Author: badinia

Virginia Jones is a comedian, writer, and actor- probably in that order.

Bridgetown Comedy Festival Gets Its Own Twitter Troll

The Bridgetown Comedy Festival, founded in 2008 by Andy Wood, Matt Braunger, and Kim Brady, just celebrated its 7th year of bringing the finest comedy in the world to Portland, Oregon. This year featured over 200 comics, including Emo Philips, Reggie Watts, W. Kamau Bell, Nathan Fielder, and Dan Harmon, who drunkenly announced the end of “Community” on the afterparty dance floor.

Bridgetown features great programming, outings to donut shops and 80’s arcades, but has never had competitions or awards, which can take a group of people having a good time and make them bitter competitors.  

However,  this year a twitter account called @bridgetownfest claimed differently.

Bridgetown has always used @bridgetown to tweet show updates, promotions, gossip and important festival announcements to its 6000 followers.  Six days ago, @bridgetownfest started talking up the same shows and comics, and immediately amassed 60K followers, which made their posts more prominent than the official twitter account.  For several days, it tweeted innocuous posts, many of them copies of actual @bridgetown information.  Comics started tweeting to both, unsure of which was the real account.  Some followers, aware of the duplicitous account, started engaging in the alternate reality with the account.  On Saturday of the festival, the account started asking for votes on such categories as Best Podcast, Best Open Mic Set, and Most Fun To Be Around.

  On Sunday night, @bridgetownfest started announcing  Best of The Fest comics, with awards and thanks going to Nathan Fielder and Emo Philips for their great work. Kanye had robbed Ian Karmel of his rightful place.    T-shirt prices were reduced from $20 to 6 a pop.  And then, the account said there was a big announcement coming.

Andy Wood Posted:

@bridgetownfest tearfully announced that this was the last Bridgetown festival, which came as a big surprise to founder and organizer Andy Wood.  The twitter account thanked its followers, volunteers, comics, and audience members.

The account is now suspended, its tweets hidden, and the cover image has been revised to be about a festival in Australia.

Postscript:  Anonymous sources confirm that the owner of the troll account was indeed Randy Liedtke, who was behind the Pace Picante conversation with Kyle Kinane last year.

Lady 2 Lady!

My episode of Lady 2 Lady is up for your enjoyment, with lovely hostesses Brandie Posey, Barbara Gray and Tess Barker.

We answer the tough questions about cats v. dogs and people who believe that a thin layer of tissue is of any help on a public toilet.  It was an honor to be on Lady to Lady and also on Maximum Fun.org, with such amazing talents as John Hodgman and the ever talented Dave Hill.

Welcome to GLENDALIA!

glendalia2

Photo Credit: Jonathan Saunders of I Like To Tell Stories

I’m excited to announce that one of my oldest Portland comedy pals, Dax Jordan, and I are bringing a new comedy night to the LA area!  It’s at the super cool Complex at 806 Colorado in Glendale.  We’ll be hosting our amazingly hilarious friends and offering 2 lottery spots for attending comics!  COMPLEX features a full bar and ample seating and  lots of fun for EVERYONE.

First Show’s Roster: Ron Funches (Kroll Show, Conan, Undateable)

Auggie Smith (Living Legend, won SF and Seattle comps the same year)

Robert Buscemi (just a real ray of sunshine and a real pretty peacock)

Heather Thomson (Class, Sass, and Ass)

Booking requests go to Glendaliabooking@gmail.com!

No Gracias, Madre- my review from Yelp.com

  I have always loved Gracias Madre SF and was looking forward to checking out the new Melrose location.   Every time I’d been to San Francisco, I’d made it a point to visit Gracias Madre, even though it was always a wait and jam-packed with happy customers.  I had been talking our local outpost up to local and far-flung vegans.  It was a bit of a wait, as usual, but our spicy Purista tequila drinks and cauliflower and cashew cream were fantastic.

When I got my entree, however, I bit down hard on a tooth-sized shard of glass that had been inside.   I felt that unpleasant nausea and tasted blood as I scraped my tongue.  We called the waitress over and she apologized and told the kitchen.  The manager came over and apologized again.  I graciously accepted the apologies.

I was offered a comp dessert, but I found that my appetite was reduced after the glass chewing.  The last thing I needed to deal with was glass-filled Mexican wedding cookies.  I was pleased to see that the tab was reduced to just drinks and one entree and we sent our card to pay.  An apologetic waitress came back over and said she’d gotten it wrong, she was only supposed to take off the entree that had the glass in it, and brought us a new tab.
Look, I’m not complaining that I got a large, sharp shard glass in my food, which ruined my dinner and evening.  I know that this stuff can happen, and in their defense, glass is totally vegan.  I’m just surprised that the comp was only for the food that had glass in it.
I hate to review a vegan restaurant like this, but I really feel that this was handled poorly.
See the receipt with the code for foreign object discount, which for some reason made me laugh.  In short, gracias but no gracias, man.

My receipt, showing the discount for a foreign object in my food. Yum!

Ladies of Comedy!

I’m so excited to be on this show in a vintage store in Burbank with some AMAZING women, including Laura Kightlinger, Beth Stelling, Emily Heller, April Richardson, and the lovely and talented Brandie Posey!

POSTSCRIPT: This wound up being one of the most memorable shows I have ever done in Los Angeles. For one, each performer was offered a free dress from Pinup Girl’s amazing private label brands of beautifully fitted vintage-inspired pieces.

Secondly, amazing actor James Urbaniak was there with this then-girlfriend, the artist Sara Pocock, and they thought I was pretty funny.

Thirdly, we had a small earthquake during the show, and I thought, “Hey, I might die in the same room as James Urbaniak.

So, You Think You Can Dance Downtown?

photo (1)

I’m a big fan of the show So You Think You Can Dance.   I felt lucky to attend some shows last season, and when I got an email for two shows this week, I jumped on it.  I was wary when I saw that the address was for the Orpheum and not the CBS lot, but when I got there it was clear that it was: Auditions.  I didn’t want to go to fucking auditions.  

In recent seasons, I haven’t even watched auditions.  One in twenty people will be good, one in forty will be amazing, one in ten will be completely delusional.   It’s the reality TV shock-jock portion, where people fall and cry and lie and the desperation seeps through and they edit to support the judge’s decisions.  However, I had already parked downtown all day for six dollars, so I stayed.

 It was kind of cool to be in the Orpheum and to see the familiar carpeting and to see a pile of dance bags and the warm up room.  We were seated and introduced to the newest judge, Christina Applegate, who has been a dancer her whole life and who crossed the stage in gold heels so high she needed a handler to come down the steps to the judge’s dais.

  Nigel Lythgoe went through a list of don’ts for the dancers.  He listed out things the judges were tired of seeing.

1. Don’t extend an arm and reach out pleadingly to the judges, wild-eyed.

2. Don’t jeté , tumble, then leap into the air to jeté again.  OVER IT.

3. Don’t look at the floor. (This is also a good tip for comedy!)

4.   Don’t wink.

5. Don’t put your finger on your mouth.

6. Don’t blow a kiss.

7. Don’t lip-sync.

8. Don’t hold your leg up.  This is So You Think You Can Dance, not Do You Think You Can Hold Your Leg Up For An Assload Of Time.

I stayed for the day and saw all 114 dancers although it felt like a billion.  I now have my own list.   It’s kind of inside baseball, but what in life isn’t?

List of Most Of The Dancer Types from So You Think You Can Dance Auditions:

1. Mama’s pretty pretty princess, the best ballerina in Pig’s Snout, Arkansas.  This represents 20% of the attendees.  Wearing a sports bra and leggings.   Has long, pretty girl hair.  She will do one million pirouettes and lift her leg up by her head and will get yelled at because all the other pretty princesses have done the same thing.

2. Mama’s pretty pretty princess got a mohawk and earrings and is all edgy and shit.  She will do a ton of pirouettes and lift her leg up in the air.

3.  Mama’s pretty pretty princess (male).  Appears to have a sixteen-pack of abs.  I don’t even know if this possible.

4.  Breakdancer type one:  Learned on the streets.  Looks to have been homeless as recently as this morning.  Amazing dancer.   Doesn’t appear to hear or understand instructions but can pop and lock like a sonofabitch.

5. Breakdancer type two: Learned at boarding school.  May dress like Parappa the Rapper.  May have a rat-tail.  (Rat tail odds doubled if Asian)

6. Ballroom dancers who have spray-tanned their legs to match their shoes, which is awesome.

7. Girl with a big bottom and men’s shoes?  Lindy hopper.

8. Tap dancers, who never get through even though some of them are awesome.  The sound and size of this show are never great for tap.

9. Hot-Ass Male Russian Ballroom Dancer.  (Thank god.)  (Please take your shirt off.)

10. Asian Twerk Twink.  Wears harem pants.

11. Midwestern Sincere Contemporary Dancer (male)- Wears what looks like pajamas and his one black Lucky Spinning Sock, which is black.  He’s the best modern dancer in Pig’s Snout, Arkansas, but he’s not as good as Contemporary Eric.   Why not wear a light colored sock?  You look like a rube, Trent!

12. Elderly street dancer- He’s here to do all of Michael Jackson’s moves!  You can see him tomorrow in front of the Hollywood Boulevard wax museum.

13.  The Only Gay In The Village: A chubby small-town club dancer with a lotta heart and board shorts and a couple of awesome moves.  He is trying not to lip-sync.  My god, he tries.  But that’s not a reasonable ask for a gay club dancer.  He would have to put duct tape over his mouth, or put a Lucky Spinning Sock in it.

Good luck to these and all the dancers that auditioned, I look forward in seeing you on the show in a paint-covered t-shirt or a Victorian zombie outfit!