Olympia comedian is spending the pandemic writing 100 jokes a week to benefit nonprofits

For the moment, Sam Miller has let go of his identity as a stand-up comedian. But he’s still making people laugh — and he’s raising money for local nonprofits along the way.

Miller of Olympia, who was chosen to compete in the 2016 Seattle International Comedy Competition, has been writing 100 new jokes each week and performing them to raise money — $1,700 so far — for Olympia’s Interfaith Works and other nonprofits.

Miller’s stage act finds humor in stories about his life as a husband, father and addict in recovery. These jokes are something different — they’re short, they don’t necessarily connect to his life or to one another, and he reads them from a piece of paper, noting that he never said he was going to memorize 100 jokes.

Many of the jokes do reference life in a global pandemic, whether that’s safe shopping (“I yawned at Safeway yesterday and accidentally swallowed my mask”) or finding himself without a day job because schools are closed (“I feel essential”).

And how could they not? Just about everything — for Miller as for the rest of us — has changed.

“When this first happened, I was like, ‘How am I going to do standup again? What am I going to do?’ ” he said. “I let go of the idea of performing standup in front of live crowds right now. … This gives me a chance to do jokes that I wouldn’t do. Instead of me trying to make stuff the way it used to be, the best thing that I can do is try to make things the way they can be.”

Miller performs the Saturday-night shows, streamed live on Facebook, in his home with a studio audience consisting of Brittney Miller, his wife and camera operator, and Mary Soehnlen, his mom. His sons — Buddy, 9, and Oliver, 6, both students at Peter G. Schmidt Elementary in Tumwater — warm up the crowd with a few jokes of their own.

There’s no attempt to hide that these are homemade shows. While you’re waiting for the performance to begin, you might be treated to a glimpse of the puzzle the family is putting together or hear Brittney remind Sam to make sure the boys have pants on before they start their sets.

There’s an ice-cream scoop microphone, and though they’re an enthusiastic and appreciative “crowd,” Brittney and Mary don’t hesitate to heckle.

Sometimes it’s warranted: Miller’s jokes vary quite a bit in quality from genuinely funny — “The hardest thing about being a human is that whole inevitable death thing. Also stoplights that are timed wrong.” — to so unfunny they’re kind of funny — “If turtles are scared, they hide in their shell, which is why it hurts so bad when someone throws a turtle at you.”

“The trick to writing 100 jokes is not to try to write 100 good jokes,” he said.

Asked about the turtle joke, Miller first defended it, then made a good-natured attempt at explaining with help from a laughing Brittney. (She doesn’t like the joke, either.)

Apparently, it would hurt less if the turtle’s leg hit you than if its shell did.

But a turtle is still mostly shell, even if its legs are out, right? Right?

“You know how hard it is to write 100 jokes?” Miller responded, laughing. “There is a pandemic going on, and I’m trying to bring joy, and it’s hard.”

‘100 New Jokes’ with Sam Miller

• What: Miller, who was chosen to compete in the 2016 Seattle International Comedy Competition, is writing and telling 100 new jokes each week to raise money for Interfaith Works, an Olympia nonprofit whose missions include serving homeless and hungry people, and other nonprofit organizations.
• When: 8 p.m. Saturdays, May 16 and 23
• Watch: Streaming live on Miller’s Facebook page where it can be viewed later, too
• Cost: Free, with donations encouraged. The May 16 performance benefits the COVID-19 Relief Fund of Abundance of Hope, a Seattle nonprofit aimed at helping youth who are slipping through the cracks, and the May 23 performance benefits Interfaith Works.

Miller on …

Aircraft: “Helicopters are just box fans that have forgotten their roots.”

His past: “Sometimes I wonder what my life would be like if I went back in time and never did drugs and went to college and got a good job, and I think, ‘Jesus. I’d still be stuck in my (expletive) house right now.”

Parenting: “This pandemic has given me a lot of time to get to know my kids better. Or worse.”