Comedian Maria Bamford has a singular talent for finding the absurd joy in moments that make most of us bubble in shame. At one point in her 2017 Netflix special, “Old Baby,” while performing to an audience gathered in a bowling alley, she recounts a time she gave a Career Day talk to a group of high school students, much to everyone’s confusion.
“Who was that even? I don’t even want to be what she is. It’s like she’s all shaky,” she says, cycling swiftly through the perturbed students’ voices. “She’s like an old baby,” she says in the voice of another, before wholeheartedly agreeing, now as herself. “Yes! That’s the perfect description of what I am,” she says, poking fun at her admitted life of privilege and the keen sensitivity that, in turn, makes her comedy great.
Over the course of her career, Bamford has made a name for herself by being like no one else. She acts out the characters in her stories as if possessed, favors abrupt shifts in voice and topics over easy transitions, and examines her life with a kind of radical honesty that is as funny as it is comforting. Across her seven comedy albums, Bamford’s jokes mine the surreal depths of devastatingly awkward social interactions, her relationship with her parents and the intimate details of living with mental illness.
In 2007, she created her own critically acclaimed but short-lived web series, “The Maria Bamford Show,” in which she starred as a fictionalized version of herself, who moves into her parents’ home following a nervous breakdown. In the years following, she released a number of equally innovative and hilarious projects and took on a supporting role in Season 3 of “Arrested Development.” In 2016, she introduced a whole new audience to her off-kilter perspective with her two-season Netflix show “Lady Dynamite,” which follows another fictionalized version of herself, a comedian trying to balance her career with mental illness recovery.
In the time since “Lady Dynamite” ended, Bamford has stayed busy writing, touring and releasing a comic book. Co-written and illustrated by her husband, “Hogbook and Lazer Eyes” tells the story of the couple’s love from the perspective of their dogs. For now, the book is available for sale exclusively at live shows. But luckily for Portland fans, Bamford is taking her new stand-up show – exploring marriage, class privilege and, of course, Donald Trump – to the Helium Comedy Club from May 16 to 18. She spoke to Street Roots by phone about mental health, putting herself out there, and gender balance at comedy clubs.
Ann-Derrick Gaillot: I saw that recently you’ve been reaching out on social media to strangers in the cities where you’re performing, and rehearsing your sets one-on-one with them. When did you start doing this?
Maria Bamford: Well, when I was unable to get myself to rehearse by myself. You run out of friends to rehearse for, and (in) Los Angeles, everybody’s hustlin’ and there’s no affordable housing. You gotta start paying people to listen to you. So I thought, if I can provide something that maybe somebody might be interested in and I wouldn’t have to pay them beyond a coffee – it’s very selfish – then I could do my show so I can remember it. It’s a win-win. And they know what they’re in for, which is stand-up face to face. So if they’re disappointed then – well, that’s their experience to journal about.
Gaillot: I would think it would be more nerve wracking to perform one-on-one.
Bamford: Not at all, for me anyways. I prefer it. I don’t know why. (It’s) people who are already hopefully fans, so they will have a supportive look on their face even if they don’t laugh. Or if they can’t even have a supportive look on their face, I know they’ve showed up. Just that knowledge of them showing up gives me confidence. Unlike a bar crowd, which I know showed up for something else and may be very angry at me in a few minutes. I just did an open mic last night for some cocaine-addled, backwards-hat-wearing young men. And I thought to myself, “Hmmm. I’m not sure if we’re a good match. But here we are.”
Gaillot: Did they laugh?
Bamford: No. No, of course not. I am not their downfall. I am not their chicken and waffles. I am not what they’ve been craving.
Gaillot: Your reaching out and doing one-on-one shows reminds me of the bench outside your L.A. house to get to know your neighbors, which folks saw in your “Old Baby” special. What do you get out of putting yourself out there like that?
Bamford: For me, it’s the controlled communication. It’s a very structured environment. If I put a bench on the front lawn, people might stop by, but then I can always leave. I can sit there for a while, and then I can head on in. I like to have, even if they’re made up, structures of intimacy. The hour of doing my show to somebody at a coffee shop, I ask them a couple questions about themselves – I do a little bit of crowd work – and then it’s me monologuing, which is embarrassingly easy for me –unfortunately or fortunately, I can’t decide. And then it’s over. So I’ve had some connection, but it’s very safe. It’s the same reason I was OK with internet dating. As long as there’s a beginning, middle and end, I’m good. (But) parties or networking events when everyone’s just hanging out: Boo!
Gaillot: You’ve said you’ve found stability with your mental health over the past several years. How much does your community play a part in that?
Bamford: I have to say the thing that was life changing was medication. That was unbelievable. I had all the support in the world – like my family, friends, comedy community, 12-step groups, all that stuff – and I was still in danger of killing myself. So, I think there’s limits to community. I did have people who said, “Hey, it sounds like you need to go to the hospital.” So in that way, it did (help me), but it wasn’t the thing that kept me alive. Well, I guess it did in sort of a side way.
I do want to say there are suicide hotlines, of course, please call them. But I also understand when people commit suicide because I feel like the suffering is so intense for so long. And when there isn’t help, or when help doesn’t work over and over again for years, fair enough. I mean, I don’t want to discourage people, but I just (want people) to have compassion for people who died of suicide.
But medication did help a lot. And now I’m really grateful to be open about my health issue as a kind of preventative. Because then if things start seeming weird again, everybody knows. It’s not a big secret. If I start talking too fast and having a whole lot of shit ideas all at once, somebody is going to say, “Hey, what what?”
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Gaillot: There is more open conversation about mental health than in the past. Do you see that that has changed the stigma around medication at all?
Bamford: I mean, even I, while taking it, have the stigma against medication. I don’t love drug companies. The side effects blow. So, I’m not a fan of meds except that they have totally changed my life and made it just completely different. But also I think I got to a point where it got so bad where I didn’t care (about the downsides). I wasn’t able to work anyways. Sometimes people feel like, especially with manic depression, it will take away my edge if I don’t have the manias anymore. I had gone past that. I just felt like, oh, I’m going to kill myself and I definitely won’t be able to write anymore when I’m dead. So medication was OK. But I think that nobody likes to take meds. It’s a drag. They have you gain weight and feel slower and not like yourself sometimes. Although I was stable, it just felt weird to not have that rush of ideas. Or I don’t cry very often anymore, and I used to on a daily basis. But I (also) think I’m just as sensitive a person as I was.
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Gaillot: You’re not shy about talking about what you get paid and accessibility of the venues and also just the ratio of men booked at comedy clubs versus women.
Bamford: Yes, and they’re working on that. There’s this professor in Chicago who does statistical analysis, and he’s going to put his graduate students on it as a project. So we’re getting the database right now of all the different comedy clubs all over the nation. I think that it might really help to have something like that to go, “Oh!” Because it’s hearsay now, all the comics going, “Was it all dudes where you went?” “Yup.” And I think that (formal analysis) has helped create change in other situations like the art world.
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Gaillot: I think you’re right about the numbers. When I looked at Helium’s lineup, I was like, “Oh, it looks like there’s a lot of women here.” But when I counted, there was about double the men.
Bamford: And Helium in Portland is actually very good comparatively with other clubs. I just want to have curiosity about it. I don’t want to blame the clubs. (I want to ask) are these heteronormative spaces where maybe women aren’t drawing as much to clubs in different parts of the country? (I want) to be curious about it rather than to be blaming or saying, “Oh, it’s all misogyny” and go, “Well what can we do? What are the numbers?” And have all the clubs see what other clubs are doing and … I don’t know. I just I don’t want to complain about things anymore or have shocked self-righteousness. Because I know I’m an asshole, and it’s only when I’m called out do I go, “Oh shit.” Like, I wrote this essay that somebody said was transphobic, some of the jokes. And I was like, “Oh my God. Oh, OK. Thank you for telling me.” And then I got to read some books about gender identity and sexuality and got to take the essay down and learn something. So I think there’s something very valuable about putting information out in public. Not shaming, but it’s so much more likely I’ll take action on something if 200,000 people know about it, or the perception that people know about it.
Gaillot: Has your understanding of your platform as a public figure changed over the years, or has it always felt natural to ask questions about the industry?
Bamford: Because I have an obsessive brain, I think I gotta kind of stay away from it. Because I start getting really dark about it; the penguins are dying and Joe Biden is possibly a sexual predator. You can just get overwhelmed. And I already think I have. Like some people with mental illness, I already have that sort of responsibility God complex thing of, “It’s me, it’s my fault, I need to change things.” You can only do so much. “Why don’t you start with bringing your own coffee cup everywhere, Maria? Why don’t you do that? That’s it. Can you do that? Cause when you can do that, then let’s move on to something else. But stop tweeting about it. Bring your own coffee cup. That’s it.”
IF YOU GO
WHAT: Maria Bamford at Helium Comedy Club
WHEN: May 16-18, 2019
TICKETS: Helium Comedy Club's website