Andie Main is a Portland comedy scene institution. But after seven years as a regular fixture—she founded the monthly Revolution Comedy and summertime Cool Kids Patio Show, and achieved a dream of being a regular host at Helium—the time has come for Main to seek her fortune in another city. Talking with Main is a laugh riot and she cracked us both up, multiple times, during what was supposed to be an earnest conversation about growing up in Portland, the perils of dating after divorce, and the way social justice work made Main feel like a target.
MERCURY: How are you spending your last days in Portland?
MAIN: I’m dating for the first time in 15 years!
Oh right! You’re going through a divorce.
It’s amicable. But it was a major reason for the move.
What’s it like dating after 15 years?
It’s really fast now. Dating after being in a relationship for 15 years is like waking up from a coma. We didn’t even have smart phones 15 years ago.
What if you find someone you love and then you can’t move?
Uh… (laughs) nah. I’ve already made too many public declarations to go back on it. Everyone that I’ve been hanging out with is also seeing other people.
Oh yeah, Portland is poly as all heck.
I’m just discovering this. I should probably read some books on what has happened with human sexuality in the past 15 years. I don’t consider myself to be poly, but that’s what the environment is so that’s what I’m adapting to. It’s like when frogs change their gender.
A clingy question: What does Colorado have that we don’t?
I visited Denver in November, just for the sake of trying out a new comedy scene, and I got up like 15 times in a week [editor’s note: this is comedian jargon for getting to perform on stage]. There were audiences at every show. I got paid for every set. There’s just a lot more opportunity for growth there.
I became a good comic here. I believe I can become a great comic in Denver. I feel like I just came to the end of my time in Portland and I’m trying to be diplomatic about it.
You’re actually one of the rare people that grew up in Portland, right?
I grew up a mile from here! I did comedy recently and was doing a joke about Werner Herzog documenting my period, and had no idea my middle school guidance counsellor was there! She came up and gave me a hug afterwards, but, since I was a little depressed macabre kid when she knew me, I spent the entire time trying to convince her that I’m doing okay as an adult. “No, I’m fine! You just heard some weird shit up there, but I’m doing fine!”
The main reason I’m leaving is that a lot of baggage accrues when you’ve spent seven years doing comedy in your hometown. I’m at the end of an era in my life where I can make a wild choice and not regret it. I’m 38. You gotta figure out where you’re settled after 38.
Is 38 the age when Eat, Pray, Love happens?
(laughs) I never watched it. I don’t watch shit like that. But you could say that I’m going through a positive mid-life crisis. You could totally say that.
In addition to comedy, you’ve done a lot of activism and fundraising. What are you most proud of accomplishing with that work?
Revolution Comedy and the Cool Kids Patio Show. With Revolution Comedy I was able to raise—I would estimate—about $15,000 towards a dozen different important organizations. I’m planning on continuing Revolution Comedy in Denver.
And you started that to raise money for Bernie Sanders.
Yeah, that’s literally how it started. As soon as I heard of Bernie, I thought: I wanna raise that guy money. I started doing it at Kickstand Comedy as an experiment, and it clicked really well.
Kickstand talks about Revolution Comedy as one of its incubator success stories because you outgrew the space.
Yeah, Revolution moved to Curious Comedy after a year and we did shows for two years after that. We came up with a system that reduced the cost of the ticket to cover the cost of maintaining the show and then we recommended a $10 donation, which we collected in a jar. We also collected tips for performers.
I remember it just so happened that the Wednesday after the election, in 2016, was the first Revolution Comedy we held at Curious Comedy. That was the saddest fucking day I’ve ever been on stage. We did a Don’t Shoot PDX fundraiser. It was like half-full—a good start—and it was so cathartic.
That sounds really great.
It was. But then there would be armchair activists ready to critique anything I did. The last Revolution Comedy, before this one, was for the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). One of my friends was like, “Hey, you should look at your invite because there’s a fight going on. People are trying to call you out for not having enough diversity on your show.”
I had five dudes on the line-up and then me hosting. One of the dudes was gay. One of the dudes was Black. It was a pretty diverse bill, but people started promoting other shows and suggesting people go to those shows—instead of the show that was raising money for a good cause—because there were more women on the bills of these other shows.
Were those comedy fans?
They were people that heard about it through the DSA, but honestly who knows how active they are with the organization? People who tear each other down like that generally don’t do the active part of activism. What are they literally doing? I’m raising money and they’re just calling me names. Who is that actually helping? I got mad about a certain issue and I took positive action. What do you do? Oh, you’re just try to make me feel bad.
The thing that bothered me the most is that we are technically all on the same side. People get high off being indignant. Another time there was a citizen journalist that wrote to me and said, “There’s been a few organizations that have accused you of not sending money to them that you earned through Revolution Comedy. Do you have a comment?” So I started contacting my people at Planned Parenthood and Don’t Shoot PDX. I got an ice in my veins feeling.
Did you find any evidence that some didn’t get their donations?
No, not at all. He just made it up to get a reaction from me.
You do a lot. The scene appreciates it. We’re sorry to see you go.
Yeah, we should also talk about Cool Kids, which is awesome and which also started because of Bernie Sanders. I organized a show at Bossanova Ballroom and someone working there also worked at Doug Fir. He asked if we could do a fundraiser for Bernie on the patio at Doug Fir. They’d just renovated their patio so they wanted to get people out there.
So after I did a comedy show on that patio, it occurred to me that we should do comedy on that patio every week. I was sending that email to them and they were—it turned out—sending that same email to me. It was like a meet-cute. It’s comedy with music. A band opens. People come for the comedy. The whole point is like a good happy hour. Nariko Ott is taking it over so he’ll be able to choose bands and comics. And he’s cooler than me so it’ll be the Cooler Kids Patio Show. I told him to call it that.
Follow Andie Main on Twitter at @andiemain.
