- Uh, I'm
in a county-stamped gown and a pair
of electric-green gripper socks that are not my own. You tell whoever
the fuck you want. Because all is lost. - Yeah! [cheers and applause] [in slow-motion]
Yeah! [indistinct slow-motion chatter] <i> [dark electronic music]</i> [in slow-motion]
- [growls] [audience gasps] <i> ♪ </i> [grunts] - [screaming] <i> ♪ </i> [mud splashes]
[slow-motion yelling] <i> ♪ </i> [grunting and yelling continues] [struggling vocally] <i> ♪ </i> <i> [cheers and applause]</i> - One of my
favorite all-time comics. You guys are gonna
absolutely love her. It's an honor to bring her
up to the stage. She's got her own show on
Netflix called "Lady Dynamite." Please keep it going for Miss Maria Bamford,
everybody. Let her hear it. <i> [cheers and applause]</i> - Congratulations
on being here tonight. It's so hard to live
in Los Angeles. People are working so hard, not only in L.A.,
but in this country. That's all we talk about. "What are you working on
these days? "What's going on with you? "What's on the next page
for you? "What's-what's coming up
for you? What are you working on?" Uh, oh, oh, I'm done. Yeah, I finished early. It's also scary--
[stammers] "What do you do?
What do you do for a living?" And I often say
that I'm a bookkeeper, which I am. I do my own QuickBooks. I've been audited by
the IRS five times. Turns out they owed me
25 bucks. Ka-blam! 'Cause I may be eccentric,
but I save my receipts. And, uh... Anyways, um... the reason I say
I'm a bookkeeper is 'cause once
I was on a flight from JFK to LAX, and I made the mistake
of saying what I did, and the woman went
into a PTSD stream of consciousness
monologue. "The worst experience
I ever had in my whole life "was at a comedy club. "We had to sit through
this man bombing for an hour, "and it was so painful. I will never go see
stand-up comedy again." Well, we are sorry that you
experienced that with our services. If there's any way
we can win back your business-- In fact I'd love to set you up with 20 free tickets
to a comedy show. As you guys know,
they're pretty easy to come by. Um... So, uh, defensively
I asked her what she did for a living,
of course, and she explained
that she was an employee of a little company called Cirque du Soleil
as a clown. [scattered oohs] A fucking clown. I have dated a clown before, and I have sat through
five performances of a clown as Christ figure,
clown crucified, red rubber nose, audience armed
with water balloons, asked to scream "Jew" while throwing them
at said clown Christ. If you want to talk about
the deep discomfort of the arts, dive in. My only regret is that I wish
I had paid to see those shows, but I was--
I was on the guest list. So, um... I was, uh-- I couldn't work for a while. I took about a year and a half
off of work. 'Cause I went mental. And-- I don't know if anyone here
is thinking of suicide. Don't do it.
It's not the season for it. Late fall. And...most people, you don't think about doing it,
but you think of it, you know,
every once in a while, just kind of feeling sorry
for yourself, like, "Oh, well, the stewardess won't
give me the whole can." [sobbing and whimpering] "Oh, turbulence.
I want to live." But-- Uh... I had told a friend of mine, hey, heads up--
if ever I start talking too fast about wanting to get in touch
with the Pope or some other ethical authority, put me in a purple van
and drive me to doggy daycare, 'cause I need to be boarded
for the weekend. Mental illness runs
in my family, and it drops
at about 40 years old. And that's what happened. So my friend drove me
to the psych ward, and I had my interview
with the psychiatrist. And he asked me,
you know, "Why are you here?" I said, "Well, I have a plan. I'm gonna--
I'm gonna kill myself." "Okay, great, um... What are
the mitigating circumstances?" "Well, I just, you know--
I just--I just-- "Every moment is unbearable,
and so I'm just worried "that I'm gonna--
I don't feel safe by myself, "like I'm gonna do something,
like I'm gonna hurt myself. "I know I will,
and I know I will, "and I'll be a real mess. I just don't want
to do that to other--" Okay. And they said,
"Well, what do you do? For a living?" And I said, "I'm a comedian." No response. Totally chill with it. And went on typing
on his laptop. He seemed a little distracted, and there was some sound
coming from his machine. And I get it, you know,
I get bored at work. Right now while
I'm doing this story, I'm actually watching a turtle
eating lettuce on a web video. [laughing]
'Cause--'cause it's just-- It just, uh-- It's nice to just
get a break. Anyways, so he was doing
something on his laptop. Turned it around to me,
and he said, "Is this you?" And he had YouTubed me,
and it was me, obviously with a lot more makeup
and much better material. And...he said,
"Oh, well, I had-- "I had to make sure
that you weren't having a grandiose delusion." Since when is it psychosis
to somehow claim that you're interacting
with the entertainment industry? It's not like I said
I was Richard Pryor. And if I had claimed to be one of the best comedians
of this past century, and a black man
and deceased at that, and been able to do anything from his 1979 special
in Long Beach, well, how wonderful
would that have been? But the last laugh was on me, 'cause he put me
on a mood stabilizer whose primary side-effects
are cognitive, making it almost impossible
to think or talk. No own! Or should I say--
oh no! [laughing] [sighs] Few days later,
I was doing a gig and-- by myself, down in Chicago,
bleeding, and I had lost
all my identification and was making this noise-- [moaning unintelligibly] About an hour before showtime. And I called my mother
and said... [moaning unintelligibly,
stammering] "Honey, somehow
get to the airport. "Go to Delta Priority. "Tell them you are
Gold Medallion. And tell them
about your website." And I did
what my mother told me, and I got
a first-class upgrade, 'cause I was just
batshit crazy enough to have that many points. And ended up taking--
yeah, almost two years off work. And--oh, just--
I always like to say this. I was so scared
of taking time off work, especially just in case
anyone found out, you know? "Oh, God,
what if somebody found out? Well, oh, God.
Oh, God." This is what happens
if somebody finds out. I was in the psych ward, and a woman came up to me
and said, "Um, hi, um, I know you.
[laughs] "I'm a therapist here, but I--
I don't know you personally, "but I have friends
in the comedy circles, and, um-- "Joe Delarosa, he's out
of the Stress Factory "in New Brunswick,
New Jersey. "Do you ever play there?
You don't? "Oh, you should.
It's a great-- "That's surprising,
'cause I would think that your-- "I mean, not that I would--
I would never tell. "This is
completely confidential, "and I would never-- [whispering]
I would never tell anyone." Um...I'm in
a county-stamped gown and a pair
of electric-green gripper socks that are not my own. You tell whoever
the fuck you want. Because all is lost. But I went back to work
and I just-- you know, I just can't do
as much as I used to, and I got all this shit from this one fellow coworker,
you know? "Hey, I heard what happened
in Chicago. Jeez." "Yeah, it was a real mess. "I owed them a lot of money. "I missed, like, six shows. It was a terrible,
terrible mess." "Yeah, I've never done that.
I've never missed a show. "I had a temperature
of 475 degrees. "I was the temperature
of a fully charred pork chop. "I did a full 90 minutes,
lost control of my bowels, "to standing ovations. You got to make
those fuckers laugh." "Yeah, I guess
I was just worried-- "you know, I wasn't able
to think or talk, and it might not be
as funny as I'd hoped." "Yeah, comedy's
got to be funny. "It's got to be funny
to everybody. "If it's not funny,
it's not comedy. "You gotta check it out.
I test my shit. "I went to China this year.
I was not welcome. "It was extremely
uncomfortable. "I did not have a visa. "But I spent
three months there, "I translated all my jokes
into facial expressions. Guess who has a tour
of the Jiangsu Province." "That's awesome, man. "So you don't ever get scared
of doing a certain, you know, type of gig?" "Nah, nah, nah.
I love a challenge. "I was doing a pop-up open mic
at a live birth, and... "You know, of course,
the mom's distracted, "but you know, just to--
[choking up] "just to be there
for baby's first laugh... "You know, and I always--
I always do this closer "with the younger crowds--
please don't take it. "I've been doing it
since the late '80s and it kind of pisses me off
'cause I see people doing it." And he's like,
"I've got this on tape. "But here,
you close your eyes. "Oh, shit.
Peek-a-boo is yours, man?" "Yeah, I basically copyrighted
the entire human experience." "That's awesome." Yeah, I guess, I don't know,
I just, I can't-- I can't be as ambitious
as I once was, you know? So--like right before
tonight's show, I looked in the reflection
of my Diet Coke can. And I said,
hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. [in gravelly voice]
Hey, kid. I want to see 20%. If not, 5. 'Cause so what?
Who cares? It doesn't even matter. Thank you guys so much.
Thanks a lot. [cheers and applause]
Love the Bammer
I haven't seen a "This is Not Happening" set I didn't like.
Damn. Mirror?