Comic Brody Stevens was discovered hanged on Feb. 22, 2019, lifeless at age 48, and the affect on the comedy group was speedy. Comedy golf equipment and festivals throughout the nation felt higher accountability to advertise psychological well being sources. The subject of despair shifted from onstage joke fodder to critical offstage dialog. Fellow comedians gathered for a casual 818 Stroll in Stevens’ honor that August, named for the San Fernando Valley space code of his childhood that he would usually reference in his self-deprecating bits. In 2021, the second installment of 818 Day included the official dedication of an L.A. Parks Basis memorial bench in Stevens’ honor, funded by Mauricio Alvarado of Rockin Pins from a design he’d created with Stevens earlier than the comedian’s passing.
Since 2019, Stevens’ sister, Stephanie Brody, recollects, “I misplaced rely of the variety of emails I acquired from folks saying my brother was the primary — and typically solely — one that reached out and helped them once they had been first beginning out.… We all the time knew my brother was a nurturing and sort individual. However the tales we learn took what we knew about him to an entire different stage.”
On Thursday, Aug. 18, at 8 p.m., the late comedian’s dwelling membership, the Comedy Retailer, will maintain a particular Brody Stevens 818 Day present, adopted by Saturday Aug. 20’s now-annual Brody Stevens Competition of Friendship 818 Stroll in Reseda.
This 12 months’s occasion has partnered to profit Comedy Provides Again, a 501(c)(3) charity aiding performers in want of psychological well being help and habit remedy. After Stevens’ demise, the group shifted its focus from gala fundraising to grass-roots outreach, bringing consciousness to the darker facet of the seemingly lighthearted occupation.
“Brody all the time uncovered all sides of himself to the viewers,” says Zoe Friedman, a longtime producer/booker who based Comedy Provides Again with Jodi Lieberman and Amber J. Lawson in 2011. “His comedy made you are feeling such as you had been listening to what was occurring inside his mind, and that he was articulating it in actual time. He gave audiences a peek behind the scenes of his interior workings.”
Friedman says her favourite a part of the Competition of Friendship is the love from comedians and followers who wish to preserve remembering Stevens and, in doing so, deliver the difficulty of suicide to the forefront. “If we don’t speak about it, we perpetuate the stigma round it,” Friedman says. “The extra we are able to speak about Brody and why we misplaced him, I consider and hope we might help others.”
The Saturday festivities start with the 9:30 a.m. unveiling of a brand new “Brody Ceaselessly 818″ mural at Firehouse Taverna restaurant (18450 Victory Blvd.) with Los Angeles Metropolis Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, Stephanie Brody and extra members of the family. At 11 a.m. a 5K stroll beginning at Reseda Park (18411 Victory Blvd.) takes contributors throughout the Los Angeles River and previous Reseda Excessive College, the place Stevens was a star pitcher on the Regents baseball workforce. Registration is $50 upfront or $60 day-of beginning at 10 a.m. and features a present bag. Afterward, a 1 to three p.m. celebration on the memorial bench website will characteristic audio system, comic friends, a raffle, a photograph sales space, meals vehicles and music from DJ Dense of the L.A. Clippers. Merchandise together with shirts and Rockin Pins’ enamel likeness of Stevens might be accessible.
The Valley native was born Steven James Brody on Might 22, 1970. He performed Division I baseball at Arizona State College, although an arm damage ended a promising profession as a professional. Stevens hung out growing within the Seattle and New York Metropolis comedy scenes earlier than returning to L.A. Tall and match all through his life, he remained a staunch proponent of bodily exercise and healthful consuming.
In L.A., Stevens grew to become generally known as a go-to warmup for collection starting from Fox Sports activities’ “The Greatest Rattling Sports activities Present Interval” and E!’s “Chelsea Currently” to Comedy Central’s “The Jeselnik Offensive” and MTV’s “Ridiculousness.” As Stevens proudly famous onstage of his movie credit, “‘Hangover,’ in it! ‘Hangover II,’ in it! ‘Due Date,’ in it! Reduce out of ‘Humorous Folks’ …”
His biographical one-liners (“I’m intense! I get BO within the bathe!”) tended to sound extra barked than instructed. Getting confrontational with viewers members sporting deer-in-the-headlights seems grew to become friends’ favourite a part of any night. Regardless of spouting catchphrases like “Optimistic power!” or “Push and consider!,” these near him knew his large smile might really feel unmistakably compelled.
Stevens described himself as a troubled child. “I used to be touched. However not by an angel,” one in every of his hottest jokes started. “The perp was presupposed to get three years, however the choose gave him six. Why? As a result of I used to be molested in a building zone.” It couldn’t have all been wholly true, however as a expertise recognized for brutal honesty, might it?
He battled despair from an early age, occurring and off completely different drugs from his 20s onward. Audiences and interviewers alike had been usually knowledgeable that he’d developed “adult-onset autism.” In 2010, whereas filming his docuseries “Brody Stevens: Take pleasure in It!” with government producer Zach Galifianakis, he was hospitalized for 17 days at UCLA Medical Heart’s psychiatry wing and identified with bipolar dysfunction.
His 2017 particular, “Stay From the Foremost Room,” filmed on the Comedy Retailer, divided on-line comedy followers. Regardless of acclaim because the “Prince of Periscope,” detrimental social media interactions continuously leveled him. Stevens had resumed taking anti-psychotic drugs shortly earlier than his demise.
Stevens’ sister, Stephanie, who sometimes appeared as a foil in his jokes, says he introduced a much-needed consciousness of psychological sickness and the challenges that include it to the comedy trade.
“He put a face on the illness and put it on the market for all to see. He needed folks to see there isn’t something to be embarrassed or ashamed about,” she says. “I see comedians speaking extra brazenly about their very own psychological sickness struggles and the way they’ve dealt with it. I see comedians being supportive of each other and being there for one another. I do know he’d be pleased with the affect he’s made … simply as proud as our household is of him.”
Even within the lead-up to this 12 months’s Competition of Friendship happenings, reminders surfaced that the method towards destigmatization stays removed from full. On Thursday, July 14, the Nationwide Suicide Prevention Lifeline publicly introduced its 10-digit 800 quantity would change to the less complicated 988. Later that very same night, the physique of well-liked scene staple Jak Knight, a extremely profitable actor, producer, author and stand-up, was found on a Boyle Heights embankment with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the pinnacle. Like Stevens, Knight was recognized for his upbeat temper and welcoming nature.
“Telling strangers issues about your self sounds extra like a remedy session than a job. However that’s the job they decide. It’s not for everybody,” says Friedman. She cites household dysfunction, trauma, despair and normal emotions of otherness as psychological causes performers could also be drawn to the occupation.
“Moreover, their existence could be very onerous and isolating: being on the highway, sleeping late, lengthy stretches of time throughout the day by your self to fixate and fear about issues. Comedians assist make audiences really feel higher by permitting us to chuckle. I hope that the method of telling their jokes might help them really feel higher as effectively. It solely appears truthful, proper?”
Or, as Stephanie Brody places it, “The job of a comic is to make folks chuckle. Folks presume if somebody is humorous, they need to even be glad. That’s not essentially true…. Struggles comedians expertise are sometimes masked by the sound of laughter. The comedy world is usually neglected on the subject of psychological well being consciousness due to this. Opening up and speaking about psychological sickness helps take the stigma away. I’ve seen a gradual shift in that mind-set. However our society must get to a spot the place psychological sickness isn’t one thing to be ashamed of. I believe we’re headed in the fitting course, however we nonetheless have an extended approach to go.”
