With her sunny blonde curls, broad-shouldered height, and expressive, joyful comedic style that's both silly and sincere, Fortune Feimster is the stand-up comic equivalent of a sunflower. This Saturday, Sept. 30, she'll unfurl fresh material at Spokane's First Interstate Center for the Arts on her Live, Laugh, Love! comedy tour.
Feimster (rhymes with teamster) was raised in the small town of Belmont, North Carolina, though for the past 20 years she's lived in Los Angeles.
And, wow, has she been blossoming.
Initially, she worked as an entertainment journalist ("a fancy word for gossip columnist," she quips on stage) and performed with the famed Groundlings improv troupe. Sketch comedy was her first love. Though Feimster auditioned for Saturday Night Live twice, she never got the green light, but that didn't dampen her glow. She pushed forward, appearing on Last Comic Standing in 2010 and landing a job on Chelsea Lately as a writer and panelist soon after.
Though Fortune has also penned (and sold!) multiple sitcom and film scripts, she's more than a writer and comic. She's also an actor (The Mindy Project, Life in Pieces, FUBAR) and a voice-over artist (Velma, The Simpsons, Bless the Harts). So far she has two Netflix comedy specials — Sweet & Salty (2020) and Good Fortune (2002) — and is constantly touring. Oh, and she currently hosts or co-hosts three (!) podcasts: Sincerely Fortune, What a Joke with Papa, and Fortune and Handsome.
The woman is extremely busy! (So busy that her schedule was too packed for a phone interview, but that's fine.) Let Fortune rest! Let her hang out with her friend Natalie Maines (of the Chicks), watch women's sports or The Carol Burnett Show and eat pad thai in bed — all Fortune facts I gleaned from her many podcasts.
So in lieu of an interview, for those new to Fortune Feimster's comedy, it might help to have this guide to keep track of key characters and essential topics in the FCU (Feimster Comedic Universe — trademark pending)...
FORTUNE'S WORLD
JAX SMITH: Jax — short for Jacquelyn — is Fortune's wife. The former kindergarten teacher prefers to work behind the scenes while Fortune takes center stage: Smith has production credits on both of Fortune's Netflix stand-up specials as well as the Sincerely Fortune podcast.
The couple met in a parking lot (romantic!) during Chicago Pride in 2015, got engaged in 2018 and married in late 2020 in a last-minute, oceanside ceremony in Malibu with just five friends present and parents watching on Zoom.
BIGGIE: Biggie is the fluffy, milk-and-honey-hued male Pomeranian that Fortune and Jax adopted from an animal shelter when he was 5. "He loves to eat, so he's a lot like me," Fortune remarks in a 2017 home video. Biggie is one of those cute-as-hell dogs who looks like he's always smiling. But the Pom wasn't all smiles during an animal hospital emergency that Fortune recounts in Good Fortune, in which Biggie makes a brief-but-triumphant appearance on stage.
GINGER: A retired special education teacher, Ginger Feimster is the mother of Fortune and her two older brothers. After Fortune came out as a lesbian in her mid-20s, Ginger became a vocal supporter of LGBTQ+ rights. She's now the president of the Gaston, North Carolina, chapter of PFLAG. Ginger is a frequent guest on Sincerely Fortune, where — in a sweet-tea Southern accent thicker than Fortune's — she discusses topics like hurricane survival, ghost sightings and "sit abouts" (her term for knickknacks).
TIG NOTARO & MAE MARTIN: In her newest podcast series Handsome, launched this August, Fortune shares co-host duties with two other queer comics: fellow Southern lesbian Tig Notaro and Canadian actor/author/improv-er Mae Martin. In each episode, the dapper trio — who sport sharp suits and vests in their promo photos — respond to a prerecorded question submitted by an entertainer (Kenan Thompson, Sarah Silverman, etc.) then play that celebrity's own answer. It's a free-flowing storytelling pod that can swing from playful banter to deeper discussions.
TOM PAPA: If you listen to NPR's weekly news quiz Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!, you're likely already familiar with Tom Papa's voice. The veteran stand-up comic joins Fortune on What a Joke with Papa and Fortune, a live show on SiriusXM's Netflix Is a Joke Radio (channel 93). Together, Tom and Fortune interview celebrities and comedians associated with Netflix shows.
HOOTERS: One of the strongest closing bits I've ever seen happens in the final minutes of Fortune's Sweet & Salty comedy special, and it revolves around the restaurant chain Hooters. It's not Fortune's only Hooters material either! Since there are, un-Fortune-ately, no Hooters locations in Washington or Idaho anymore, readers may be unfamiliar with this "delightfully tacky" franchise that began in Florida in 1983. Hooters isn't a strip club, it's more of a PG-13 Red Robin known for fried wings and cleavage-bearing servers who wear shimmery pantyhose under orange short-shorts.
"BRENDA": A recurring character in the spontaneous videos Feimster shares via social media, Brenda is Feimster's hetero alter ego, who has a husband named Tim (which sounds like a four-syllable word when Brenda says it) and a passion for the color turquoise. "I swear. To. Ga-a-awd" is Brenda's catchphrase for when she's fed up with Tim or their imaginary kids. Brenda does find peace, however, when she takes "a di-i-ip" in her hot tub and sips from a Kelly Clarkson cup.
"DEB": When folks were spinning out during the early months of COVID lockdown, Feimster offered the world Deb, a mulleted, aviator-wearing spin class instructor in a signature red sweatband. Deb barks orders at her imaginary spin students but doesn't always pedal herself. Sometimes she's not even on a cycle: "I left my spin bike in the rain; it's a long story," Deb says, filming herself from a bed as she queues up the Space Jam soundtrack and upbeat '90s hits. If Deb were a real spin instructor, her students might risk pulling an ab muscle from laughter. ♦
Fortune Feimster • Sat, Sept. 30 at 7 pm • $30-$165 • All ages • First Interstate Center for the A2 • 334 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. • firstinterstatecenter.org
