Susan Maljan photo
Maria Bamford’s story is one of keeping at it until it works, no matter what comes in the way — anxiety, depression, attempted suicide and what has been dubbed “unwanted thoughts syndrome” (examples of which might be too disturbing for the average reader). But she has emerged as a stand-up comic who mirrors our own dysfunctional times, her stage persona a stunned version of herself that dives in and out of multiple characters and voices. Yet her jokes do not exist to invoke pity, they are just brutally honest.
When I talk to her over the phone two weeks before her trip to Santa Barbara to play the Lobero on Sunday, she’s “in the back room of a bookstore,” one of the places where she feels comfortable, surrounded by reading material.