WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1465 - Maria Bamford

Episode Date: August 28, 2023

Maria Bamford is not only one of Marc’s favorite comics, she’s one of Marc’s favorite people to talk with, as evidenced by her six appearances on WTF. Now, more than 13 years after their groundbreaking, highly confessional first episode, recorded as they drove down the California coast, Marc and Maria catch up on their mental health outlooks, particularly after Maria just chronicled her lifelong journey in the new memoir, Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult. The two friends and colleagues compare notes on where they’ve been, how they got here and how they’re doing with this life thing anyway. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis and ACAS Creative. What the fuck, buddies? What the fuck, Knicks? What's happening? I'm Marc Maron. This is my podcast, WTF. Welcome to it.

It was a pretty good weekend. How was yours? Was yours okay? I hosted that screening of Dog Day Afternoon for American Cinematheque down at the Arrow Theater. It was sold out, and it was pretty great. I was very excited about it. I've watched that movie three times on TV or on my small screen. I don't think I've ever seen it on the big screen. I'm mildly obsessed with the movie, as some of you know who listen to this show. I just cannot believe the sort of visceral nature of all the performances and of the way it was shot. I, I just had a, a, a kind of cathartic moment with it in a hotel room in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

And they watched, uh, when they, uh, showed it on HBO a couple months ago, and then I watched it again. And then I watched half of it again. And then I was just still just as excited to watch a screening of it. And I'll tell you how that went. Let me do some business here. Today on the show, man, I just, that was some radio guy shit. Let's take care of some business before I get into that story. Maria Bamford is back. Maria Bamford is back.

She's back. She's been on many times five five times in the past uh and look if anyone ever asks me and you guys know how i feel i've talked to a lot of comedians i've seen hundreds and hundreds of comedians in my life but for, for where my heart is, Maria Bamford is the best comic working, the most courageous, the most interesting and really the funniest one. on another level. And it's almost difficult for me to talk to her like she's just a person because she's a kind of, you know, chaotic, ethereal presence to me and just so funny. And she's got a new memoir out, which is kind of mind blowing in its structure. It's called Sure, I'll Join Your Cult. But don't be deceived. It's not just a comedy memoir. She puts it together in a very funny way. There's a lot of elements to it, but there is a lot of her life in it, and a lot of it is very, I don't want to say disturbing, but jarring.

I mean, it is her sort of journey to try to attain some mental health for herself. All the ups and downs and things that failed and things that worked. And she's very candid about it. And there's, like I said, a lot of different little sub elements to it, to the book. It's an emotional, it's a disturbing, it's hilarious. It's a great book. So I'm going to talk to her which is always to me like it's like engaging with uh the the id of comedy itself somehow i i don't know

how else to tell you um and i don't it's interesting about maria because i know she's the kind of comic and we talked about it a, where people like me or people that get her are going to get her deeply because there's no other way to get her. But there are people that are just going to watch her for 30 seconds and go, I don't get it. She seems weird. And that is the cross that we comics bear sometimes,

is that you're going to be honest up there, and there's just going to be a lot of people that are like, oh man, this is sad. Or that guy's weird. Or like, what's wrong with that person? You know, it's just the nature of the thing. It's a completely subjective experience. And for those who are, who are, who are touched with the true gift of sort of a type of a point of view or brilliance, you know, they're going to get that their whole life. And Maria has learned to survive and live and she is fairly, she's managing well. She's doing good. But we'll talk in a second. I'm thrilled and always at the edge of my seat and nervous when I talk to Maria Bamford.

So the Dog Day Afternoon screening, I just was, as I said before, I was excited. And I had gotten, so I didn't really know what I was going to do to present it. Because I put pressure on myself. so I didn't really know what I was going to do to present it because I put pressure on myself. And, and I think like, do I need to, you know, uh, um, put forth some sort of, uh, you know, intelligent criticism. Do I need to, uh, contextualize it? And I've talked to you guys about, you know, my experience with some of these movies I'm watching, but this one, I watching it again on the big screen, it's the big screen, it keeps revealing itself to me.

This is without a doubt Al Pacino's best work. And I'm talking life's work. It is without, it's his show. Every performance down to the smallest roles are, I'm going to use the word visceral again and raw and without, there is not a false note. And watching again was just brain. It was just mind blowing again, all of it, every second of it. Uh, but I got this DM from somebody, a woman, a woman named Nancy, Nancy Cantor. Nancy, Nancy Cantor. And I'll read you the DM because, because I, I reached out to her because I wanted her to, you know, come up on stage with me before the show. She said, Mark, uh, been a fan of yours for a long time.

And I got a notification from American Cinematheque that you'll be hosting a screening of Dog Day Afternoon on August 6th. I tried to grab a few ticks, but it's sold out. I thought I'd reach out to you to tell you about my connection to the film, and perhaps you might be able to finagle some tickets for me once you hear it. Dog Day Afternoon was my second job in the film business. I was D.D. Allen's apprentice editor, and we'd just finished up on Arthur Penn's Night Moves

when Dog Day Afternoon came along. As you probably know, at that time, apprentice editors did little more than clean the film to get the work print ready for screenings and made lots of boxes to hold the trims and unused film footage. But of course, the real job was to listen and learn. DeeDee was a big talker, and if you stood behind her for any length of time, you could learn everything you'd ever need to know about story and performance and structure and how to think like a filmmaker. But then there was always the film to be cleaned.

It was also my job to get the film to the screening room. On the day we were going to show the first cut to the executives, as well as Mr. Pacino, it was up to me to get it safely from 1600 Broadway to the Gulf and Western building on 59th. So I loaded up the film cans. This was the only copy of the cut film and set them on the corner of Broadway and 50th Street while I hailed a cab to take me uptown. Moments later, I heard a loud crunch behind me. I turned and saw that the M50 Crosstown bus had hopped the curb and ran over the film cans. Seeing what happened, I realized I'd never work in the business again. And the only logical thing for me to do was take

that cab straight to JFK and get on the next plane to Mexico and never be heard from again. A few breaths later, I gathered my senses and headed to the screening room, praying that there was something left of the print. Someone or something was smiling on me that day because when I showed the projectionist what happened, he opened the cans to find the film reels badly bent, but the film intact. We unspooled it and rewound it onto new reels, and no one was ever the wiser. I went on to work with Didi on other films and edited my own as well before making a change to go into producing and ultimately wound up working as an executive at Disney for nearly 20 years. But the time I spent as an editor has informed nearly every creative choice I've made,

and Dog Day Afternoon was a masterclass in storytelling by a director and an editor who knew exactly how to tell that one. Anyway, so sorry for the long message, but I thought it might add some color for you to the making of the film. Kind wishes, Nancy Cantor. So I reached out to her because I thought, what a great thing. What a great story. her because I thought, what a great thing. What a great story that the fact that this fundamentally New York movie, which is all New York is the star of the film in a lot of ways, um, that New York had conspired against it through serendipitous horror and crushed the canisters. But, uh, it was really, I mean, if, if she, if that had gone a different way, we might not have

seen the same cut necessarily because all that was left outside of that print was the negative. But she told that story and talked a little about some other stuff about the screening. And it was, it was really a beautiful thing. And we, and we all watched the movie and, you know, it's so relevant. I don't even know how it's relevant on the levels it's relevant around gender issues, around the media, around just chaos, around the sort of like, you know, kind of throbbing anger of the masses in a way around economic compromise and class issues. It was a man, you know, it's like I'm promoting a movie that's, how old is it? Like 50 years old?

So, folks, I have a new date, a tour date that's live. It's for Bellingham, Washington. I'll be at the Mount Baker Theater for one show on Saturday, October 14th as part of the Bellingham Exit Festival. Tickets are now available at bellinghamexit.com or by going to wtfpod.com slash tour. I'm at Largo in LA next Wednesday, September 6th. I'll be doing five shows at Helium in St. Louis, September 14th through 16th. Then I'll be at the Las Vegas Wise Guys on September 22nd and 23rd for four shows. And in October, I'm at Helium in Portland, Oregon on October 20th through 22nd for five shows. I think they're all sold out. So sorry.

Go to WTFpod.com slash tour for tickets. There'll be an upcoming date in November in Albuquerque, New Mexico, my hometown. I'll let you know when those go on sale. So I'd like to talk a moment about the Ukrainian conflict. Not the one with Russia, but the one that happened in my house a couple of days ago. I'll explain. Now, look, if any of you are easily triggered by kind of bourgeois, relatively bullshitty luxury problems in story form, you might want to check out. But, you know, this is my life. Sometimes,

you know, I'm a homeowner, I'm a refrigerator owner. I have an old, relatively old Thermador refrigerator that, that came with the house. It's a, it's a high-end fridge, but it's old. Now, look, I, so look, all ice makers on all refrigerators break, you know, but this one just kept breaking. And for some reason I found it, I got obsessed with the ice maker in this fridge. I was going to buy a new fridge and this company that I use to fix the fridge that I got from the woman that used to own this house and used to own this fridge. Always send, and I've shared some of this before these ukrainian guys who fix refrigerators so this thing has been i've been through two or three ice makers and then like something else just went wrong and i've been working with this guy alex for what feels like months and

months and months he just kept trying to fix it he said well here's the key to the story is that his first thing, when he fixed it the first time, he said, well, it's a water pressure problem. It's coming in too strong and it's fucking everything up. And I said, all right, well, I'll just turn the valve down. And I would turn this valve on and off downstairs thinking, you know, in the, in the sub basement or the, the crawl space where the plumbing is thinking it was the correct valve for the fridge.

And then he kept trying to fix it, but like it would go weeks without him coming over. And then we couldn't schedule a time. Then he's waiting for a part and then he got COVID and then he couldn't get, he couldn't find another technician to help him with this, this last ditch effort to fix the fucking thing. And, you know, finally,

you know, after my, and he was determined because he was like, I've been doing this 18 years and I will fix it. So I, I began to sort of not give a shit anymore. And I realized, which I should have realized at the beginning, I don't need an ice maker and just ride it out until the goddamn refrigerator craps out. I asked him if I should buy a new one. He said, no, because this is an old one. It's only got one computer. The new ones are full of computers

and there's a million things to break and they're unnecessary. This is a good fridge. Fine. I'm like, great. I think this has probably been going on, let's say four months. And it's just crazy. He would say he would come and then he wouldn't come and it's not on him. It just wasn't happening.

So finally he's like, I'm going to get my son to come because I can't get another technician to the company. So him and his son come, these two Ukrainian men, and they're pulling apart the goddamn freezer to get into the ice maker, get into the guts of the machine. They tell me to shut the valve off so they can unhook this thing to replace this part. We'd never taken the water supply cap off. So I went down and turned off the valve that I thought was the valve. And then they're screaming, there's water all over the place. He couldn't even hold his thumb to stop the pressure coming through this tube. And I was like, oh my God, that isn't the valve.

And he's like, I know, I told you. And then they like, you know know so I had to shut the entire house water off and then I realized I didn't have a valve and now I know it's my fault at the core of this thing and you know he's been trying all these different ways and he was right at the beginning so I'm like it was my fault fuck it you know I'm sorry he's like no no blame I just want to fix it and and then like you know I don't know what's going on in the kitchen, but they are yelling at each other. The two Ukrainian men, I know it's a, a, a kind of a brash language anyways, but they're yelling and there's a, it's like, it's like, it's making me,

it's almost triggering me. Like, you know, like, uh, I, there's going to be violence in there over the, the father and son Ukrainian civil war, uh, in my kitchen over this goddamn refrigerator. And then they're, they're like, you know, I said, I'll call the plumbers. And then I had like an emergency plumber come over to put the valve in. And then I shut that off, but they had already left. And it, but before they left, he's trying to put the freezer door in and one of the hinges shatters and there's ball bearings in it. And I just hear like, you know, a 20 small ball bearings hit the kitchen floor from the other room and they're all rolling everywhere. And I just hear him go, this fucking refrigerator, this fucking refrigerator. I do this

18 years. I hate this refrigerator. I hate this refrigerator. Yelling, yelling at my fridge. And then I walk in, I'm'm like what's up and his son is walking away from the fridge towards me he goes fucking murphy's law fucking murphy's law and this guy's like i i don't know i go just get another fucking refrigerator get another fucking fridge i i hate this refrigerator i'm like so what do you want to do? He's like, I can order the hinge, but I don't know, the inside parts may be broken. And I'm like, well, I'll get the valve. And he's like, okay.

And then he's like, you decide. And then he props my refrigerator door shut with the shelf from inside the fridge. So that's sitting on a towel. Like it's propped shut right now. I texted him to order the hinge. So we'll see. This could go on for another couple months i don't know i think he has a need like a heroic journey to to fix this refrigerator and i've accepted my responsibility in it and we'll just see what

happens man fucking murphy's law right so listen So listen, we're now going to spend some time with Maria Bamford. I told you that she has this memoir out. That's really a very exciting approach to the memoir. Very funny, but also very gnarly. It's called Sure, I'll Join Your Cult, a memoir of mental illness and the Quest to Belong Anywhere. It's out wherever you get books on September 5th. You can pre-order it now. And this is me and the truly touched in a brilliant way, Maria Bamford. Are you self-employed?

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to get a free quote. Zensurance. Mind your business. Death is in our air. This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+. We live and we die.

We control nothing beyond that. An epic saga based on the global best-selling novel by James Clavel. To show your true heart is to risk your life. Will I die here? beyond that an epic saga based on the global best-selling novel by james clavelle to show your true heart just to risk your life will i die here you'll never leave japan alive fx's shogun a new original series streaming february 27th exclusively on disney plus 18 plus subscription required t's and c's apply apply. You've been on the show, like, a lot.

Yeah, I think, well, at least twice. Well, twice, just like this, but then there were those old live ones. Oh, yes, that's right, yes. And we dug up a thing that we did in 2006 when I had a radio show at KTLK at night that you came and we recorded. Wow. And I was trying to figure out what the documentarian, Neil. Yes. It's so funny because I'm telling you, man, Stephen Fine Arts, it's been two years. And after a certain point, how long has he been following you?

He said a year. It's been a year. been two years. And after a certain point, how long has he been following you? He said a year? It's been a year. And so the contract says, which I have read, is that after two years, I can say I'm done-sies. Yeah. Is that a plan, though? I mean... Because it seems like for you, you're sort of like, they could just say, like, we just

need another year, and you'll be like, oh, okay. other year and you'll be like, okay. Yeah. I mean, the thing, it's obviously, it's a delightful ego boost to have anyone to care about anything. Right. And at the same time, I think, you know, there's a point where you think, oh, I think I need to be done with this. Well, yeah.

I don't know. So, like, it's getting to the point because, like, sometimes when I'm on, like, camera like that and we're just hanging out, the comedy store or something, and there was something about that zone after COVID and after I got through the primary place of the grief that I was sort of like, well, fuck everybody. And I was just throwing people under the bus. Everybody was going right under the bus. You mentioned a name of any comic, and I was like, oh, that guy. And now I got to sit with this dude, and I'm like, let me see that footage in the parking lot from two years ago,

because I'm pretty sure that guy didn't deserve that. But maybe he did. But the thing about you or I on some level after reading some of your book and knowing you is that, you know, you say things, and then you're sort of like, but it was honest. Yeah. Right. Yeah, yeah. It was like, I made it two-thirds of the way through.

And if I had started it earlier. No. No, I love it. I love you. I am grateful that you have even cracked the book. No, it was important because it was helpful to me. You know, because, like, I realize I never understand why I, you know, I can engage with you so well. It's because we're very similar.

It's just I think my ground zero is a little more stable than you. My particular template of defenses is a little more socially apt. Yeah. Yeah. No, well, that's probably very much true. I don't often give off the feeling that everything's going to be okay, like to an employer. Right. But also the problems you have, like there is something like I think which is what makes

it so good with you is that your authentic self is in trouble. Well, I don't, yeah, like I don't see that, but it's interesting, like I feel pretty stable, Mark. I've been on a great cocktail of meds for 11 years. I'm saying family of origin stuff. Oh, family of origin. The original, whatever's down in there. Yeah, the wound. You've definitely got it out.

Your wound gave birth. Yes, my wound has given birth to several albums. And my parents are now gone. So, which that is, are your parents still around? Yes. My dad is losing his mind, so that's fun. It's still in the fun part where he says funny things. Where are you?

Massachusetts? Nope. Oh, well, that's. My mom's okay. She doesn't. I think she's, because she's like a lifetime eating disorder person. Right, right. Because she's like a lifetime eating disorder person. Right, right.

And sadly, or not so sadly, because there's a bit in that book about your dad. Because I didn't really realize. I don't know that we'd ever talked about it. I remember talking about the intrusive thoughts, but I don't remember talking about food with you. Did we? Yeah, I don't think so. I don't think so. Because food is my thing.

Yeah, food's, I mean, and that's just sort of an American plague. But your dad poking Scott. Oh, God, insane. What's this? What's this? What have you been eating? A couple of cakes and cookies? Well, that was my mother.

I was terrified. Like, my first year of college, I lost, I got down to 169 pounds just to impress my mom. And I looked terrible. Oh, my God. But like so there's always like she would always like hug and then pinch the side, like that kind of stuff. And it was just like the worst. I couldn't. I just I would always bring girlfriends to visit when I visit my mom in Florida just as a shield.

She's coming in. My mom, she would she did the shoulder based hug, but then she would scan you up and down to see how your body was looking, particularly that day. Yeah. But I wonder, because my mom, she passed, and then my dad, I think he may have been the source of all the fucked up skinny stuff. Yeah. Really? Because he started getting very obsessed. Well, that was part of how he died was that he, uh, he had a girlfriend who was lovely. She was hilarious. And, uh, he kept

eating less and less worried that he was going to get fat. And I, and then finally, uh, he was very underweight. He's like 125, 5'10", and he got COVID and died. And I wonder if part of that could have been depression, combination with a Karen Carpenter thing where it's like his brain wasn't functioning because he wasn't eating enough, or dementia. I mean, I don't know, but totes weird. Well, it's odd as you get older when you're still putting together these pieces. Yeah. Which, you know, you've been sort of vigilant about through your work.

And just personally, like this book, like outside of being a funny memoir and you keep it pretty funny, you know, you definitely give props to the things that helped you and their organized things and also to the things that may help other people, but, you know, didn't help you all the way through. Yeah. Well, I, I think that's also important to like, not for, so people don't feel gaslit, you know, when you go into go, oh, well, they said it was going to help. And then it's shitty. You know, the health care isn't good or you get the wrong person. Have you ever told the wrong therapist something and then you pay them 75 bucks to call the cops? Cops don't come because it's L.A.

They're busy. Can you just hold on a minute? I have to make a phone call. Stay here. That totally happened. Like I was like, yeah, she was like, I'm a mandated reporter. So I need to tell, you know, because I was telling her about my intrusive thoughts. And then she said, but it is, you need to make the checkout to something in Associates.

Yeah. $75. Right. She was mandated to report you? Yeah, because she was concerned I was going to be harmful to others due to my anxieties and fears. And I was trying to tell her, I'm like, no, it's just a fear of. I've never hurt anybody. I am, in fact, staying in my apartment with my hands under my legs trying to prevent myself from doing any monstrous things.

But the thing is, is that you've had these thoughts to varying degrees, some of them, you know, almost macabre. Yes. No, they're fun. Yeah. Since you were a kid and you never hurt anybody. No. So it was a condition. Yeah.

The evidence is not there that I'm going to hurt anybody. But I think when people aren't, you know, don't know about what something is. And OCD is much more well-known now. Yeah. Yeah. Because Hallibandell, Hallibandell just talked about it. And that's very, it does help when people talk about it. Sure.

But this book, your book, oddly comes at a good time for me. Oh, good. Well, yes. Like, you know, I'm horrified and excited that there are portions of it where I'm like, I think I better go to that one. I love 12-step. I mean, I know there's problematic language, pseudo-spiritual, sort of paternalistic. Yeah, but you get past that, man. Or do you?

I mean, I have, like my husband, Scott, he was raised Jehovah Witnesses. So whenever he hears all that nonsense, especially like the knowing laughs in a meeting like, I knew when I thought that. There was no God.

Yeah, like there's just so much kind of, yeah. You start to realize that that bleeding deacon bullshit is it's like the people that work at central office it's like who are those people well they're that's what they're doing to maintain sobriety thank god thank god and they may be monstrous on some in some other avenue of their life of course like i just i just want to acknowledge that nothing is going to be perfect especially something that's especially when you make it

God-like, which I think sometimes when they say this saved my life it's like, well this helped save your life along with human beings the human contact I don't know the part about I can just totally understand.

I see what you're saying. I can understand why people are turned off from it completely. Well, I think that all the language around surrender and not giving any, you know, credit in the literature to will, you know, is, it's not true. Yeah. And cognitive behavioral science. That's the same thing, right. That a lot of it is acting as if. Yeah, yeah.

Which is totally something you do in a CBT therapy or whatever is like going, okay, what would you do if you didn't do the thing? Or harm reduction. Like, okay, you're doing heroin every day. Can you add pizza to that? Can you eat an extra large pizza plus the heroin? What's that bit in the book where you're talking about the eating disorder and having found OA? And now, you know, you take longer to eat.

Oh, God. Oh, hours. Hours. I'm mindfully and gratefully eating this two pieces of bread. And would you say chewing and breathing? More chewing and breathing. So stupid. I mean, it did help me, obviously, OverEaters Anonymous helped me stop binging and purging. Awesome. But then at the same time, because of that 12-step program, because people were so kind of manic about like, sugar to me is rat poison. I will die before I eat sugar. You know, make 17 calls a day if you need to to keep yourself from.

It's like that is going to cause disordered eating and functioning in society. So I ended up going through a treatment program after that. And then my sponsor dumped me from OA because she said she couldn't sponsor someone who was eating the devil's candies. Well, that's the other thing that people don't realize about program. Well, that's the other thing that people don't realize about program and that, look, man, it only, AA, I think, only works for like 20, it's only got like a 20% success rate. Right. So, like, it's like, it's not for everybody. If you can do it in some other way or if you grow out of it, whatever the fuck it is.

But for me, and I think for you also, beginning with whatever your first program was, is that there is a way of thinking that you learn. And I think the inventory process is pretty good. Well, it's super helpful of like going, okay, like when I went to Sex and Love of Addicts Anonymous, I was like, oh. Was that the last one? No, Debtors is your. Debtors is my main one. I love it.

But I do go to Recovering Couples Anonymous. What is that? That is for couples who are both in recovery. And yeah, and it's about having powerlessness because I don't know how to have a relationship. I don't know how to do it. Yeah. So that's helped me just kind of like what behaviors might be more helpful than what I do, which what I love to do is threaten suicide, which I thought was kittenish. Turns out.

My dad did that my whole life. Yeah, right? Yeah. That my husband, his mom did that his whole life. So he's like, okay. Like, it doesn't even work. It gets to the point where it's like, would you just do it already? I'm tired of the crying.

It's annoying. Yeah, just like, I'm waiting for it. But, yeah. Oh, but SLA, it did help me like going through the steps like, okay, what are the things that I've done? And one of the things I didn't really. Sex and love. Sex and love. Yeah.

And my main thing was that I would have a one night stand like once a year that with somebody. And yeah, that it was almost like cutting where I was like it was abysmal, like a terrible situation. And it kind of kept getting worse. And also I couldn't maintain any relationship. So the one thing that was really surprising to me in doing the inventory process was going, oh, I'm a predator on some level. Like even though I'm like a lady and, you know, like I, but I would talk about being single on stage, which is totally like sending out a signal to all the people that are there and then going, I don't know why, why am I so single?

And then, uh, yeah, like really zeroing in on the one person who's vibing back. Right. And that might, if I thought of the other person as a human being, rather than, oh, they're just going to want what I want. Yeah. That I may be victimizing them. Because one thing, if you go to an SLA meeting, it's like going to a club when the lights have turned on. It's all hot people with weird blue-green eyes. There's some kind of sad kind of men that can't hold eye contact as well.

Well, it's also, no, I mean, I think it's a lot of people who, yeah, who thinking that romance or hooking up or something, that's where intimacy really is. Right. But there's also sort of a hookers and porn contingent, too. A little bit. It's mostly pretty normal. I mean, not normal people, but you know what I'm saying. Well, like what you're saying is something that's one of the things that resonated with me about my entire life

is that because my parents were hyper-sexualized people. Oh. I don't know why I'm oohing now. Sorry. But there's part of me that sexualizes instead of, because I don't know how to be intimate. Right. I don't think people realize that you can sexualize, you can have sex to avoid intimacy. Exactly. Totally.

And the point you made in the book, which, you know, I have been thinking about my own life in terms of my history, is that, you know, they're like when you are a compulsive sex person or you're doing the one night stands or whatever. Yeah. The idea is that like we're all on the same page, whereas you might not be. Like because if you're in that zone of hookups, you don't know you can hook up. But what you don't necessarily take into consideration the other person. Yeah. And all the dishonesty of like when I would say, oh, why am I single? Why am I single? It's like, Maria, have you ever willingly gone out on a date, you know, six dates with one person, no matter how uncomfortable it was, which is what I had to do to start going, okay, you just, like one of my sponsors told me, date him till you hate him.

Like just, you've got to get to know someone slowly. That's a slob thing. Yeah, because it's just like friendship. You've got to slowly get to know someone. Right, or else you're just projecting something. You're just projecting some weird thing. Also, I had such high standards for romance, like so much higher than I had for my friends. Yeah.

And my friends are a mess, just like myself. Well, this is the thing about like, you know, holding yourself. It's like you, you know, predatory is a loaded word. Like, you know, predatory is a loaded word. But the thing is, like, I know and you know that, you know, we are okay people in a sense that we're trying to take responsibility for who we are. But we're coming from a mentally ill place. Well, I just like the idea of, like, I'm never the victim. Like, I'm not the victim of the situation. That's right.

Like, taking responsibility for my part in something. Right, right. But I've started to have to realize that, you know, whatever my actions were in the past or whatever failed relationships I've had or even the good ones. Yeah. You know, was it truly full of trust and intimacy and all that stuff? Because most of the time, people get obsessed with me and I like it. It does. Well, there's a sense of power and safety.

But that's also the love addiction part. If someone's in love with you, that feeling. But it's not really you. I get it. Right. Right. It's not really you. But that enables you to hide behind their perception of you until this shit goes down.

Well, yeah, until they become irritating and you become irritating. Right. Which is the surest sign of intimacy. Once you become irritated with someone, that's when you know you're in the brisket. But I realized recently, and I've been talking about it on stage, because I talk about this shit. I, you know, I talk about borderline personality disorder. Right. Okay.

Because, like, I believe that I had a bit of it. Yes, yes. Okay. And that I think my father was probably misdiagnosed and is of that ilk. Okay. He was sort of a bipolar guy. But when you come from chaos, I find that I've dated, not on purpose, people with a certain disposition. And then after a certain point, it's like I'm not claiming i'm a victim but but i'm also not well so if i'm not going to deal with that like you

know what i come from so i've been talking about pretty hairy trauma lately to sort of somehow get some self-ownership around you know how i engage in the world that's awesome that sounds great it's okay yeah but but you know it's one of those things like especially with with sex and love I engage in the world. That's awesome. That sounds great. It's okay. Yeah. But, you know, it's one of those things, like, especially with sex and love, Leah, once you're, you know, I'm a childless, twice-married guy. Mm-hmm. And, you know, at a certain point, you're like, well, I've made these choices to be who I am, but where the fuck do they come from?

You know, why am I like this? Oh. Why am I incapable of intimacy? Why, you know, and you can track it to your parents and all that other stuff. But at some point, like, either you go like, well, this is just the way I am, or you go, no, fuck.

I got to work. But everybody, yeah, everybody can change. I mean, I know. That's absolutely, I believe, true. I don't think, I think they still themselves, but you can make different decisions, choices. Yeah, totally. Yeah, I mean, my husband and I, like, yeah, have different ways of seeing the world.

And, like, our kind of our ways of dysfunctions kind of match each other, you know. And, I mean, that's what they always say in the couples groups of like you're just kind of trying to heal the childhood wound in relationships. But, yeah, like – but we also get lots of help because like – which I've always done with everything. Like we go see a therapist. We go see – I do – yeah, I do couples, the couples 12-step group. And there's another one called Chapter 9, which is about relationships in 12-step. And it's great because it's like having some support around that stuff from people. Because I don't know about you, but I have a lot of single friends and or people who have been married a long time and they just are kind of like, I don't know what you're talking about.

Like, or, you know, like. They don't have the gift. Yeah. It's true. It's true. But, oh, but the thing is about this wound idea and the trauma model, which I just read about the guy that sort of came up with that, like the body keeps the score guy. Yes. And the evolution of that trauma model is that when you talk about a wound, you know,

in your mind, you think like what happened, but it's like, it could be the whole fucking time. The wound could be your entire childhood. Yes. Yeah. Totally. So like, it's, you know, it's not some specific thing. There's, it's a, it's a pattern of shit. Yeah.

You know? So like, there's a, like when I track, I've been doing a pattern of shit yeah you know so like there's a like when i track i've been doing this joke about like you know just about being put in a position as a young kid you know me and my brother we were like five or six it was a babysitter and it was you know it was he was you know it was a molesty position oh but but i talk about it yeah but then i talk about you know like, and the audience is sort of like, oh my god. Because it was sort of like one of these memories where I always knew

it was there, but I never thought that it went all the way through. But I don't know how it wouldn't have, right? Right, right. But then I talk right after that, I talk about you know, like, how my mother was incapable of folding a lunch bag properly. Like, you know, most mothers would fold it so you had a little handle.

My mom would just squinch it up. So it was this wrinkled fucking mess. And she would put peanut butter jelly sandwiches in tinfoil. So they were just look like bruised, wet things that were unedible. And she put a diet pill in my bag, like a half a diet pill. And I'm like, and so I set all this up and I go like that on a day to day basis for as long as it went on, much worse than whatever happened with the babies well well and I commend you for talking about because people don't talk about that how um yeah men also have experiences of of uh being well also

not just molested as children but also manipulated women, that women can be predators just as much as men can. I mean, it's less likely to happen, but it does. It totally happens. Depending on what your vulnerability is and, you know, and what the, see, like, I believe, and I've been talking about this a bit, too, that whatever your wound is, if you're walking around vulnerable to a certain type of mental illness because of what you come from, they're just going to see you as an open door. I can get right in there and just rework the wires from the inside. And it happens on an almost instinctual level. Well, see, that's my point of like that there's companions to your mental illness. Yeah. Well, and all my friends, all my friends grew up with alcoholism or, you know, yeah, have a lot of people with mental health issues. Yeah.

Or from Eastern Europe. Yeah. The full spectrum. Yeah, yeah. But so in the book, you kind of like you're pretty thorough. You know, you talk about your family and then you talk about the trauma of uh the violin the suzuki violin lessons but but but you also see sort of a silver lining to it oh a privileged trauma yeah but no but i mean in terms of discipline yeah that there was and learning

that you know if you work hard at something you don't even like that much at least you will have worked hard and you will get better at it you you will get better at it. You will get weirdly better at it. Yeah. Which is strange. And especially, and if you are motivated by your parents' love, you will do it for a lot longer

than you should. Love in quotes? Yeah. Well, yeah, the light attention of my mom going, oh. And then my dad going, wow. That was it?

Well, my dad would have me play the violin on the front lawn for our unassuming neighbors who would say, we really got to go. She's great. We've really got to go. No, no, wait. But the first sort of turn was the food? Yeah, the food really helped. I mean, if you ever want to stop thinking about anything, just start a diet. Oh, start a diet.

Start a diet. Like that's how I started the, yeah, Richard Simmons. Oh, you had this cathartic moment with Richard Simmons as a child? Yeah. You loved him. I just thought he was hilarious. We had his book at home, and his book was hilarious. He was just so sassy. So I

went on the diet that he said to go on, which I think was like 1,100 calories a day. And you were 11? I was 10 or 11, and I remember coming back to school, and the lunch lady was like, you've lost weight. How did you do it? And I'm like back to school and the lunch lady was like, you've lost weight. How did you do it? And I'm like, Richard Simmons.

Yeah, yeah. I had the same experience with the Stop the Insanity lady. Oh. But I was like, you know, in my 30s. Right. Susie Powder. Yes. I just love watching.

I'm like, she's crazy, but it's great. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And Jessica Curson was dating her. I remember like years after Stop the Insanity, I was at the Comedy Cellar. And I kind of knew Jessica was there with her. And I kind of recognized her. And she said, I'm Susie Powder. I'm like, no way.

And it was her. They don't date anymore. But I got to meet her. Have you talked to, okay, the Queen of Mean? Yeah, sure. Lampanelli. Not since she turned into a human. Well, yeah. I was like, oh, it Queen of Mean. Yeah, sure, Lampanelli. Not since she turned into a human. Well, yeah, I was like, oh, it'd be so interesting.

I would love to hear. That's a good idea. Yeah, because I was so delighted and surprised about that because it's just, I mean, she seems lighter, happier. Oh, my God. She emanated a type of seething vibration that was like scary. And I once saw her in Canada at one of the festivals at the Vogue Theater. Yeah. And she had this electricity to the intensity of her anger that I literally had only experienced once before watching Sam Kennison.

Like it was a zone of electricity that you can make funny, but, like, it's rare to be as angry as she was and to sort of make it palatable. But it turns out, I guess, she was really not good. Well, but she was, yeah, I mean, she is a great performer. I saw a little about her doing podcasts and stuff. She's very funny.

Of course. What is their clinic? What is her angle? I think now, the last time I checked on her, because I use it as sort of a hopeful thing. Like I go, I could do something else. That always makes me laugh when comedians are like, after being canceled, like, what else am I going to do? I've been doing this for 30 years. Almost anything.

If you can lean, you can clean. You can do anything. Anything. But, yeah, I want to say that she's doing coaching. Okay. Oh, good. And a podcast with a couple of friends. So, for you, the food thing got you into the idea of getting better?

I called the Suicide Hotline when I was 19. Yeah. Because I was just like, I cannot stop binging. And, yeah, it was starting to get, yeah, I just felt like I couldn't stop. And I just wanted to, I'd never been a person who acted on suicidal ideation but thought about it all the time. Yeah, I used to do a bit where it's like I don't really want to kill myself but it makes me feel better knowing I can if I have to. Yeah, that's very funny. Well, you do a similar thing, right?

Yes. Oh, yeah. No, it's – I'm not a doer. Yeah. But, yeah, so I called and they gave me the number for Overeaters Anonymous. And then somehow, just even knowing that something existed, I was kind of weirdly relieved of wanting to binge anymore or starve myself. And that became, that's my only abstinence. I just don't diet.

I don't binge and don't, uh, yeah. Yeah. I don't get on the scale anymore. Yeah. Like I, you know, I won't do it and I,

I, I'm, but I am still sort of, uh, I do exercise to the point where by the end of the week I feel, um, beat up. Oh yeah.

Yeah. And, but I, I just can't, I have to do it. Yeah. Well, I don't know. I think to do it. Yeah. Well, I don't know.

It's the least of all possible things. Right. Yeah. You're not hurting anybody but yourself. And you look great. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But that moment was the moment where you like that behavior that seems comforting could be bad. Yeah. Yeah.

Or it was just that something free could help. Oh, yeah. And my parents didn't. So you knew you were in trouble. Yeah. My parents didn't think I had a problem. You know, they were sort of like, oh, you seem to be doing all right. And yeah, and I just wasn't.

And yeah, so that helped me and then my second group was when i was i think 25 i got into debtors anonymous yeah when i moved to la and i fell into a hole um and somebody told me at an oa meeting they're like hey uh you can learn how to have a job and keep a job if you go over there weirdoo. And sometimes I can now keep jobs. Yeah. But you do have that weird thing. Like I was talking to the documentarian, Neil. Yes, Neil.

And I said, like, the interesting thing about how you do comedy and how I introduced him to the word peopling, which is people the stage, whereas like it's not a thing you see as much anymore where someone generates characters that interact with each other in a bit. Yeah, yeah. And it's a lot of what you do, and it's not – you don't see it. Something underneath all of it when she's sort of satirizing, you know, maybe not intentionally, but doing what she does is that, you know, I appreciate the fact that there's a lot of fuck you under it. Well, I got to tell you, the whole documentary half or half my new material is about how trying to get paid to do stuff like especially when like somebody and i don't know if you have this or have this thing of like um like emotional stuff that comes up about around money yeah and then asking about it especially when it involves a famous person with perceived power who i go oh, what they'll think of me if I say, hey, I need to get paid to do this thing.

And I don't know. I just, I find that super, I like talking about, yeah, things that are emotional. But no, but the expectation is that, you know, they're doing you a favor or you're not supposed to ask about it. Like, yeah, I remember with these produce shows, like these comics that produce shows. And they were doing it at the comedy store. And I don't really do produce shows. You know, I just do the store and I work out and I get my shit done. And then when I need to do long shit, I'll go to Dynasty Typewriter or some clubs and figure it out.

So I can build the act. But these guys were just sort of like grabbing people from the hall who are national headliners and being like, you want to do this with us? 200 bucks. And I did it once, and then I said to them, like, you know, 200 bucks is not even what I pay my feature, and I'm doing 25 minutes on your fucking show, and just because it's down the hall, maybe you should try to pay me more fairly

for the job I do. Yeah. And now it's like 500 or whatever. Nice! Oh, my God, that's cool. But I thought that was justifiable. That's great. Because, like, it is, well, yeah, I'm telling, yeah, I try to, I bring $100 on on stage. Yeah.

And I pay an audience member very slowly in 20s. Yeah. And then we all sit with how that feels. And then I ask them to pay it back to me and I tell them you will get the money at the end because we value your emotional work tonight. And, uh, yeah, cause it's just, I mean, I, I have enough money, generational wealth. My dad passed away. Uh, so anyways, I can retire at 65 and, but like, I wonder why, uh, yeah.

So that, especially when I don't really need the money, why I still get mad about it. Like, like, um, feels on, uh, disrespectful, unfair and not correct. Yeah. Or, and why do other people have emotions about it? So like I asked somebody to pay me at a show. Yeah. Or, and why do other people have emotions about it? So, like, I asked somebody to pay me at a show. Yeah. They paid me. There's a show on the West Side, which we all know, if you ask to go to the West Side.

Oh, my God. That's like asking to go to Nairobi. Yeah, you're out here with me. Via Singapore. Further out. Yeah. You got to bring a tent. Yeah.

You better bring two meals with me in a box. And so I said, hey, can you pay me $1,000 and send me a car? And so they did. Then the person paid me out in hundreds on stage, slowly in front of the audience. Now. Did you ask that? No. No, that is not what I asked.

So, which is fine. I love $1,000, however it comes to me. Yeah. So, which is fine. I love $1,000, however it comes to me. But it was interesting. Like, I was like, oh, this person is having an emotional reaction about paying me. Like, either are they mad that I should just want to do whatever this is because I'm a good friend or that this is such a wonderful show?

Because a lot of things in L.A., it's like, but it's going to be such a great crowd. Yeah. Yeah, I don't care. Yeah, and great for whatever you think great is, is not great for me necessarily. It's the worst thing to hear when I'm in the green room at the comedy store. A comic walk in like, oh, they're amazing. I'm like, fuck. If they were amazing for you, what am I going to do? Yeah.

But there was a humiliation attempt, it seems, with the paying on stage. Well, but I don't know if that's true. I think that person may have felt so hurt by me asking for the money. I just wonder if that's what was going on. See, I don't, like, okay, fine. Well, so you're extending. Do you think you're actually empathetic or just so fucking critical of yourself that you end up at empathy? I am empathetic because I do know that people have really strong feels around money. I mean, I've been in DA for like 25 years.

So I've heard all sorts of stories where it's like people are like, yeah, just weeping uncontrollably because they're not sure, you know, how to, yeah, whatever it is their financial fear is. So I get it. So, yeah, it's just fascinating. Like I love, I'm excited about that chunk of my act. Well, it's very exciting. This is a new act. Yeah, yeah, it's just fascinating. Like, I love, I'm excited about that chunk of my act. Well, it's very exciting. This is a new act? Yeah, yeah. Because, I mean, the last time I saw you, we were both sharing a stage in Toronto.

Yes. For, like, four shows. We got to watch each other. And it had been years since I saw you, and I had the same reaction I always have. It's like, I got to quit. Oh, stop it. She's already doing, she's doing all I got to quit. Oh, stop it. She's already doing it. She's doing all of it.

It used to go that way about Dana Gould. It's like, all right, well, that's the end of it. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, he's so great. Yeah, no, I love festivals because then we can all see. I mean, there's so many. I'm glad that they put us out in that weird theater that people had to go like know, like, go like, are we going to the haunted World's Fairgrounds? Oh, that's right.

Yeah. It was like, couldn't it be further away from the rest of the festival to the point, like, what is wrong with me and Maria that we're out in this venue that they don't even clean, apparently? It's okay. It was fine. It's okay. It's fine. We did all right. Yeah, no, it was fine. It was fine. It's okay. It's fine. We did all right. Yeah, no, it was fine.

It was lovely. I'm grateful to be ever to be paid to do anything. But that was the interesting part about like that out of all of them. And, you know, you talk specifically about OA. You talk about SLAA a little later in the book. You talk about the, I don't know, was was there another you didn't do any drug stuff uh no i didn't somehow i but then you talked about the artist's way as like you could i could tell what you were passionate about because despite what any judgment people have about what was

her name julia cameron's thing yes it's like i knew people at that time that were doing it and and i was given the books as a gift by, I think, Caroline Ray. Oh. And, you know, as soon as I saw the workbook, I'm like, I'm not fucking doing this. You know, I got weed to smoke. You know, so. What kind of bullshit? How is this going to help me, these exercises?

So I don't even think I could write a term paper right now. Like, I don't love writing like that. Right, right. Even though it was exploratory. I do write a thing. I can write. Yes, you've written a couple books, if not three. Okay, I don't love it. Do you love writing this?

It was interesting. I like the – it was just – yeah, it was a lesson in – well, first of all, a book deal is, I should have read the contract. I should have read the contract. That's supposed to be a lesson. You just hope it sells because, like, I don't know how book publishers make money because I wrote a book in 2002 called Jerusalem Syndrome. Yeah. And quarterly, I still get statements, you know, showing the money it hasn't made back yet. And that deal was only $30,000.

And it's still in the fucking red. And it's sort of like, I'm not sure I need this reaffirmation. That is hilarious. They feel the need to send you an invoice. Well, they do. The agent breaks it down. And it's like when I wrote my last book, I'm like, I don't want to write this. And then there was some weird bidding war. And I'm like, I don't want to write this. And then there was some weird bidding war.

And I'm like, okay, well, that's money. I'll take that money. And in my head, I'm like, they're never going to make it back. They're never going to make it back. And sure enough, I get those quarterly invoices too. And that one's much deeper in the hole. But I stop it feeling bad for the publisher. Yes.

Because they're making their money off of cookbooks. It has nothing to do with publisher. Yes. Because they're making their money off of cookbooks. It has nothing to do with us. Yes. No. Somebody, or there's a wonderful book out, Jeanette McCurdy, which is very funny and super sad about I'm Glad My Mother Died. That's a very funny book. Catchy title. Yes.

But, okay, so the fact is, but didn't this feel like a fucking assignment? Yes, and I was excited. I mean, I love the idea that someone offers me money. I go, oh, my God, I can't wait until it comes. And then what a book is is the thing that I don't like, which is a group project. I want to be more like a group project person, but then people edit you. Like, I wanted to put in the book.

Yeah. I wanted to put an ongoing financial open book accounting of what I was earning. You did this in there? I did a little bit, yeah. No, but I had many more numbers. But this is an interesting thing about it, and we'll get back to the artist's way, is that, like, you know, I'm reading the book, and I understand your compulsion for transparency. Tell everybody everything.

Poop it out. Around your finances. But, like, I couldn't understand your commitment to it. It is an active sort of, you know, beef in the book where it's sort of like, I don't give a fuck what they say, but I'm going to do at least a year. Yeah. You know, broken down in tables. Yes. Of where my money goes and how much I made.

Yeah. Why? Because I feel like it's my, have you read The Giving Tree? Where all the tree has left is a stump to sit on. I have nothing more to give. Like, I don't, I'm not, I'm not useful in terms of comedic material. I'm, you know, nobody needs to hear from an older white woman. Oh, what's, what's your take on things? But I don't, but I don't, I don't necessarily, it's not that I don't buy it, but it's, it's just, it's fundamentally not true what you're saying, but go ahead.

I, I just. I know it's what you believe. This true what you're saying but go ahead i i just i know it's what you believe this is what i think of myself yeah so i i think oh i'd like to because i know some people won't ask for more money and the money for openers and middles has not gone up since i was an opener yeah 25 years ago so i would like people to be know what other people are making like some a comedian like me that they'd go oh somebody's asked me to open for them what should i ask for um because i've been in a situation where people open for me and i go hey how much is the club paying you and they go oh 50 bucks 100 bucks and i go okay well then i'll pay you 600 to a thousand for the week so that

you're getting paid um and i'll let you know what I'm earning. So you get a picture, you know, if somebody else asks you to open. Well, that was helpful to me in the way, just as a comic, because I'll definitely, like if somebody comes with me on the road and features and stuff, you pay for their plane, you pay for their hotel. I try, I think I'm giving them good money, but then I look at the money you're giving them, like maybe I should give them a little more. I pay Jackie Cation, when she comes with me, $1,200 plus air and hotel.

For one night? For one night. For one show, if one show is like 10 grand or more. So sometimes I can't afford to bring her because she's a headliner too. So if I'm doing somebody local, depending on how much I'm earning, but I think it also depends on what I'm earning. I did for a while when I had the TV show, I did profit sharing and I paid a percentage, whatever percentage of the show they did, I would pay them a percentage of the income. Well, I think that's correct. And I think it's making me rethink. Like, I think I'm going to Salt Lake City next weekend and I don't think I'm bringing an opener because I just didn't get one together.

I asked like one person and they couldn't. I'm like, oh, fuck it. But I imagine the club will have a local but like in general i'd let the club pay but you know it seems like i should rethink it oh it's bullshit they're being paid like 150 tops yeah for five shows um yeah it's it makes me furious that also this is for stadium shows, too. Like I've had a friend open for somebody at a stadium where they were getting paid like maybe a hundred bucks. And you go, it's just, it's not only, like it's just have some curiosity about what somebody's making. You know, like I just, I get mad.

No, I think that's correct. It's correct. And I, you know, it made me sort of, like, it's in my head now. But, like, I've never, you know, I've always paid people pretty well when they open for me and take, and, you know, buy dinners and whatever. Nice. Do all that stuff. Nice.

Go do things and, you know. Yeah. That's why you got to really plan your openers. It's sort of like, we're going to be going, we're doing this. We're friends. Yeah. We're going to be good friends. I was on the road with Lara Byte for a long time.

Do you know her? No, no. I don't know anybody. And she's like a Midwestern woman from Wisconsin. Wisconsin. But she's very sort of like, she's an eating person and a recovery person. And we just had, you know, we would spend hours and hours together in the car talking it out, doing the

stuff, having the food, doing, you know, like trying to eat right. Like it all made sense. I have toured with Esther Povitsky. Oh, Esther. Yeah, and she's like weird with food. So I'm like, great. This is going to work out great. We can talk about how we're not eating, what we're not eating.

But also when you spend, like when you do those runs where you rent the car and you drive to the different gigs in the region, it's like I started to realize with both of them, it's sort of like, all right, well, they don't feel like talking right now. And we can just drive in silence and that's fine. It's totally okay. Yeah, yeah. It's great. It's okay. Well, and I think, especially as, I mean, in any job where there's like authority figures, like I'm in a position of power, you know, so if I say like anybody who I asked to open to me is going to be like, yeah, of course. Of course I'd love to open. I'd love to open. Oh, I'll be super easy about it. I'll be so easy about it. Like, you know, people refusing money or whatever. So I think that's part of it, too, is like people don't want to say anything or anyways be a problem. Okay. So the transparency about money in the book in terms of actual sort of breakdowns is really just for you to sort of assess and show what you believe is to be fair.

Or that I'm trying, and if somebody notices that I'm not being fair, oh, my God, Twitter at me or X at me. Yeah, well, I mean, when you kind of broke down your charitable contributions, which I just did a bunch of like a week or so ago, because I'm not organized, and I'm like, oh, fuck, I've got to do the charity stuff. And I have five or six things I give to, but I don't know that I'm giving enough. And you and I are in the same boat.

I'm fine. I don't have kids. You know, I'm not, you know, and like, I don't know where my money goes, but you just have to make that leap and be like, well, give it away, man.

Yeah. I, we give 11%. That's 1% better than all Christians to the Downtown Women's Center. We just give it to one place and because I can't do the bookkeeping on more than that. I just do a lot of animals, Planned Parenthood, and ACLU.

But that women's center seems good. No, everything's good. But that's the OCD part of it where it's like I go, well, why not 12%? I mean, if you're going to be such a weirdo about it. I give money to the Carolina Tiger Rescue. about it. I give money to the Carolina Tiger Rescue. There's a place in North Carolina where they get

all these big cats that people buy as pets but then they eat their dog or something or whatever. Don't buy a tiger as a pet, stupid. There's apparently not laws. People can just own bears. But no, it's mostly cats or their roadside

attraction, zoos that get mistreated. So they end up at this place, and they just have it there. You could go, and it's sort of a zoo, but it's all these cats and stuff that were kind of like in awkward situations or abusive situations. And they have them there, and they have a whole environment for them. And I went there once with an old girlfriend, and I was like, I'm going to give them money all the time. So keep the tigers going. It's the sad cats. The sad cats. Well, yeah. When you don't need, yeah, I don't need anything anymore. I would love to have health care. That's probably going to end if I don't, if the strike goes on. I got in under the wire, I think. Yeah. With a job that's going to carry me through next year anyway. But if I don't, I still—yeah, I got—

But you can still afford health insurance. I can still afford health insurance. All right, so—but, okay, so that's the debtor's thing, which really seems to be the one that, you know, holds your life together. I love that one. It's just fun. It's like a weird Tony Robbins with a debit card, you know? But what did The Artist's Way do for you in terms of your creativity? But what did the artist's way do for you in terms of your creativity?

Well, I loved it because it opened up the possibility and also like sort of the creativity of like, oh, what is it I exactly want to do? Yeah. Like, and that that's okay, that I exactly want to do that thing and to go where the love is. Like, if I don't feel comfortable in a space, a lot of times I don't do well at clubs. I just don't feel comfortable in a space, a lot of times I don't do well at clubs. I just don't. Instead of going, you got to hammer it out, Bamford. You got to go. It's like.

I remember that was one of the first feelings I had about you when I first saw you. And it lasted for years. I'm like, she's going out to regular places and doing that? I mean, she's a genius. And they're just going to make, they're just going to hurt her. She's going to hurt herself every time. It's like every comedy club,

it's like, where's the trauma center? Yeah. I'd like to be re-traumatized, please. Well, yeah. I mean, sometimes that happened and certainly it still happens. I try to avoid doing benefits. Ugh. No winning.

Would everyone stop having art performances that you have to suffer through on behalf of Parkinson's? What's the point? But yeah, I did a schizophrenia research nonprofit benefit, and it turns out the guy who hired me, big fan, because he has schizophrenia. Mono de mono. Totally hear you, man. The people he's trying to get money from are wino ladies in Napa Valley.

Sure. And then I sunk like a stone. You did? Oh, my God, yes. It was abysmal. Were they like, is she a patient? They started clapping me off stage. And it was either that they thought I was done or they hoped I was done.

I still had about 20 minutes left. And so I said, I got to do the time. And so sorry. It's so funny that we grew up in that. But I will. But I will bring up Howie Mandel, who is what everybody wanted to see. Oh, he was there? Yeah.

But no, but I have that same ethic. And it's weird because I still like I go to the comedy store, you know, three times a week just to stay in shape. Nice. But the difference between doing that and then doing Dynasty with my people is profound. But I still believe that I need to have my chops in order, my club chops. And I don't know when that goes away, but I've questioned it. But there's also part of me that, you know, at the comedy store, I do something where it's sort of like you start doing 15 or 20 new minutes and you kind of really kind of work it and you kind of feel like, well, I figured out this way to do a joke efficient

set that's varied. And that's the job. And I think we have that in our head that like the job is you go make strangers laugh. Yeah. Yeah. And you're up there for 50 minutes. Yes. At the least.

Yes. And it doesn't matter if they like the middle better. Yeah. No. Well, and I've often switched with the middle halfway through the week. I couldn't do that. I'll go up there and take the hit. And if I'm not doing well, I'll do longer.

I will sit down and we'll just all sit in it. Yeah. We'll sit in my wound for an hour and a half. Well, I can totally appreciate that. I love watching Andy Kindler when he is yelling at people as they run out the door. Yeah. I wonder how he's doing. I sometimes worry about him. They're not getting out of the house enough. Oh. Oh. Yeah. Okay. door. Yeah. I wonder how he's doing. I sometimes worry about him.

They're not getting out of the house enough. Oh. Oh. Yeah. Okay. It's all right. I've got to contact him. Yeah.

Just say hi. I sometimes see him on what's left of Twitter. So the artist way gave you the sort of strength to realize you were doing a thing and you could do it on your terms. And what I wanted to do and also that I could start saying that I was doing it and it didn't matter if anybody else thought I was doing it. And, yeah. And some people might say, oh, that's mania. But it's also – it was very helpful. But you talk about mania and stuff.

Like I don't know. I'm not clear on the difference between dopamine and joy. And like I – you know, there's a lot of ways to break stuff down. But mania, you've had it? Well, I've had hypomania where it's like I feel driven, where I feel like pressured speech. I need to do this. I need to tell everybody about this thing. And I need to tell everybody that this is going to happen.

And then this is going to happen. Like, yeah, definitely seemed a little off. Now, so it seems like those are the big ones, OA, Artist's Way, Debtors Anonymous. And then I'm right at the book, and I felt bad because I think you'd appreciate it. I know you, but I'd like to know the book. The book has a lot of funny in it, a lot of food in it, but a lot of helpful stuff, a lot of honesty about your process. But I didn't finish it because, and I realize it's something I do.

I remember when I was in junior high, I tried to read, because I didn't for the entire year. I had tried to read the entire Chronicles of Narnia in a weekend. Oh, my Lord. So I could write a paper about it, and it didn't happen. So, but I did get through a lot of your book. But I'm right up to the point where the book is called Sure, I'll Join Your Cult, and the framework is that, you know, the family is the first cult.

Yeah. And then onward through actual cults. Though you did not seem to join any cults that were specifically exploitive financially. Yeah. I've invited, I was invited to be a part of a couple. Yeah. Yeah. But I don't, and this may be a joke, but I do think if you don't have access to mental health care or you might want to consider joining the Jehovah Witnesses just for a week.

Yeah. You know, just go all in. Yeah. Get all the free mac and cheese. But then you're handing out magazines. Yeah. But it's just a week. Then you pull out.

Right. And I think the endorphin rush, you know, going in and going out might really shake something loose. Yeah. But I'm right up to the point of the breakdown. I guess it's the first real breakdown where you end up hospitalized. Yes, which I've told that story so many times before. Well, you don't have to tell that story, but how many times were you hospitalized? Just three. Listen, Mark, it story so many times before. Well, you don't have to tell that story, but how many times were you hospitalized? Just three. Listen, Mark.

It's not many times. When was the last time? It was 2011. Really? Yeah. So it's been a long time. I've been on mood stabilizers and antipsychotic for 11 years. 11, 12 years.

And they've got it balanced? Because I knew other people that there was that weird thing when psychopharmaceuticals that treated these things were fairly new. Rick Shapiro in particular. Oh. Yeah. I used to see Rick and you wouldn't see him for a while and then you'd see him do it. I don't know what's going on, but I think I'm on the wrong meds. So there was just a process of finding the right meds.

I'm getting a new psychiatrist, right? As we speak, I have a new appointment. Because my current psychiatrist is like, he does text appointments. He goes, oh, he'll text me and say, this counts as an appointment. I'm like, is that what you're telling yourself? Because I don't think that's real. But there's a whole thing with health care right now where it's like, you know, you've got the portal on your phone because you're at the app. Yeah.

And that's how they're sort of giving cancer diagnoses. Did you check the results in the portal? Can I just talk to the doctor? Well, you can do all this online now. Yeah. Not good. Numbers are not good. Can I talk to the doctor now?

We'll set up an appointment. That is so interesting. The portal. Yeah. Go to the portal. Go to the doctor now? We'll set up an appointment. That is so interesting. The portal. Yeah. Go to the portal. Go to the portal. But so the hospitalizations, outside of telling the story about the first breakdown again, you knew enough the second two times that you were in trouble? Oh, yeah. Yeah, like I was not feeling, I, when I feel what I, the difference between suicidal ideation and planning to kill yourself, I now know that.

Okay. I go, it was unbearable every single moment. Just for whatever reason, my brain went a little off the rails and just, it was, it was, it was monstrous, you know? So I totally get it when people commit suicide now i just go oh man uh i'm amazed you last as long as you did uh because it it's it can it's really bad you know it's uh so and i have a section of that in the book like not not like oh great go do it yeah um but but just like don't be such an ass if somebody does it like and and go oh you should it's like yeah you have no idea yeah what what and a lot of times people

don't and they feel guilty yeah that because so much of that is is hidden and people are just sucking it up and going through that without help. And then they make that decision. And people who know them are like, we didn't. No idea. She seemed to do what's doing better. Doing great. Yeah. Yeah. And it also is an impulsive act.

So sometimes, you know, it happens in all sorts of different ways. I read the greatest article about it, about guns. But it was an article about the type of natural gas they use for the stoves in England. It was a study they did. Do you know this one? No, but is it, yeah, that had much less suicides because they changed the gas? Yes. The other one was a lot more toxic and people could just stick their head in the oven, but this one didn't work that well. But a lot of the people that planned to didn't. him, but this one didn't work that well. Yeah.

So, but a lot of the people that planned to didn't. But so the argument was like, if there's not a gun there, the odds are you're not going to blow your head off. That's the first thing they say when you are, you know, on a suicide counselor on the, on telephone or whatever, they say, you know, can you, is there a way you can take whatever object, you know, whether it's razors or – And put them in a place where you can't see them or in another room because, yeah, make it a little more safe. Right. So you knew enough to commit yourself?

No, I didn't. My friends said, hey, you know when you told us about your family having mental health problems and if you talk a little too fast, maybe I would joke about it, like saying, if I ever start going mental, just let me know, get on a ride. And they said, it's happening. And I was like, okay. All three times? The third time it was my therapist 5150'd me. And I'm glad just because once you are hospitalized sometimes they

start sending you home with all sorts of meds I mean I had I could have killed myself any day like I had and I yeah and I was considering doing it because there is that sense also like with any chronic illness like this is not ending there's no end to to this. And no one's, I don't have any confidence that it will end. Your mentals. Yeah, the mentals. But I think chronic pain, I mean, people deal with this stuff all the time. So knowing that, and knowing that there was help available. I was just grateful.

I said, can you promise that you're not going to do anything tonight when I let you home? And I was like, no, no. Yeah. I feel terrible now. Yeah. And so, yeah, then I went into that hospital. I went through an outpatient program two times in Glendale Adventist Medical Center where they're vegetarians because of the Adventist thing. And then they have a little gong that goes off and they say a prayer three times a day.

Uh-huh. And, yeah. Gongs are nice. Gongs. Well, I don't know. I think it was a bell. It's like a gong, gong. Wow.

And the good thing about the hospital, which has so many problems, is that you're sort of safe. You're sort of safe from harming yourself. I'm not saying it's not totally possible. You could figure something out. There's a rubber curtain that could be made into a noose. Yeah, but the odds are better. Yeah, odds are better. And it helped.

But you brought a bunch of meds home and what there was. I tossed those eventually. Yeah. Because the second time I went through the outpatient treatment program, I finally became willing to go on this old timey medication Depakote. Oh, yeah. My dad was on that. Right. Yeah.

And part of the side effects are weight gain, which I did experience. And I just never wanted to go on it. I just didn't want to go on it because of weight, and I just never wanted to go on it. I just didn't want to go on it because of weight gain. And so I decided to go on it, and that's the thing that helped. Yeah. That and the Seroquel. Yeah, I haven't—I know—I hate—this is the thing people do in Los Angeles. They'll be like, you know what?

I have a psychopharmacologist who's amazing. Yeah. And you see the—he's on a helicopter pad in Malibu from 2 to 3 p.m. And he does like a $5,000. You have to send him $5,000 in Canadian through Zelle. But yeah, so I don't have the greatest care. Like I'm sure there's some other med I could be on that would be better or because like I have to take a propranapal to perform so that I don't have the greatest care. I'm sure there's some other med I could be on that would be better. Because I have to take a propranapal to perform so that I don't shake my way off stage. Oh, you have that beta blocker?

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, but maybe there is. But the truth is, is management is where you want to be. Right. Exactly. And ultimately, this idea of being perfect kind of drifts away after a certain age where you're sort of like, can we just get me manageable? Yeah.

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. I just want to be able to enjoy a hot fudge sundae. Or four. Or four. And fall asleep into my soup. Yeah.

But it seems like in talking about your relationships, and I remember the guy from New Zealand. But it seems like, you know, in talking about your relationships, and I remember the guy from New Zealand. I remember him. Yes, yes, yes. But it seems like this guy is, you know, definitely the guy,

the guy you're with now. Yeah, yeah. Oh, my gosh. Because Scott, the thing is, is both of us knew that we had, you know,

serious problems. Like, he had never had a relationship last. I think that's over. I think his record was two years. Yeah. It was one. Yeah. And he said, let's do this.

Let's go to therapy. Let's do everything. And I was like, right on. You know, like somebody that's all I wanted is like somebody to, to love and be loved by at that point in my life. And I think that was as a result of being hospitalized of like seeing people in the hospital with schizophrenia yeah with major mental health issues who were married yeah yeah yeah this guy's making cuckoo noises yeah and uh and he's still

yeah yeah he's fine he's making it work yeah i love it love it. Yeah. Well, I mean, it seems like a pretty, yeah, because I know that what we're leading towards in the book, even though I didn't finish it, there's no button on it. No, no. It's like, guess I'm good. Yeah. Oh, my God. And I'm not going to write one of those memoirs where they go, guess what? Totally wrong, that last memoir. So I go, guess what?

Totally wrong that last memoir. Now I'm doing something completely different. Because unless somebody gives me money. Even though you don't need it. I don't need it, but I love to get it. And also the fact that all the stuff about your sister who gave up being an MD to become a shaman spiritual holistic healthcare provider, that, where's that show? Right. Well, she's pitched it.

She's pitched it. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That wasn't in Lady Dinah, was it? No, no. And I think it's a really personal thing. I think it's so ripe, very easy to make fun of. I'm talking about the two of you.

The two of us. I'm not just talking about her character. I mean, just the difference in your approaches. Yeah, my sister's hilarious. Yeah. We have tried to do some work together. And it's just,

I think it's hard. I have a younger, the younger sister point of view where I just go, stop. Stop it. Why won't you let me? I'm doing something cool, too. The scene in the book where you start doing push-ups? Yes. I mean, that was recently, right?

Oh, yeah. Yeah, I did. My sister and my dad were talking about something on the porch, and they were, like, all into it. And I was, like, for some reason I just thought, I need this. And I got down on the porch and started doing pushups. And I think I did it, like, five times. And my sister said, without stopping their conversation,

I can do 10 pushups and I do them every day. It's a really good way to start the day. And then I got down and did 10 more push-ups. And it's just because the conversation wasn't enough about you? Yeah. Yes. Of course. Well, there's a reason I got into comedy is because I enjoy eyes over here.

to company is because I enjoy eyes over here. Well, I like talking to you and listening to you. Thanks, man. And also, but the book, it was really provocative to me because I'm like, I got some work to do. Well, I'm- Never too late. Never too late. No, there's always some new fresh thing to get into, I'm— Never too late. Never too late. No, there's always some new, fresh thing to get into, I guess.

So where are you at with stand-up? Like, the hour that we were doing up there, because I did my special, and I guess you probably put that in the can somehow? Yes, put that in the can. Yes, I did. And, yeah, just keep going. I'm just going to keep going. We did. And, yeah, just keep going.

I'm just going to keep going. One thing that I'm excited about, I trained, I'm training to be a peer specialist, which is a new thing. If you have lived experience with mental health or addiction issues, you can be a paid peer specialist in almost every state in our country. It usually pays like about $20, $30 an hour. What, you mean you hang around with the person and go like, no, don't? Yeah. Well, it's a specific philosophy, but it's funded federally and state-wide for emergency groups. Because now instead of sending the cops out, a lot of states have emergency mental health teams. And so anyways, so anybody interested in doing that, there's probably a training thing near you.

I just did an 80-hour training, and it's free. Yeah. All you have to do is ask for a scholarship. I did not. I paid for it because guess what? You got some money. I'm rich. Yeah.

Good for you. I know. I saw it in the book. It looks like you're doing all right. Doing all right. Well, especially after my dad died. Yeah. Cash cow!

I love you, Dad. Really? So much. It's so funny. Both of my parents are relatively broke, and somehow or another, I landed on my feet, and I can't. Like, now I give him money sometimes. My mom told me when I was 35, she's like, oh, honey, we're not leaving you a dime.

But then they both died early, which is super sad, and they left a chunk of change. That's good. Did you put that in the book? What? I didn't know. No, I finished the book before my dad passed. That's so sad. But it really does blow.

Yeah. But that's what happens. How are you with the grief? Do you do it? Yes. I think about my father. My sister just sent me a tenth of my father in the mail

in a little plastic baggie with had some bone chips so I could really think about him. Oh, good. And we're going to spread that in the yard, you know.

All right. You got the pug still? Yeah. Oh, God, yes. Great to talk to you. Thank you so much for having me. Love seeing you.

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. Love seeing you. Thank you. Okay. That was a journey. Again, Maria's memoir, Sure, I'll Join Your Cult, comes out September 5th. You can preorder it now. And would you hang out for a minute? Fucking Murphy's Law. Fucking.

Hang out for a minute. Fucking Murphy's law. Fucking. You can get anything you need with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get snowballs on Uber Eats. But meatballs and mozzarella balls, yes, we can deliver that. Uber Eats.

Get almost, almost anything. Order now. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. It's a night for the whole family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5 p.m. in Rock City at torontorock.com.

now. That's an episode where Maria came back to talk about her 2017 Netflix special. For the older episodes, you'll need a WTF Plus subscription. She's on episode 24, 148, and 412. Those are all live episodes. And then there's episode 72, one of the best episodes from the early years of WTF, which we recorded in my car. It was groundbreaking. I think I kept thinking, oh, well, I'm going to fix it, which is a totally, like, I'm going to, I'm going to either do the right thing so the person won't have, get enraged anymore, which was... He was a rager?

Yeah, yeah, where I couldn't, I couldn't do the right thing. I couldn't figure out all the things that I needed to do to, so it wouldn't happen again, but it would always keep happening. And then it was like, well,

you know what? Uh, and I, I learned to do, I got better with it where I wouldn't react as much to it. And I would just kind of be like, Oh, this person is,

you tried to detach. Yeah. Detach with love, you know, going like, uh, you know, just repeating back what they said and saying, I hear this is what you're to detach yeah detach with love you know going like uh you know just

repeating back what they said saying i hear this is what you're saying and and but then it is so upsetting over time that it's like uh you know i i gotta let him go because i'm i'm feeling feeling so bad but but also to say that that person is wonderful like has incredibly wonderful qualities and like and uh but I felt like I wasn't helping anymore like I was starting also you felt probably it's emotional abuse yeah yeah and you start to lose touch with yourself lose yourself and and also I felt like my own a possibility of me getting abuse you know me going you know and it's like oh god you know like I yeah so I and I think some element of it was like that whole idea of I'm going to help somebody that's my problem I was the guy that would walk into an uncontrollable rage and you know not stop

until uh my ex-wife was crying. And then I'd feel bad. And then I'd apologize. But it doesn't go away after a certain point in time. It doesn't go away. And I, for one, I mean, I've read a bunch of books on it now. Oh, maybe you can help me. To hear that episode and every episode of WTF ad free, get a WTF Plus subscription right now by clicking on the link in the episode description. Or by going to WTFpod.com and clicking on WTF plus.

Here we go. Some guitar. It's nice. Meditative. I think. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. ¶¶ Boomer lives. Monkey and Lafonda cat angels everywhere.