Today we’d like to introduce you to Julia Loken.
Julia, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I’ve been doing stand-up for about six years, and last year (2017) I felt like I was in a bit of a rut. A lot of stand up is doing the same thing over and over again, and sometimes it’s hard to tell if you’re making any kind of progress. I’ve always been interested in astrology, and after a breakup, I got REALLY into it – I think that’s honestly how a lot of people get into astrology.
My friend and fellow stand-up Lisa Chanoux and I had been kicking around the idea of starting some kind of comedy/astrology project but couldn’t quite figure out the angle. After meeting Stevie Anderson and discovering our shared interest in astrology, my boyfriend suggested that the three of us start a podcast.
The three of us met for coffee to discuss the idea, and we’ve been meeting to talk about astrology ever since.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Honestly, everything with the podcast has felt, to use a ‘woo woo’ phrase, very much in concert with the Universe. Even choosing the name, “What’s Your Sign?” when we were throwing around ideas, we all thought, “there’s NO WAY this isn’t already taken,” but it wasn’t! Astrology is really having a moment so it seems that inevitably someone would have made something like our podcast, and I’m just glad it was the US that did it!
That being said, there have definitely still been challenges, but it feels like they have been more internal than external. I think most creatives suffer from some level of self-doubt and imposter syndrome type stuff, so learning how to come to terms with those feelings and continue to create is a constant struggle. I’m grateful to have co-hosts that I’m accountable to so I can’t indulge in these feelings TOO much. I’ve agreed to make this thing with these women, so I have to show up for them whether I’m feeling particularly confident or not.
In contrast, it’s also been interesting learning how to come to terms with the fact that people are actually listening to you! You think that the validation of people liking your product will ease your self-doubt, and it does to a certain extent, but then there are all of these other things you have to take into consideration. Now you have an audience you’re accountable to, that has opinions on what you’re making. It’s one thing to imagine what people MIGHT think about your work, but it’s different to read exactly what people think of it in a review or an email.
We’d love to hear more about what you do.
I guess I am my business, lol. I’m a stand-up comic and podcast host. I perform comedy all over the Los Angeles area and around the country. I am one of the regular hosts of Chatterbox Comedy Night, which is the best show in LA that’s not in LA (it’s in Covina).
I’m best known for What’s Your Sign which is a comedy astrology podcast that I host with comedians Lisa Chanoux and Stevie Anderson. Each episode covers a different astrological topic such as Mercury retrograde, or eclipses. Our goal is to make Astrology fun and accessible for everyone.
We’re not Astrologers, we’re comedians, so we don’t have to be as precious about everything. We can roast Pisces for taking forever to text back, or talk about our frustrations with our Aries boyfriends who NEVER put anything away – it’s like they don’t know that cupboards also close! We kid because we love.
I think the instinct is to only talk about the good qualities of each sign, but every sign has positive and negative attributes and the more we can embrace the “negative” qualities in ourselves, the easier it is to embrace them in others.
What were you like growing up?
I was a VERY precocious kid. One of the quintessential stories my parents tell about me is about the time I announced to all of the children in the neighborhood, “Let’s go to Disneyland!” and proceeded to march them around the block. When we got back to my house, I said to my Dad, “We should really give them a treat,” and he gave them all ice cream bars – I was two or three years old!
Whenever I’d go to friends birthday parties, I’d ask if I could help them open their presents… and nine times out of 10 they’d say “yes!” I guess precocious is a nice way of saying weird and bossy 😉 I was super into fashion. I really wanted to bellbottoms, but they didn’t make them in kids sizes, so I made my mom buy a pair from like, Wet Seal or something and alter them. In third grade, I wore a faux fur coat to school for two weeks straight.
When the No Doubt album Tragic Kingdom came out, my friend Pheobe and I would wear bindis to be like Gwen Stefani. I always loved dressing up and performing! There’s an infamous home video of me singing Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” on rollerblades as a tribute to my cousin’s recently deceased bunny rabbit.
The Summer of 1992, I made my cousin curl my hair and draw a beauty mark on my face to resemble Madonna (this is her Marilyn Monroe-esque phase), and I’d perform “This Used to be my Playground.”
Contact Info:
- Address: 943 N Citrus Ave, Covina, CA 91722
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/whatsyoursignpodcast/?hl=en
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/whatsyoursignpodcast/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/julialoken
- Yelp: https://www.instagram.com/julialoken/?hl=en
- Other: https://twitter.com/whatsyrsign_pod?lang=en
Image Credit:
Alexa Viscius, Stevie Anderson
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