“I’m afraid of being reliant on anything. I don’t even drink coffee. So maybe, if anything, I would quit my mental patterns that keep me from trying things out of fear that I would rely on them.”
Photo-Illustration: Joe McKendry; Photo: Jerod Harris/Getty Images
The Maria Bamford Questionnaire is a series of 25 questions designed by the beloved comedian to unearth surprising truths about its respondents. In this edition, you’ll learn about the Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Lucy Dacuswhose companion album, Forever Is a Feeling: The Archivesis available to stream now. The album will be available on vinyl in December.
This is a trick question, because you’re not supposed to eat or drink anything before going to bed. But a few of my band and crew members did have a little secret tradition where we would eat ice-cream sandwiches before bed on tour, so that’s pretty cute. And my dad told me to take magnesium pills, so I’m going to start doing that.
When I was in high school — so just take this with a grain of high school — I had this thing called “posi-nihilism,” where it was like, Nothing matters and nothing has meaning, but that’s not so bad; that’s very freeing. We can do anything — or if we want to make our own meaning, great! That was my ethos as a teenager. So maybe something similar to that, or some sort of tree-root-systems worship.
Maybe collagen? Actually, I wouldn’t do this, so don’t reach out to me, collagen people. But I started taking it on a whim, and then when I stopped taking it, I really noticed, which let me know that it is real. I feel like my joints feel better when I take it, and all my friends I’ve told to take collagen are like, “I can’t believe this is real.”
I usually say that “The people in my life will die without peace.” That’s my fear. But also, more personally, when I’m in a bad way, every time I walk into a dark room, I think there’s going to be somebody waiting to kill me.
I rewrote one of my songs with a bunch of children yesterday. That was cute. It was part of that Celebrity Substitute Recess Therapy thing, where that sweet guy Julian (Shapiro-Barnum) gets people to hang out with kids. And now I’m afraid to play the song live again, because I fear I will say the new children’s lyrics. It was so cute and catchy.
I also hung out with a new group of friends, including Daniel Caesar, who just put out a new record that is really beautiful, Son of Spergy. It’s really, really gorgeous.
I read the little notice when I opened this Zoom that was like, “Can we collect your data?” So that’s the last thing. Before that, I read some texts from my friends. I’m in New York and I don’t live here, so I’m just trying to coordinate seeing a bunch of people who are in town. What I learned is Hayley Williams just left and my friend Jane just got back to town. So I’m going to try to hang with Jane.
Yesterday I was walking around Central Park, and there was this table of odds and ends, and I bought a wooden turtle.
Everything I thought of so far, I’m not willing to say. (Laughs.) Um, I caught the tail end of my friend getting pitched a company on the street by this guy who’s starting a credit-card business where you have to spend like $15K a month. And I’m like, How pointless and evil is that? That was stupid.
I hated every second I was in Las Vegas. I’ve been there once with my mom and my brother. We were alone on the Strip, and I just felt the depression descending upon me. There are other parts of Las Vegas I’ve heard that are cool to be at so maybe I would go there, but maybe I don’t need to go back to the Las Vegas Strip.
Thank God yes — and I’ve done this before, so I luckily feel as though I could do it again. Frankly, I kind of think that Julien would love if I stopped doing this and she had to support me. (Laughs.) So I think I’m kind of blessed and set with that.
I feel like I have to say Survivor. I don’t know if my back pain could handle it, but I’m curious how I would do it Survivor hrs Traitors. I’d want to do it without the cameras. I don’t want anyone to watch. I just want to know what it’s like to compete.
I think on SurvivorI would try to guess who I think should win, and then I would align with them and try to go as far as I could with them. Because then if I lose, at least the person I want to win could win. Hon TraitorsI think I’d just roll with the punches. It depends on what you know. If you know nothing, what can you do?
I want this thing where I’m constantly digging my nails into my fingers. I don’t notice that it’s happening, and then people have to tell me, “Stop that!” I have no idea how I would stop. It’s not that bad; it’s just a little tic that I have.
I’m afraid of being reliant on anything. I don’t even drink coffee. So maybe, if anything, I would quit my mental patterns that keep me from trying things out of fear that I would rely on them.
I want to pick someone who really knows music. Who’s the conductor of the LA Phil? I’ll look it up. (Looks it up.) Gustavo Dudamel. I don’t actually know anything about him, except that he is a very knowledgeable conductor. I just don’t actually know that much about music, so it would be cool to be in someone else’s brain instead.
There was a day that I ate so much sugar. That was messed up. I was self-punishing. I didn’t feel good for a full day after.
We were in Manhattan and went to this place, Donuts?which is a Japanese donut chain, and their first location out of Japan just opened in Manhattan. I actively wanted to try that. They have a PBJ donut, which was delicious. So that was on purpose. But then some sweet strangers bought us a bunch of sweets and pastries at a shop, so then I ate those. Then my friend took me on a surprise trip to the Russian Tea Room, which has a sandwich tower but also scones and macarons and chocolate. So it was really super-duper overboard that day.
I don’t think I’m jealous of any family members, except maybe my brother. He’s a sculptor in rural Tennessee, and that sounds like glitzy glamour, but it’s actually like putt-putt courses and roadside attractions. So he makes these giant things — and he should honestly be paid more — but he can think in this huge scale that I don’t think I think about.
I’ve never dyed my hair because when I was young I loved silver hair, and all the adults were like, “You just have to wait. It’s gonna happen.” I think I saw silver hair as valuable as silver jewelry; it was like silver hair and silver jewelry were basically gold. Now I have a ton of gray hairs coming in. My birth mother went gray at 25, and I’m on my way and I just want to watch ’em. But maybe when I’m older, when they’re all in, I’ll dye my hair.
I’d go where I have friends — probably Ireland or Scotland or France. Spain is awesome. And I will think about this, which is why I have an answer.
That’s a crazy question. Okay, this is kind of an unspecific thing, but some people just have a good sense of humor, and it protects them when I wish they would get their feelings hurt more. Like, people who I think deserve to be made fun of can kind of just laugh it off. I do think that’s a good principle. If you were a good person, and you had self-esteem and self-respect, and other people came to you, to just be like, “That doesn’t matter. That’s silly” — that’s a good scenario. But when it’s people who I don’t like, I’m just like, You shouldn’t laugh this off. You should be listening.
No, not my usual. I had some mushroom-labneh toast, and I’m drinking this crazy drink with apple-cider vinegar, turmeric, ginger, and cayenne. It’s honestly weird, but I’m trying to get healthy.
Mary Bamford. (Laughs.) Is that everyone’s answer to this? I think Maria Bamford is funny as hell.
There’s so much comedy that it’s not funny. I don’t go to comedy that often, but I would say 80 percent of the time I do, I am booing from the crowd. I think that it’s possible to be funny and not make fun of disabled people or non-white people or trans people. These comedians are lazy — like really fucking lazy, and it’s not funny. And I don’t like when people are like, “Oh, come on, have a good sense of humor.” I’m like, “No. Have a better sense of humor. This is stupid.”
I have a lot of bird-friendly trees in my backyard, and we get a lot of hummingbirds. So I sit on the back porch in the morning, and I watch the hummingbirds. And they sit, which is not super-common — like, we mostly see them flying around but they’ll just sit down. And my friend’s mom was like, “That means that they feel like they’re safe.” So I love sitting with a sitting hummingbird.
Something that I find pretty ugly is these single-use cups. I just think about how many a day are getting thrown away, or how at the end of the day in a city, you walk around and there are just trash cans full of these things. That and plastic water bottles. It’s gross.
I actually think about this a lot, because I think the actual good question is “How could we take care of ourselves without money?” Really, it’s, “What money would it take at this point to set up a way where food, water, and shelter are sustainable?” So I’m looking into this and trying to figure out how this is possible. I definitely couldn’t do it alone; it’d have to be some sort of cooperative situation, but I would love to figure out the answer to this. I’m sure people are like, “A billion dollars!” or “A hundred million dollars!” But I think it’s actually a smaller number than people would think.
Normal — like car accident, illness, heart attack. One of the usuals. I’m not special. It’ll probably be one of those regular-type things. I’m hoping I get old though. I would really like that.
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