A DISTANT VOICE: A Call From Tricia Romano From L.A. (Part Two)

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Yesterday we posted part one of Steve's conversation with editor Tricia Romano; they discussed how she got her start at the Village Voice as well as Tricia's take on LA nightlife versus how it is perceived. If you missed day one, read it now. Otherwise keep on reading for day two.

Tricia and I have a mutual friend, Matty Silver, who is just about as whacked as both of us. Matty, from time to time, has booked Perry Farrell and his bags of tricks into clubs. Matty’s promoted, thrown mega events, and seems always up to some majestic scheme or another. We connect once in awhile and chat about our lives. I once met up with Matty and casually asked him what he was doing. He answered, ‘I’m helping out the government of Peru.’…Or was it Paraguay? I don’t really remember as my brain sort of stopped for a couple of hours, but that’s the kind of answer you’ll get from Matty if you asked him a question like that. This club world is filled with succeeders and dreamers, and best of all, those who succeed with their dreams. The common thread of these interviews is the players who are succeeding with their dreams. I’m sure not all their dreams, as we have some heavy sleepers out there. But you look at an Eddie Dean, that saloonkeeper from Brooklyn who now runs Pacha NY, or Mark Baker, who through good times and bad still controls Mansion - a not too shabby place. The DJs entertaining thousands making music, and the actresses, artists, singers and such supporting themselves amongst likeminded souls, as they dream of stardom. It’s the dreams that keep us tucked into nightclubs sometimes way past our bedtimes. Tricia Romano’s dreams have taken her to L.A., and I miss her so.

I remember the first time I went to Los Angeles. I was nineteen and had longish hair, and was seeking surfer girls or hippie chicks as either one would do. I had split from my girl in St. Louis; she hitched northwest, I drove southwest. I was to meet a friend on his birthday, July 23rd. I arrived near his Hollywood commune early morning, and had some time to kill. I parked the VW camper by Hollywood and Vine and got out to take a look around. I crossed the street and a police cruiser chased me to the curb. A LAPD officer slammed me against a fence, then to the ground, issued me a ticket for jaywalking, and gave me some great ideas about my hair do. I had been in L.A. for five minutes and had already been rousted, tossed, and ticketed by a cop. I walked to the famous corner and spotted Elizabeth Montgomery of Bewitched scolding a silly man who was running along next to her. So I was in L.A. for ten minutes; got ticketed, tossed, and saw a celebrity. I sat on a bench and a cute girl came up to me and chatted me up. I was there fifteen minutes and I been ticketed, tossed, seen a celeb, and now was California dreaming with a hippie chick. Maybe I just never learned to go with the flow and let the culture take me for its ride, so I came back east and tried to create my own little fish ponds. I gotta go back there soon as someone has asked me to design something, and I guess I’ll stop by that corner - but it won’t be the same I guess…except for the cops.

Steve Lewis: Now you’re with Defamer, and tell me about that.

Tricia Romano: I write once or twice a week on night out types of things with Defamer. The good thing about it is it’s a really wide range, I’m not totally pinned to clubs. Usually a lot of what I’m writing about starts at 7 o’clock in the evening and ends by 11. It’s just a little less based on being out at one in the morning. It encompasses a lot on movies, art openings, music shows – it’s a range. I’m just doing that one or twice a week, and then I’m the managing editor of a website called Popandpolitics.com. I just started that about two weeks ago. It’s a website slash blog started by Farai Chideya. She’s a really prominent journalist, and she’s on NPR News and Notes. She started this in 1996, I think. It’s grown over the years and now its part of the USC Annenberg journalism program. I’m also a regular contributor to the Advocate.

SL: That’s amazing Tricia. You’ve come a long way. L.A.’s been a land of opportunity for you, and you seem happier. Things are going well, and you really seem to be getting good, solid work. When you were in New York you worked for the Village Voice. Now, I’m at this Good Night Mr. Lewis site which I have over here at JoonBug, and JoonBug really doesn’t get in my way at all. I write what I wanna write and they don’t even question what I’m writing about, or who I’m interviewing. I sort of have free hand. Now when you were at the Village Voice, was there always a layer of politics above everything you wrote about?

TR: Not really. I mean, you have to pitch features and then you must get approved. You have to plead your case in some sense, and you have to sell your feature to the approving editor. That last year and a half that I was there it was so tumultuous; we had six editors-in-chief during that time.

SL: You had six editors-in-chief in a year and a half?

TR: Yeah, it was insane. Don Forst resigned, then Doug Simmons was an intern who became our managing editor and then our acting editor in chief. He was fired after about a month or two, I think after the Nick Sylvester fiasco happened…

SL: So all these changes happened while you’re writing a column, and each one of these editors wants to put their own stamp on the publication.

TR: Right. The good thing for me during that time was that I was dealing directly with Rob Harvilla, who was the music editor. Rob was sort of like a protective shield, and he was really good about keeping all the drama that was going on away from his writers. He was just a great editor in general who encouraged changing the format of things so that it was almost like mini features every week, rather than a list of events that I had been to. It was less about who I saw and more about a story or a trend or a personality profile. So in that sense I think the column got stronger. But everyone was distraught that year because every time we had a new editor or editorial change, it was like everything happened in slow motion. At the Voice, every time a new person came we’d all have a couple weeks of like, ‘Ok, maybe we’re safe.’ But then there’d be a mass layoff of ten people. So we were all a nervous wreck as each editor would be fired and then a new person would come in, and then we’d have to go through it all over again.

SL: Well you managed to get a bunch of covers in all this turmoil. One of the covers, I remember because I was in it, was the Sober Hipsters article. What other covers did you have while at the Village Voice?

TR: I won an award for that story. It is the only award I’ve ever won.

SL: You won the Sober Hipsters award?

TR: No I won the best feature from the Newsmen’s Club of New York. It’s something like a ninety year old organization that’s really distinguished.

SL: Amazing, and what else did you have covers for?

TR: I had covers for Ultra Girl; I did a cover on the anti-bottle service movement with all the clubs down on the Lower Eastside, and in Brooklyn. Wow, I can’t even remember them all…

SL: Well you know, the purpose of this sit down was for everyone to know that Fly Life did exist, and that at one time there was someone writing about nightlife that wasn’t Steve Lewis, Down By the Hipster, and a few others that still do. I don’t know if you read any of our blogs, but we are humbly trying to fill your shoes, and not even close because you’re a real writer. Now you’ve gone to L.A. with my ex-wife and half the other people that I know in the world who have moved out there, so there must be something going on. And I do read your blog because you make me.

TR: Cause I make you?

SL: Well you did make me initially, and now I read it on my own. The point is that I wanted to thank you for starting me in this mess. And that’s what happened. I mean Tricia Romano was the one who we’d go out to dinner sometimes and you’d say, ‘Why don’t you write, why don’t you write?’ I said, ‘You know, maybe I’ll write someday.’ Then when you left New York I basically called you up and said, ‘I’m going to do this,’ because you were gone and I didn’t want to do it while you were around.

TR: Well you’re doing some pretty interesting stuff. You’re schooling everybody; it’s Steven Lewis’ nightlife school.

SL: I’m not sure it’s a school. Well, there are a lot of teachers with different views. A lot of people are writing about nightlife. The reason I write this blog is because I actually did all this, I run clubs and I’ve been there. Most of the blogs written about nightclubs are written by people who’ve never run them, and I think I have a very unique position. I think I have the most fun at this when a bunch of the blogs are running with the same story and taking excerpts from each other, and each one gets a little bit more info from a completely new source. The story just keeps growing and it’s happening so fast, faster than a newspaper or other printed publication. I also enjoy the different attitudes of the different blogs; love DBTH, Eater, Grub Street, GOAG. Even though it sometimes gets a little testy, I enjoy reading those blogs and now yours…

Good Night,

Mr. Lewis

Interview conducted and written by Steve Lewis.

Interview has been edited and condensed by Jessica Tocko.

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