Category: comedy

Virginia Jones and Brandie Posey One On One

VIRGINIA JONES & BRANDIE POSEY

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Virginia’s responses to Brandie’s questions:

What’s the worst present you’ve ever gotten?  

 My first thought was very hippie 2020, like, it’s a gift just to be remembered, even if the object itself is not inherently desirable to me?  But it’s true, when you’re a kid, Christmas and Birthdays are your only chances to get stuff, because nobody will hire you to work because of the so-called “abuses” of the Industrial Revolution.

When I was 8 or 9 my Dad was hyping us up about a gift he had bought “for the family” and it was “electronic” and “everyone could use it” and it would be “good for our homework” so I thought it was going to be like a Deep Blue supercomputer or something and it was an electric pencil sharpener that he had really taken a shine to.  It was beige!

When did you know you wanted to be a comedian?

As a kid, I was hospitalized with pneumonia over Christmas.  All kinds of charity groups were visiting sick kids at Christmas and I felt very self conscious at getting attention because I was sick.  I started trying to make jokes to distract.  Also I got a cabbage patch kid for free from a church group and that fucking rocked.  My sister was so pissed.

What’s your favorite fashion choice from your past?

As a goth, my fashion choices are very similar past, present, and future, but there was a moment after the first Matrix I bought myself a black pleather pantsuit at an indoor flea market in Dallas, TX that I wore to the goth club with sunglasses and a wet bob all the time and that was pretty great.  At the end of the night I’d have to wring it out.

What’s your favorite joke you don’t do anymore?  

My first closer was about Paris Hilton, and it was basically about how she was a marketing genius without talent.  She went out of the public vernacular long before I realized it was a pretty misogynist joke. I closed on it for at least two years.

What’s your mask style of choice?

I bought a mask in Hanoi, Vietnam in 2008 and used that as the template to make masks that I sent to friends and family and wear myself.  In Vietnam, it was mostly meant to keep the sun off your face and dust out of your nose when you’re on your moped.

VIRGINIA, ARE YOU PLANNING ON TAKING THE VACCINE?

I will camp out for the vaccine like I camped out for Nick Cave tickets.  I’ll wear a sleeping blanket and cut holes in the sides for my arms so I look like a giant baby and I will bring bags of vegan jerky and fruit leather to share.  Layer three fabric masks and a gas mask on top and I will wait it out.

Brandie’s responses to Virginia’s questions:
What’s something you’ve learned about yourself during lockdown? 

Apparently if I was locked up, I would be in the prison gym all the damn time! I’ve been spending quarantine getting ripped, or as ripped as you can be while also stress eating donuts. My boyfriend just told me I have a back like a little bulldog now, so the new goal is to get even buffer to murder him AND maintain my mental health.

Who are your three favorite woman or nonbinary comedians? 

Hmmm, there are so many to choose from! But my gut reaction was Maria Bamford, Michelle Buteau & Tig Notaro. They’re amazing, check them out if you somehow know me but not them!

What’s the first R rated movie you ever saw? 

I have a pretty vivid memory of seeing Total Recall WAY too young & Arnold Schwarzenegger’s eyes popping out of his head. I gave up wanting to be an astronaut around that time.

Who was your first crush? 

My first crush was Bruce Campbell in Xena: Warrior Princess. My last crush will be Bruce Campbell in anything he does.

What’s your favorite gift you ever got from a fan? 

My podcast, Lady to Lady, had a fan who knitted dolls of the three of us while she was working on her doctorate when she needed a break from screens! All three dolls are in a three person shirt. We hang it from a hook in our recording studio & it creeps out guests who don’t see it at first haha.

What do you think of garden gnomes? 

My dad has…. Maybe 12 garden gnomes? Some parents get a dog when their kids move out, my dad can’t stop going to garden stores & bringing home tiny bearded men. So what do I think of garden gnomes? I THINK THEY’RE COMING FOR MY PLACE IN THE FAMILY.

See also: Ladies of Comedy

Simon LeBon’s Astonishing DNA Test

My daughter, Saffron, gave me a genetics kit for my birthday this year, and I know it’s a bit cheesy but in the tradition of middle aged dads everywhere, I’ve been working up the old family tree. 

 I’m pleased to have found a great many writers and poets in my bloodline!

The First LeBon

  The first LeBon arrived in London in the big Huguenot emigration of the 1590’s, and published the Elizabethan period poem below:

Thou has se’en me– stood’st at the corner of thy street

And O!  A fire makes for flashes on thy stone sill

To be solitary pleases you not

So thou wouldst seek out pleasure

And sooth- thou would knows’t wherefore and whyfore 

Nay, pray not for me today

Prithee, pray for me on the morrow–  Francois LeBon

American LeBon

Next, I found an American whose family settled in Louisiana.  We have a great-great grandfather in common.  He loved the SF beat poetry scene so much he moved out there in 1953. 

Antoine LeBon wrote the following,  published in a zine called Street Poems in 1957:

I finally bugged out yesterday

Couldn’t peep my hillside pad

Maybe I’ll head there in a year

Maybe I won’t

I can feel you diggin’ on me, cat, day and night

I’m hep to it, the art and incantations

I dig it, it’s a gas

There’s a dream, a fantasy maybe

Stringing down this road we call our home

There’s shards of glass everywhere

It cuts me, cuts me deep, and finally I say 

Hey man, hip me to it

What do I gotta know? 

Japanese LeBon

Perhaps strangest of all is a British girl whose family moved to Japan in the 30’s, and who wrote pretty little haiku like this one, this is Belleanne LeBon from her school poetry journal:

Cherry blossom lips

Smear in a line as she falls

Into blue water

Amazing stuff.  I showed it to Yasmin and said, look, babe, we’ve always been poets and she said, love, you’re not a poet, you’re just a clotheshorse who got lucky.

Well, I’ll add more if I find more!

‘Til then- Simon

The Man Who Sold The World: On Autoharp And Guitar

The Man Who Sold The World On Autoharp:

If you give a goth an autoharp, she’ll ask for a Jazzmaster.

If you give a goth a Jazzmaster, she’ll try to play some Bowie.

I found an autoharp on Glendale boulevard in LA and tuned it and replaced the springs and felts, and then I accompanied myself on this Bowie cover, The Man Who Sold The World. I have probably gone insane. Thank you.

The Comedy Network Live Interview: Cheat Sheet On Virginia Jones

This is a reposting of a great interview on Comedy Network Live!

Virginia Jones Comedian Interview Comedy Network Live

VIRGINIA JONES: COMEDIAN, ACTRESS & WRITER

Bio:

Virginia Jones is an LA-based comedian, actor, and writer. She can be seen on Portlandia, CNN’s History of Comedy, and if you stay up late enough, on an Australian tap dance infomercial. She is a unique comic voice, by turns ingenious and absurd. Her comedy is keenly feminist and subtly radical. During lockdown, she created a Instagram TV series called Covid Delivery Scumbag, which has over 2000 views cross-platform. She’s glad to be one of Jackie and Laurie’s Comics of the Week. She documents her various adventures and plots on www.badinia.com

My Joke of the Day:

Most common Quarantine Activity: 

I have been playing a metric ass-ton of guitar.  Does that mean I am good at guitar?  No.  But I’m better than I was before we had to stay in the house all the time.  I’ve been writing dumb letters to send to friends, making masks for people.  A million little craft projects.  

Favorite Quarantine show/movie:

I really loved Midnight Gospel and Space Force.  I’ve been watching lots of weird British comedy on Britbox, Inside No. 9 is great capsule comedy horror from two of the guys from League of Gentlemen.

Favorite Instagram accounts:

I really love @diet_prada and their fashion snark, my friend Todd Masterson’s hilarious @gayfatfriend, and @jonwurster for rock trivia and #mynewworstfriend posts

Favorite quarantine meal & drink: 

I’m enjoying refreshing homemade vodka sodas, and when Magpies softserve opened for pickup in Silverlake I called my manager to make sure he knew.

Most Questionable thing you’ve seen or heard recently.. 

A friend of mine called me driving home from a covid hookup, and said “I can’t wait until this goddamned pandemic is over!” and I’m all “bitch you’re not helping!”  

First thing you’ll do once isolation is over…

Pet all the dogs, do all the shows, go to all the parties, and make out with strangers in the street!

Thanks for the interview, Comedy Network Live!