Episode 1465 - Maria Bamford

**Marc Maron** (0:00)
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All right, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers? What the fuck buddies? What the fuck nicks? 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 just had a kind of cathartic moment with it in a hotel room in Albuquerque, New Mexico, when they 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.
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 me, for where my heart is, Maria Bamford is the best comic working, the most courageous, the most interesting, and really the funniest one. And I've always had a sort of, to me, she's on another level. And it's almost difficult for me to talk to her like she's just a person because she's kind of a 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. And 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 the id of comedy itself somehow. I don't know how else to tell you.
And I don't, it's interesting about Maria, because I know she's the kind of comic, and we talked about it a bit, 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? It's just the nature of the thing. It's a completely subjective experience. And for those who are touched with the true gift of sort of a type of a point of view or brilliance, they're going to get that their whole life. And Maria has learned to survive and live and she is 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...