Maria Bamford is a many-voiced and one-of-a-kind comedian who enjoyed a lot of fun time on the road with pals Patton Oswalt, Brian Posehn, and Zach Galifianakis for the Comedians of Comedy (tour, movie and tv series). Lately though, she’s taking a bit of a break from the rigors of the road and is enjoying lucrative and creatively flexible opportunities that many comedians are now enjoying on that newfangled internet thing (which, again, "we told you so"), most notably with her series on SuperDeluxe.

Once the Bastion got over its fangirly excitement at actually being on the phone with Miss Bamford, we got her to share stories about her early work as a sexy (if heavily padded) Star Trek character at the Mall of America, the delights of auditioning her own mother to play the role of…her own mother, and how cool it is to circumvent her friends’ annoyance with her trying out new jokes in the course of a conversation by paying them to listen.

You are coming here to Chicago for a Lakeshore Theater show pretty soon, is that right?

Yes, one show on May 18 and two on May 19. My friend Jackie Kashian is opening for me.

You are doing these Chicago shows in the middle of a bunch of shows in Los Angeles. How did that work out?

Well, I am trying to do a one-or-two gig show out of town sort of thing, instead of the usual club gig of five days, so I'm just sort of in that transition period, I don't know exactly what's going to happen, it seems like the only place I can gig for one or two days has been New York, and I'm going to try in Austin, Texas. A lot of clubs won't bring you in for just a few shows, because they're afraid there won't be enough money unless they have you for a whole week, and I'm trying to stay home more, because I just don't like being on the road for that long.

I would imagine that the travel gets to be exhausting after awhile, doesn't it?

Yeah, it's really fun and exciting and stuff like that, but then, I understand why people bring posses of friends on the road, or people who are fans, or whatever, because it's just a bummer, you know, I'm sure people who travel for work know - you're in a hotel room for weeks at a time, and as a comic, you're only with people for an hour a night, and you can hang out with the other comics during the day, but sometimes the hotel is hard to get to, and so far away that people can't hang out. So I'm just trying to do one or two day gigs and see how that works.

You are doing lots and lots of tv stuff, and trying to get more tv stuff, how's that going for you?

I have a new half hour Comedy Central special that aired last year, but lately I've being doing more internet stuff - it's exploding, as many have said. I've been doing webisodes for SuperDeluxe, which is a website under the Turner Network, and I've done nine episodes (there may be only six online right now), and they just hired me to do another ten episodes, and it pays really well, and it's been great. I've made these shows with Damon Jones - we have a special Mother's Day episode which will be featured on the front page of cnn.com all Mother's Day weekend, so there's that as well, and that's great, because then I can stay in town.

I read about that - so you actually, for your SuperDeluxe show, auditioned your mom to play the part of your mom?

Right, yeah, that's the idea of the episode. She's very funny, and it's very good. My parents are in town right now, so my mom got her first acting job. She was paid $300 - it's non-union.

How much creative freedom do you have with SuperDeluxe?

You can do whatever you want, whatever you want, which I think is - from what I've heard, I've never been on more than a stand up spot on a tv show - it's just me and the guys, and we send it in, and the producer, Dan Pasternak, will say, "well, hey, that was unclear," but nothing creatively editorial, and it's awesome.

Wow. So you can write whatever you want, and where do you shoot the episodes, then?

The premise of the original series is that I had a nervous breakdown and am living in my parents' attic in Duluth, Minnesota, trying to figure out what to do next (which is my deepest fear and yet my greatest wish), and so we just shot it at Damon's house in his guest bedroom, and now we're shooting in my apartment, and it's getting hot out here, so I'm not sure how that's going to work out. And we're not sure what we're going to do for the next ten episodes, they just okayed us for, and we're not sure exactly what we're going to do, but we're going to stay with the same show.

But it's so exciting, and they pay really well - we get a generous budget for each episode, and basically, that's split between me and Damon, and it takes us about a week to make them, so it's really great, and I know that a lot of artists are doing it, and it's really great, and there are lots of great shows on Super Deluxe. There's this guy, Brad Neely, out of Austin, Texas, who's just hilarious. He does an animated series, and it's really good.

Do you find that because of the online nature of this project, that you get more feedback from people, and more interaction with fans, because they can send you e-mail or talk on the message boards? Do you pay attention to that kind of stuff, or is that useful to you?

Yeah, the cool thing is, you can read all the comments, and that's the good thing and the terrifying thing, because there are the people who don't like it, who are like "I liked this better when it was called (whatever show they think it's like). That's the funny part about the internet, it really is a community. It's like heckling with live shows, except you can't see the person, so you can only assume that they're by themselves, and they're afraid, and they have low self-esteem and they've never created anything themselves, and so they feel the need to lash out at others.

Maybe the people who have the most negative comments are the people who actually are living in their parents' attics in Duluth, like in your show, and it hits a little too close to home.

Well, exactly, or, I don't know, maybe they're trying to help me, maybe that's what they're trying to do. But that's the interesting thing - I've been told by friends, because I can't google myself anymore, because everybody has - I can't imagine for someone who's really famous, they have anything you can ever think of written about them. And there are really passionate opinions: "They should really die," but maybe that's how media has always been. But it's interesting, because now it's more just individuals who - because I mean, I'm not really famous. I'm a J or Z-list celebrity, right above, maybe, your real estate agent who has his face on a bench in town, and there's probably even stuff written about that guy.

So can I ask you about your voiceover work? You've done a lot of that kind of stuff, which I have to think you're a really excellent choice for, because you're so versatile and flexible with voice stuff. Do you enjoy that sort of work?

Oh, I love it. Voiceover stuff is really fun. This morning I'm going to do "Word Girl," which is a series on PBS, it's really funny and well-written, it's by a company coming out of Boston called Soup To Nuts, they produce Doctor Katz and Home Movies, which is a show on the Cartoon Network, on Adult Swim, and they're brilliant. The way I get most of my voiceover work through comedy, not so much through auditioning - there are so many incredible voiceover artists. So when someone is looking for my kind of sense of humor, that's how I get hired.

Some of the the Comedians of Comedy episodes are about to be re-run on Comedy Central - is that sort of an over and done project, or is it sort of ongoing?

Patton Oswalt and Brian Posehn, who came up with the concept, kind of choose where to go on tour, and say, hey, who's available, who can come on this tour, and it's a cool way to travel with your friends, like I was saying, you're kind of alone on the road, and Comedians of Comedy is a way for us to travel together, and it's so fun. I don't know of any dates offhand, but I told those guys I'm kind of trying to stay in town, I'm a little burned out on travel right now, and I'd like to go out maybe once a month, but with those guys, it's often a seven to ten day thing, and it's fun, but I don't know if I'm getting to be an old lady, but I just want to sit on my couch, and look at Oprah magazines, and positively visualize things.

Can you tell me how you got started with comedy? You started doing stand up when you were about 19 or 20, right?

Yeah, I always enjoyed doing speeches and stuff in high school, and then, in Minneapolis, I started doing open mics, much like you have in Chicago - open mics in little theaters and stuff. I did that for about three years, and then I moved out to Los Angeles. I got a job doing Star Trek characters for Paramount Parks in this sort of touring show, and they said if I moved to L.A. maybe I could work for them. And I had a couple of really rough years trying to figure out - I didn't know how to make a living beyond my poor waitressing skills, which were okay for Minneapolis, but in L.A., people are more - they want the food, and I wasn't able to give it to them.

Tell me again - you were doing Star Trek characters in a live show?

It was silly, like those costumed character that wander around, and it started out sort of fancy, we did a stage show, like me and a Vulcan, and some Klingons, at the Mall of American in Minneapolis, and then it sort of ended up being a Taco Bell promotion, and other things. I was just the "space babe" character, in a tight costume and platform boots and a very padded bra, because that is a part of the Bajoran culture. And then I worked probably five or six years as a secretary once I figured out that I could type, and that was helpful.

You studied creative writing in college, do you think that helped you with the writing that goes into comedy?

Probably. I didn't enjoy college that much, I didn't do that well, I mean, I did okay. I think one reason I really liked stand up was that I - I wasn't the very best with criticism, you know the "Yeah, hm, I didn't like the way you..." But stand up is good that way, the only criticism you get is from the audience, and then you can kind of leave. Nobody gives you notes, and that sort of stuff, er, I suppose they could, but I would finish and shimmy away, and nobody could tell me what they thought of me. I sort of "got through" college. I'm sure it helped -I learned how to use a thesaurus.

Can you tell me a little about your writing process is like - how do you identify ideas that are going to work on stage, and how do you develop them, how do you work them out on stage, is there actual writing involved? Do you keep a notebook?

I have lots of notebooks flying around, and I have an idea, and it can take years, sometimes, for something to work, and sometimes they never work, but I keep chewing on them because I really like them. Here's a joke that I was joking about with a friend - we were driving around and we passed this place called the Golden Hen, and that's become a joke where I say "I've been thinking about having kids, and I've got their names picked out. They're going to be Donut and Golden Hen. And I know what you're saying, 'how do you know they're going to be girls?' But a mother knows." And I just keep telling them over and over again to my family and friends, and see if they laugh.

Sometimes it's just a like a concept, like sometimes people will ask "So what are you doing, what are you working on?" And I'm like "No, I'm done. I kind of finished early. I'm living in the gravy boat, with gravy dripping on top of me." Usually it's stuff I'm just passionate about, or something I think is funny, and it either becomes something, or it doesn't, and then there it is. I don't always write it out, or type it out, I never really enjoyed that, I just write down phrases, and then say them all out.

And now I have a friend who I pay to listen to my jokes, because she's a really good listener, and she thinks I'm hilarious, and she's also a comedian herself - a different kind of comedian, a sketch comic, and that's good because, sometimes I try to fit jokes into conversations, or ask my friends to listen to my jokes, and sometimes it's fun, but sometimes my friends are like "Can we just talk?" And I say "Yeah, but can I tell a joke about how we're talking?" But now I have that income, so I think, oh, it's nice to have someone I pay, who thinks I'm funny, to listen, and then I can practice doing them over and over again.

Well, Maria, I just want to thank you again for chatting with me, it's been so much fun, and I will be at one of the Lakeshore Theater shows, so I will do my best to hoot and holler for you from the audience.

Oh, I appreciate that so much, and you have to come and say hi, I would love to see you.

(Video of Maria with Patton Oswalt and Brian Posehn performing in Chicago in April 2006 courtesy of Dan Telfer.)

- Elizabeth McQuern