Lifestyle
Got problems? Let L.A. comedians give you live ‘therapy’ at this confessional-style show
The doctors are in — and they’re funny.
Tucked near a Mobil gas station and a Harbor Freight Tools on Hollywood Boulevard, this is one of the highest-energy live comedy shows in town. Or maybe it’s the most comedic of therapy sessions in town. Or both.
Comedian Mina Quarterman (@minaquarterman) performs her set at Coffee Confessionals in Hollywood.
-
Share via
Welcome to “Comedy & ‘Therapy,’ ” a monthly event at the cafe Coffee Confessionals, in which comedians on stage dispense advice to audience members in the crowd. It’s far simpler than navigating your patient portal. After buying a $16 entry ticket — no deductible — audience members have the option of scribbling an anonymous confession or a personal dilemma onto a piece of paper before dropping it into a box.
Each show features six comedians — three who perform straight comedy sets and three who serve as “therapists” for the evening. The therapists each draw a submission from the box, then read it to the audience before scanning the crowd and inviting the participant up on stage to the therapy couch.
Hilarity then ensues — and it’s interactive. After the comedian riffs with the “patient,” the audience weighs in on the issue with green and red “thumbs up/thumbs down” paddles, often yelling out comments or directly querying the participant. The action is punctuated by booming sound effects — canned applause, the “wah-wah” of a sad trombone and a hyperactive electronic buzzer, among them — coming from a trigger-happy soundboard operator behind the coffee counter.
“Recently, a friend’s girlfriend told me she had a dream I got her pregnant,” comedian Chris Collins reads, after drawing from the box. “Well, if she’s not into me, she’s having second thoughts about marrying him. Do I tell him?” (Ooohs and aaahs from the audience.)
Audience member Matthew Robinson, 36, hides his face with his paddle before finally heading up to the stage.
“Well, if you’re thinking about telling him you kind of have to now because this is on camera,” comedian Collins tells him. “This is gonna be out there forever!” (No pressure.) Robinson chuckles as canned laughter from the soundboard fills the room.
Crowdmembers casts their votes during comedy set at Coffee Confessionals.
Comedian Chris Collins (@chrisco11ins)
“Give a thumbs up if you think he should tell his friend,” Collins later urges the crowd.
“Yeeaaah,” most of them yell, waving their green paddles in the air.
“Nooo,” comes a shout from the back of the room, a solo red paddle wiggling.
“One toxic guy in the back says don’t tell him!” Collins quips, as the room erupts in real human laughter.
“It’s a fun event,” says Coffee Confessionals owner Jing Lin. “But there is a genuineness to it. We’re not calling people up on stage to make fun, it’s really to help them through their problems.”
Robinson said, later in the evening, that his “therapy session” was actually helpful.
“That was something that gave me anxiety recently and it feels good to have everyone say ‘No, you should tell him.’ It was kind of a relief.”
Lin says she opened Coffee Confessionals in 2024 because she wanted to create community around coffee, conversation and the sharing of vulnerabilities. (There’s a neon sign in the window that says “Spill Your Beans.”) Lin missed the coffee culture of New York, where she’d moved to L.A. from, and has long had an affinity for coffee shops — she studied filmmaking in college and coffee shops are where she feels most creative, often spending afternoons there sipping a drip coffee while writing.
Shop owner Jing Lin sits post-show at Coffee Confessionals.
After about a decade working in marketing at NBCUniversal, Lin left the job during COVID in 2020 and hatched plans to open “a different kind of coffee shop.”
“I thought a lot about how to bring people together: How do you make a new friend, a new acquaintance, without just talking about the weather?” she says. “It’s really when you connect on a deeper level, when you’re revealing something. Those stories are what bring people closer together because you find ‘oh my God, I can really relate to what this person is going through.’ So I wanted to build a shop to get to those deeper conversations.”
Lin leaves stacks of “conversation cards” featuring icebreaker questions on the tables at Coffee Confessionals, to help prompt connection between strangers or for those on first dates. “What makes a good lasting marriage?” reads one; “Where do you see yourself five years from now, 10 years from now?” reads another. There’s also a “spill your beans confessional board,” where visitors can anonymously respond to prompts.
In addition to “Comedy & ‘Therapy,’ ” the coffee shop also hosts open mic nights, art walks and networking panels, among other events. For the comedy show, Lin says she’s mindful about booking a diverse group of comedians, with a cross-section of ethnic and LGBTQ+ backgrounds, as well as a mix of emerging and established performers.
Janelle Marie (@iamjanellemarie) assumes the role of host for the evening’s “Comedy and ‘Therapy.’ ”
Coffee Confessionals is admittedly small but cozy, with hardwood floors, bountiful string lights and just a few cafe tables inside. But that’s part of why the “Coffee & ‘Therapy’ ” show works. With about 35 audience members the night I attended, the tiny coffee shop felt packed, with standing room only in the back. The vibe was festive, social and playfully raucous — more impromptu living room performance among friends than comedy club.
Comedian Janelle Marie, who served as the evening’s MC, says the configuration of the room is an asset to her as a performer.
“It’s a very intimate space,” she says. “As a comedian standing up there you’re able to look out and see everyone and do crowd work and really connect with people.”
Even the straight comedy sets, sans interactive therapy, were shot through with intimate admissions, albeit humorous ones.
Olivia Xing, who is “made in China,” as she says, riffed on why she married her husband.
“I married him because he’s Mexican and I just know if ICE comes to get me, they’d get him instead. So I feel safe.”
Comedian Jordan Conley (@loljordancon1ey) offers some therapy advice during his set with randomly-selected crowdmembers.
The golden box of crowd-submitted confessions that comedians scoured through to incorporate during their interactive sets.
Toward the end of the evening, there was an unexpected confessional.
“I farted in the supermarket,” comedian Jordan Conley read from a piece of paper he’d drawn from the box.
Suddenly, a tall, lithe woman in a long overcoat stood up and made her way to the stage. The increasingly hilarious exchange between Conley and 27-year-old Nicky Marijne covered the basics (Which aisle? Produce. Audible or not? No.) But despite the absurdness of the topic, the conversation was not without therapeutic insight.
Marijne had come to the show “just for fun” and submitted her confession as a joke, she told The Times later. But the on-stage interaction with Conley got her thinking, nonetheless.
“As a woman you’re not supposed to fart, but it happens. Whereas [with] guys, it’s ha-ha funny. But for us, it’s like ‘oh my God,’ and we feel shameful. So [this] had a little therapy to it.”
Comedians Chris Collins (@chrisco11ins), left, and Mina Quarterman (@minaquarterman) prep for their sets while fellow comic Olivia Xing (@oliviacrossing_) beams with support from the crowd at Coffee Confessionals.
After the show, one of the evening’s comedians, Mina Quarterman, turned to the crowd for advice, as attendees were zipping their coats and readying to leave.
“OK, so I had the crowd [at the Laugh Factory] turn on me because of something I said on stage [recently],” she said. “And I wanna know if you guys think I was wrong.”
The crowd leaned in around her as she relayed a story about using a term on stage that an audience member felt was offensive.
“It caused a ruckus,” Quarterman said.
Everyone at Coffee Confessionals, however, seemed in agreement that Quarterman hadn’t been in the wrong — and she appeared visibly relieved. “Thank you for [workshopping] this!” she said.
Ultimately, whether you come to Coffee Confessionals seeking real advice, community and connection or stand-up performances, laughter itself is therapeutic, the evening’s MC, Marie, says.
“Laughter is everything. When you laugh — like a real belly laugh — you’re letting out your inner self,” she says. “It’s true freedom.”
Post-show with Sammy Cantu (@boom_shenanigans), standing from left, Jordan Conley (@loljordancon1ey), Chris Collins (@chrisco11ins), and, seated from left, Jing Lin (shop owner) and Olivia Xing (@oliviacrossing_) at Coffee Confessionals.
In central London’s Waterloo Place, a life-size statue that emerged overnight in late April has been creating a stir. When I visited a few weeks after it was erected, local authorities had already set up protective barriers around it.
The installation — signed by the famed street artist Banksy — depicts a man in a suit hoisting a flag as he strides over a precipice. As he marches on, the flag blows backward to cover his face, leaving him unaware he’s only a step away from a perilous fall.
Set among grand monuments celebrating Britain’s past, the “flag man” takes on a particular visual irony at a time when the country — and much of the world — is debating its path forward.
Like many viewers there, I found myself wondering whether this statue is Banksy’s warning about the consequences of uncritical nationalism, or simply a reflection on human shortsightedness. Or, perhaps, it is just prompting us to ponder a broader question: What happens when devotion to a symbol prevents us from seeing what lies ahead?
Whatever the message, the work feels remarkably attuned to the current moment.
For more Far-Flung Postcards, click here.
Lifestyle
Wait, it’s a candle? Her beeswax fruit and veggie ones look so real, you’ll want to take a bite
Jessica Gonzalez hustles behind her booth at the recent Renegade Craft Fair, frantically ringing up sales, answering questions and packaging her beeswax candles.
It’s hot on the grounds of the Los Angeles State Historic Park in April, but 35-year-old Gonzalez and her fiancé, Jordan Colindres, keep their cool as a crowd gathers to admire her Happy Organics candle collection, a homage to her family’s produce company in the Central Valley that looks like real fruits and vegetables.
“I love doing in-person events because it’s so fun to see people’s reactions,” she said a few months later. “It makes me feel good to see other people finding joy in my candles. They often say, ‘Oh, that’s really funny.’ And it is funny to have a cherry candle on top of your birthday cake.”
3
1. A staff member pulls a beeswax corn candle, $26, out of its mold at Happy Organics’ studio in downtown Los Angeles. 2. Each Beeswax Mixed Berry Birthday Candles set is cast from real mixed berries — strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries and cherries. A set of 10 is $30. 3. Bartlett green pears and heirloom tomatoes, $24 to $40.
Judging by the smiles and charmed looks on shoppers’ faces, her produce-inspired candles are less about illuminating rooms and more about sharing the joy she sought when she first started the company in 2018.
In this series, we highlight independent makers and artists, from glassblowers to fiber artists, who are creating original products in and around Los Angeles.
But then, it’s hard not to smile at the playfully elegant Bosc pears, puckered mandarins and green-and-purple asparagus taper candles which range in price from $12 to $40. Some are molded into corn on the cob, celery and rhubarb shapes. Others are made to look like mushrooms, figs, tomatoes and snap peas. The most popular are the small birthday candles shaped like raspberries, cherries and blackberries, packed in molded-pulp baskets just like you’d find at the grocery store or farmers market.
-
Share via
Gonzalez didn’t start out as a designer. The youngest of nine children, she was born in 1991 in Salinas and later moved to Merced, where she grew up on a 10-acre farm. She studied computer science at Mills College, then worked in tech consulting in the Bay Area and eventually became the CTO of an ag-tech company. When her mother, Angela, became ill in 2016, she returned to Merced to be with her family.
When her mom died suddenly soon after she moved home, Gonzalez left the tech industry. “I wasn’t connected with what I was doing,” she said. “I wanted to find something more meaningful; something I loved. I didn’t want my ego to keep me stuck in what I studied in college. I decided to let myself try new hobbies and passions and look for joy again.”
After her mother’s death, she began working with her father, Salvador, and her uncles at the family’s apiary, where they managed more than 30 hives. (Her grandfather was also a beekeeper in Michoacán, Mexico.) Soon, she began selling their raw honey at local farmers markets. In a heartbreaking turn, her father was diagnosed with cancer a year later, so she started making cannabis-infused honey, balms and chocolates to help ease his pain.
When she saw that the beeswax candles, which last significantly longer than paraffin candles, were selling faster than the honey, she decided to focus on making candles from the leftovers from her uncles’ hives.
She was only 25, but it was a turning point. “It was one of those moments where I felt like I needed to change my path,” she said. “I needed to change everything in my life.”
Jessica Gonzalez and her father Salvador on their family farm in Merced. (Gonzalez family)
Gonzalez at Happy Organics’ studio in downtown Los Angeles. (Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
When her father died in 2018, she inherited his bees and started Happy Organics, although she hadn’t planned on starting a business. After experiencing so much loss, making candles became a kind of therapy. “It felt great to work with my hands again, something I thought I’d never have time for,” she said.
Her oldest sister, Sonia Gonzalez, said Gonzalez reminds her a lot of their father, who reinvented himself many times over the years.
The nopal cactus is cast from a real nopal and hand-poured in 100% pure beeswax in the Los Angeles studio.
“He grew up as a village boy in the rural mountains of Michoacán, Mexico, and went on to work in restaurants, cut down Christmas trees and pick strawberries and broccoli in the fields of Salinas,” she wrote in an email. “From there, he started selling produce door-to-door, then at flea markets and eventually built his own produce distribution business from the ground up. As the youngest of nine kids from a working-class family, Jessica’s always been incredibly resourceful, responsible, and amazing at reinventing herself.”
Like a lot of millennials, Gonzalez taught herself how to make candles by watching YouTube videos. She started with hand-dipped tapers, working in the garage on the farm that helped her feel safe and connected to her parents. “It was a really nice environment to try something new and creative,” she said.
Inspired by her family’s produce, she cast real corn, strawberries and cherries in plaster, then made a silicone mold to create copies. Even when using the same mold, color can vary from batch to batch, and how it cools also affects the result. “That’s just how handmade things are,” she said. “There’s always some variation.”
Cherry molds make cherry candles at Happy Organics’ studio in downtown Los Angeles.
A variety of fruit and veggie candles.
When she moved to Los Angeles in 2023 to be with Colindres, her business took off. “L.A. is a great place to grow,” she said. “There’s so much opportunity here. When I go to a farmers market, I never know who I’ll meet.”
She sold her candles in person at craft shows, the Hollywood Farmers’ Market and most recently, during a residency at the P.F. Candle Co. showroom in Echo Park.
2
3
1. A staff member trims the wicks on a pair of carrot birthday candles, $22. 2. Gonzalez passes by shelves of candles at Happy Organics’ studio in downtown Los Angeles. 3. Asparagus taper candles, $30.
“I have a lot of respect for her as a fellow candle maker (making molds is not easy), but getting to know her story more and how her choice of foods and wax is reflective of her family’s history gave it so much meaning,” P.F. Candle Co. founder and creative director Kristen Pumphrey said in an email. “It’s been a tough couple of years for L.A. businesses, so we gotta stick together — there’s this wonderful sense of community hosting a local brand that’s so passionate about their work.”
As her business has expanded, her products are now available at Terrain, Joan’s on Third and the MoMA Design Store in addition to her website. She has also had to source beeswax from other vendors across the country to keep up with demand.
Kimberly Curtis, owner of Hide & Seek Vintage in Studio City, said Gonzalez’s strawberry and cherry birthday candles “flew off the shelves last year” during the holidays. “Our customers love them,” she added.
Gonzalez holds a cabbage candle.
Still, Gonzalez stays connected to her Central Valley roots. Everything she and her small team make in downtown Los Angeles is handmade and “takes time,” she said, describing the steps involved in crafting quality candles. Right now, her favorite is the Nopal Cactus candle, which she made using a clipping from an employee’s yard. While others help her with production, wholesale management and packaging, she focuses on sales, content and all-new product development.
When asked if she has advice for others who want to start their own business, Gonzalez admits she sometimes feels overwhelmed.
In 2013, Gonzalez and her family gathered at their Merced ranch to celebrate her parents’ anniversary.
(Gonzalez family)
“The biggest thing that has gotten me through the toughest spots is my why or my reason for starting,” she said. “I think that has to be really strong. That’s what brought me a lot of comfort when I felt like quitting: going back to the beginning and remembering why I started this.”
For Gonzalez, her reason is always close to her heart. “I wanted to feel connected to my parents in some way,” she said. “This was a good representation of my upbringing.”
The Kennedy Center, the facade of which remains covered with a tarp, is seen in Washington, DC, on June 28, 2026. A US federal judge asked on June 24 for an explanation for why a tarpaulin continues to cover the facade of the Kennedy Center where President Donald Trump’s name was recently removed. District Judge Christopher Cooper gave the board of trustees of the performing arts venue until the end of July to explain “the purpose for and status of the tarp and scaffolding that Defendants have erected on the front portico of the Center.”
ALEX WROBLEWSKI/AFP via Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
ALEX WROBLEWSKI/AFP via Getty Images
More than two weeks ago, President Trump’s name was removed from the Kennedy Center facade though it is still covered by a tarp and the legal battle continues.
On Monday, a U.S. Department of Justice filing on behalf of the Kennedy Center included some surprises. The document was submitted in response to issues raised by lawyers for ex-officio board member Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio who is suing to remove President Trump’s name from the center and stop its closure for renovations.
Among the revelations, the Kennedy Center admitted that, during a board meeting on December 18, 2025, Beatty had been “muted and prevented from speaking.” It was at that meeting that the board voted to add President Trump’s name to the center. The filing later acknowledges the congresswoman was “prevented from voicing her opposition.”
The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is a living memorial to its namesake. The guidelines for how the theatre complex spends federal dollars are very specific. Among other rules, it states that “no additional memorials or plaques shall be designated or installed.” Beatty argues adding Trump’s name runs afoul of those rules and that any change requires approval from Congress.
According to one of Beatty’s filings, “There was no advance notice in the agenda that the Board would be considering a name change,” a statement the Kennedy Center now does not deny. The center admits that, prior to voting, there was “no discussion about potential risks or downsides of the vote to adopt a secondary name for the Center.” Nor was there a board discussion “about any potential conflict of interest that might result from the vote.”
The center’s lawyers previously contended that if Trump’s name were to be removed, it would “lose money from donors who support” him and “impede the Center’s fundraising efforts.”
Closing for renovations
Earlier this year, Trump announced on social media that the Kennedy Center would close for two years for renovations. He wrote that he made the decision after “a one year review” with “Contractors, Musical Experts, Art Institutions, and other Advisors and Consultants.”
But, according to the center’s lawyers, Trump’s announcement “was made without presenting any plans, analyses, timelines, or funding information to his cotrustees and without any Board vote.”
The Kennedy Center has long denied reporting by The Washington Post that ticket sales plummeted after President Trump became the Center’s board chair. In Monday’s legal filing, the Center admits that, by October 2025, “nearly half of the Center’s tickets were going unsold.”
-
Wisconsin30 seconds ago9-year-old drowns at western Wisconsin water park, sheriff says
-
West Virginia5 minutes agoSave Women’s Sports Act now the law of the land – WV MetroNews
-
Wyoming13 minutes agoYoung bull moose captured wandering Laramie, relocated by Game and Fish
-
Crypto16 minutes agoWebinar: Crypto and public pensions—risks, rewards, and fiduciary duties
-
Finance21 minutes agoWednesday’s Campaign Round-Up, 7.1.26: Justices help GOP with campaign finance ruling
-
Fitness28 minutes agoI’ve been doing the bird dog exercise instead of planks to improve my core strength – it’s even better for beginners
-
Movie Reviews36 minutes agoNeil’s Movie Reviews
-
World46 minutes agoRussia Approved Secret China Military Training At Top Level: Reuters
