Maria Bamford: Old Baby Page #5

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address and your birthday

and set you up with 20 free tickets

to a comedy show!

As it turns out, for the most part,

as you all know,

comedy tickets are...

free.

I then very defensively asked her

what she did for a living.

She then explained

that she was an employee

of a little Canadian corporation

called Cirque du Soleil

as a f***ing clown.

Now I,

of course, have dated a clown before.

[audience laughs]

And I sat through six performances

of a clown as a Christ figure.

Crucified clown Christ.

Red rubber nose,

audience armed with water balloons,

asked to fling them at said clown Christ

while screaming, "Jew!"

If you want to talk about

the deep discomfort of the arts,

dive in.

[laughing]

I wish I had paid to see that show.

But I was always on the guest list.

Uh, I had to take a break from work

'cause, uh, I went mental.

And, uh...

my friend told me,

hey, you're talking a little too fast,

having a lot of sh*t ideas.

Uh, why don't you get in my Ford Flex,

and I'll, uh, motor you over

to the public storage.

And, uh...

I went into a psychiatric facility,

which, if you haven't been, uh,

don't feel bad if you go,

and, uh...

they're uniformly awful.

You're not at the wrong one.

They're all bad, they're all bad.

Uh... [laughs]

It's as if an art director

came in and said,

"Okay, I want to break five more chairs,

and then we need...

uh, at least three pieces

taken out of every puzzle.

And...

the big screen TV,

let's have it playing

Ultimate Fighting Championships

at maximum volume,

lose the remote."

[laughing]

They sat me down with the-the psych guy,

and he said, you know,

the usual questions.

"Why are you here?"

Oh, I have...

explicit plans to kill myself.

"Okay, great."

Uh,

pretty common.

"What, uh, are the circumstances?"

Every moment is unbearable.

"Uh, what kind of work do you do?"

[groans]

I'm a comedian.

No response.

Felt... so relieved.

And he went back to his little laptop, um,

and some music came out of it,

and I was like, well that's kind of weird.

Uh, but I get it, uh...

A lot of times,

in the light booth right now actually

I have a little, uh,

Wimp video playing a baby tortoise

trying to eat a raspberry.

And it's just so,

when at work when I get bored,

[laughs]

I have something to cheer me up.

[audience laughs]

It doesn't affect my performance at all.

Um...

He turned the laptop around,

and he said, is this you?

And I said, yes, clearly it's me,

with more make-up and better material.

And, uh...

he said, "I had to YouTube you

because I was concerned

that you were delusional."

Since when is it grandiose psychosis

to claim that in any way you're involved

in the entertainment industry?

It is simple courtesy to wait

until someone has left

the room to IMDb them.

[audience laughs]

And it's not like I said

I was Richard Pryor.

And had I claimed to be

one of the finest comedians

of our past century

and been able to perform anything

from his quintessential 1979

Long Beach stand-up special,

or,

perhaps, more weirdly,

uh, been able to quote

some of his lesser-known material

about the difference between

beating white women and black women.

Uh,

doesn't age well.

[laughing]

But the joke was on me,

uh, because, uh, the psychiatrist

then put me on a mood stabilizer

whose primary side effects are cognitive,

making it almost impossible

to think or talk.

Ho on!

Or should I say, "Oh no."

[audience laughs]

Yeah.

Seventy two hours later,

you know how it is, you've gotta work.

Oh, God, get back to work.

I'm working on stuff.

I'm really doing the inner work

so I can get back and get,

get back to work.

I found myself

in downtown Chicago, bleeding.

I had lost all my identification

and was making this noise.

[vocalizes] Ah.

I called my mother and said,

[gurgles]

She...

[exhales]

[audience laughing and clapping]

She said, "Honey, somehow,

you know what?

Somehow get to the airport,

tell... Go to Delta Priority.

Tell them you are gold medallion!"

[audience laughs]

I did what my mother told me,

and it turns out, uh,

points is not a bad form of health-care.

[laughing]

Got an upgrade.

Uh... I was bleeding and crying,

but a lot of leg room.

Merch for sale.

Mer... Merch for...

Merch for sale!

Hi, guys.

Selling, um, some items.

I don't want to force you into anything.

Whatever's within your budget.

All the money goes, uh, to support

uh, the psychiatric hospital

that is in my hometown, Miller-Dwan.

My mom's stayed there and worked there.

And this is a pencil

that has hope on this side.

There's the words "Hope"

so you can grind down "Hope",

very slowly.

[audience laughing]

And at the bottom it says,

"More merch available."

Look at that, that looks perfect on you.

- It works.

- You know what?

It's... Everything's free.

Everything's free.

I can't, I can't charge these people.

Just take it, take it, take it.

Take it. It's-it's all yours.

And thank you for coming to the show.

We've raised a dollar.

Every dollar counts.

That dollar might go towards

a packet of graham crackers that,

you know, they wouldn't have had.

I finally got back to work

about a year and a half later, [chuckles]

and everybody was really nice about it,

uh, coming back.

But I had one coworker say,

"Hey, Bamford.

Heard about what happened in Chicago.

Oh, man. Jeez"

Yeah, it wasn't cool.

I had to cancel-cancel like six shows.

I-I still owe them a lot of money.

I'm on, I'm on...

a payment plan.

Yeah, I've never bailed on a show.

I had a temperature of 495 degrees.

I was the temperature

of a fully charred pork chop.

[audience laughs]

But I did my 90-minute set,

then I lost control of my bowels.

That's awesome, man.

Good for you.

I just wasn't able to think or talk,

and I thought that might

not be as funny as I'd hoped.

[audience laughing]

Yeah, comedy's gotta be funny.

[audience laughing]

And it's gotta be funny to everybody,

you know?

If it's not funny,

it's not comedy.

[audience laughs]

And I test my sh*t out.

I went to China this year.

I was not welcome.

I did not have a Visa.

But I worked it out,

and now I have a tight hour

of chopstick impersonations.

I do kitty cat, bunny,

uh, walrus, llama.

You know, I could do a ten city tour

of the Gansu province if need be.

That's awesome, man.

So you never get scared of performing

outside of certain groups or anything?

No, no.

I just did a pop-up open mic

at a live birth.

[audience laughs]

You know, Mom's distracted,

but just to be there.

You know, for baby's first laugh.

[audience laughs]

And, uh, actually,

somebody's been using one

of my closing bits

that I use for younger crowds.

And it really pissed me off,

because I've been doing

it since the early 90's

and I got tape on it.

If you see anybody doing it,

if you could tell them

to cease and desist.

It's...

[audience laughs]

Oh, sh*t, peek-a-boo is yours?

Man.

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