Mark StefanosWith a sparkle in her eye, and biting honesty that cuts to your core, Tamara Yajia is as magnetic a real-life showwoman as she is a hilarious writer.
We first saw her perform at her bizarre yet endearing one-woman show “Cumming of Age” back in 2015, and got better acquainted through the IRL-LOLs her relentless Twitter feed would summon. She’s written for Funny or Die, Clickhole, and on some of your favorite shows, like “Acapulco” and “This Fool.”
Her new book “Cry for Me, Argentina: My Life As a Failed Child Star,” available now, chronicles how she was born for the stage. Her earliest performances were in Argentina, where as a nine-year-old, she performed “Just Like a Prayer” at her Jewish community center and stripped down to near-nudity in front of a bunch of old rabbis, then was cast in the Argentine version of the Mickey Mouse Club only to have to decline, as her parents decided to emigrate to the U.S. (then shuttled her and her sister Nat back and forth between the two countries).
“Cry for Me, Argentina” is the perfect summer read — you’ll cry and laugh and crylaugh. At a recent conversation about it at Skylight Books with Mark Duplass, who also blurbbed her 2022 bathroom tome “Poems I Wrote While Taking a Shit,” she talked about how her zany family (“psychotic Jews, inheriting trauma and being depraved people”) made her the woman she is today — her poppers-selling gramps, her grandmas salami farts, and the El Pollo Loco knockoff her parents launched at mall food court when they came to America, Sexy Chicken.
Tamara Yajia and Mark Duplass at Skylight Books in Los Feliz, July, 2. (Ezequiel Aizenberg @ezeaizen)
“Last night, Dad called me and he was scared that Child Protective Services would come and deport them because of their treatment of me as a child,” she said about the release of her memoir. Dad should be proud — the book makes the case that if you have a deliriously deranged family you might turn out the better for it.
Tamara brims with life, and her superpower is that she’s unflinchingly, maybe compulsively, real when talking about it, almost like she was born with her embarrassment gene in reverse. “I made a New Year’s resolution to stop oversharing. It lasted half a conversation,” she overshared.
To get a sense of her simultaneously mischievous and confessional nature, just as they were about to start the Q&A portion of the reading, Tamara claimed she had questions planted in the audience like “Does your butt smell?”
We never got the answer, so let’s find out:
LA WEEKLY: Does your butt smell?
Tamara Yajia: Not right this moment.
You’ve said “nostalgia is a drug” — what bits of nostalgia are your go-to drugs?
Music from certain eras of my life, especially my childhood. If I put on something like ‘Rain’ by Madonna, I’m doing it to torture myself with nostalgia. Also smells — car exhaust, wet cement, bad perfume and cigarettes take me back to Buenos Aires.
What do you think would have happened if you never left Argentina?
I would have been famous at age 11. At that age I was cast in the Argentine version of the Mickey Mouse Club. It was a group of kids that wore primary colors and sang songs about how one must take care of the Earth. I had to turn the job down because we were about to immigrate to the U.S, but the show went on to become huge. Had I stayed on that path, I’d like to think that by age 20 I would have had a nervous breakdown because fame at a young age sucks ass. Or maybe I would have adjusted perfectly and become the Argentine Lady Gaga.
Why’d you decide to write a book about your family?
Because they are the most insane people I’ve ever met. The world needs to know that I had a grandfather who sold poppers and got kicked out of the Argentine army for putting pubic lice on his lieutenant’s food. Or that my 67-year-old mom sells pictures of her inflamed bunions on OnlyFans.
How did your family react when they found out you were writing a book about them?
They fucking loved it because they’re a bunch of narcissists lol.
What was the writing process like?
I can’t sit down to write for long periods of time. So I’d sit down for like 30 minutes every morning and slowly chip away at it. It took me two years. I’m like the slow and steady tortoise from that old fable or whatever.
What was your childhood like?
It was unstable as hell. My parents couldn’t decide where to live so we moved from Argentina to the United States, back to Argentina, and then back to the United States all in the span of eight years. I’d go from feeling safe and surrounded by family to feeling completely alone. When I was six we were poor and lived in a motel in West Hollywood where most of the other occupants were sex workers. I was a child but can still remember my mom having a breakdown after she found a blond pubic hair on the sheets.
Where’d you grow up?
Buenos Aires, Argentina. My great grandparents, grandparents and parents all lived in a neighborhood called Villa Crespo, which was founded in the late 1880s after a big shoe factory opened up, causing the town to become populated. It wasn’t the chicest neighborhood. It was predominantly Jewish. The buildings had chipped paint from weather damage and there were lots of clothes drying on racks on people’s balconies. The streets were cobblestone and didn’t get paved until I was like four. I loved it. I still love it. Once I took a super white boyfriend there on vacation and he told me it made him depressed. We broke up.
What was your first job?
Tagging baseball caps at the Quicksilver factory in Orange County. I was 15 and I was fired after a manager overheard me asking a coworker if she’d ever had anal sex. She was like 50 and she in fact had had anal sex. She told me “Lube was key.” I lasted five days at most.
What kind of person were you in high school?
I was incredibly depressed, especially the first few years. I had just returned to the U.S and was incredibly lonely and insecure. I thought I had to be slutty to fit in. I had cystic acne and bleached blond hair that was dry as hell.
What’s the craziest thing that’s happened to you?
I became friends with Brad Pitt for a while. I farted in front of him at a concert. It stunk and made his eyes water. He ran and hid behind a tree.
What’s your most niche interest?
I like to print out Wikipedia pages and collect them in a binder.
If you could play someone in a movie or show, who would you play?
Rodney Dangerfield
If someone could play you, who would it be?
Rodney Dangerfield
Favorite drama movie:
All About My Mother by Pedro Almodovar
Favorite Book:
“Tampa” by Alissa Nutting
Favorite cigarette brand:
Parliament Lights
Favorite swear word:
Cunt
Check out Tamara on Instagram, X, and buy her book “Cry for Me, Argentina: My Life As a Failed Child Star.”
