Let Perfect Burn

Get That Sh*t Out, With Comedian, Antonia Lassar

• Tara Beckett • Season 2 • Episode 4

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Comedian Antonia Lassar self-identifies as 60% Jewish, 30% Chronic Illness and 10% Bisexual chaos and recently their standup addressed embracing the term disabled. “Prior to this, I was like, ‘Yes, I’m exhausted all the time. Yes, when I lie down, I choke on my own stomach acid. Yes, I don’t poop.’ But that’s not because I’m sick. I was like, ‘That’s because I am morally inferior.’”

During this set, Antonia’s crowd laughed, but Antonia shines in their ability to take truth and push the envelope one more time. “And I know that you might hear all those symptoms and be like, ‘Obviously that’s an illness and not moral decay’ but you are seriously understanding my Jewish capacity for self-blame. Okay, I’m like, ‘What about my diet and lifestyle caused the Holocaust?’”


Before coming to LA to focus on their career as a comedian, Antonia toured college campuses addressing sexual assault with their work, Post Traumatic Super Delightful. Antonia is a victim of sexual assault and in their work they utilize comedy to challenge the expectations of the perfect survivor. “Trustworthiness is big. They need to have the education level that we believe that they are trustworthy enough to actually speak accurately about their experience. And a lot of my work really dives into this critique of our expectations of the perfect survivor.”


In their interview, Antonia takes us through the challenging, and sometimes devastating, path to create art after falling apart. “Suddenly, my body totally broke down and it was, to me, a message from the heavens being like, all right, this has gone on long enough. You're literally killing your body at this point. You need to get your art back together.”


Highlights from Antonia:


“For some artists and for some people like me who's mental health, when it deteriorates, it manifests as me stopping to produce. But just getting art and writing out of me is a health behavior. It keeps me healthy to keep getting art out of me. Also, physically, like when I'm unhealthy, I can't poop. You know, they feel very tied in my body. It's like, I've got to get my art out. I've got to get my shit out. It's all got to come out.”


“So, I mean, it was crazy. It was such an unusual experience to watch your body stop working, you know? And I started getting so malnourished, because I literally wasn't able to eat food over two years, that's how long this took. But I finally got to the point where I felt ready to put my work out into the world. I have been putting a lot of sketches and comedy content out on social media, which to the outside observer, I think just looks like any regular comedian putting sketches on social media. But for me, it's like the tail end of this epic healing journey. And, it's a really important step and it's been really healing just to finally get it out.”


“I just moved to LA which is also a big part of this journey. I moved to LA to fully invest in my career as a comedian and it's so exciting and also as soon as I got here, all of my physical and mental health flared up and I immediately felt all the old patterns come back. You know, not wanting to create, not wanting to put myself out there as well as just physically having a hard time. So, it is not linear. All these things are because I took this big next step on the path. It triggered this big kind of backslide. Yeah, it's not like a clean and simple process. It's taking a long time.”


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https://linktr.ee/antonialastar

Tara Beckett:

Hi, I'm Tara Beckett, and I want to welcome you back to Season Two of let perfect burn. My guest today is comedian Antonia Lassar, who self identifies as 60% Jewish 30% chronic illness and 10% Bisexual chaos. And recently, their stand up addressed embracing the term disabled. Antonia says, prior to this, I was like, Yes, I'm exhausted all of the time. Yes. When I lie down, I choke on my own stomach acid. Yes, I don't poop. But that's not because I'm sick. I was like, that's because I am morally inferior. This got a big laugh from her audience. Before coming to LA to focus on their career as a comedian, Antonia toured college campuses addressing sexual assault with their work post traumatic, super delightful. Antonia is a victim of sexual assault. And they utilize comedy to challenge the expectations of the survivor. She says a lot of my work really dives into this critique of our expectations of the perfect survivor. In their interview, Antonia takes us through the challenging and sometimes devastating path to create art. After falling apart. She says suddenly, and my body totally broke down. And it was to me a message from the heavens being like, alright, this has gone on long enough. You're literally killing your body. At this point. You need to get your art back together. Hi, everyone, welcome back to let perfect burn. I'm Tara Beckett, and I'm so glad you're here again. With me today is Antonia Lazar. And I really wanted to have Antonia on this show because I found her on Instagram. And she listed herself as a comedian, a hottie. With her content being 50%, Jewish 40% chronic illness and 10% Bisexual chaos. So I just need to know more Antonia. That's quite an intro. So can you give us a sense of who you are?

Antonia Lassar:

Isn't it helpful to to have a mission statement that gives percentages of your personality? Perfect. Yeah, that's how I like to lead. So it's Yeah, I mean, it's exactly what it is. I'm a comedian, but I own and I'm extremely hot. And, and, yeah, right now, I mean, I have these topic areas that I'm very excited about, and especially on social media, they really reward you if you have a niche. So I'm more than these things. But on social media, I do a lot of I make a lot of Jewish comedy, and I am obviously Jewish. And I make a lot of chronic illness content, too. I would love to make even more because I am chronically ill, but the Jewish stuff gets rewarded by the algorithm right now. And I'm playing that game a little bit. And, and then I'm bisexual. So you know, it's, it's chaotic, and, and who knows what, what's gonna happen 10% of the time.

Tara Beckett:

So Antonia, I would love for you to talk about you know, when you mentioned, especially with your chronic illness. Can you walk us through a breaking point in your life?

Antonia Lassar:

Oh, yeah. Let's go. Let's get into this. It's, it feels like my last few years have been totally consumed with chronic illness and, and announcing myself as an official comedian has totally come out of that. So you're catching me at like, exactly this inflection point out of the drama. So this is well time Chera. And, and yeah, so for the last few years, I've been extremely ill at the beginning of the pandemic. Something happened to my body and I just stopped being able to eat and digest food. And it was coming back up but it was not leaving me it was everything just like completely shut down. And as soon as it started I had this, like spiritual awareness that this is a metaphor for my creative life. Like I knew it, I knew it immediately because I was creatively constipated. Just like I was, just like, I was so physically constipated. And it, you know, in into this, I was creatively so constipated that my creative soul was dying, just like my physical self started to do. And I had, I had previously been working in theatre and comedy and, and two years ago, I was sort of at the end of almost five years of just not creating anything because I was so paralyzed by fail the idea of failure, like I had all of this success, and I didn't know how to top it, I didn't know how to keep it going. And I was worried that the next thing I would write wasn't going to make me money, the way the previous things had, and like, wasn't going to be as respected as the previous things had been. And, and I just, like, I just stopped slowly, over time, I just stopped and, and fell out of love with, with making with creating art, and didn't really know what I was doing. And so then, you know, suddenly my body totally broke down. And it was, to me like, a message from the heavens being like, alright, this is, this has gone on long enough, you're literally killing your body. At this point, you need to get your art back together. I mean, I was like, really paralyzed by this fear of not making enough money, not making as much money on the next project as I had on the previous projects, which were totally sustaining me financially. And that not getting as much respect on those projects as the last ones that had gotten and slowly, I just stopped creating, it didn't all happen in one day, it was like, the creative process became harder and harder. And deadlines started getting blown past and I got a day job. And suddenly, it was like I looked up and I was just not being an artist and a writer anymore. You know, I don't think I have found clarity. It's all of this stuff is in retrospect, in retrospect, I can now see that I've made all of these choices that have really helped. But like, as you can hear, in the moment, I'm processing so much stuff that I don't know what to do with. And, and I know that if I had heard something like it's important to find clarity in like, what keeps me healthy and happy. I'd be like, Well, fuck me. Like, I'm never gonna figure that out. Like, I don't know what

Tara Beckett:

is fair, fair.

Antonia Lassar:

And, and there's like, a lot of value in just sort of blindly and hopefully running towards something that feels like it might work out. There's this quote, gosh, Tara, I'm all over the place right now. You've really caught me. I love it. Like it's messy processing time of life. Yep. The but there's this quote that really gave me a lot of comfort. A couple of months ago when I was deciding to, like, go for this career as a comedian. And it's by Richard Branson, who sucks, but it's a great quote. He was like talking to some business students and saying that everyone thinks that you need to know the direction you're going, and then go in that direction. And he talks about the phrase, Ready, Aim Fire. And he says, that's sort of the traditional business model that you get ready, you aim at what you want, and then you go for it. And he was encouraging these students to switch it to ready, fire, aim. Get ready, do the training, learn something, and then just start firing. Just start running in all the directions you can and you will find an aim through that. I think for someone like me, that was really helpful to hear because I get so paralyzed by fear and indecision and like the idea that I could be running in the wrong direction. And it was so much comfort to me to hear That sometimes running in all the directions is still the right choice. And that, that I'll find something from that.

Tara Beckett:

I think what it is, too, is just different personalities, right? Like, when you were talking about, you know, kind of firing all over the place, and that finds you comfort, I'm having a panic attack over here, don't I mean, so I think it's like interesting to sort of know, what is your process of, you know, figuring something out or exploring something that, you know, lets you be open to it. So, it's interesting to acknowledge how different we are in trying to do the same thing.

Antonia Lassar:

I love that, that's, that feels so juicy, because I'm, I get so cautious around all kinds of advice, because all kinds of advice are useful for some people and incredibly unusable for other people. And this is such a good example

Tara Beckett:

as you were letting go of these pieces of your artistic self, was it coupled with like an anxiety or depression, like a numbness? Can you kind of speak to like, what was happening as these pieces were falling away,

Antonia Lassar:

it's totally, it's, I am more depressive than anxious, and, you know, and officially got the diagnosis and everything. So I, I really struggle with depression a lot, and I take medication for it, which is so helpful. But my depression is, is it numbing is like, try, I try and just escaped the world and escape whatever I'm doing, and I become really lethargic. And so I was, it felt like that was happening, like I was losing energy, to write and to perform. And, and, also, like, I mean, this took years, so there was all of this sort of mental gymnastics going on of like, you know, artists go through these fallow periods, you need to, you need to take in as much as you put out, and there was so much, like, I was just constantly fighting to rationalize what was happening. And to, like, justify this state of being where I just felt like I couldn't write at all. And I think a lot of those things are true for people and, and artists do need to go through these fallow periods, and they need to consume as much as they put out. For some artists, and for some people like me, who's like, mental health, when it deteriorates, it manifests as me stopping to produce just getting Art and Writing out of me is it's like a health behavior. It keeps me healthy, to keep getting getting art out of me. Also, you know, and I mean, physically, like, when I'm unhealthy, I can't poop. You know? Like, it's, if they feel very tied in my body, it's like I gotta get my art out of gotta get my shit out. It's all got to come out.

Tara Beckett:

Yes, yes, you can't hold it anymore.

Antonia Lassar:

No, and some people and you know, some people struggle with the other, the other side where they just can't stop making and they can't slow down. They can't stop pooping. And I just have a different balance you know, so so that was that was how that that sort of like descent into depression went and and like I said, happened so slowly and I was trying to rationalize the entire way down. And then two years ago my body just, you know, totally stopped working and it felt like a lightning bolt saying, this is this has gone on long enough. You're literally dying here. You know, your creative heart has been dying. And now your physical body is joining in and something really needs to change. am such a good talker that I like I Think I spun the narrative for everyone over the all of those years, that everything was okay. And that this was what I wanted to be doing. You know, oh, no, it's I love that I have this day job because it takes the pressure off of my art to make me money. I love that I am, like, just, you know, in this period of taking in art, as opposed to making it. I think like, I mean, I was trying to convince myself that, I really believe that. And I think I did convince a lot of people, everyone around me that I didn't believe that. And I was kind of the only one who knew how much I really did not believe that. And also, especially when you get really sick people in your life tend to be, you know, concerned about your physical health, and less excited to talk about how you just need to start writing comedy, and then your body will be better and they're much more interested in like, maybe you should go to the hospital. So, so I was basically obsessed with this idea of like, my, my artistic soul, and everyone else was like, You need to go to the gastroenterologist.

Tara Beckett:

Right? And would you say there's probably a combo there? Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Antonia Lassar:

Oh, 100%. They, they both needed serious health and healing. Yeah, it wasn't. It was like, maybe if I had realized this was happening five years prior, I could have fixed everything by just healing my artistic soul. But at that point, things had gotten dire enough that I needed a lot of doctors on the case.

Tara Beckett:

So talk us through that, like, Finally, you're at that point, like you say, you are dying, like, what is that transition period look like?

Antonia Lassar:

So, I mean, it was crazy. It was, it was such, it's such an unusual experience to watch your body stop working, you know, and I and I started getting so malnourished, you know, because I mean, I literally wasn't able to eat food. And I was, you know, just physically I was living on a liquid diet. And every meal was this like Herculean effort to just get through it. And, and my brain power really started declining, because that is what happens when you're just not getting enough nutrition. And I had no energy at all. So what happened was, I went on medical leave from my job. And at the same time, my husband got a Nintendo Switch. And and this is really important, even though it seems unlikely. On his switch, I had heard about this game Animal Crossing, and I had never played video games ever in my life. But I'd heard this game Animal Crossing was kind of interesting. And I basically had absolutely nothing to do all day other than, like, sit on the couch and waste away. And so I was like, desperate for something to do. And I started playing Animal Crossing. And it was so captivating, and, like, fully immerse myself in it. And to explain to your listeners who don't know what Animal Crossing is, here's the concept. So you, you now are the caretaker of a desert island, and you get to industrialize it, which is so dark, but it's very cute. And you you basically get to design, the aesthetics, the outside aesthetics of this island, and then the inside all the little buildings. It's all aesthetic. This is like one big art project. And I basically played Animal Crossing for eight hours a day for about six months. And in between doctor's visits. And while that was happening, I also for the first time gave myself permission to completely stop creating now I had not been creating but this was the first time I I gave myself full permission. I was like, I'm you know, I'm dying. I don't I like finally, really am totally off the hook to write ate art to make anything. And simultaneously, I was, like, immersed in this full time art project designing this virtual Island. And at the time, I didn't realize what was happening. But afterwards, I like, I was wondering why my artistic self felt so fulfilled. And I was like, I'm not doing anything. And then I realized that this Animal Crossing was giving me my first outlet in years to just make something, make something beautiful, just for fun. And it was like, it was the feeling that I had, as a kid making plays, and, and writing poems, and just doing it all because it was like beautiful, and it felt so good to make. Right. So that's what Animal Crossing did for me, and I love it so much. And then I have a therapist, and I've been working with her the whole time. And once I sort of brought that to her, I was like, I think I'm ready to also start adding in writing. And I, we went through this unbelievably methodical process that took two years. Whereas Wow, a couple months, just writing in my journal every day, which was terrifying. I mean, I was so like, triggered by the act of writing of being a playwright that just writing in my journal was, like, terrifying. Wow. And so do that for a couple months. And then I started writing something creative, every day, anything creative, not for public consumption. And then I learned about tick tock, and I started writing one sketch to put on tick tock every day, not to show anyone just writing it in my journal, I did a couple of months of that month. And then I did a couple more months of filming some of those sketches. Again, there was no promises I'd ever have to show anyone, I was just making them. And, you know, over two years, that's how long this took finally got to the point where I felt ready to put them out into the world. And I think that's how you found me was, I have been putting a lot of sketches and comedy content out on social media, which, to the outside observer, I think just looks like any regular you know, comedian, putting sketches on social media. But for me, it's like the tail end of this epic healing journey. And, and it's a really important step. And it's been, it's been really healing just to, to finally get it out it's hard for me to tell where I'm at, in my process. In the moment, it's much easier for me to look back at the debris in my wake, and piece together a narrative of that. Yeah, so so I'm not sure things feel, feel unsettled. Physically, I'm still kind of in a flare and, and dealing with that creatively with things I don't know that things feel weird right now. I'm, I'm entering like the film industry, which I've never worked in before. I'm dealing with this whole process of getting agents. And also, I don't have any friends in this city. It all feels kind of excruciating, to be honest. And I'm trying really hard to focus on like these tiny moments of pleasure. I mean, tiny like, wow, this much it tastes nice or like, yeah, like, wow, I cleaned my room. That's, that's sort of where I'm at right now.

Tara Beckett:

Fair. Well, I'm excited for you though, because it feels like it's an exciting step. And you're here. That's good. You know? Yeah, I think you have all that experience to know like things are flaring up.

Antonia Lassar:

Yeah, exactly. And I at least have been building the tools over the last two years, both physically, creatively, mentally, to deal with all of those flare ups. And you know, and also, that's all, that's just sort of my internal life, you know, the external markers of success are going great here. Like, I'm choosing between agents right now, which is really exciting. I'm doing a ton of Stand Up shows I've got I'm on a UCB House team right now. And all of that happened in two months. So it's, things are going, you know, the external markers of success are being met. But I don't give them as much importance as like, my internal peace, health and happiness. You know.

Tara Beckett:

That's why is this shit dude? Like, really? You know? Yeah. Why not? Yeah, really. So to switch gears just a little bit, Antonia, I want to talk about your work with sexual violence prevention, and just walking us through, you know, what kind of work were you doing and why you're so passionate about it? Yeah,

Antonia Lassar:

this is really one of my favorite things to talk about. So before, before, all of this, like sort of crumbling, I was having this amazing career. Touring a solo show called Post traumatic, super delightful to colleges and theaters all over the country. And it was a show about sexual violence on college campuses. And it used a lot of comedy, really, to sort of humanize what that kind of process looks like, in the Title Nine department, what does the process look like for the survivor? What does it look like? For, you know, the accused the perpetrator? What does it look like for the bystanders who are just sort of tangentially brought in, and that, I mean, that came out of my own history of being a survivor of sexual assault, and also a history of watching other survivors deal with the college administrative process. And, and it was very clear to me when I was going through it, when I was watching my friends go through it, that it was hugely problematic. And I knew that I wanted to do something on it. And eventually, once I left college and spent a good few years really digesting what had happened, then, then I made this show. And there's like a real hunger for, for this conversation on college campuses, especially in a way that makes students actually want to talk about it, especially young men, you know, on sports teams, and in frats. And so that was really like a, one of my big target audiences. And, and I ended up you know, along the way, becoming really educated in sexual violence prevention, and then in turn educating other people and I spoke at a bunch of conferences on sexual violence prevention, the Minnesota and the Minnesota Association for the treatment of sexual abusers. So that's a different angle. But I worked with them and they were amazing. And that was kind of my past life in theatre. And now, now that I am coming back to, to creating again, it feels like an unfinished book that I'm coming back to. And I'm really excited to keep making specifically comedy, about this whole rape culture and process of sexual violence prevention and adjudication, especially on college campuses.

Tara Beckett:

Yeah, it's, I think I need one more step here. Because what about comedy allows people to access this idea of sexual violence.

Antonia Lassar:

It's such a good question because it's, it's it's like, we've seen so much horrible, devaluing comedy of making fun of survivors of sexual violence, and especially especially making fun of survivors of sexual violence. So the idea of have come Finding comedy with this subject, I think is really triggering for a lot of people. And the one really big obvious benefit it has is that comedy makes everything easier to talk about. You know, everyone would prefer to go to a comedy, and would prefer to laugh and feel good. It's just like, we just seek it out. And, and it's kind of I think of it as like, an enormous weapon that you can point at different different subjects, or maybe a weapon feels so militaristic, and enormous spotlight goes to, to illuminate the things that you want to bring people's attention to. So comedy is just like, inherently attractive, but also think when it's targeted in the right way. Laughter specifically, especially in a live audience. Laughter is so validating, because it's this, like, unconscious, physical response to recognition, you know, and especially survivors who are so unvalidated, not validated, several word that combines those two that is invalidated, invalidated, validated, that sounds right. survivors who are so invalidated by by the public discourse, it's so powerful to be in a big theater of people laughing in a recognition of your experience. And I focus a lot in this work on our expectations on the perfect survivor, you know, this needs that we we sort of have this expectation, it needs to be someone who we trust on everything, someone who is like worthy of our respect, someone who, you know, is, trustworthiness is big. So like they they need to have the education level that we believe that they are trustworthy enough to actually, like, speak accurately about their experience. And a lot of my work really dives into this critique of our expectations of the perfect survivor. And so when you when you can be in an audience, we're all laughing in recognition. Of that, it's really validating, I think.

Tara Beckett:

And, Tony, I would love to hear from you. You know, if you were to look back on this Antonia, who hadn't gone through that, you know, five years of letting her art go and, you know, illness, and you're looking at that younger self? What would you say to her?

Antonia Lassar:

Okay, so, I, when you initially told him about this question, I think it was something like your 18 year old self. And, and that's what I've really been visualizing with this. Yep. I mean, my 18 year old, my 18 year old self, like, was absolutely consumed by this worry that I wasn't hot. And I mean, consumed, like, everything I did was like, am I physically hot enough? Or is my talent hot enough? Like, am I and to me, like hotness, and sexiness and beauty was really equivalent to just worth as a human being, you know? So and, and what I think is, like so delightful, is that I look and act very similar now. 31 as I did when I was 18 I mean, my clothing hasn't changed that much. I like really don't look very different. And yet, I have discovered how like, what a freaking hottie I am and and that's been also through like the process of having a long term relationship where I feel like celebrated and adored all the time. And it has released that worry of like, Am I worthy enough to be desired and And I would just love her to see me now so that she could see like, oh my god, like, you're not even shaving your legs anymore. And you feel so hot, like her still just as sweaty as I am. And you feel so hot. Like, yeah, just I just want her to see the possibility that maybe nothing changes on the outside. But internally, there's this enormous capacity for change. And like, you know, self adoration and celebration. That's what I really want her to see that there is that possibility because I'm hoping that it would shave a couple years off of getting there, if she realized that we would eventually get there

Tara Beckett:

this has been amazing. Antonia, I'm so excited that you get came on. And before we go, I would love for you to speak to us about what let perfect burn means for you.

Antonia Lassar:

Oh, yeah. Okay, I've been thinking about this all week. So it's, at first, I was really tangled up in the idea. And I couldn't figure out why because I really love this idea of like, acknowledging that perfection. Like, can, like might not even exist, and that's the thing, let perfect burn was really fucking me up because the phrase itself, to me when I first hear it feels like it's implying that there is perfect, right? That there is a perfect that can burn. And that's what I was getting so stuck on because I think I feel so much comfort as, as someone who has perfectionist tendencies, I, I combat those with this, like warm and fuzzy feeling that perfect will never exist. And so I was like, How can I burn something that doesn't exist, it's getting very tangled up in this. So so I'm not, I'm not sure what it means to you when you wrote that that title. But I've been able to meditate on it all week and just be delighted by this idea of perfect, not even existing, that whatever we're burning was never perfect to begin with. And so it doesn't matter if we burn it all down because it was never perfect. And whatever we build out of it is not going to be perfect. And we don't have to be so precious about these things that are never going to be perfect.

Tara Beckett:

Thank you, Antonia. I am so excited you were on. Thank you so much for being here. And definitely I can't wait to see what you do and what you create out in this new space. And it's exciting to watch

Antonia Lassar:

you. Thanks me do I wonder what I'm gonna do out here. I'm very excited to be a little comedian, officially out in the world.

Tara Beckett:

I love it. Well, you take care and we'll be in touch. Thank you so much Antonia.

Antonia Lassar:

Thanks, Tara.

Unknown:

Perfect

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