los angeles Archives ⋆ Page 2 of 19 ⋆ Virginia Jones

Dazzling New LA Nightlife Experiences

And now, from the people who brought you such dazzling LA nightlife experiences as:

No Vacancy
Breakroom 86
Here’s Looking At You
Good Times At Davey Wayne’s
Madame Siam
Rabbit Rose

are some stunning new bar concepts, including:

Hey Where Can I Get Some Bindi Cigarettes
Smelly Jumpsuit Locker
He Used To Be My Stepdad/ Now He’s My Husband
Slick Willie’s Allegation Party
Overdue Citation
An Offer He Can’t Refuse

and also:

They Call Me Mister Tibbs
Seems Like A Palindrome, but Isn’t
Why Won’t They Stop Screaming?
I See Dead People
and
What’s Shakin’, Bacon?

Come out and have a fancy theme drink with us!

The Latest Hack Comedy Trends

popular comedy tropes child in tinfoil hat

These are the hottest hack trends happening in LA comedy right now! Get on the hack comedy train, and you’ll get into all the hot shows and festivals!

Extremely Detailed Solipsism
Pretending To Be Mad About Small Things
ShockJock (90’s Nostalgia)
Fat Guys, Shirts Off
If I Yell It, It’s A Punchline
I Pooped In Public, A Closer
White People Interpreting Rap Lyrics
Homeless People Are Weird
That Time I Ate Too Much Pot
Hillbilly Philosopher (Nihilism in a Trucker Cap)

The Amazing Pasadena Daydream Festival: Gothchella

robert smith of the cure at pasadena daydream festival

This August, The Cure threw an end-of-Summer celebration at the Rose Bowl grounds called the Pasadena Daydream Festival. Who hates Summer more than Goths? Nobody.

I love the Cure, I love the Pixies, and I have never EVER seen Throwing Muses and was absolutely DYING to. Since the ticket was expensive, I steeled myself to going alone, but my friend Johnny Skourtis posted a self-pitying story on Instagram the morning of the show saying he was going alone, so I had a festival buddy!

The Day Of:

It was hot as shit. 30,000 goths were sweating and drinking. They sold out of Donut Friend brand vegan donuts. But: everything else was great. Throwing Muses, also known as Some Dudes and Kristin Hersh, were tight and AGGRESSIVE and wonderful. Pixies and their rotating Kim Deal impersonator were good, and The Cure have only gotten better at being the Cure. You want pedals? Layered guitar? Drone? You got it. The band has gotten famous 40 years into their career, and Robert is wearing it well, and seems much happier than he was when he was 30.

Meeting New Friends:

I was wearing an ancient Cure t-shirt that my sister has been begging me to throw out, and instead of throwing it out, I had repaired the holes with lace scraps, and a twenty something came to compliment me on it. He claimed that he was “the world’s biggest Cure fan” and that he had seen his first show in 2009. I told him I had seen my first show in 1986 at the Bronco Bowl, for Head on the Door, and he protested, I wasn’t even BORN then. That can’t be my problem, man!

Here’s the Cure’s playlist, including Just One Kiss, which was never played in the US before, but which I really like.

Plainsong
Pictures of You
High
A Night Like This
Just One Kiss(first time live in the US)
Lovesong
Last Dance
Burn
Fascination Street
Never Enough
Push
In Between Days
Just Like Heaven
From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea
Play for Today
A Forest
Primary
Shake Dog Shake
39 (Altered lyric from “half my )
Disintegration

Encore:
Lullaby
The Caterpillar
The Walk
Friday I’m in Love (with “Where Is My Mind”… )
Close to Me
Why Can’t I Be You?
Boys Don’t Cry

The Morning After:

The morning after, I was complaining to Johnny that although we had been drinking all day, it was so spaced out that I was never really drunk, but that I had a hangover, and then he sent me a video of myself singing to the Pixies that he believed disproved my theory. Anyway, it was nice having a friend for one day. Thanks, Pasadena Daydream Festival!

Postscript: Looks like everyone is searching for an actual festival called Gothchella, and I can’t help you there, but if you want to dress like a hot weather witch, a big floppy hat and a black slip is a great place to start!

The Incredibly Stupid Story About My Tattoo

octopus tattoo design by Amy Nicoletto

virginia jones octopus tattoo by amy nicoletto

The Origin Story

Having survived a questionable adolescence and young adulthood without a tattoo, I thought, maybe my thing is to be weird WITHOUT a tattoo. My dumb hot goth boyfriend had BAD RELIGOIN tattooed on him at a party. Later, it was covered with a demon, and probably also dirt because I think that guy’s dead now.

Being of a somewhat perverse personality, I find if there’s something everyone else loves, I hate it. I’ve never seen Titanic or worn acid wash jeans.

When I left school, I found that every punk, every goth, every coffeeshop-clogging creative was heavily inked. How cool could it be? I worried that a tattoo had to mean something deep. Something eternal. What if I got something that would later be dumb? My friend Bryan had a Stray Cats tattoo from the 80’s that I watched go out, and in, and back out of fashion.

Joker’s Comedy Club

One time I was doing comedy in Tri-Cities, Washington. That’s right. Three small towns: Kennewick, Richmond, and Yakima, gather their low-self-esteem populations together and call themselves the Tri-Cities in an attempt to matter.

The Thursday night show had a promo table with a local tattoo shop, and they were giving away a tattoo to the prettiest girl in attendance who didn’t have a tattoo. This really brought my two worst personality traits into the foreground: I am cheap and vain. The nice tattoo lady said I was cute, I should put in to win the contest. I laughed and said OK.

I had a really good set, I blew my headliner off the stage. He was murky and resentful. The next night, he melted down and was dismissed for he rest of the weekend.

While drinking for free, I checked in with the tattoo lady. She said I was still the winner by a mile. I was feeling small-town famous.

Brianna

I started thinking about what kind of tattoo I wanted. I decided on an octopus. Like on the Kraken rum bottle, although that is a Kraken, which is not real. We got ready to line up for a vote. I was confident. I was ready. But at the 11th hour, she showed up: Brianna. Brianna was 24 and had blonde hair piled up on top of her head, and was somehow wearing a pink baseball hat perched on top of that. She had dimples. I lost, and lost badly.

Brianna got a dynamic ribbon reading “ALWAYS RESILIENT” tattooed on her ribcage, which I am told is a very painful spot, and that was a comfort to me. It was executed right there, on a rickety massage table in a dark corner of a nightclub. I started to think maybe I was glad I didn’t win.

I woke up surly and resentful that I didn’t have an octopus tattoo. Complaining to my friend Richie, he told me: believe, there is nothing more expensive than a free tattoo. You’re glad you didn’t get inked in the tri-shitties.

When I got home to Los Angeles, I got a birthday gift from my baby sister so I could get a tattoo at a fancy shop, from the lovely @amynicolettotattoo, and I don’t think I could love it any more. It looks good with dresses, it looks good with t-shirts, it’s an accessory that I have on all the time, and it doesn’t mean shit.

Wisdom Of The Ages

Looking back, I realize that if I had gotten a tattoo in my 20’s it would have been for The Cure, and if I’d gotten one in my 30’s, it would have been for Nick Cave, and they’d still be great today. This is an often-overlooked plus to being someone who maxed out their taste and personal growth at 17, and will always be the same asshole, and who is also cheap, and also vain.

Nina Storm’s Sensational LA WOMAN

The glorious Nina Storm had me do comedy on her all-woman variety show, LA Woman!

The Truth About Earthquakes

I’ve been in a couple of LA earthquakes, and usually it feels like a big truck is driving past the building where I am. It rumbles and moves on. Then, my faraway friends and family start texting to see if I am still alive. I smile at their naive, not-earthquake-having ways.

My First Earthquake

The only earthquake that left a real impression on me was one that happened a couple of years ago, at a comedy show in a dress shop that my friend Brandie booked me on. Handsome nerd actor James Urbaniak was attending with his girlfriend. During another comic’s set, I felt the room moving and watched pictures swing on the walls and thought: Wow, I’m gonna die in the same room as James Urbaniak. But nobody died, and we had great earthquake chitchat and went home. Once we have an earthquake it becomes THE small talk for the next 24 hours, outstripping weather, traffic, and who got onto a Harold team on their first try.

My Second Earthquake

The first big earthquake this week happened on the 4th of July, because God hates America, or at least, California.

I slept through it. I was awoken by many texts of friends asking did I feel it, and then talking about the biggest earthquake they had survived. I felt so left out. I wanted to feel the earthquake. It was like I hadn’t been invited to a cool event, just because I was sleeping in on a holiday. I couldn’t write a funny earthquake tweet, I couldn’t do anything.

At the fourth of July party, my friend Rick commented that he didn’t even know what to do during an earthquake, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t cuss and look for his pants. Everyone laughed. I felt so alone.

Got out of that party and went home. Couldn’t sleep, worried about not being in the cool earthquake club. At 3AM, my bed shook and I realized I was experiencing an aftershock. I was so happy, I stayed up until 5AM worried that I was going to die.

My Third Earthquake

The next night, I was eating dinner when the earthquake started. I walked outside to check on my car, walking 25 feet on tarmac that was shifting in the most unpleasant way. It was all the bad things about being on a boat, no drinks or swimsuits but nausea and choppy water. I asked the dog why he didn’t warn me. He indicated that he still wasn’t entirely sure what was happening. He may have missed that day of dog school. It lasted maybe 90 seconds but it felt like a whole episode of BBC’s Sherlock. My car was ok. Rick tweeted that he had been caught by the earthquake without pants on. I think that Rick taking off his pants might be where earthquakes come from, so please, Rick, if you’re reading- keep your pants on for the next little bit, OK?

Venmo Me Dat Azz: From Love TV

Or, Places Where Men Will Hit On You On The Internet

If necessity is the mother of invention, men are the inventors of using non-dating sites to meet women. It’s been happening since the first terminal user logged into a message board to ask A/S/L (age/sex/location, young people).

Here’s some stories about creative ways men are connecting today!

You can get hit on from social platforms because strange men think the tiny photo of you is cute, or, let’s face it, they just get it in their head that you’re a woman at all. For men, the world is your Tinder, just just gotta learn how to swipe!

Twitter:

Every couple of days, a dude will direct message me and say “Hi” or “Hello.” Has this ever led to sex, in the history of the world? I don’t know. I don’t think so.

Facebook Business Page:

I made a promotional page for myself (check it out, readers!) and got a creepy message asking that I tell the stranger on the other end “all about myself,” which was funny because that is literally what the page is. I ignored it for a few days, and then Facebook started nudging me to “keep my response rate up” by answering all queries to the page within two days. Finally, I wrote, “Hi! I’m Jack, Virginia’s manager. Thank you for your interest in her career! This page posts shows, podcasts, and other promotional info!” No response.

Instagram:

As creepy Facebook friends abate, Insta creeps abound! It took me a long time to find the little paper airplane that was my message inbox, but when I did I was rewarded with compliments from many randos, followed by some furious insults when I didn’t respond to those same randos.

Social Network Of African American woman

Couchsurfing:

A foreign friend was looking for cheap places to stay in the states, and strangers on Couchsurfing kept offering her “fun weekends”. I explained to her that these men thought she was maybe going to exchange sex for a place to sleep. She said, “But no women have offered me a space.”

She finally messaged back and forth with a man who didn’t overtly proposition her, but the day before her trip he said that he gave great massages, and ultimately she had to pay for an airbnb.

Words with Friends:

I was playing with a stranger, and asked where did I live. I told him it doesn’t matter where I live, I’m not looking to meet people on Words with Friends. I’m here to play some Scrabble. He ended the game, and I changed my profile picture to a friendly-looking dog. I still love Scrabble.

LinkedIn:

My sister was job hunting, and a man in her field sent her a message saying that they should meet for coffee and discuss her goals. She thought this sounded great and they made a plan. The day before their appointment, he offered to take her to dinner instead, and named an expensive restaurant in New York. She said she’d rather have coffee, to which he offered an introduction to an executive in her field. She looked up his Facebook profile and responded that perhaps he’d like to bring his wife to the dinner, and used her name. See? Facebook is still good for something.

Yelp:

My friend Lizzie told me, “On my way to work every day, I passed a massage parlor that seemed to be open all hours and looked suspect. I was very naive, and thought I would post a question about the business on Yelp. Did men really get full service at these places? Men told me. Boy oh boy did they want to tell me all about it. They wanted to know if I’d like to meet and discuss it. That was ten years ago. I still sometimes get messages about it.”

Ebay:

I was selling some used Adidas Gazelles on Ebay, they were worn but in good shape. Some messages about shipping and auction dates, and then I got one about the wear of the shoes and what I had used them for. The writer asked if I was a cheerleader, and if I ever wore the shoes without socks, if I had ever gotten the liners sweaty, if I could send them pictures of me in the shoes. I wrote back and said sorry, I’m just a regular lady and didn’t need to talk to foot fetishists too much, buy the shoes or don’t. That person never bid on them, and they sold to a kid in Kansas.

Lyft:

If you’re interested in dating your rideshare driver, the best thing to do is to go home and write it in a notebook and bury that notebook in the woods. Don’t turn in a fake lost item report and ask them out. That’s creepy and it’s a disturbingly popular go-to. Just go out and meet people!

Venmo:

My friend Amy told me she liked stalking friend’s burgeoning relationships on Venmo. If people are constantly paying each other for beers and pizza, she knew that they were probably dating. Sure, you CAN change the settings to private, but few people bother. However, she didn’t reckon that some people would follow it so closely that they would notice when her recent ex was buying a new girl pizza, and that she started getting dm’s from men she knew slightly asking if she was ok, and if she’d like to meet and talk- over pizza.

NextDoor:

Extra creepy to get a DM on Nextdoor because I know they live near me!

Do all men do this? Of course not. But in an app-driven world, some people are ALWAYS looking for a special connection along with their food delivery, movie ticket purchase or money exchange!