Comic Maria Bamford Will Join Your Cult

Fresh Air

NPR

Tv & Film, Arts, Society & Culture, Books

4.4 • 34.4K Ratings

🗓️ 6 September 2023

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Comic Maria Bamford talks about — and jokes about — serious and dark topics like her anxiety, depression, and intrusive thoughts from OCD. Her new memoir is about the lengths she's gone to fit in, from self-help books to 12-step programs. It's called Sure, I'll Join Your Cult.

Also, John Powers reviews the Danish crime series Face to Face.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Fresh Air, I'm Tonya Mosley, and today my guest is comedian Maria Bamford.
0:05.0	She's written a new memoir called, Sure, I'll join your cult.
0:09.2	It's a hilarious account of some of the extreme steps Bamford has taken to belong.
0:13.7	From earnestly taking advice from self-help books, to attending debtors and overeaters
0:18.2	anonymous meetings.
0:20.2	Here's what I love about these meetings.
0:22.2	Number one, free.
0:23.2	Number two, free!
0:25.4	Number three, they can't kick you out.
0:28.4	That's what are the main rules of the cult.
0:30.5	So even if I go to a meeting with a full bottle of Jack Daniels, and I'm eating an ice cream
0:36.1	cake with a stolen porn DVD, all anybody will ever say to me is, keep coming back.
0:58.3	That was a clip from Maria Bamford's comedy album, Crowd Pleaser, which compliments her new
1:02.7	memoir.
1:04.0	Bamford is known for making fun of her mental illnesses, including her bipolar two disorder.
1:09.5	The Netflix original series Lady Dynamite, which aired for two seasons, was loosely
1:13.3	based on her life.
1:15.1	In 2014, Bamford was awarded Best Club Comic at the American Comedy Awards and Breakout
1:21.0	Comedy Star at the Montreal Comedy Festival.
1:24.5	Her other comedy specials include The Maria Bamford Show and Unwanted Thought Syndrome.
1:29.9	In season four of Arrested Development, she played Debris Bardot to buy a few gays
1:34.2	love interest.
	...

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