Episode 576
with Maria Bamford and Isabeau Waia'u Walker
Comedian Maria Bamford chats about her new book Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult, which unpacks mental illness and the quest to belong... and why 12-step programs and the Suzuki Method have more in common than you might think. Then, singer-songwriter Isabeau Waia'u Walker performs her song "The Prince," written as a tribute to her father and the young men of Hawaii who often slip through the cracks. Plus, host Luke Burbank and announcer Elena Passarello share some cult-adjacent experiences from our listeners.
Maria Bamford
Comedian and Author
Maria Bamford is the star of "The Maria Bamford Show," "Ask My Mom," and "Lady Dynamite." She was deemed Breakout Comedy Star at Just for Laughs, and her critically acclaimed work includes her stand-up specials "Weakness Is the Brand," "Old Baby," and "Maria Bamford: The Special, Special, Special!", as well as two Comedy Central Presents specials. Maria’s writing has been featured in The New York Times, LA Weekly, and more. Maria has contributed comedic voice-overs for Big Mouth, BoJack Horseman, Adventure Time, Word Girl, Kung Fu Panda, Legend of Korra, and Teenage Euthanasia. For her mental health advocacy, she’s been presented with The OCD Foundation’s Illumination Award and featured at the Psychotherapy Networker Symposium, The Chautauqua Institution, and the Saks Institute for Mental Health Law, Policy and Ethics Symposium. She is the author of the audio original You Are (A Comedy) Special and her latest book "Sure, I'll Join. Your Cult: A Memoir of Mental Illness and the Quest to Belong Anywhere."
Isabeau Waia'u Walker
Singer-songwriter
The vision for her music is clear and thought provoking, and Isabeau Waia'u Walker often expresses her vision through her master storytelling. The authenticity of her musical presentation as a performer and storyteller taps into human emotions and bonds her with the listeners and audiences in front of her. Isabeau worked as a high school teacher for over a decade while she made music, slowly amassing an impressive YouTube subscribership. She then orchestrated an early retirement from education to redirect attention to music, allowing her to tour as a member of Y La Bamba and to record her EP, Better Metric. Her full length album Body, recorded at The Center for Sound, Light and Color Therapy with bandmate and producer Ryan Oxford continues to highlight the tensions of the stretches and contractions nested in Isabeau's core which then reverberate through the layers of her product: storytelling, collaboration, presentation, music.
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Luke Burbank: Hey, Elena.
Elena Passarello: Hey, Luke. How's it going?
Luke Burbank: It is going splendidly. I'm very, very intrigued to find out if you're going to be able to nail this week's station location identification examination. It is. Let's just say a subtle offering.
Elena Passarello: Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm.
Luke Burbank: So I want to see if you can figure out where we are on the radio somewhere in America. There's a new station, by the way. And then you got to guess, and I'll tell you if you have guessed correctly. Okay? This place is elevated. It's at 4658 feet above sea level. And it boasts 300 days a year of sunshine.
Elena Passarello: Hmm.
Luke Burbank: So it's not in Kansas. We can move it to a certain region of the country where you might be. Yeah. You know, a mile above sea level at.
Elena Passarello: It's not in the Pacific Northwest either, because of all those days of sunshine. Right. Is it somewhere in Colorado?
Luke Burbank: You are in the right state, my friend.
Elena Passarello: Oh, I know. Four cities in Colorado. Let's go.
Luke Burbank: Let's see if this is one of them. It was described on the show South Park as, quote, the exact opposite of Hawaii, although it once also supplied a quarter of America's sugar, which is an interesting footnote for a city in Colorado.
Elena Passarello: Is it Colorado Springs?
Luke Burbank: No, it's the place where the modern day lawn sprinkler system was invented. And also in 2015, they got the Guinness World Record for the longest continuous chalk art drawing. That's got to give it away.
Elena Passarello: Oh, yeah, totally.
Luke Burbank: What are your four cities?
Elena Passarello: Fort Collins, Colorado Springs, Denver. And Boulder.
Luke Burbank: And also Greeley. Greeley, Colorado. Part of Community Radio for Northern Colorado, which again, is a new station. So welcome, everybody. Tuning in from Greeley. Are you ready to do the show?
Elena Passarello: Yes. Let's do it.
Luke Burbank: All right.
Elena Passarello: From PRX, it's LIVE WIRE. This week, comedian Maria Bamford.
Maria Bamford: I'm the four foot nine Tony Robbins, who speaks in a whisper and then falls asleep while I'm talking to you.
Luke Burbank: Oh, man.
Elena Passarello: With music from Isabeau Waia'u Walker.
Isabeau Waia'u Walker: My dad is a storyteller, and years ago I was home and I woke up to music at the foot of the bed. He's like, I have something to tell you, which is not extreme for my dad to be waiting. Like in the wings. Like, I'm ready.
Elena Passarello: I'm your announcer. Elena Passarello and now the host of Live Wire, Luke Burbank.
Luke Burbank: Thank you. Elena Passarello. Thanks to everyone all across America. Listening to the show this week. We have a great program in store for you are going to talk to Maria Bamford. We're going to hear some great music. We also asked a lot of our listeners a question. We said, what is the closest thing to a cult that you have ever belonged to? We're going to be hearing those responses coming up in a few minutes. First, though, of course, we've got to kick things off with the best news we heard all week this. This right here is our little reminder at the top of the show. There is some good news happening out there in the world. Elena, what is the best news you heard all week?
Elena Passarello: Okay. So when you were a kid or now when you were watching cartoons, you know how like every time on Looney Tunes or Bugs Bunny or whatever, every time there was an oyster, there was a pearl in it?
Luke Burbank: Yes. I think I definitely believed that if you wanted a pearl, you'd just go find an oyster.
Elena Passarello: Yeah. That they were all in there. And if you could just figure out how to get the darn thing open, you would be swimming in pearls. Apparently. That is very, very not true.
Luke Burbank: Okay.
Elena Passarello: Very rare. Also, not only oysters have pearls in them every once in a blue moon, but clams do as well, which I did not know. There's a species of clam or a breed of clam or whatever that also makes pearls. It takes decades. So I don't know if Sandy Sikorski and Ken Stein camp knew about this. These are two Rhode Islanders. They're in their seventies. They have been dating for about three years. So if later in life, romance for these two folks who've been divorced and have kids and grandkids. So they're out having a clam dinner in December 2021 with Sandy's brother and sister and Sandy's like, Oh, I think I broke a tooth. But it turns out it wasn't a tooth. It was a gigantic pearl that she found inside one of the clams in her clam dinner. She says it was so big, there's no way she would have unknowingly swallowed it. It was like 10mm once they had this pearl investigated, they figured that out. So Sandy pocketed the pearl. I don't know if she told a restaurant about her finding. And, you know, life kind of, like, moved on. And about 18 months later, they finally got around to going down to a jeweler. And the jeweler was like, Oh, okay, I think you need to meet my friend Wishbone. Oh, the jeweler also said that this was an incredibly rare thing and a pearl that size probably grew for 50 years inside that clam.
Luke Burbank: Because a pearl, if I remember right, it's it's a small piece of sand or something that the the the the the animal has been kind of worrying over as you were like kind of covering it with this coating probably what so it's not so bothersome and that's what you end up. That's how you get the pearl.
Elena Passarello: Yeah, it's like a protective measure that just keeps on going. And then before you know it, you have this you have.
Luke Burbank: About 50 years. So, I mean, depending on your definition of before you know it.
Elena Passarello: But it is the Clams masterpiece. Let's think about it that way. But yeah, so they took it to this guy named Wishbone who designed with Sandy this beautiful setting. It kind of looks like a claw of gold filigree with a diamond on every size. And then the article I read, there is a picture of this pearl, and it is a honker. It's just I mean, it's it's just gorgeous. And now it's got a little bit of bling attached to it. Her sweetheart can was like it kind of looks like the Eiffel Tower which I feel like is a classic dude response to to jewelry but fine So they ordered it in late spring and then on July 6th, when they got the ring, he was like, Oh, yeah, I guess will you marry me? Because, you know, like they're grown ups and they knew that they were going to get around to getting married someday and they knew they were going to get engaged someday. And so not the kind of pomp and circumstance is when you're getting like pinned by your fraternity sweetheart when you're 22 or whatever. And he proposed in front of her family with this ring that they had made. And wedding plans are on the way. She already has a granddaughter to whom she wants to give the pearl eventually. And now she has this incredible, beautiful story that I bet nobody else in this world at present has.
Luke Burbank: I have never heard of anything like that happening. They are having the reception at Red Lobster. You also think, would these two be getting married when they're getting married, if not for this magical pearl in this clam? Because, you know, people can drag their feet for all kinds of reasons. Once you have the ring and a story like that, you kind of got to do it.
Elena Passarello: Yeah, it's a pearl of wisdom, so to speak.
Luke Burbank: Sure is. A speaking of found treasures, Elena, if you have been subscribing to the Netflix DVD delivery service, like I'm sure you have been, they've been doing it for 25 years, huh? When most of us have moved to the digital platform? Yeah, they have still been sending out DVDs. But finally, after 25 years at the end of September, they are going to sunset that program. They've been trying to figure out what to do with the DVDs because it turns out that, like DVDs are kind of a hassle to get rid of. Like you put them in a landfill. They're not good for the environment. It's expensive. So they hit upon the genius idea to just give the DVDs to the people that were already subscribing to the DVD service.
Elena Passarello: The people who are still holding on?
Luke Burbank: Yes. I bought I bought a DVD player like two weeks ago. I would like to mention, because it turns out there's a lot of content that's not streaming. We think of the Internet as being so sort of voluminous and infinite that everything you'd ever want to watch is on there. But I'm surprised how many times I want to find some movie I remember from my youth or a documentary or something.
Elena Passarello: Elvis movies you can't like. Half of them are just DVD only, or they're on some like shady bootleg, you know, not even a YouTube site that'll infect your computer if you watch it.
Luke Burbank: Yeah, right. So I have found it increasingly the case that sometimes a DVD player comes in kind of handy. But so Netflix sent out this email that was kind of cryptic. I don't know if they knew the legality of if they were allowed to give the DVDs away or not. There's some speculation about who actually owns the material on the DVD. If it's the studio or if it's Netflix. They sent out an email to the DVD subscribers. One of them who I read interviewed, still has 500 movies in his queue, which is like, Wow, dude, that's amazing. But they sent out an email that just said, You might have something really good coming to your house. You should just pick ten more movies you'd like to see on DVD because you never know. And what that was, was Netflix trying to get a list of more movies they could just offload onto people. So if you're somebody who loves DVDs and you've been subscribing to Netflix for all these years and getting these physical things mailed out, you get to keep them, which I'm going to be honest with you. There's no way I was sending those DVDs back anyway, regardless of what Netflix said. Like, how much money do I think Netflix is going to invest in having someone chasing down old DVDs of like Snow Dogs starring Cuba Gooding Jr. Like, that's not going to happen.
Elena Passarello: It's Columbia House all over again, is what you're saying.
Luke Burbank: It is! (Nice.) And I know my way around a good mail order media scam. So I'm glad to know, though, that everybody who's got those DVDs from Netflix can keep them and enjoy them in good health. So that's the best news that I saw all week. This is a live wire from PRX. Okay. We've got to take a very quick break, but do not go anywhere because when we return, we will talk to one of my very favorite comedians out there, Maria Bamford. She's got a new book called Sure I'll Join Your Cult. Maria is going to talk about how she ended up buying a carpet for a comedy club in Portland, Oregon, and also why she doesn't like to perform at charity events anymore. And it's not because she's not charitable. We will explain in just a moment here on Live Wire. Welcome back to Live Wire from PRX. I'm your host, Luke Burbank, here with Elena Passarello. All right. Our first guest this week is one of my favorite comedians working today. And what is so interesting to me about Maria Bamford's work is that it really does cover the whole range of human experience. It's the funny stuff, but it's also the scary stuff and the sad stuff. The New York Times calls her comedy weird and ingenious. She's the star of Lady Dynamite. She has several critically acclaimed standup specials to her credit. And she says her goal as a comedian is to transform isolating experiences into comedy that makes us all feel less alone, which is exactly what she also does in her latest book. It's called "Sure I'll Join Your Cult, a memoir of Mental Illness and the Quest to Belong Anywhere." She joined us recently from her home near L.A. This is Maria Bamford on Live Wire. Maria Bamford. Welcome to Live Wire.
Maria Bamford: Thank you for having me. Luke Burbank.
Luke Burbank: This book is really, really funny. And also, like so much of your work, it's really, really honest. One of the things that you talk about, I mean, it's called "Sure, I'll join your cult." You talk about you've always been drawn to kind of I don't know if we can say the word weird, but like kind of odd groups of people, things that could be described as culty. Why do you think that's always been appealing to you?
Maria Bamford: Well, I like being invited to things. I don't necessarily you know, I say yes before understanding what they represent. And I love being in a thing and then and then pushing the boundaries of that thing by complaining about it and talking it in public. And the first group, of course, I did that with was my family. Then secondarily, Christianity as a whole then moved on to Suzuki Violin Dale Carnegie Training Courses The Artist's Way 12 Step Groups. I desperately love all these things. Somebody got mad at me for my groups, my 12 step cults, and said. You shouldn't make fun of. You know, these programs saved your life. Why else be alive except to make fun of things that are really important to you?
Elena Passarello: Yeah.
Luke Burbank: The part about Debtors Anonymous, one of the groups you're in. It was illuminating to me because I guess I assumed from that name that it was a group designed to help people who are addicted to going into debt of some kind. And it sounds like what it really is is just like a great accountability for just practicing better financial health.
Maria Bamford: It's for whatever you want it to be, you know, I mean, an AA or NA, isn't it? Aren't they just people sitting in chairs just trying not to do something terrible? You know, I just I'm very much into harm reduction. Like, DA help me. First of all, how to get a job, a full time job and keep that job, which I did not realize was just it was just going to be a lot of discomfort and asking for support and going, oh, I got to show up again. But I did such a good job today. Aren't I done? And oh, and also doing things in a counterintuitive way, like it's a lot of cognitive behavioral stuff. Something is very culty, which I don't ascribe to which part of the reason I can still attend 12 step groups is they do have this aphorism, which is take what you want, leave the rest, and I take only what I want, which is only a few few things which are mostly cookies, mostly cookies, and I leave the rest, which is the decaf. Who who. Brought decaf?
Luke Burbank: Yeah. When I was a kid, I didn't really know what 12 step was, but I knew there were certain. I like store fronts in my neighborhood where people were just furiously chain smoking in front and drinking coffee out of Styrofoam cups and was like, I don't know what that is, but that something happening.
Elena Passarello: I got it mixed up with Stations of the Cross. Like in my head, they kind of got scrambled together like the however many.
Maria Bamford: And you're but you're not you're not wrong stations the cross like in terms of like it's this process where you go through recognizing and I talk about it in the book just sort of seeing how I've. Rewritten them for myself. That they make sense more as a thing, as a science based thing of like, okay, here's this thing that I do. This is how it's affecting me in negative ways. Is there any tiny thing I could change about my current behavior? For example, I uses parking illegally. I seem to do that continuously today. What I did instead of parking illegally, I parked in a bank parking lot across the street. Now I was not a bank customer. And so.
Luke Burbank: It's all about Harm reduction
Maria Bamford: Borderline illegal. But was that a little bit better than getting a $70 ticket? I would argue yes.
Elena Passarello: And you didn't get towed, I'm assuming.
Maria Bamford: Didn't get towed. Got asked by the lady. Asked by the lady behind the desk, are you a Wells Fargo customer? And because I have used an ATM at Wells Fargo, I said to myself, yes. I am. Now, is that kind of honesty a gray area? Yes. I don't think there's any gray there, I lied.
Luke Burbank: But you're not going to liars Anonymous. You're going to Debtors Anonymous.
Maria Bamford: Debtors Anonymous. And you know, somebody will give you the hard line. You'll go like, this is the way you have to do it. The Tony Robbins sell of, you know. I'm seven foot, five feet tall and I'm going to yell at you about what you have to do. I am. I'm the four foot nine Tony Robbins, who speaks in a whisper and then falls asleep while I'm talking to you.
Luke Burbank: We're talking to Maria Bamford here on Live Wire. She's got a book out. It's called "Sure I'll Join Your Cult." You do have a really great relationship with the town of Portland, Oregon. Like this is really because that's where I'm recording from right now. This is a real hot zip for you. What do you think it is about this place that that connects with you?
Maria Bamford: I don't know. I don't know what's going on. Maybe it's the... dream of socialism, though. It doesn't make us a social democracy. You know, of course we know that that's not always functioning at optimal. But yeah, like Portland, uh, the vision is good. The vision is good.
Luke Burbank: We aspire to the same world that Maria Bamford aspires to, essentially.
Maria Bamford: Yes. Even though we are not doing that, I'm not doing the best. I'm giving 11%, my husband and I, 11% of our income to a downtown women's center in L.A., which is providing homes for the women of the Skid Row neighborhood of downtown Los Angeles. But can we give more? Yes. What are you spending money on? Clogs.
Luke Burbank: Speaking of charity, Maria, I heard that you bought the rug for the greenroom at the Helium Comedy Club here in Portland, the city that loves you the most. How did that come about?
Maria Bamford: Well, I think. Have you ever been in a comedy club greenroom?
Luke Burbank: I've been in that comedy club greenroom?
Maria Bamford: Yeah. And I am not the first. Who gives back at a decorating level? Todd Glass always comes in and does a redo. Or I always hear about, you know, some new lamp that he's picked up. Now, of course, these things may disappear because you know who else needs décor? People who work at comedy clubs. So it's not a it's not a high income place always, unless you're working on a weekend where there is a barnstormer of an act. Yeah, I am. I don't think I'm. Yeah, I don't think I'm a great earner for tips.
Luke Burbank: Well, you break this down in the book, though. You actually break down a month. I want to be honest, when I heard that was in the book, it was immediately the thing I was most excited to read, which is a sort of a poor reflection on me. But I wanted to know what the Bamfoo business looks like. And it was an extremely transparent thing. Is that like a holdover from your time in Debtors Anonymous?
Maria Bamford: Yes. Oh, yes. And I'm still in it. Love that group. And I know I'm breaking the rule. And I suppose to say publicly, I mean it. So hit me with a lightning strike, higher power, whatever. Yeah, but I love that. Also, it's there's a philosophy of an accounting called Open Book Accounting, where everyone in the company is educated not only about accounting principles, but about the real finances of the company they work for so that they might have a better understanding of why they're paid, what they're paid, how the business is operating. And so I've liked to do that with comedians who've worked for me. Some people are less interested. I'm like, Here's all these numbers. And they're like, What? Because it is it's emotional for me. Like, I feel like I get mad when I hear that fellow comics are being paid at the same amount that I was being paid 30 years ago. 50 bucks a show or or zilch or nothing. And then the whoever it is who's headlining is making. I mean, it depends, but it can be like seven to know 100 grand a week depending. Yeah, depending on if it's a larger space. But then if they have all the income from people doing private meet ups afterwards, like anyways, it's just that whole thing that I think everyone's dealing with of the huge numbers at the top and unlivable wages at the bottom. So I'm hoping that if I tell everybody what I'm making, then people can point out to me and go, God, you're a monster, because I don't know. Or yeah, that people can negotiate with me. I mean, I've had friends say to me, Hey, I could I could have a couple of hundred extra more bucks. Like, yeah, like because I've been opening and said and that's I felt embarrassed. But then it was like, Oh, yes, thank you. Please do not harbor resentments towards me while I'm wearing these brand new clogs, brand new patent leather. Red clog.
Elena Passarello: And that's not the only place in the book where you're thinking about fiscal things. I was very comforted by the money talk in terms of like what you refer to as the mentals, spending your life, making sure that you get the help that you need. Was that a goal at the top?
Maria Bamford: Well, I think it's just something everyone has to do. You know, where our society, or at least in my brain, I always value work over, and cash, over my health. So whether I am enjoying life doesn't seem to be as important as whether other people think I'm doing well, you know, like, yeah, attaining some goals or something. Also, I have found in trying to find mental health help, not only is it uncomfortable, I don't want to spend money on it, but sometimes even if you have the money, even if you have the insurance, the care is not ideal. So I think that advertising with it can make you feel even better where you'll be like. Oh, did I go to the wrong person? Or Yeah, just nobody has the time. You just got to believe yourself. You're your own best patient advocate, you know? That's right for yourself. And so I just want to reflect back to people that if you're having a hard time getting a care, it's not you. It's because the memes make it seem like, you know, I, you know, you just do it. Let's just talk about it and everything gets better. And it's like, well, yeah. Maybe...
Elena Passarello: And yeah, but no.
Maria Bamford: Yeah but no. And it really everyone's situation is extremely different. And yet just much love and support to everybody and for whatever experience they're having. Yeah, because I think there can be a lot of blame. And for all health care, you know, you're told. Well, I mean it seems like if you did a little bit more self, you know, did you do the real work? Did you do the Byron Katie real work?
Luke Burbank: Oh man! We're talking to Maria Bamford here on Live Wire. She's got a book out. It's called "Sure I'll Join Your Cult." One of the things that fans of yours like myself, know is that you've talked about since I've been seeing you live is is your mental health. Was that something that was always part of your material? Like when you're, you know, coming out of Minnesota and you're just like, there's some great photos in the book, by the way, of the of the arc of your different the publicity, the ways that they've tried to promote Maria Bamford photographically throughout the years is really something. Did you I'm wondering when you started to know that you could talk about your real life and parts of your life like mental health and that it would resonate with people as opposed to kind of like make, you know, make it harder on you to have a successful career?
Maria Bamford: I mean, I started doing things, started in college, and then I when I finally kind of really started in earnest, I was in Minneapolis, which has a very, you know, feminist theater community. So it was very welcoming. Like, I found a lot of spaces or I definitely look for and or created spaces where I was welcome to do anything. And I got support for that from other people, partly through all the groups I was in. And also I love that book The Artist Way, which.
Elena Passarello: That was a great part of the book. I was like, Oh yeah, that is a cult. So is Suzuki Violin.
Maria Bamford: It's I mean, it's it's great. It really helped me a lot. And also there's some parts where it's like cutting people off, going, Well, that's a poisonous playmate, You know, like if somebody says anything critical about your work and like, you've really got to protect yourself. And it's like, well, you're going to start cutting off everyone in your whole life because everyone's monstrous, really, when it comes down to it without trying. Right? So I've always talked about whatever I wanted to. I don't remember ever thinking, Oh, now I can talk about this or.
Luke Burbank: Wow, So you didn't have a phase where you thought to fit into comedy? I mean, it sounds like it was really fortunate for you that you started in Minneapolis and not trying to get time at Flappers in Burbank.
Maria Bamford: Yeah, I definitely did not. And yeah, there was a comedy club and the only time I would perform there was if it was a women's night once or once a year, all the women in wigs who had a milk bath on one side of the and on the other side can be men watching from hoods. But sorry, I don't know what I'm referencing there, but I definitely just kept two places where the love was, and I always have. I've definitely tried to do that, though sometimes I have not been able to avoid uncomfortable situations where I am not the right act for the room. I refuse to do benefits now, not because I don't care about every single cause. It is because the person who hires me is the fan. The people they're trying to get millions of dollars from are winos in Napa Valley. And that means I'm going to sink like a, you know, lead balloon.
Luke Burbank: And by the way, less or less people think you're being you're just making something up. Maria, are you referring to a specific schizophrenia conference?
Maria Bamford: Yes, schizophrenia research. Yemeni. Cassandra's brought me up. Did, you know, blasted the audience and did her job. I went on for 30 minutes and brought everything to a screeching halt. They began clapping me off and or thinking I was done or hoping I was. Halfway through my I tried to explain to them, No, I'm going to be up here for another 15 minutes. It's contracted, but don't worry, I can't wait to bring up your next act. Who is who everyone wants to see, who is always appropriate for every room. And that man is Howie Mandel. But yeah, I will not do it because, I mean, have you ever found yourself at a benefit watching a creative act suffering on behalf of Parkinson's like.
Elena Passarello: Everybody else is drinking and talking, and the poor people are trying to do their thing up to.
Maria Bamford: Stop it. Stop it. Just rich people give your money. You don't have to have people prance in front of you. Let's stop the nonsense. Just put all your money into a pile. Let's have everyone bring cash. Wads of cash so we can see you. Because that's the part of the drama is that we can see you throw it in the pile and see how much you throw in the pile and weigh it. Even weigh it. Maybe have some music going on, you know. But it doesn't have to be this thing where it affects people who are already not being paid for everything and then make them suffer. And you suffer. You know, the wealthy don't need to suffer. No one needs to suffer.
Luke Burbank: Well, I mean, it sounds like, Maria, that if I if I read the book correctly, that you're you're feeling like you're in a reasonably okay place, at least by your standards, in terms of mental and emotional health, financial health, I know that you feel like you've kind of stabilized. What what what is what what is keeping you doing stand up comedy, which you have described as having kind of a on and off relationship with the enjoyment of like, why are you why are you still doing it?
Maria Bamford: I don't like doing anything I don't love nothing seems like a great idea to me. I object at rest. I would like to stay at rest. I am in the story of Sisyphus. I am the rock that needs to be pushed up the hill. And then it falls back down on that poor man. I Yeah, it's not. I like doing it. I enjoy. I enjoy doing it once I get there, much like everything. But I have to get there first.
Luke Burbank: Well, just know that Portland is always here waiting for you with the finest drug ever to grace a comedy greenroom.
Maria Bamford: Did you see it?
Luke Burbank: No, I haven't. I've just heard it's legend.
Maria Bamford: Oh, my God. I'm so glad that it arrived.
Luke Burbank: Maria Bamford's new book is "Sure I'll Join Your Cult." And we're so happy to have her here with us online where. Maria, thank you so much.
Maria Bamford: Thank you for having me. Appreciate it.
Luke Burbank: Sometimes checking your email, let's be honest, can be a little stressful, but we want to change that over here at Live Wire. We want to make checking your email more joyful with our weekly newsletter, which is only good news. That's all we do over here at the Live Wire newsletter. We've got sneak peeks and deep dives on upcoming events, details on where you can join us live. New episode drops. And even more than that, getting this drop of joy. It's super easy to head over to live wire radio, dawg, and you click Keep in touch. It takes like 30 seconds, 25 if you're speedy. So help us help you have a little more fun in your inbox with the latest from the Live Wire newsletter. This is a Live Wire from PRX, Of course, Each week on the program we like to ask our listeners a question because Maria Bamford's book is called Sure I'll Join Your Cult. We wanted to know what the closest thing to a cult is that our listeners have joined, and maybe not like an actual cult that might be dangerous for you, but something you're a little too into, maybe for your own good. Elena has been collecting up those responses, and she has them now. What are you seeing?
Elena Passarello: Oh, I want to ask you about this one is from Ruby. The closest thing to a cult that Ruby has ever belonged to is the early 2000s punk scene in Portland, Oregon. That was before my time as a Pacific Northwesterner. Do you remember the punk scene 25 years ago?
Luke Burbank: You know, if we were at a party and I'd had a couple beers, I would say yes, because I like to try to show off and for some reason sometimes lie about things that don't matter. But being here in the sober light of day, doing Live Wire, I will tell you, I'm not that familiar with that scene, but I am familiar with scenes like it. I was really into a scene in Seattle at around the same time, which was a lot of musicians who had grown up in the church but were now out doing music that wasn't necessarily specifically kind of religious. There's a great band called Pedro The Lion. That was my buddy, my buddy Dave. He was in the same youth group I was in, in church. He was the worship leader of our little youth group. So I knew a lot of people in that scene and was very into that. So I can kind of identify with what Ruby is talking about, but maybe a different scene. Located a few hundred miles to the north.
Elena Passarello: Cool.
Luke Burbank: What's something else that almost was a sort of a cult that one of our listeners was into.
Elena Passarello: Is this like a punk band? Trina says the closest thing to a cult that Trina has ever belonged to is my high school marching band in 1983. And let me tell you, I was a I was an ORC dork. I played in the orchestra.
Luke Burbank: What did you play?
Elena Passarello: I played the upright bass.
Luke Burbank: Wow. This is the. I've known you for years. This is the first I'm learning of this.
Elena Passarello: Yeah, I played. I mean, I played in all the all states, and I loved the bass up to college, and. But we were always look at over at the marching band like, what is going on with y'all?
Luke Burbank: Like the amount of fun they're having or just how tight knit they were?
Elena Passarello: Yes, both. They were having a lot of fun. They were tight knit. There were a lot of rituals. They spent a lot more time together than the orchestra did or the chorus.
Luke Burbank: I can see that because first of all, you have to be totally coordinated, right? Like the physicality of all being out there marching together and then the musicality of it. And then you're in high school, so it's your total friend group. I could see it being. I'm surprised there aren't entire cities in America that are comprised of people that just did marching band together and then just never detached from each other.
Elena Passarello: I saw a video this week of the Notre Dame amazing marching band. They're doing a Top Gun themed halftime show and they form a plane and an aircraft carrier across the football field and one phalanx like joins the other. So it looks like Maverick is landing his his fancy Tom Cruise plane on the aircraft carrier. I mean, if I saw that like at a college football game, I'd be like, who wants to watch the rest of the sports? Because that is probably the most spectacular thing that I will see today.
Luke Burbank: Well, the thing is, Notre Dame famously has this message. When you come out of the locker room that says play like a champion today, I think what you just described is so much harder than football, probably like I think that that should be for the marching band. That's for the football team.
Elena Passarello: Play Highway to the Danger zone on the euphonium. Like a champion today. Yeah.
Luke Burbank: More. One more. One more thing that one of our listeners found themselves very involved in. It felt almost cultish.
Elena Passarello: Okay. There is one genre that has been frequently represented in these answers. The most, like the different different iterations of this particular art form has been listed as a cult multiple times in the answers. This one is from Bob, and Bob's cult was three words improv comedy troupe, comedian, standup improv. All of that world has was was very well-represented among our listeners for these audience cards.
Luke Burbank: If you think about it, you just get everyone believing that the answer is always yes. How is that not going to turn into some kind of cult like situation?
Elena Passarello: Yeah, I think that's exactly what they were doing in that wild, wild country. I think they were just saying yes to the Bhagwan, right. Like again and again.
Luke Burbank: Yes and to Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. I've had a lot of friends that have been very, very involved in in particularly the improv scene. And yeah, it is a real family and it becomes a real lifestyle. Also, my standup comedy Friends in New York, they were like, I don't want to call it a cult, but these people would like make it their goal to perform at five different open mics per night. And the logistical coordination it took to make that happen was crazy. And they would all like ride around the subway together and watch each other do their jokes and then, you know, like make fun of each other and tag their jokes. It was like a that was pretty culty, actually, now that I think of it.
Elena Passarello: All these things that we're describing also sound like they're full of love and camaraderie. So maybe, I don't know. I mean, maybe something about cults, especially with Maria's book, too, you know?
Luke Burbank: Right. Just make sure you end up in the right one, I guess. All right. Well, thank you to everyone who sent in their responses to this week's question. We actually have a question for next week's show that we'd love to hear your take on. Elena, what are we asking of our listeners for next week?
Elena Passarello: We would like for you to please tell us about your most ambitious DIY project.
Luke Burbank: I'm living in it.
Elena Passarello: Okay.
Luke Burbank: Currently.
Elena Passarello: You're zooming from it.
Luke Burbank: I am in the midst of the remodel from Heck. Hopefully the hopefully the the DIY projects for our listeners are going better than mine. You can send in your response to Twitter and Facebook. We're at Live Wire Radio, I guess it's called X now, whatever they're calling it at Live Wire Radio. Go ahead and send that in. All right. What else is coming up on next week's show? Well, we're going to be talking to renowned chef and author Kenji Lopez-Alt about his journey with food, which actually started out working on one of those Mongolian grill restaurants, you know, where they let you, like, fill your bowl up with all of the raw meat that you can eat, and then they throw it on a grill for you. Kenji has come a long way. These days, he's got a new book out. It's called "The Wok Recipes and Techniques." We're going to quiz him because he's like considered to be a food god. He's with The New York Times and all this stuff. We're going to quiz him on real infomercials for weird kitchen gadgets. Then we're going to hear some standup from the very funny Sarah Schaffer, who's out on tour right now. She's not just going to do standup. She's actually going to teach all of us as non comedians how to do comedy. And then we're going to wrap things up with a musical performance from the wonderful indie rock band Dehd. I want you to know the name Dehd does not indicate how the band sounds. They sound very lively, very alive. So make sure you tune in for next week's episode of Live Wire. We've got to take a very quick break here. I'm Luke Burbank, by the way. That's Elena Passarello over there. But don't go anywhere, because when we come back, we're going to hear some music from singer songwriter Isabeau Waia'u Walker that you do not want to miss. Stay with us. Welcome back to Live Wire from PRX. I'm Luke Burbank here with Elena Passarello. All right. Our musical guest this week worked as a high school teacher for over a decade. While she was also making music, she was also slowly amassing an impressive YouTube following, eventually retired from education early to play music and tour full time as a member of the band Y La Bamba, and also to record her first EP, Portland Monthly calls her music an over thinkers dream. If I know anything about our listeners, Elena sounds like it might be their dream. Her full length album, Body Highlights, is available now. This is Isabeau Waia'u Walker here on Live Wire. Welcome to the show.
Isabeau Waia'u Walker: Thanks for having me.
Luke Burbank: You grew up in Hawaii.
Isabeau Waia'u Walker: Yes, I am from Wailuku, Maui.
Luke Burbank: So this song that you're going to play for us, I understand there's like a bit of a story to it. How did this song come about?
Isabeau Waia'u Walker: This song is for my dad, which my dad's birthday is today.
Luke Burbank: Oh, right on.
Isabeau Waia'u Walker: Yeah, he's not here, but thanks for clapping for him. His name is Kaleo, and I wrote it for him. It's for him. But over time, it's definitely become a song for just local kids back home, for local families. Hawaii is the most isolated island chain in the world. And and this was just me wanting to make sure that people heard about and talked about kids like Kaleo. But my dad is a storyteller. And years ago I was home and I woke up and he's like, at the foot of the bed. He's like, I have something to tell you. Which is not extreme for my dad to be waiting, like in the wings, like I'm ready. And he proceeds to tell me a story that I kind of knew already about. Auntie Thulani, who was one of the aunties that took him in when he was younger, when he was three. Actually, the day that Hawaii declared statehood, my grandfather Leopold, was killed in a drunk driving accident. And that moment has always been like the shattering point for the Waia'us. So we knew that. We knew that that was a that was a very sensitive, tender spot. But he's like Auntie Thulani used to take me in during the summers when we were getting just moved around from household to household, and eventually with some of the settlement money, they sent my dad off to a preparatory academy on the big Island in hopes that it would make him less angry. But he just stood out in all the worst ways. And for Hawaiian graduations, it's a very big deal. You're giving leis up into the top of your head. It's a beautiful celebration. In some ways, it's probably heavy because it means a lot of these kids won't maybe have opportunities beyond like this is the last hurrah. So he was at the graduation. He invited my grandma, his mom and his brothers, and he said he this is what he's telling me. On the edge of the base. I invited Auntie Thulani along and I was it was really important for for him that she show up because she was a stabilizing force. But she was also someone that others looked to and respected. And he's like, if she she likes me, then that might say something about me. So she shows up the ceremony starting, and when it's done, when it's POW, everyone's like going to their family members to get their lei. And he sees Auntie Thulani walking his way and the school chaplain who had just wreaked havoc on my dad's time at the school, stepped in and tried to kind of like network with Auntie, like, Hey, my name. And and she was just really patient, like, I'm here for Kaleo and kept walking. And he's like, I just felt like a prince that she would bypass him and walk straight to the kid who just didn't really have a shot at the school. So this is for my dad. But I know that that circumstance is just always happening. Yeah. Thanks for listening to the whole story. This is like the only song that I don't like being misunderstood on everything else. I'm like, Yeah, I think it's for you.
Luke Burbank: What's the song called?
Isabeau Waia'u Walker: The Prince
Luke Burbank: All right, let's hear The Prince.
Isabeau Waia'u Walker:
Gather round the table
It’s where you hear about the one
Who showed up to save his reputation
X2
Lawyers sons
Judges sons
Futures locked down with sugar cane funds
Local boys on borrowed funds
Scales growing to guard themselves from everyone
E Aloha, E Aloha
Alaka’i a hanai mai
E Aloha, E Aloha
Alaka’i a hanai mai
Gather round the table
To hear about the rolling steel
Liquored up like a sad man
Plowing through like a madman
X2
Lawyers sons
Judges sons
Futures locked down with sugar cane funds
Local boys on borrowed funds
Scales growing to guard themselves from everyone
E Aloha, E Aloha
Alaka’i a hanai mai
E Aloha, E Aloha
Alaka’i a hanai mai
Gather round the table
Come hear about the weekends
Birthdays left and forgotten
X2
The toy Polynesian
At the mercy of the…
Lawyers sons
Judges sons
Futures locked down with sugar cane funds
Local boys on borrowed funds
Scales growing to guard themselves from everyone
FULL VERSE from Iesu No Ke Kahuhipa:
Iesu no ke Kahuhipa
Kahuhipa maika`i e
Eia makou ka `ohana
Ke ho`olohe a hahai
E aloha, e aloha
Alaka`i a hanai mai
E aloha, e aloha
Alaka`i a hanai mai
E Aloha, E Aloha
Alaka’i a hanai mai
E Aloha, E Aloha
Alaka’i a hanai mai
Luke Burbank: That was Isabeau Waia'u Walker here on Live Wire. Her latest album, Body Highlights, is available now. That is going to do it for this week's episode of Live Wire. A big thanks to our guests, Maria Bamford and Isabeau Waia'u Walker.
Elena Passarello: Laura Hadden is our executive producer. Heather de Michele is our executive director and our producer and editor is Melanie Sevcenko. Molly Pettit is our technical director and our House Sound is by D. Niel Blake. Tre Hester is our assistant editor and mixer. Our marketing and production manager is Karen Pan. Rosa Garcia is our operations associate. Jackie Ibarra is our production fellow. And Julian Mcgillvary is our intern. Our house band is Ethan Fox Tucker, Sam Tucker, Ayal Alves, and A. Walker Spring, who also composes our music. Special thanks this episode to Selena Seay-Reynolds.
Luke Burbank: Additional funding provided by the Regional Arts and Culture Council and the James F and Marion L Miller Foundation. Live Wire was created by Robin Tenenbaum and Kate Sokoloff this week. We'd like to thank members Kip Silverman of Portland, Oregon, and Kurt Steffensen of Seattle, Washington. For more information about our show or how you can listen to our podcast, head on over to Live Wire Radio dot org. I'm Luke Burbank for Elena Passarello and the whole Live Wire team. Thank you for listening and we will see you next week.
PRX.