Episode 692
Alexis Okeowo, Maria Bamford, and Pete Droge
Writer Alexis Okeowo (The New Yorker) untangles the themes of her new book Blessings and Disasters: A Story of Alabama, which weaves personal experience and the complex history of her home state; legendary comedian Maria Bamford takes the hot seat and answers her popular Vulture magazine questionnaire; and alt-folk rocker Pete Droge performs "You Called Me Kid" from his latest album Fade Away Blue.
Alexis Okeowo
Journalist and New Yorker Staff Writer
Alexis Okeowo is a staff writer at The New Yorker who has reported on conflict, human rights, and culture across Africa, as well as from Mexico and the American South. She is the author of A Moonless, Starless Sky: Ordinary Women and Men Fighting Extremism in Africa, which received the 2018 PEN Open Book Award. Her latest book, Blessings and Disasters: A Story of Alabama, is a blend of memoir, history, and reportage that weaves her Nigerian-immigrant family's story with Alabama's complex past and present, examining the state as a stage for America's most extreme experiments.
Maria Bamford
Stand-Up Comedian
Maria Bamford is a stand-up comedian, actor, and New York Times bestselling author with her memoir Sure, I'll Join Your Cult. Stephen Colbert called her his "favorite comedian on earth." The first female comic to have two half-hour Comedy Central Presents specials, Maria's acclaimed work includes her Netflix series Lady Dynamite and comedy specials Old Baby and Special Special. She's provided voices for Big Mouth, BoJack Horseman, Adventure Time, and Word Girl. Awarded Best Club Comic at the American Comedy Awards, Maria's writing has appeared in The New York Times and LA Weekly. She has five hours of stand-up available on iTunes, including her latest recording 20%. For her mental health advocacy, she's received The OCD Foundation's Illumination Award.
Pete Droge
Alternative Folk Rock Musician
Pete Droge gets personal on his captivating new album, Fade Away Blue, reflecting on the loss of his birth mother, who he missed meeting by months, and the remarkable journey that followed as he reunited with long-lost relatives, battled a mysterious illness, and discovered himself in the process. Recorded with Grammy-winning producer Paul Bryan (Aimee Mann), the collection is largely autobiographical, built on a series of dreamy, cinematic snapshots from throughout Droge’s life. The songs are bittersweet, balancing longing and gratitude in equal measure. The arrangements are warm and inviting, with a spotlight fixed firmly on Droge’s tender lyrics and understated delivery. The result is an album a lifetime in the making, a rich, revelatory sonic memoir that faces down doubt and despair with love, resilience, and commitment at every turn.
Show Notes
Best News
Elena’s story: “Scientists Reveal a Clever Trick to Help Win Rock, Paper, Scissors”
Luke’s story: “City program takes food donations to lower or eliminating fines for traffic violations and overdue books”
Alexis Okeowo
Alexis’ new book is Blessings and Disasters: A Story of Alabama.
Alexis mentions the Creek War as context for her interview of Stephanie Bryan, tribal chair of The Poarch Creek Indians.
Live Wire Listener Question
Describe something that you find super funny.
Maria Bamford
Read Maria’s memoir, Sure, I’ll Join Your Cult, and watch her star in the Netflix series Lady Dynamite.
Luke asks Maria some questions from her very own Vulture magazine questionnaire.
Pete Droge
Pete performs “You Called Me Kid” from his most recent album, Fade Away Blue.
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Elena Passarello: From PRX it's Live Wire!
Elena Passarello: This week, New Yorker writer Alexis Okeawo.
Alexis Okeowo: One thing I'm interested with this book was like spending time with people who are deeply southern, but who claim a state that often doesn't love them back.
Elena Passarello: Comedian Maria Bamford.
Maria Bamford: Scott has sometimes said, Ray, why'd you load the refrigerator like it's a prank show? 'Cause, it is.
Elena Passarello: With music from Pete Droge and our fabulous house band. I'm your announcer, Elena Passarello, and now the host of Live Wire, Luke Burbank.
Luke Burbank: Hey, thank you so much, Elena Passerello. Thanks to all of you for tuning in from all across America. We have a phenomenal show in store for you this week. We got to kick things off the way we always do with the best news we heard all week. This is our little reminder that there is still good news happening out there in the world. You just gotta look for it. And we found some. Elena, what is the best news that you heard all week?
Elena Passarello: Okay. I was joking with you before we started recording that this has a lot of science in it. And I don't know if I'm interpreting the science right. So for the dear researchers that have made this discovery, please forgive me if I paraphrase you incorrectly. But a team of cognitive neuroscientists led by a person named Denise Moerel just published a study in social cognitive and effective neuroscience, which is right on the back of my toilet.
Luke Burbank: I get home delivery.
Elena Passarello: They just released this study and some subsequent articles that people like me can read about basically how you can win at rock, paper, scissors.
Luke Burbank: This is useful information.
Elena Passarello: Well, unfortunately, the answer is you can win by being as random as possible, like really making sure that you stay random. And humans, which is the real conclusion of the study, are terrible at being random. They did this study by looking at 15,000 rock, paper, scissors games, which they conducted while they monitored the player's brain activity. And what they found is that rock, paper, scissors thrives on random outcomes, and humans consistently negatively affect that by thinking about the games that have happened in the past, by having general biases. Do you know if you were gonna pick rock, paper, or scissors, what's the first thing that you would pick, Luke?
Luke Burbank: Rock.
Elena Passarello: That is overwhelmingly the case. Rock is biased more than paper or scissors. It actually goes in the order of the game's title. Also, you're always wanting to predict your what your partner has done based on their past history. So all those things are clouding your mind. The good news is it makes you not a great rock, paper, scissors player, but it connects to the way that we work as collaborators, as coordinators and as creative people, as people who listen, who have empathy. So all of those things, not being random actually influences positively. So hooray. But for rock, paper, scissors, you should try to just clear your mind and goldfish brain that thing.
Luke Burbank: I have been doing the exact opposite, Elena, for the last probably thirty years. I always do rock and I always tell the person I'm gonna do rock.
Elena Passarello: Wow.
Luke Burbank: To get in their head and then they think maybe this is the time I'm not gonna do rock, but I always do rock.
Elena Passarello: You never do paper or scissors ever.
Luke Burbank: No. No, and the other person is now constantly trying to figure out, am I serious about the fact that I'm always going to do rock? The answer is yes, I am. I'm always going to do rock.
Elena Passarello: Man, I wish you were a part of that study. They just to see what your brain activity looks like when you're like always for the rock. Rock don't stop.
Luke Burbank: Are you familiar with a flat line? Believe that's what my brain looks like most of the time.
Elena Passarello: I like paper because it's easy. 'Cause it's like the closest thing to the clap that you do. You know, you know it's like, you know, you just slap, slap and then you just keep on slapping. I also like covering up the rock's hand with the paper.
Luke Burbank: That is a very satisfying sensation for the people who are doing paper against me because they're always winning.
Elena Passarello: Mm-hmm.
Luke Burbank: Because I'm always doing rock. Hey, the best news that I heard all week comes out of Oklahoma, a town called Chickashaw, where they have this really great program that they're running. If you owe money to the city for traffic fines, Elena, you can donate food and you can have up to a hundred dollars of your traffic fine forgiven by donating non perishable food to people that are experiencing food insecurity.
Elena Passarello: Cool.
Luke Burbank: Isn't that a great system? They also in December the local library will be launching something that they do, I guess, every year, which they allow you to donate non perishable food items to forgive your library fines as well.
Elena Passarello: Hmm. Oh, we should just do this for everything, you know, divorce alimony, you know, just give.
Luke Burbank: A hundred percent. This is such a great- I always say that it's it's very expensive to be poor. And I speak from some experience in my life that when you don't have a lot of money and you're racking up these fines, it can just be, you know that. I had like seven thousand dollars in parking tickets that were unpaid throughout my college. I lived in an area that didn't have any free parking. I worked in downtown Seattle and I went to the University of Washington, which didn't have any free parking. So it was just- if you opened my glove compartment of my 1985 Honda Civic, just unpaid parking tickets would just come spilling out. And it was really like life-ruining for me at the time. So I like to hear about municipalities kind of figuring out a way to help people who are behind the eight ball on this stuff get out from under it a little bit. All right. Taking care of folks in Chickashaw, Oklahoma. That is the best news that I heard all week. Let's get to the show. Our first guest is a contributing writer at The New Yorker, who's reported on conflict, human rights, and culture throughout the world and the U.S. She received a Penn Open Book Award back in 2018. Her latest book is Blessings and Disasters, a story of Alabama. It blends memoir, history, and reportage that weaves her Nigerian immigrant family's story with the complex past and present of the state of Alabama. This is Alexis Okewo, who joined us at the Alberta Rose Theatre in Portland, Oregon. Alexis, welcome to Live Wire.
Alexis Okeowo: Thank you for having me.
Luke Burbank: This is a really tremendous book and I think it's such an important book too because I have spent some time in Alabama in my life and what I've noted about it is that it is a place that a lot of people who have never been there have a lot of thoughts about.
Alexis Okeowo: This is true. This is true.
Luke Burbank: I mean, you grew up there. I mean what was what was it like for you or what has it been like for you to be from a place, Alabama, that, you know, people immediately start having thoughts about that they may or may not even know what they're talking about?
Alexis Okeowo: Yeah, I mean so Alabama in the deep South is a, is a place that's I think defined by its its extreme history, but it wasn't until I actually left the South that I realized how limited that conception is. I went to school in the Northeast in New Jersey at eighteen. And when I got there and told people where I was from, I either got one of two reactions, but they all started the same way, which was, Alexis, where are you from? I would say Alabama and I would get, whoa. And it would either be, Oh my God, what have you been through? Or wow, you're wearing shoes. You know, there is this-
Luke Burbank: Neither one is great.
Alexis Okeowo: Neither one was great and it was, it felt very divorced from what I felt was like a nuanced, complicated childhood like I'm sure a lot of people have, that was happy and but frustrating and interesting and all of the things.
Luke Burbank: What was it that brought your parents from Nigeria to Alabama in the first place?
Alexis Okeowo: Yeah, so they were both college age and they both ended up in Alabama to go, to go to college. They met at historically black university in Montgomery at the tail end of the civil rights movement. And my mom went to Alabama because her sister was already studying there. And my dad, because he was studying in Berkeley and wanted to go to a cheaper state school. He opened a directory of state schools and Alabama was one of the first on the list. So he said, I'll go. And then they ended up staying and making a life there and getting a home and a car and having kids and jobs.
Luke Burbank: What was it sort of like for you growing up in Alabama as the the child of folks who had immigrated from Nigeria, you know, sort of part of that world but also not part of it, I would imagine.
Alexis Okeowo: Yeah, I call it the sort of insider-outsider status, which was in so many ways my life was very Southern. I went to public school, church was the center of my social life, essential to my social life. But at the same time, my parents had West African friends who were also immigrants, and they kept their traditions alive through parties and gatherings, cooking. And so it was, you know, straddling these two worlds. I was a black Alabamian, but I was also had a different origin story. I was also Nigerian. And so as a kid, all I wanted to be was like Southern and Alabamian in that order, and it wasn't as easy. I was sort of straddling these worlds and looking back I now see how beneficial that was because being an outsider in a sense has fueled my whole life since in wanting to observe and report and write about things, but at the time it was tricky.
Luke Burbank: Right, because you've written about a lot of other places, places outside of the United States [Alexis: Yeah.] And have had really an amazing perspective on that in a way of of writing about the experiences of those people and I wonder if your childhood of maybe sometimes also feeling like slightly outside of things has impacted that.
Alexis Okeowo: Definitely. I think curiosity is has been the number one fuel of my career of like wanting to go report in Africa, wanting to report in Mexico is being curious about other people's lives. And that started back when I was in Alabama and being curious about my neighbors, or as they would call it, just nosy. But.
Luke Burbank: We are talking to Alexis Okeowo about her latest book, Blessings and Disasters, A Story of Alabama. More Live Wire in a moment. Stay with us. Welcome back to Live Wire from PRX. I'm Luke Burbank. That's Elena Passarello. We're at the Albertarose Theatre in Portland, Oregon this week, talking to Alexis Okeowo about her book, Blessings and Disasters. In this book you write, being first is the easiest kind of authority available when you have little other power. And telling someone to go back to where they came from is one of the foremost assertions of that authority. That's a- I think a point that I instinctively probably knew, but I hadn't really thought about it that way as to why that's so powerful for certain people. Why don't we talk a little bit about the actual first people that we know of in Alabama? [Alexis: Yeah.] Because it's not the people that are currently telling people to go back to where they came from.
Alexis Okeowo: Exactly, exactly. So one thing about this book is that I'm in a way trying to tell a story of Alabama that's bigger, more expansive, that's more nuanced, a portrait of the contemporary South. But I had to start at the beginning when it was Indian territory. And one thing I learned is that there is a band of Creek Indians who managed to stick around in Alabama past the Creek War, past Indian removal, and are now incredibly prosperous, billionaires. And I was interested in the Porch Creek. I spent time with their, their female chief. And this is a group that considers themselves, and they are more Alabamian, probably than anyone else, but also Indian, you know, native. But who have had a really tricky time sort of negotiating their place in Alabama.
Luke Burbank: Yeah, the the leader of the Porch Creek Indians when you spoke to was Stephanie Bryan. [Alexis: Yeah.] I went to her website, which is like a whole trip.
Alexis Okeowo: Yeah.
Luke Burbank: Because i it's you sort of see somebody who is, like you said, a descendant of the first people who were there and people who were mistreated as were native people all over this country, and yet who is so about faith and flag and freedom and being quoffed in a certain way. It's it it was a interesting thing to observe. Can you tell me about her a little bit?
Alexis Okeowo: Yeah, so she is she's a Native American tribal chief and also one of the most southern women I've ever met. You know. I think one thing I'm interested with this book was like talking, spending time with people who are deeply Southern, but who claim a state that often doesn't love them back, you know, and so and that's the case with Native Americans who are still at battle with Alabama over their sovereignty, over their right to operate gaming. And she's yeah, this genteel, soft spoken, Christian, football-loving Southern woman who is also, you know, building this casino empire for this tiny band of Creek Indians in Alabama. Yeah, and they're a key part of Alabama's story that is often left out.
Luke Burbank: Yeah. I think a lot of people from outside Alabama will immediately think about the Civil War and there's a another line that you have in the book which is you say what the Civil War left behind has always been more important to Alabama than what happened during it. What does that look like in Alabama?
Alexis Okeowo: Yeah, so there is there's an intense romanticization of the Confederacy, of the fight, as opposed to sort of what led to the war and what happened immediately after and also reconstruction. This time of really interesting liberal politics in Alabama, whether it was either from black politicians who helped construct a very liberal constitution or a populist movement in Alabama during that time as well, that all consider sort of fell away after about seven or so years.
Luke Burbank: I and you were saying in the book that for a lot of folks in Alabama, this origin story of like everything that doesn't work about Alabama is because of the way Alabama was mistreated in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, the way things were destroyed and and that it's a sort of it's something that you can just constantly point back to. To say, Well, that's why we have these problems.
Alexis Okeowo: Exactly. And it's something I saw discreetly when I went to a rally for a new Confederate memorial. This is when a lot of Confederate memorials were coming down in 2020.
Luke Burbank: Yeah, the word new Confederate memorial is kinda... Feels out of place.
Alexis Okeowo: It doesn't seem right. But if one thing the South will be, it'll it will be defiant. So during 2020 a bunch of monuments were coming down and the South was saying we will put new ones up. So I went to one a couple years before and it was just interesting hearing people still sort of, espouse these myths about the Civil War and about what it's done and how it's its importance and this narrative of redemption that has somehow come come after the Civil War.
Luke Burbank: We are talking to Alexis Okeowo about her book Blessings and Disasters, a story of Alabama. You say in the book that Alabama has a lot of the same stuff going on in it that is going on everywhere in America, but for some reason it sort of appears more obvious down here.
Alexis Okeowo: Yes. I mean I had a friend say basically right now the country's experiencing the Alabamification of itself. Which is kind of true. I mean I think we can now all relate to being from a place where we can't, a lot of us perhaps don't really feel proud of what our government is doing, no matter what your political leaning. You can't really trust your representatives, but it's still your home. So how do you reckon with being from a place that you maybe have a lot of love for but that you don't really want to claim?
Luke Burbank: Right. That's a really interesting way to put it because, you know, I think a lot of us feel very differently moving around the world outside of America now. Based on what's been going on in this country, in a way that you kinda wanna say, Yeah, we we recognize that there are a lot of problems with the place, but also like you said, it's our home and we also love it and hope it can be better and yet we also see what's wrong with it, you know. [Alexis: Exactly.] And like you're saying for a person like you to be from Alabama, you've been knowing about this for like a long time.
Alexis Okeowo: Exactly. And doing this made me realize it's all about the people who stay. You know, there was a very good reason for so many Alabamians to leave. But the progress that has come about has only been because of the people who have stayed. The black, the white, the native, the immigrant Alabamians who stick around when like progress is so whiplash. As soon as there is some it goes back again, you know?
Luke Burbank: You feature a woman in the book, I think her name is Mary Macdonald, and she didn't really seem like she was that interested in talking to you. But then you were interested in get- featuring her in the book, why was she so interesting to you?
Alexis Okeowo: Yeah, that's often the case. People don't want to talk to me. Yeah.
Luke Burbank: We're having a great time. We're happy you're here.
Alexis Okeowo: I wanted to talk to her because she also had such a close relationship to the land and to Alabama. She's the daughter of black civil rights activists in the black belt. And really had every reason to leave. A lot of her family has left during the Great Migration and other times because of racial violence and terror, but she stuck around because of family, because of land, because of home. And sort of became an accidental environmental activist along the way. And I was really just interested, yeah, and again, why do people stay in a place that others have written off? I left at eighteen. I do spend a lot of time there, but I get the privilege of leaving. And there is something I think special about staying in a place that is, as I said, is it's really not easy.
Luke Burbank: I'm wondering how writing this book and sort of getting all of your thoughts down, has that changed how you actually think of your growing up years and also just the state of Alabama? That you've actually very few people get to organize their disparate thoughts on a particular topic this way.
Alexis Okeowo: Yeah, especially because it is part memoir. I didn't start off that way. I thought l it's just about this cross section of Alabamians and their stories woven together. And then I thought, no, I have to put myself in it too for it to make sense. And when I'm- when I was doing that and sort of looking back at my memories and thinking what makes sense, that's when I realized more than ever what an impact Alabama had on me. Because I could sort of trace it and think about, oh, that moment in high school on the debate team, the speech and debate team, actually did influence me in a way, or that moment, like playing Oregon trail on the computer.
Luke Burbank: These by the way are the survivors. Here in this theater. You're looking at 'em.
Alexis Okeowo: Right, or that moment in the McDonald's in my hometown. You know, all of these things and it was like, oh whoa, home really does influence you. [Luke: Yeah.] Even if you leave.
Luke Burbank: Is, does writing this book mean that you can now retire from being like an unpaid Alabama explainer to people in the airport or just at parties or whatever? Because you know, again, it is a place that when you say you're from there, people, you know, people immediately perk up 'cause they have preconceived notions maybe. Now you can just say, if you're curious, there is a book I've created about this.
Alexis Okeowo: Yes, yes, exactly. I think I mostly wrote this for my eighteen year old self who who was extremely defensive when people would ask me where I was from and be shocked. Yeah, this this is the manifesto.
Luke Burbank: Well it's it's really illuminating and tremendously well written. Alexis Okeowo, thanks for coming on Live Wire. This is awesome.
Alexis Okeowo: Thank you. Thank you for having me.
That was Alexis Okeowo here on Live Wire. Her book Blessings and Disasters, a story of Alabama, is available right now. Live Wire is brought to you by Powell's Books, a Portland institution since 1971. Powells offers a selection of new and used books in stores and online at powells.com. I'm Luke Burbank here with Elena Passarello. Of course, each week on the show, we like to ask the Live Wire listeners a question: Elena, what did we ask them this week?
Elena Passarello: We asked the listeners to describe something that they find super funny.
Luke Burbank: That's fairly open ended. I like it.
Elena Passarello: Well, I think it comes from that twenty five questions thing that our guest Maria Bamford designed and-.
Luke Burbank: Oh right, of course.
Elena Passarello: A bunch of people like Judd Apatow and Zohran Mamdani had figured it out and that's one of the big questions that she asked.
Luke Burbank: I see. Okay. So we've now asked our listeners this question from the Maria Bamford questionnaire. And what did they tell us?
Elena Passarello: Okay, these are all amazing. Molly says my mom replies to random people on the threads app by just typing 'stop' because she thinks it's like a text message and that will unsubscribe her from someone's updates. But really she's just negging random folks on the internet.
Luke Burbank: I love that so much. My mom will like first of all, she will ask me when is Live Wire on the radio? Which I feel like is a knowable thing. And then sometimes she'll just like Facebook message me. Like, I don't messenger or whatever. Like I don't even go on Facebook, but instead of texting me, like my mom uses the most random forms of communication to try to talk to me.
Elena Passarello: She finds you on LinkedIn.
Luke Burbank: Seriously. What is something else funny that one of our listeners enjoys?
Elena Passarello: This is another little bit of online humor. Maeve was talking about Wikipedia burns, which is when the sort of seemingly encyclopedic and unbiased Wikipedia has like some some sick digs in it. And one of them is on comedian Dane Cook's page, it says commentators and a variety of media sources have characterized Dane Cook's humor as quote, unfunny.
Luke Burbank: You know what I'm always fascinated with Wikipedia is the the sort of parts of a Wikipedia page that were clearly written by the person in question. Like if you're reading about like the blue oyster cult and for some reason it gets really into like who was the tambourine player on the like eleventh track off of, you know, an album they put out in 2001. You know that was the tambourine player getting in there and making sure that they were getting their credit. All right, what's something else funny that our listeners enjoy?
Elena Passarello: Oh, this is so sweet. This is from Jay. Jay says the package delivery guy who did a little celebration dance after successfully fitting a huge box onto my porch. I watched it on my ring camera. He did a full shimmy after delivering the box and then moonwalked back to his truck. I think those guys know now that they're they're all like on candid camera all the time.
Luke Burbank: Yeah, I guess they must realize that at this point. I just love it when people go above and beyond. I have the nicest mail delivery person. Like she takes not only my mail delivery, but anything else that's been brought to my house like so seriously. Like I came back from a trip recently and she had moved all of the other packages, like the Amazon stuff, into like kind of my porch where it was more covered because she was worried about it.
Elena Passarello: Oh, that's wonderful.
Luke Burbank: No moonwalking, but like just excellent customer service from the United States Postal Service. So shout out to them. All right. Well thank you so much to everyone who answered our listener question. We really appreciate it. Live Wire is supported by Literary Arts, which presents the Moth Main Stage in Portland, December 9th. Curated true stories told live. Learn more at literary dash arts.org. Hey there, Seattle listeners. Did you know Live Wire is coming back to Benaroya Hall on Friday, December 5th? And we've got amazing guests like Lindy West, R. Eric Thomas, Mohanad Elshieky, and music from the Broody Brothers, plus a lot more. You can get your tickets right now at LiveWireadio.org, and we'll see you December 5th at Benaroya Hall. You're listening to Live Wire. Now, Stephen Colbert calls our next guest his favorite comedian on earth. Can you imagine if Stephen Colbert said something like that about you, Elena? I mean, I would be levitating with excitement. It's very high praise, but she deserves it. She starred in the Netflix series Lady Dynamite, as well as the documentary, Comedians of Comedy, and she's got a New York Times best-selling book, Sure, I'll Join Your Cult, to her credit. She's also a tireless champion for mental health advocacy and also pugs. By which we mean the dogs, pugs. She loves them. We are so excited that she is on our radio show this week. This is Maria Bamford, recorded live at the Fine Line in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Check it out.
Maria Bamford: Yes, thank you so much for having me here.
Luke Burbank: Maria, thank you so much for being on the show.
Maria Bamford: Thank you. Yeah, I'm not everybody's cup of tea, so apologies.
Luke Burbank: I feel like this crowd really gets you. What do you think?
Maria Bamford: Oh, listen. No, it's okay.
Luke Burbank: Being from Duluth, do you feel like you connect with with the Minnesota folks?
Maria Bamford: I I love Duluth. I go up there. My sister still lives up there. And so and she's yeah, so yeah.
Luke Burbank: Do you remember the time when they hired Telly Savalas to promote the town of Duluth?
Maria Bamford: Because he's, he had a lady friend there and I think had a child through her.
Luke Burbank: That was it.
Maria Bamford: Yes. Yeah. And you know who else dropped a dropped a baby in Duluth? Okay, who's who were the guys, the blonde guy and then the short guy with the and they would do pop songs together? Hall it oats.
Luke Burbank: Hall it oats.
Maria Bamford: Hall. Hall dropped a baby in Duluth.
Elena Passarello: Darryl Hall.
Maria Bamford: It just makes you feel house proud.
Luke Burbank: So I was I was looking at Vulture magazine and they have this really great feature called the Maria Bamford Questionnaire. [Maria: Yeah.] Where they ask this list of questions that you came up with. They present the questions to kind of famous or noteworthy people. And these questions are so probing and insightful and like disarming. And all the things that I'm incapable of doing as allegedly a professional interviewer, and you cracked the code, Bamford. How did you come up with this list of questions?
Maria Bamford: They just asked me and I wro- I typed it in.
Luke Burbank: It makes you feel worse.
Maria Bamford: Yeah, no, no, I'm so so sorry. I didn't I I didn't know that they were gonna be using it for for different people. I didn't know what they're gonna use it for.
Luke Burbank: They had Zohran Mamdani do it.
Maria Bamford: I know, I know. I was like, Oh no. I should have asked much more than I than I did, but oh well.
Luke Burbank: They're great. They're very revealing. I mean, you know, of the person who's answering them, but not in a way that's nosy or pushy. Well, a couple are maybe a little nosy. I was wondering, would you be okay with us asking you [Maria: Yes, yes, yes.] some of the Maria Bamford questionnaire? Okay, let's just start at the very beginning. What do you like to eat or drink right before bed?
Maria Bamford: Oh my gosh. No, I wanna say just a small cup of skim milk and a lightly toasted piece of bread. Let's get honest. I make chocolate chip cookies in the size of an asteroid. And they're very thick and then I kinda cool them, they're chilled. And then I put that, I put that in the fridge and I bring that to bed. Yeah, and they're crumbs. It's gross. It's gross. And then I slowly gnaw at that. As I as I read and then pass out to Saraquel.
Luke Burbank: When you and your husband first started, you know, having sleepovers and things like that. [Maria: Yes.] Were you, did you have the sort of same amount of, let's just say, like, cleanliness as it comes to like crumbs and things? Because that can be a problem in a relationship.
Maria Bamford: We were both messy, so but I think we both know how to clean, we know what it looks like. I've stayed at a Hampton Inn, okay? Not blind. And yeah, so about the same amount of mess, yes, yeah. As Scott has sometimes said, Maria, why'd you load the refrigerator like it's a prank show. Because it is.
Luke Burbank: What- question number two on the Maria Bamford questionnaire. What would your religion be like if you could make up your own?
Maria Bamford: Well, it'd have a low bar. Or just like everybody in any even if you had like like, I go to a lot of twelve step groups, which you're not supposed to say.
Luke Burbank: Unless you're going to all of them.
Maria Bamford: But yeah, then you just nobody knows which one. But but sometimes in those groups, sometimes they'll kick out someone who has a mental health issue who's being a disruptive. And I just said, no, man, that's what that's who needs to be here, or like that's when you need people, is when I mean, I don't, of course there must be, I guess, some boundary to that, but that's I think that's what I would hope is that yeah, that it'd be welcoming to everybody. But then maybe have metal detectors. Just like, just like here. Just like here, here at the Fine Line. Well, everybody in, but let's pat you down.
Luke Burbank: What just happened in your life? This is question number five from the Maria Bamford: questionnaire, and I think a really good question.
Maria Bamford: Well I just I just moved.
Luke Burbank: I'm so sorry to hear about your house.
Maria Bamford: Yeah, yeah, oh no. It's you know, the earth has a little message for us. Please leave. Would you please get out of my my earth? Yeah, so living apartment living and which is actually very nice. Moved into a a complex where it's a lot of Latina grandmas and they appreciate my asteroid cookies.
Luke Burbank: What is the last thing that you bought used? This is again this is off of the Maria Bamford: questionnaire. As a a questioner myself, semi professionally, I need to be clarified. These are Maria's own questions. I don't wanna take, I'm not trying to take credit for them, they're good questions.
Maria Bamford: What did I get? Oh, I was gonna use books, so like the internet for dummies. I get 'em late in the game. I go, what if this is something would be helpful at this point?
Luke Burbank: When I was a Cub reporter for NPR, I lived in LA and I got a call. They said, Do you want to the person who covers Congress is about to go out on maternity leave. Do you want to go cover Congress? And I said, Absolutely. And they said, Do you know much about it? I go, Absolutely. As I was driving to the Barnes and Noble in Pasadena to buy Congress for Dummies. One hundred percent.
Maria Bamford: It is so hel- any for dummies, if you've ever read. Now one of my favorite books of all time is Personal Finance for Dummies. I'm a bit of a nerd. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm just blathering about I know nothing about personal finance. But this man, Eric Tyson, who wrote it, is such a dear kind person when he's talking about stuff that's quite frightening. Money's very very emotional to people. That's why all people who work in banking have a flat affect. You earned about the same amount this year. Ooh you dare say what actually happened!
Luke Burbank: Question number eleven from the Maria Bamford Questionnaire. What TV show or movie would you want to play a part in and what part would it be?
Maria Bamford: I just want to do a slow bleed. It's already happening. I've put on 25 pounds. I'm almost my mother. And if I could just be my mother for the rest of my life. And currently my mother is now in heaven. Now guess where what heaven is like. Guess, guess, yo, yo, yo, yo, guess.
Audience: Like, like the Minnesota.
Maria Bamford: Yes. Very close, very close. But it is not. It is the Delta Sky Club in Atlanta.
Elena Passarello: Yeah.
Maria Bamford: Which means it's a little crowded and hot and there's far too many broccoli selections, but it's okay. And you think, Well, I'm glad I got in.
Luke Burbank: That's the that's the T V show you would play a part in?
Maria Bamford: I just I just wanna come on with one line an episode and go, oh. That's it. I don't have to-
Luke Burbank: I do feel like that's the the the kind of airport lounge world is underexplored as a television premise. [Maria: Oh, it's so gross.] It's the new love boat. And it's weird because I have happened to have been in a few different ones and it's like they're definitely getting the kind of weird food stuff from the same place.
Maria Bamford: Yeah, well and it like it's supposed to be fancy, but then it's a smaller space than the actual surrounding airport. [Luke: Right.] So you're smelling some very deep farts. Like it is like you know, leather bound farts that of a man or woman who's had a couple of gin and tonics.
Luke Burbank: But by the way, well gin because it's extra if you want anything good.
Maria Bamford: Oh yeah, yeah.
Luke Burbank: That's the thing like, what if you had less going on than in the airport but I could offer you very, very bad wine?
Maria Bamford: Well, and they won't let you lay down in the club. I, like a hobo, tried to lay down in the club because I was like, I'm tie-tie. Wanna lay down. They said, no, no, no, little girl. No, no, no. You go out with the hordes and you lay down where you wish. That's why, that's why I like to play lay down. I lay down by the gate. Set up camp.
Luke Burbank: What's something you regret doing within the past week besides agreeing to be on Live Wire?
Maria Bamford: Well, I have a dear friend who sometimes I expect to act differently. And when I say that, I say, sometimes this friend cannot be affirming. You know when you have something that you're excited about? And you say, Oh well guess what? I'm gonna perhaps maybe something I'm gonna be on a radio show. And then your friend maybe says, I mean, is it, what is it on? Have I even heard of it? [Luke: That one hurts.] Oh no, no. I know. Well I was just asking 'cause I was want to be supportive and find out where where it is. You put yourself out there and you show your little pink belly. And you want a tummy rub. You want a little tummy rub. And then what happens is the person goes, oh, oh. That's weird. I mean, if you can't handle just me being critical, how could you even handle being in show business? I don't even know who this woman is. But she's in my head 24/7.
Luke Burbank: How many colors has your hair been? Question sixteen on the Maria Bamford questionnaire.
Maria Bamford: 1, 2, 3, 4. I think four and then I've also had it shaved. Had it shaved when I was in Minneapolis I was shaved. I had a shaved head and I would busk on the street for change while playing a musical instrument, the violin, poorly.
Luke Burbank: You busked here in Minneapolis.
Maria Bamford: Oh yes, yes. During a, not during the winter, but I was not, I did not have an amp. It was poorly thought out and I was shy, so I'd often do it in a parking structure.
Luke Burbank: Well, we're very glad that you've overcome your shyness and become the Maria Bamford: that we all know and love. Maria Bamford, thank you so much for being on Live Wire. That was the inimitable Maria Bamford. Recorded live at the Fine Line in Minneapolis, Minnesota. You can check out what she is up to at MariaBamford.com. You're tuned in to Live Wire from PRX. We've got to take a very quick break, but stay where you are. When we return, we will talk to Seattle indie rocker Pete Droge. More Live Wire coming your way in just a moment. Welcome back to Live Wire. Okay, before we get to this week's musical guest, Pete Droge, a little preview of what we are doing on the show. Next week we're gonna be talking to Ginny Hogan about her path to comedy. You know this, Elena, it's one of those classic stories. A data scientist at a mayonnaise company starts blogging about her online dates and now has a book deal. The book is I'm More Dateable than a Plate of Refried Beans. Which Vulture named one of the top comedy books of its year. Then we're going to hear from Oregon's one-time poet laureate Anis Mojgani. His poems have literally brought me to tears when we recorded them. I have to really like steal myself for when Anis is on the show because it's so emotionally powerful. And then we're gonna get some music from one of our favorites. And he became actually a lot of folks' favorite when he was on America's Got Talent. He also sings with Pink Martini. Jimmie Herrod will be providing us some music. So tune in to next week's episode of Live Wire. In this week's episode of the show, our musical guest burst onto the alternative music scene in the 1990s, hailing from my hometown of Seattle. And he has spent the intervening three decades proving that that initial attention was not a fluke. He's been crafting albums that blend root-sy Americana with power pop hooks and literary wit. His latest album is Fade Away Blue. This is Pete Droge, live at the Alberta Rose Theatre in Portland, Oregon. Pete, welcome to the show. I'm so happy to have you on. I've been a fan of yours for years and years.
Pete Droge: Same to you.
Luke Burbank: Can we talk about this latest album, Fade Away Blue? The songs are very personal, at least some of them, about, you know, people in your lives and people in your lives who've passed away. What was the story?
Pete Droge: Well, the cornerstone songs of the album deal with different aspects of my experience as an adoptee. And those both speak to an experience that I had where around the time I turned 40, did a lot of soul searching and looking within. And eventually kind of came upon my adoption. I thought, hmm, maybe that's a thing. Is that a thing? And I found out it is a thing. [Luke: Yeah.] Being an adoptee, and there's a woman named Nancy Verrier who wrote a a book that really I think changed the way a lot of people thought about adoption. It was called The Primal Wound. And her theory is that that separation from the birth mother is experienced as trauma and then that trauma sort of informs your development as a young child.
Luke Burbank: But also when you're adopted, because I never met my biological father, but I have a great father who raised me. And there is this feeling that if you're too hung up on this this person or persons that are missing from your life, it's like insulting or non appreciative to the people who raised you.
Pete Droge: You know, for me, I had no desire to search until I hit midlife. I kind of felt like yeah, I'll sing a song about my my parents, Jan and Arnie Droge here in a minute. And you'll see that that's a song of total love and appreciation. So I just felt so lucky and I had a wonderful situation with my folks. So I really wasn't interested. But then when I got to kind of midlife and I started to ask these questions like, what's up with this thing, this anxiety and this depression and all that substance abuse I dealt with when I was younger. So as I started to kind of unravel that stuff, that's when I kind of started to look into it. And then I decided that I wanted to search for my birth mother. That kind of became what I was fixated on. And when I searched, I was born here in Eugene, and they have open adoption records in Oregon. So I was able to get the pre-adoption birth record, and when we googled the name on the form, she had passed away just months before we found her obituary.
Luke Burbank: Wow.
Pete Droge: And so I'm not gonna sing those songs. There's a couple songs on the record I wanted to keep it uplifting tonight. And then the rest of the songs are kind of have an autobiographical thread that kind of run through them. We sort of drop into different periods of my life.
Luke Burbank: You're also gonna be re-releasing this album you put out in the 90's, Necktie Second, which is a much loved album. And I'm kinda wondering, I'm thinking about that album when it came out, and I was like a music obsessed kid in Seattle listening to KCMU and like just like absorbing everything musical about the town, including your stuff. And I always sort of perceived you to be somebody who was kind of part of the scene but also a little bit outside the scene. Like you kinda had your own look and vibe and like what you were doing. I mean you're well respected by the people that were, you know, weren't you like. You make pizza with one of the guys from Pearl Jam or something?
Pete Droge: Yeah, yeah. Mike McCready and I worked at Piecora's piece of restaurants together.
Luke Burbank: Were you, was it ever, like did you ever feel the urge or the temptation I guess to kind of become more like some of that Seattle scene because like everybody was just getting these crazy record contracts.
Pete Droge: I never, no. I was never tempted. I was pretty hell bent. So I never, I mean I wore the flannel. I fit that mold. I'd like to think I was the first. I can go back to pictures of me in the fourth grade, I was sporting the flannel. So like I was the pioneer of the flannel, I think they all got it from me.
Luke Burbank: That's, I'll co-sign that.
Pete Droge: But musically, no. I was pretty hell bent. My first band that played a lot of gigs around Seattle was called Ramadillo. And we were like alt country before the term existed. So I was really into that. And yeah, once I was ready to make a record, actually, speaking of Mike McCready, he kind of gave me my break and show business. So after Pearl Jam exploded, he he financed a demo for me. And then that demo found its way into the hands of their producer for their second album, a guy named Brendan O'Brien, who's like a superstar producer. You know, I had a vision for I want what I wanted, and it was more in the singer-songwriter, you know, kind of classic. I guess, you know, now they call it Americana, but we didn't have those words back then. But yeah. So to answer your question, never tempted to like, you know, get a big muff pedal and and enter the good the G-word.
Luke Burbank: Yeah, there were enough people doing that. I'm glad that we got the Pete Droge that we got. Okay, so can we hear a song?
Pete Droge: Yeah, yeah. This is the lead track on the album. So I spoke about, you know, the cornerstone songs deal with the adoption and we wanted to lead the album with a song that speaks to my love and appreciation for Jan and Arnie Droge. This is called You Called Me Kid.
[Pete Droge: performs You Called Me Kid]
Pete Droge: Thank you.
Luke Burbank: That was Pete Droge, recorded live at the Alberta Rose Theatre. You can check out his album, Fade Away Blue, wherever you get your music. You can also keep up with Pete on Substack. It's PeteDroge.substack.com. All right, that's gonna do it for this week's episode of Live Wire. A huge thanks to our guests, Alexis Okeowo, Maria Bamford, and Pete Droge.
Elena Passarello: Laura Hadden is our executive producer, Heather de Michelle is our executive director, and our producer and editor is Melanie Sevcenko. Eben Hoffer is our technical director, and Tre Hester is our assistant editor.
Luke Burbank: Valentine Keck is our operations manager, and Ashley Park is our marketing manager. Tiffany Nguyen is our intern. Our house sound is by D. Neil Blake, Steffan Soulak, and our house band is Danny Aley, Ethan Fox Tucker, Ayal Alves, Sam Pinkerton, and A. Walker Spring, who also composes our music. This show was mixed by Eben Hoffer and Tre Hester.
Elena Passarello: Additional funding provided by the Oregon Arts Commission, a state agency funded by the State of Oregon and the National Endowment for the Arts. Live Wire was created by Robyn Tenenbaum and Kate Sokoloff. This week we'd like to thank member Sarah Wille of Maplewood, Minnesota, and Rob Kappa of Milwaukee, Oregon.
Luke Burbank: For more information about our show or how you can listen to our podcast, head on over to livewireradio.org. I'm Luke Burbank for Elena Passarello. And the whole Live Wire crew, thank you for listening, and we will see you next week.
PRX.
Staff Credits
Laura Hadden is our Executive Producer, Heather de Michele is our Executive Director, and our Producer and Editor is Melanie Sevcenko. Eben Hoffer is our Technical Director, and Tré Hester is our Assistant Editor. Our house sound is by D. Neil Blake and Steffan Soulak. Valentine Keck is our Operations Manager, Ashley Park is our Marketing Manager, and Tiffany Nguyen is our Intern. Our house band is Danny Aley, Ethan Fox Tucker, Ayal Alves, Sam Pinkerton, and A. Walker Spring, who also composes our music. This show was mixed by Eben Hoffer and Tré Hester. Additional funding provided by the Oregon Arts Commission, a state agency funded by the State of Oregon and the National Endowment for the Arts. Live Wire was created by Robyn Tenenbaum and Kate Sokoloff. This week, we'd like to thank members Sarah Wille of Maplewood, MN, and Rob Kappa of Milwaukee, OR. Again, a special thanks to Marnie Gamble and the fine folks at the Fine Line in Minneapolis, as well as photographer Darin Kamnetz, for help with Maria Bamford’s appearance.
