You may have seen her on Comedy Central, Jay Leno, Conan, Jimmy Kimmel.
When Maria Bamford steps onto the stage, pretty much nothing’s off limits.
And forget about being politically correct.
She’s fearless.
Maria will be appearing on the new season of “Arrested Development.”
I spoke with her earlier this year.
Okay, you just finished “The Special Special Special,” which one can buy on the internet.
On the internet, $4.99 at chill.com.
I decided to do a comedy special, and I didn’t want to go anywhere.
And the people that I generally want to please in my life are my parents.
So why not go straight to the source?
Did a hour-long stand-up special for my parents in my living room.
I fear this scenario: you lose everything, including your mind, except the part of your
mind that knows that knows that you lost everything.
They’re the only audience members except for some sound man, and the boom operator,
and then there was a keyboard player.
There’s an opening act, Ms. Jackie Kashian.
And that was really helpful because, you know, I don’t wanna go out there cold.
Not in front of your parents.
Not in front of my parents.
And they were great.
They did, I have to say - full disclosure – I did pay my parents.
So they are a paid audience.
Kind of changes the –
It does change a lot.
But it was non-union, so.
So you released this only online.
How come?
Yes, only online.
Well, that was the business model, inspired by Louis C.K. and Aziz Ansari and Rob Delaney
and many others now.
That, instead of waiting to be asked to do an hour-long special on Showtime or Comedy
Central or whatever, to just be able to do it yourself and hope that your fan base is
big enough.
And I’m a very niche comedian.
I’m an orchid of comedy.
Only under certain environments does it.
Oh, it’s a little too cold!
And so, but yes, I think it can really work for a lot of artists.
Did it work?
Yes, oh yes!
I earned three times the amount that I would have earned from a, for example, Comedy Central
special within the first two weeks.
In your “Special Special Special” and in your comedy in general, you touch on some
pretty raw issues: mental illness, your mental illness.
Yes, that’s my favorite topic of this time.
Whoa, I don’t get it!
Apparently she’s supposed to be funny.
I just think she’s schizophrenic.
Oh clearly that is not my mental illness.
Schizophrenia is, of course, hearing voices not doing voices.
I am bipolar, too.
I do, yeah, I just get really passionate about that issue.
There’s been mental illness in my family.
But then as a nation we’ve been.
I think one of the current statistics is over 7,000 U.S. veterans are dying of suicide every
year, and I think the reason for that, at least in terms of my experience – and this,
of course, without any scientific information to back it up – but, you know, I live in
Los Angeles, you know, which is the hippie-dippy capital of the world where you could ask for
help presumably anytime, and I had trouble, you know, going for help to be hospitalized
at a point when I was at risk to myself because it was so shameful.
And I am thinking of doing a new app where it’s like a travel guide for psych wards
because there’s a real difference in quality between the psych wards, yes.
You’re out of it so…
It’s like a trip advisor.
A trip advisor kind of thing, because it’s a miserable, awful experience but sometimes
there are some that are better than others.
I thought that would be funny and fun, because there is such shame going around.
I had a really hard time finding anything of where to go or how, information on it.
And you’re not exactly in your right mind, so to speak, in the moment.
Exactly!
You’re feeling terrible, so yeah.
So when you bring these issues up on stage, and in this particular case, in front of your
parents, what are you doing there?
Are you telling them things that you can’t, you don’t feel like you can tell them offstage?
No, they know the whole thing, and my mom had manic episodes, so she’s been hospitalized
before.
So they have only been supportive.
And yeah, I mean sometimes I guess, yeah, I think I do do a little bit of passive aggressive
stuff like I had a friend who was very spiritual who came to visit me in the hospital and has
that belief where you know when you say, “I have the flu.”
And somebody says, “You know, I just don’t get sick anymore since I started standing
in my truth.”
You know, and it’s like, “Oh, come on!”
And I had a friend visit me in the psych ward saying, “Maria, this place is so negative.
You know, you’ve gotta get out of here.”
And I’m like, “Yeah, I would, but my brain’s going off like a jackhammer untethered, and
they 5150’ed me and took away my shoelaces.”
“No you need to get into nature.
Like go up to Big Sur.”
“Right?
Like so I can get off a cliff or like go slowly into a cold body of water, never to be found.”
“You know, I just think maybe it’s your time, you want to move on to the next world,
you know.
And so I’ve come in to say ‘good-bye.’
You’re ready to move on.”
“Okay, you’re horrible, and please come visit me tomorrow, and you’re horrible.
Hey why don’t you bring that little ray of sunshine over to the children’s hospital.”
“You wouldn’t have to make a wish if you believed.”
You know, that’…
That’s is horrible!
But that’s a very classic thing that either people put it into terms of, you know, like
you can get yourself out of it, it’s not a genuine illness, it’s a moral failing.
And/or the moral failing, as in spirituality, like, “Oh, you’re just, you know, you’re
blocking your chi, you’re not being honest with yourself about some thing.”
Which I go, “Well, there are some elements of that which may be helpful, but at the point
that somebody has a plan and is gonna, that’s ridiculous.
And that the brain isn’t an organ like any other part of the body that can malfunction.
Well Maria Bamford, thank you for coming in!
Thank you for having me.
Check out Maria Bamford on the new “Arrested Development” in the spring, and also you
can download her “The Special Special Special” online.