Comedian Liz Stewart (24:56)
In elementary school, I was constantly accused of ruining class photos because I was making a weird face. And I'd always be like, I'm not making a weird face, that's just my face. But apparently like years later I would learn that whenever you take a photo, you should not look like you're excited to be there. Don't do a wide grin because it just makes you horizontal, makes you look a little heavy. You want to drop your chin, raise your eyes and look like you're too cool to be there. And that's something that I've never been able to master because I'm just not good at being cool or apathetic. I always have an opinion about everything. Like, this is how cool I was when I was in school. When I was in third grade, I started a petition to boycott recess until nuclear power was no longer considered to be a viable solution to the energy cris. I got one signature. Their name was recess is cool. You have no friends. I think it was this girl named Brandy. She was one of those people who spelt it weird. She was Brandy with an I. I think it was her who put it in there. And you know what? She wasn't wrong about me not having friends at school. I didn't have too many friends, but I had good friends at the house. I had George Carlin and Richard Pryor, and we would hang out every night when I'd listen to their records. And I didn't think that anybody in that class would be able to offer me anything more important than a dissertation on the seven dirty words that you can't say on television, you know, so I'm not really missing anything, you know, Plus, I would never have even have been in the same class as those people if they had offered an AP US History class. And they weren't doing that. You know, they were like mouth breathers, you know, so we shouldn't have been in the same class in the first place. And sure, it stung a little to be told that I didn't have any friends, but, you know, my theory on that was that all of these, like, 12 year olds wearing makeup. 12 and third grade. Oh, well, They didn't graduate on is what I'm saying. But all of these, like, kids running around wearing eyeliner, they're all going to be pregnant by the time that they are 12, you know, or 15. So what's the loss? No friends, no problem. You know, and I had bigger things on the horizon, you know, while they were out, you know, learning about beauty tips and how to be a contributing member to a social unit, I. I was fast tracking myself to becoming the world's first female President of the United States. Mm. Or an actor. Or an actor. Either one. I was keeping my options open. Um, some of you guys are probably thinking that's an assertion. I don't know. You, um, uh, some of you guys are probably thinking, wow, she's got it together. How can I get some of that? Well, hold on, tiger. This level of freaky is not something that just happens overnight. It takes years. As well as both nurture and nature working in tandem to culminate what you see before, you see, my father was a sociopath. I say was because he said, ha ha. Who wins now? I do. My mother is a paranoid schizophrenic genetic lottery winner. A table for one. But don't worry, I don't have either one of these mental afflictions. Although I really sincerely wish on occasion that I could be a sociopath. I really, really want to be. Because if I didn't have empathy, I would totally be further along in Hollywood. I would just step on the necks of anyone who got in my way. Regardless, just suck up to people who could do something for me. You know, I'd have the world by the balls. But I bring this up because of course I'm gonna come off a little freaky every now and then when those are my role models, right? Even in a family of freaks, I was still the freaky one. I was labeled as autistic because I would rarely speak. Turns out I wasn't autistic. I just didn't have shit to say to those people. My father was South African and the only thing he hated more than black people was disobedient women. Which is why I was left out of the will. It's fine. It's fine. Because all of the cash was from sales of blood diamonds. So I'm probably better off without it. My parents didn't divorced when I, at the age of two, caught my father breaking my mom's back, right? And I physically attacked him. I was like 2 years old, like 35 pounds. And they divorced. And because he held a knife to my throat and I'm like, fucking pussy. Who needs a fucking knife for a two year old, right? Like sincerely, you know, so it's like my earliest memory, which might have something to do with why I had a difficult time making deep, meaningful connections with men. Maybe might have something to do with it. I'm not a doctor. I have played a doctor on TV. It was on. I didn't know I was pregnant. 2009 Episode 6 Look It up so I'm no doctor, but I might have something to do with it. And I also ended up working in a strip club as a waitress for two years. For two years I made so much fucking bank. So we ended up living with my mother, who of course is paranoid schizophrenic. And she. She would tell us that she was an employee of the government. She worked for the government as a spy. And that if we back talked, her snipers positioned on the neighbor's roof would shoot us in the head. And I like to call people's bullshit. So I'd always be like, well, tell your men to take the shot. And then I'd lean out the window and be like, take the shot. They never took the shot because they weren't there. So my mother was raised in the Assemblies of God Church. My grandparents were missionaries for the Assemblies of God Church. Sounds great on paper, but if you don't convert, you don't get the food. So wipe those flies from your eyes and find Jesus, or nobody eats. But the Assemblies of God church is a church that makes the snake handlers look like reasonable people. And it's perfect for paranoid schizophrenics because her hallucinations were hailed as visions. So whenever she would see, you know, demons in the living room or hear angels who told her that I was out breaking curfew, it was completely and totally a normal occurrence for these people. Like, nobody said, hey, hold on a minute. You're seeing shit. Nobody said that. And I myself, I had received three baptisms and two exorcisms. It's true. It's true. I was never actually possessed by the devil, but it was Texas, and I'm a woman with an opinion, so that needs to be stopped immediately. One day, when I was arguing with my mother about going on a field trip, she decided that I needed an exorcism, and she was gonna do it herself. She's a DIY kind of gal. I was 15, and we got into a big old tussle, and she tried to kill me. I know it sounds. She had pinned me and was sitting on my chest and reciting the Lord's Prayer, rebuking the devil out of me. Both my parents have tried to kill me is what I'm saying, at some point. And this was kind of my breaking point because she had a towel over my face and was like, you know, devil be out, you know, and all of the rest of the Lord's Prayer. I don't think the devil be out is actually part of it, but you get my point. So I never, ever hit her back. And I boxed for eight years when I was a kid because I wanted to be a ninja. And I. And I know boxing isn't part of ninjutsu, but, you know, I did what I could with what I had, and I never, ever hit her back. And my mom was so fucking abusive to, like, all of us in really, every way. And I said, I'm not going to allow this, and you're not going to kill me. So I pulled my legs over her head Pulled her back and jumped up and was like, all right, you're not allowed to touch me ever. And none of the, none of my sisters ever. And she promptly grabbed my hair and tried to pull me down again. And I said, don't make me hurt you. And she didn't let go. So I hit her. And then I said, don't make me do it again. And she wouldn't let go and I hit her again. And then she bit me on the face. Like, who bites somebody on the fucking face, man? Like, who kind. Who does that, right? So I, I hooked her in the temple. And I found out two things that day. One, nobody has the right to put their hands on you, especially not someone. Who's supposed to love you. And two, if you hit somebody right in the temple, they will fucking drop. And like, it's like magic. And she promptly fell to the ground and started to convulse. And I called 911, said, hey, you need to send an ambulance. Mama tried to kill me. It's cool. She's twitching on the second floor bathroom. So I'm leaving the door open, taking my little sister, I'm taking the dog and we're getting the fuck out of here. They took her to the hospital. I wasn't there for that. I had fled and went on an indefinite stay of like, hey, can I sleep on your couch for like, maybe forever. I'm also bringing my little sister, she's a thief and the dog is not house trained. So it's win, win, win for everybody. So mom, after her stay in the hospital, she was evaluated and committed to a mental institution. I was like, oh, you know how long I've been trying to do this? I would have hooked her in the temple when I was five. And it was actually kind of validation because all this time I thought I was the crazy one. Like, I thought I was what was wrong. Turns out it was everybody else. So later I would enter the food service industry and support myself, get an apartment, put myself through college and come out here to LA with all you guys who are freaks yourselves, you know, I mean, LA is so great. It's like this melting pot of like fucked up people, you know, like everybody in here, at least one third of you got touched in your bathing suit area by somebody who shouldn't have been touching you, man. And I love you for it. And it's great because all this time I felt so like freakish and like I never. This needs more laughs. Like I would never have a home. And by not being normal and by Being such a freak. I have a home with all you fucked up people and the guys pushing their shopping carts up and down Sunset Boulevard, yelling at cars, you know, like they're my peeps. And I'm so glad. Like, I mean, of course it's going to be painful. It's always going to be painful. But I'm glad it happened because when people say, hey Liz, how's LA going? Is it hard for you out there? I can say I've seen worse. If I can survive my family and put my abusers. There have been a couple in the hospital. They all ended up in the hospital at some point. I think I can handle a callback for Jurgens. Thank you guys so much.
