "Wait, these guys are fantastic.
I just want to give them all my money."
You're more than welcome to do that.
We won't turn it down.
But thank you so much.
Week 2, I still don't have a closing line.
My old podcast, I would tell people to live life a quarter of a time, but that doesn't seem
right here.
So, live your life a Clean Comedy Chats at a time.
That's never going to be said again.
But thank you guys so much for tuning in.
We'll see you next week.
Have a great one.
Thank you.
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