Maria Bamford Has Been Having Some Weird Thoughts
Maria Bamford doesn’t worry about being noticed at the dog park. “It’s Los Angeles,” she tells me over the phone when I ask if anyone recognizes her from her decades-long comedy career. “Nobody gives a shit if they did.” When she offers to text me a photo of her dogs patronizing said park, I decline for the sake of maintaining a professional facade.
I’m a fan of Bamford’s, from her semi-autobiographical Netflix series Lady Dynamite to her Portlandia-esque Target commercials. We’re having our first of two calls to discuss her debut book, a tongue-in-cheek riff on self-help and For Dummies called Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult. The book delivers the precisely unsettling intimacy that Bamford’s stand-up comedy is known for when it comes to chronic loneliness, disturbing thoughts, and an unfortunately relatable apathy toward living.
“I’m not suicidal,” Bamford prefaces in the book’s introduction. “But I’m also not particularly psyched.”
Bamford brings this dead-pan sincerity to the story of
