Andrew J. Lederer

I had to leave the Paramount Comedy Channel party early last night to do a gig on Edgware Road that turned out to have only 3 people in the audience. But, sadly, it was still a good thing I'd gone, 'cause I needed my part of the meager door split to survive an additional day.

Rushed back when I was finished, though, and ended up dancing (more or less) with (for?) the Penny Spubb girls. It was a fun party -- saw lots of people I hadn't seen since Edinburgh and continued the Fringe relationships (such as they are) -- both good and bad -- for the duration of the event.

Flirted with the people I traditionally flirted with, chatted amiably with my traditional amiable chat partners, was dissed by the familiar dissers and ignored by the appropriate ignorers . . .

Saw my "cousin", Helen Lederer and her attractive daughter (who is not, I should point out, my cousin -- hence the quotation marks). Met Gina Yashere and gave her a hug to tell her she looks great and is not -- as she implied in a recent newspaper interview -- too fat.

Steve Bennett was there and said he was gonna give me a real, live Chortle blog. (He brought it up.) We'll see if it happens but even if it doesn't and it turns out drink made him give in too readily to the essential sweetness that lurks within him, I will forgive him because, well, he is -- essentially sweet.

As the party wound down, I somehow found myself in a car with four beautiful comedy-type women heading toward The Comedy Store. (But before I left the Paramount soiree, I saw Martin White entering, having recently finished the Book Club gig at the Bloomsbury Theatre. He looked clean shaven and beautiful -- though not as beautiful as my soon-to-be taxi-mates -- and said the Ince extravaganza had been great.) We watched the Fullmooners show and talked and laughed and Mickey D kissed me on the cheek and seemed to mean it and I had a great conversation with one of my fellow travelers who said she was doing a sketch show on BBC 3. I've since learned she's kind of a big deal which makes me feel a little sad 'cause I figure a big-name act with her choice of enthusiastic suitors is even less likely to find me and my poverty-infused neurotic manifestations -- not to mention my urchin-style garb and chubby form -- attractive than a standard model girl would.

It doesn't seem fair either. I found her attractive and I won't hold it against her that she's doing well.

Why am I so good?

_________________
www.myspace.com/anthologypage

If life were a meritocracy, I'd be dead right now or at least have an injured toe or something.

I was walking through the porn-laden alleys of Soho tonight on the way to a gig. I got used to the fact that there was no vehicular traffic in these picturesque alleyways, only to round a corner onto a normal street without noticing the change.

While scanning a line of people waiting to get into some kind of club, I stepped in front of an oncoming motor scooter. Yes, I was fast enough to move away before the otherwise inevitable impact but what if the scooter had been faster or had been a motorcycle or a car or even a truck? My actions had not earned me survival. Survival was maintained solely through luck.

I had done the wrong thing and not paid for it. But in a random world, sometimes wrong is right. What if, down the line, I avoid being run over by a a lorrie (did I spell it right?) due to extra attentiveness resulting from tonight's near-collision? I would survive then because I did the wrong thing now. Is this fair?

I like anything that lets me continue as I am -- more or less alive. But these things that remind us that our fates are not necessarily in our own hands (which was fortunate for me this time 'round) give lie to the sense of control we crave.

I guess I'm now living on borrowed time. (Or borrowed bones. The scooter might merely have crunched a couple.) Perhaps the good Lord spared me so that I could fulfill a glorious destiny. Perhaps he let me stay alive so that I could live the rest of this wondrous night -- a night in which I got to see Adam Sandler and Kate Beckinsdale in front of the Empire Theatre at the UK opening of "Click". How many mere mortals can make that claim?

I must be special to be so spared and so blessed.

And I did a funny show tonight, too.

_________________
www.myspace.com/anthologypage

I do feel like I have actual friends in London and not just the virtual, blog-followin' type.

Hung out again on Saturday with Anna and Elise, my two Edinburgh-derived, filmmaker friends. Anna used to go out with Debra-Jane Appelby and Elise used to be a respectable entertainment journalist but both are now poverty-submerged artistic types who are in no position to look down on me when I can't afford buy a round or whatever and are therefore ideally suited to be my boon companions here in the UK.

It took me forever to get to our appointed meeting place -- a Starbucks across from the British Museum -- because of confounding tube reroutings and station closings. (I could've walked there faster.) When I did, there were additional members of our group, including an attractive, red-tressed Irish girl who'd lived for a time in my native Brooklyn. I was, however, so frazzled from my journey that I was unable to properly calibrate my personality fast enough make it explicable to this potential new friend and so, I think, she found me somewhat overbearing. (No "American" jokes, please. I am perfectly capable of being noxious in my own fashion, unencumbered by national characteristics of any sort.)

So, now there's another one wandering the planet who will probably never love me. No matter. By the time the speaker of limited English with limited teeth approached our table looking for a handout, I had regained my equilibrium and -- though we could not and did not give him any money -- I bounded over the language barrier to keep him in stitches, burnishing my under-heralded reputation as an international everyman.

From that point on it was a good day. We wandered around town, lingered in a non-franchised, inexpensive cafe and I even got to wax rhapsodic about the first season of the vintage "Abbott and Costello Show" while Elise was waiting for a bus.

Then, passing a murder-site shrine on the way -- I went to John Gordillo's house to give notes on a screenplay he's working on. (I was flattered he was interested in my opinion.) We had pizza and talked about the film and about comedy -- it was fun.

I walked back to Notting Hill from Highbury and Islingtion, following the trail of the #30 bus. Upper Street seemed like a lot of fun and it was fascinating to see how it's basically a straight line from King's Cross to where I'm staying. (I guess I should've known that from the train map, but those are often imprecise.)

So, now I feel I'm starting to figure out the more northerly regions and how they fit into the London pie.

Yum.

_________________

www.myspace.com/anthologypage

Last edited by andrewjlederer on Thu Sep 28, 2006 1:32 pm; edited 1 time in total

Good morning.

I should say, before I continue this thing, that I am not at all offended by Steve Bennett not asking me to become part of the blog section of the redesigned site. I know I made a big deal of the fact that I wasn't initially offered a Fringe Blog this year, but that was because I had done them the previous two years and because -- except for me -- everyone and his brother seemed to have been invited to do one.

I think Steve has not just the right but the responsibility to decide who is "important" enough to receive such play. I presume he's trying to benefit the site by having "desirables" collaborating with and, by implication, endorsing the enterprise. From his perspective (as well as, perhaps, from the perspective of reality), I simply don't make that cut.

I am not a lofty comedic beacon of success, rather an ordinary citizen, and there are plenty of places for us Ordinary Joes to hold forth on this site.

I would argue, however, that I am competitive when it comes to blog popularity, as I did not join the official Fringe Blog roster 'til midway through the fest and, since that time, I've tallied about 3000 hits -- about half the number of Peacock, et al -- in about half the time. (I've probably had a competitive number of hits per post as well, since many of my posts predate the festival, making the total number of hits misleading in terms of this calculation.)

At gigs, I've been meeting people who've been reading the blog. It's as if we already have a relationship because they kinda know me already. I appreciate having been given the opportunity to foster these relationships and, as I said last night, intend to pursue them in this venue or elsewhere.

That's it. I will continue the saga shortly.

Andrew

_________________
www.myspace.com/anthologypage

The Palmers Green show was different from what I expected. The guy who booked me had met with me at one of his other gigs on Wednesday -- a fifteen-seater (max.) near Covent Garden which was free for audience members and non-remunerative (financially, at any rate) for performers. So, even though I knew this gig was a paying one, I had a mental image of something small-scale. But in reality, it was a big gig -- the headliner was Owen O'Neill, the room seated maybe a couple hundred people, and it was promoted in one of the free afternoon papers.

I really wanted to do a good job 'cause I wanted the guy to book me in more of his rooms. So, when I found myself doing quite nicely with gentle audience interaction, I nevertheless felt I was in danger of being perceived as insubstantial. I thought I should demonstrate my depth by introducing meaningful content. So, remembering how a segment of my Edinburgh show had galvanized an otherwise unenthusiastic crowd in Richmond some nights earlier, I launched into that same segment -- which was exactly the wrong thing to do.

They had been happy. Why did I have to try to prove something?

Well, anyway, it being a Jewish holiday, I finished by having the audience join me in a Hebrew song and left the stage to look for a spot where I could flagellate myself. The booker actually seemed happy with my set but I refused to believe I had been good enough -- and this despite the fact that a couple of people (separately) came up to tell me how much they liked me -- which the booker said was very unusual -- and despite the round of applause I had been given when I said that the British -- in their criticism of others' imperialism -- were like reformed smokers, drinkers or drug addicts -- just because they don't do something anymore, the rest of us aren't supposed to have any fun.

Luckily, I was supposed to join Ava Vidal at The Comedy Store, where she was meeting up with Adam Bloom, so I had something to take my mind off my self-perceived inadequacies. I had never been to the London Comedy Store before and I was pleased that a Jew -- the aforementioned Mr. Bloom -- would be performing because it meant I wasn't the only one who didn't have somewhere to go to celebrate the Jewish New Year.

Unfortunately, it turned out Adam was only half-Jewish and had no feeling of connection to the religion but instead of feeling alone, I zeroed in on the next comedic Jew in the room, Ian Stone, and asked him if he had been to a festive family dinner earlier in the evening.

He said no, that he had a shit family, and I really wasn't sure to what extent he was kidding.

Adam Bloom told me he had heard good things about me and storytelling, which made me feel pretty good, and he told me Holland was the perfect place to ply that kind of comedy; that he had been there something like fifteen times and that they will follow you anywhere -- storywise -- and be happy as long as the story pays off in the end. I don't know that I have any way of utilizing that knowledge in the near term but I guess it's good to know this stuff, anyway.

Met Susan Murray, who seemed nice, if a bit hard-edged but when I talked to Ian Stone, he -- perhaps sensing my insecurity and discomfort (I was feeling fat and couldn't find the necessary posture to either look or feel otherwise), seemed uncomfortable, despite the fact that we had chatted amiably when we did Political Animal together in Edinburgh. (I don't blame Ian at all for this. If there was discomfort, it probably did originate with me.)

I loved the Store and immediately knew that I wanted to play it. (Now there's another item on my list.) I walked home feeling pretty good, all things considered, deciding to take the southwesterly fork off of Piccadilly Circus rather than the northeasterly one (Regent St.) I figured the bend to the west would take me closer to Notting Hill than would the alternate stroll toward Oxford Circus. So, I walked on Picadilly (the street) and it somehow never seemed to end, twisting so far that west became north, placing me on the south side of Hyde Park, rather than the north, where I wanted and needed to be.

But -- what the hell -- vive le difference -- I walked along the south side of the park, turning north at Kensington Church St. and got home between 4:30 and 5, now knowing where Mayfair is and how it fits into the puzzle that is London.

_________________
www.myspace.com/anthologypage

Drinking red wine and making baked ziti for my friend, who's been letting me stay at his flat.

Just thought I'd mention -- since there's a new "official" Chortle blog outpost and I don't seem to be a part of it -- that I'll be continuing my blog here unless/until Steve makes it impossible for me to do so. At that point, maybe he'll move it back to the Fringe Forum, whence it began, or wherever it seems to belong at that time. If that turns out to be nowhere, I'll continue it elsewhere and, of course, I'll post a notice letting you know where. For the time being, I guess this is a guerrilla blog again.

It's good to be "home".

Andrew

_________________
www.myspace.com/anthologypage

Happy New Year! I think '67's gonna be a good one. Get ready for the "Autumn of Love". (That's 5767, by the way.)

The cute, little, Australian lawyer girl had, at our first meeting , reminded me that the Jewish New Year would soon be upon us. I thought she said it was gonna start on 25 Sept. (it varies 'cause Judaism uses a lunar calendar), but I learned a couple of days ago that it was to start tonight.

This worried me 'cause the CULAL (cute, little, Australian lawyer) had said she was going to have a first night dinner with friends and that she would keep me apprised of details. But none had been forthcoming. In fact, I had heard not a peep.

Now, I would have happily let the holiday pass over (oh, yeah -- that's a different holiday) without being too disturbed but the CULAL had placed in my head the idea of celebrating -- in a different country from my own, with other Jews from still another country -- a tradition going back thousands of years, which I'd loved since I was a kid.

New friends. New land. New year. Cool.

So, now I wanted it bad. But as I said, I had heard nothing with only two days left to go and though I had intended to get in touch with the CULAL for a while, I didn't want to seem too enthusiastic lest I frighten her, so -- of course -- I had not contacted her since some insecure exchanges after our first meeting.

Actually, I can only say with assuredness that I was insecure -- I have no idea what she was feeling. However, I suspect she was simply looking for fun and thought that I was fun and that involving me in her friends' holiday dinner would be fun but that after I left the group abruptly on the night that we met, then inexplicably apologized the next morning for not saying goodbye (which I'm not even sure was true), then had a weird exchange where she told me my e-mails seemed cold, then responded with a too-revealing explanation of my enthusiasm for her, I was probably seeming somewhat less fun.

Regardless, I now had not just an excuse to reach out, it pretty much had to be done immediately or opportunities would be lost, so I e-mailed and texted (no, I don't wear a belt and suspenders, er, sorry -- braces) an invitation to have a drink on Wednesday, which she accepted.

We ended up eating at Wagamama and talking -- as I wolfed down my food, uncertain whether she heard the three or four successive burps that resulted -- about our differing levels of enthusiasm for substance (ab)use. I mentioned that cocaine, which I haven't used in years (I actually said -- oh my God -- "taken", as in "to take cocaine" -- it's like I wanted to sound as clueless as I possibly could), did not make me feel like the king of the world as it apparently did her. Then when she left, I hugged her insecurely and too tightly (as I had at the beginning of the encounter). At the Leicester Square tube station, I was silent for a moment after she suggested I'd be here long enough for us to get together again, as I wondered if she was going to mention the holiday dinner.

She didn't.

Meanwhile, yesterday, I got a call asking if I wanted to do a gig in Palmers Green tonight. Well, I would have been happy about that if not for the fact that I've now been sensitized to the fact that I'm missing out on the holiday celebration (not to mention the fact that I'll be working on one of the holiest days of the year). But -- what the fuck -- was I gonna mope? (Yes, but...) I took the gig.

Still, I wanted to be invited to the Rosh Hashanah dinner. I wanted to have fun. I wanted to belong. (Maybe I should have offered to bring some kosher cocaine.) And I thought maybe I could juggle the dinner and the gig. So, this morning, I sent CULAL a text saying I hadn't realized the holiday was tonight and was she still having the dinner.

She sent back a text saying the dinner was at a friend's house, so she couldn't bring anyone along. But I don't remember her saying it was definitely gonna be at her place -- just that something was in the works and she would keep me apprised, however it was worked out.

The last sentence of her text was something like, "I hope you find a way to celebrate."

Well, that not only hurt me -- it made me mad.

Yeah, okay, you're not sure about me now and you don't know whether you wanna mix me with your friends. But this is a traditional, religious holiday and you don't leave people out for that reason -- you go out of your way to include them in.

You hope I find a way to celebrate? Well, you're in a position to do something about that and you didn't.

Fuck you. Happy New Year.

(I reserve the right to moderate my tone and act as if I didn't react this way if I learn circumstances were not as I perceived them to be or if I simply decide to feel differently about the CULAL and/or the situation.)

In other news, I did the King's Head again last night. I've been trying things every Thursday, lately, and it was lower energy than last week but I managed to generate some good lines -- and actually usable ones, not beholden to the moment.

A female comedian friend came and got Peter to give her some time (she did great), then stayed for me, which I appreciated. There was a girl in the audience with whom my friend had once hung out after a show, not realizing the audience girl had intended it to be a date. (My friend is not gay.) Well, the AG (audience girl) didn't look that lesbian, so after the show, I talked with her and gave her my card.

Do you think she'll call?

Well, while I wait, I'll do Palmers Green and maybe Sunday, I'll wander around town and try to find a synagogue where I can hear them blow the shofar. (No not the chauffeur. You're disgusting.)

_________________
www.myspace.com/anthologypage

Had drinks and some food in the Leicester Square area last night with a cute Jewish lawyer girl from Australia. Great talk but I think there's no particular interest on her part in anything other than occasional hanging. (When we first met, she's said she'd be inviting me to a Rosh Hashanah dinner (to mark the start of the Jewish new year) but that would be tomorrow night and she didn't say anything yesterday.)

Afterward I met with the guy who seems to be the ringleader behind a bunch of comedian-run comedy clubs in London (and elsewhere). He invited me to do some time in a cute, little (cute seems to be a theme in this post) basement room near Covent Garden. I wasn't going to take him up on it, because I usually don't perform when I've been drinking (though followers of this blog know this policy was not strictly followed during one or two nights in Edinburgh) , but I couldn't restrain myself, so I did a long, enjoyable set, which -- of course -- I feel very slightly bad about due to my suspicion that the drinking makes it sort of an unfair win -- like I had an outside assist.

The friend I'm staying with had bought steaks for us and when I got home, (I think) he offered to make mine (he had eaten earlier) but I figured I'd be better off if I waited and had it today. So, a little while ago, I cooked myself a steak AND chips (from a bag of frozen) AND then my friend came in with chips from the cafe downstairs AND I ate some of them AND I ate all the chips I made AND I made two hamburgers from ground meat I didn't want to go bad AND I ate them.

And I wonder why the drunk girl in the audience last night (who then walked over and gently kissed me) said I had man-tits.

_________________
www.myspace.com/anthologypage

Invited by BFI TV guy Dick Fiddy to see a rare exploitation film from the mid-'60s -- "Primitive London" -- at the NFT the other night. It was supposed to be like the Italian "Mondo" films but it was really kinda tame.

Fascinating, though, as a document of London in the era. Beautiful color footage of mods, rockers, "beatniks', the Establishment Club. (Comedian Ray Martine --don't know if I spelled his name right -- performing. Or, as Dick Fiddy referred to him, "Jewish comedian" Ray Martine. The English -- at least of a certain age -- always seem to add that descriptor when applicable, even when it seems irrelevant to the guy's act.)

Barry Cryer was in the audience, as he had played an ad agency guy in the film. (He was quite good too.) Also in the room was the great cinematographer, Jack Cardiff, celebrating his 92nd birthday. It was the kind of thing I really like. (See earlier post about "Cinecon".)

After the film, I walked to and over the Blackfriars Bridge and met up with my friend Anna Black, with whom I walked to Turnmill's to see some of the gala, monthly "Pear Shaped" show. Took us a while to find the place and when we did, there was a massive queue and we had to wait for a surly bouncer to let us go in -- not because of Brian Damage's great popularity (although in a perfect world, that would have been the reason for the crowd) but because of the subterranean disco that seemed to have galvanized the area's dance-craving youth.

We got in, though. (Phew.)

Entered while my arch-nemesis (see earlier Edinburgh post), Frank Sinazi, was performing (he was great) and enjoyed both the room and much of what we saw of the show. Met a nice posh girl named Helen (she kept insisting to everyone that she was NOT posh), then left with Anna to get our traditional shared veggie sandwich at Subway, after which I walked home.

It was a really nice night. Almost -- dare I say it? -- normal.

_________________
www.myspace.com/anthologypage

Boy, last night in Kingston was so much fun. I sat down in front of the crowd and brought them to me -- slowly, but effectively.

It was kind of like reeling in a fish -- I'd tighten the line, then the fish would fight back and I'd have to loosen it again, then I'd regain dominance and so on until, finally, I pulled from the ocean a beautiful proud specimen -- something worthy of admiring, which I had conquered.

A number of people thanked me on the way out and today I got an e-mail from someone telling me how much they loved the show and Subs wrote something nice about me here on Chortle. That's how it's been going for me since I got to London from Edinburgh.

Or perhaps I should say that's how it had been going. 'cause tonight wasn't so good. There were some exculpatory factors but the truth is, I just didn't hold them.

A number of segments took off but rather than being satisfying in and of themselves, they seemed merely to whet the audience's appetite for a continuation of those moments and, sadly, this was not in my game plan. The question is, do I even have it in my bag of tricks? Or have I become such a creature of "the moment" that when the moment is less than momentous I have nothing on which I can rely?

I think the truth is that I do have things in my kit bag (packed up with all my troubles) that would serve me well but it's been so long since I've used them regularly that I don't easily remember them when I need to. That is, it's just as hard (or harder) for me to remember seldom-used "material" as it is to generate things from scratch.

I've been fighting to reclaim preparedness lately (see Edinburgh post about "Political Animal" ) and even had my thrice-effective rejected "Onion" headlines in my pocket but -- you see? -- I didn't even remember that.

Interestingly, when I stumbled across an interesting story in the audience -- a woman who met her husband -- who was present -- when she was enticingly wearing a rubber dress in a show in which she once toured with Pete Townsend -- there was a demand that -- rather than asking about her -- I talk about my life. This made me decide to tell them the opening segment of my show from Edinburgh this summer -- the first time I'd done any of it since the Fringe.

At first, there was some murmuring in the back of the room as the intensely non-stand-up nature of the piece made me seem incomprehensible and boring. But by the time I got into the description of my crack-addict friend driving me cross-country after a multi-hour crack binge, you could hear a pin drop and all (or most) were on the edge of their seats, waiting to learn out what happened next.

But now my time was up. And it just ended weird.

Oh, well. At least, I now have more indications that the show I fought so hard to create this summer really does work. Be nice if I could get another chance to do the whole thing.

_________________
www.myspace.com/anthologypage

Was the so-called headliner at Laughing Horse Camden last night. Only 11 people in the crowd (plus performers) but it was fun -- there was an attractive female doctor who specialized in obesity in the audience and I argued on behalf of fat.

And I just got back from doing the new material night at the King's Head. Big Crowd. They actually (some of them, anyway) shouted for more. Peter Grahame said I was "on fire" and said it would be good if I had a "Boswell" to follow me around and write down what I say. (I don't think he meant so I could say it again. I think he just meant so we could remember what it was.)

But in the meantime, arms (metaphorically) are reaching out to me from New York and L.A. threatening seductively to pull me back to an earlier life.

I'm vulnerable. I could go in any one (or more) of a number of directions. But I really don't wanna go back(wards).

Still, there could be money in recidivism.

_________________
www.myspace.com/anthologypage

Since I was too broke to drink (and eat, for that matter) as much as I have in previous years (of course, I wanted to drink less but whether I would have accomplished that goal without poverty is questionable), I actually lost weight in Edinburgh rather than growing fatter and more dissolute, which is my usual trajectory there.

I probably also benefited from a poverty-induced aversion not just to taxis but to buses and from my visits to Holmes Place gym from which I somehow managed to extract a free festival membership.

But here in London, I have no gym membership, free or otherwise, and the friend with whom I am staying makes paella and lemon chicken and brinks back enormous meat pies from the local fancy schmancy butcher shop(pe). I am clearly bigger than when I got here (though still smaller than when I got to Edinburgh) and would likely be bursting at my fleshy seams if not for the glories of my continuing poverty. To save money – which is even more necessary for me here than it was in Edinburgh – and also to stay fit, I have been walking nearly everywhere.

It's helped me figure out how the city fits together. When you take the tube, you duck into a hole and come out of another one and god know what happened in between – for all you know, you've been dimensionally transported through various wormholes and whatnots and haven't traversed the city underground at all. When you walk, you go from point a to point b experiencing all the fractional letters in between, just as they were intended to be experienced by the master builders who envisioned the future of this town in every detail (in my imagination, anyway).

I know I'm getting' better 'cause last week I was sitting on a bench in Notting Hill Gate reading a free evening paper when I received a text instructing me to meet a friend at the London Eye at 7, It was a quarter to 5 and I decided to walk south to Chelsea and across the Albert Bridge, then to follow the river on the south side 'til I hit the Eye.

It was a mistake for two reasons – 1. You gotta go way inland to get around the Power Station, which adds to unnecessary time to the journey. 2. The river is closer when you're on the north side of it in central London than it is when you're in Notting Hill Gate. In other words, If I had walked to central London via NHG/Bayswater Road/Oxford St., I would have had a much walk to the river than I had from where I began my southward trek.

As a result, at 7, I had only hit Lambeth (almost). My friend and I had to meet further west and I felt a failure.

Not so, however, on Sunday, when I tested my theory and got from my friends place (some fifteen minutes farther west than Notting Hill Gate) to the NFT (farther east than the Eye) in about an hour and 40 min. And I've since figured even shorter routes! (Ah, London is my town.)

Last night, I was walking the brief hour and change it takes to get where I'm staying from Tottenham Court Road, when the heavens parted and poured their liquid bounty upon me. Now, I can take a lot but I'm not a goddam monk. So, I decided – pennies be damned – I was going to take the bus.

But by the time I got to the bus stop I was already drenched. And I realized that even if I took the bus (it was too late for the tube), I would still have enough of a walk to the flat to get me well and truly waterlogged.. So, I decided to walk as long as I could take it and I ended up walking an hour in the pouring rain.

It cleared up toward the end and only my trousers were heavy with liquid anti-drought by the time I was finished – the rest of me was fairly dry.

But I gotta get some money.

(And not eat so much.)

_________________
www.myspace.com/anthologypage

Last edited by andrewjlederer on Wed Sep 20, 2006 1:44 pm; edited 1 time in total

Two things I've enjoyed attending every year are the San Diego ComiCon, usually in July, and Cinecon, in Los Angeles in early September.

ComiCon is the largest "comic book convention" in the world. That is, it started as a comic convention. It's now really a pop culture convention and trade show, focusing on movies, TV, animation, books, magazines, fan creations and the arts in general. I've seen the likes of Ian McKellen, Angelina Jolie and Quentin Tarantino there and also people like Vin Sullivan, the editor who said "yes"to "Superman" back in the '30s after so many others had said "no".

In fact, at one session, someone mentioned how -- to be published as a comic book -- the panels of Superman, which had been pushed as a newspaper strip, had to be reconfigured in various ways. At that moment, an older gent in the room volunteered some information it seemed no one to that point had known -- he had been the one to make those changes.

So that they could publish the first Superman comic -- Action #1.

The beginning of comics as we know them.

Which spawned an industry that's grown to the point where the big entertainment companies have people out in force at this celebratory event. There are parties thrown by Warner Bros., Cartoon Network (which are really two parts of the same company) and other corporate giants, featuring food and drinks and gifts -- sometimes in a cool old converted industrial loft or some other aesthetic wonder. (Sometimes not.)

The event takes up the entire San Diego Convention Center, a space now larger than it was when they held the Republican Convention there a few years back. I love being surrounded by the colors and iconography of a century or so of popular culture and though I'm not particularly a follower of comic books, it always feels like the place to be and I have many friends who also go there every year. (In fact, a lot of L.A.-based comics can often be found there. I've seen Patton Oswalt, Brian Posehn, Kathy Griffin, David Cross, Bob Odenkirk and more.)

Just over a month later, there is Cinecon, an annual event more limited in scope and reach but which can be equally thrilling (or even moreso).

This event is devoted to silent and early sound films and during the 1990s, I met many veterans from both sides of the camera including stars of the silent screen, like Buddy Rogers, who had been Mary Pickford's husband and starred in the first film to win the Best Picture Oscar, 1928's "Wings" -- the only silent ever to win the award. (In fact, I met him in the very room where the first Academy Awards had been held!)

Also, people like Louise Rainer (winner of two Best Actress Oscars in the 1930s), Mickey Rooney, Robert Stack, Eddie Albert, Fayard Nicholas (of the Nicholas Brothers, perhaps the greatest tap dancers who ever lived), Cesar Romero, Alice Faye, Mae Clark (the woman who got a grapefruit pushed into her face by Cagney) and even more amazing film pioneers I can't at the moment remember. (Oh, yeah -- like, 'f'rinstance, one of the guys who wrote "Casablanca". And the guy who did the costumes during the golden days at MGM. And... )

And all day, from Thursday night 'til Monday afternoon, they show early movies in pristine 35mm prints in a movie palace on Hollywood Boulevard, exactly as they were meant to be seen

Amazing.

Then came the first time I visited the Fringe, in 2001.

I had come for a few days to see an all-star charity show a friend was putting on. He had brought over some other friends who helped with the project and one of them was a voice actor named Will Ryan, who has been -- among other creations and recreations -- Goofy in some latter-day Disney cartoons. Will and I wandered around Edinburgh together and, after losing ourselves in the festival's wonders, he asked me something like, "Is this now going to become part of the annual calendar like San Diego and Cinecon?"

Well, this year, for the first time in many years, I did not go to the San Diego ComiCon. I couldn't afford both San Diego and Edinburgh and the choice was clear.

I am now in London. The fact that I went to/stayed in London after Edinburgh means that I did not go to Cinecon in early September.

My favorite annual New York street fair, the Atlantic Antic, is this weekend. I will not be there.

I'm doing a gig tomorrow night and Saturday and Sunday. I've been hanging here with people I really like.

I'm a guy who loves old actors, old comedians, old New York, old traditions but in Merrie Olde England, I feel I am looking forward and not back.

Amazing.

_________________
www.myspace.com/anthologypage

Two things I've enjoyed attending every year are the San Diego ComiCon, usually in July, and Cinecon, in Los Angeles in early September.

ComiCon is the largest "comic book convention" in the world. That is, it started as a comic convention. It's now really a pop culture convention and trade show, focusing on movies, TV, animation, books, magazines, fan creations and the arts in general. I've seen the likes of Ian McKellen, Angelina Jolie and Quentin Tarantino there and also people like Vin Sullivan, the editor who said "yes"to "Superman" back in the '30s after so many others had said "no".

In fact, at one session, someone mentioned how -- to be published as a comic book -- the panels of Superman, which had been pushed as a newspaper strip, had to be reconfigured in various ways. At that moment, an older gent in the room volunteered some information it seemed no one to that point had known -- he had been the one to make those changes.

So that they could publish the first Superman comic -- Action #1.

The beginning of comics as we know them.

Which spawned an industry that's grown to the point where the big entertainment companies have people out in force at this celebratory event. There are parties thrown by Warner Bros., Cartoon Network (which are really two parts of the same company) and other corporate giants, featuring food and drinks and gifts -- sometimes in a cool old converted industrial loft or some other aesthetic wonder. (Sometimes not.)

The event takes up the entire San Diego Convention Center, a space now larger than it was when they held the Republican Convention there a few years back. I love being surrounded by the colors and iconography of a century or so of popular culture and though I'm not particularly a follower of comic books, it always feels like the place to be and I have many friends who also go there every year. (In fact, a lot of L.A.-based comics can often be found there. I've seen Patton Oswalt, Brian Posehn, Kathy Griffin, David Cross, Bob Odenkirk and more.)

Just over a month later, there is Cinecon, an annual event more limited in scope and reach but which can be equally thrilling (or even moreso).

This event is devoted to silent and early sound films and during the 1990s, I met many veterans from both sides of the camera including stars of the silent screen, like Buddy Rogers, who had been Mary Pickford's husband and starred in the first film to win the Best Picture Oscar, 1928's "Wings" -- the only silent ever to win the award. (In fact, I met him in the very room where the first Academy Awards had been held!)

Also, people like Louise Rainer (winner of two Best Actress Oscars in the 1930s), Mickey Rooney, Robert Stack, Eddie Albert, Fayard Nicholas (of the Nicholas Brothers, perhaps the greatest tap dancers who ever lived), Cesar Romero, Alice Faye, Mae Clark (the woman who got a grapefruit pushed into her face by Cagney) and even more amazing film pioneers I can't at the moment remember. (Oh, yeah -- like, 'f'rinstance, one of the guys who wrote "Casablanca". And the guy who did the costumes during the golden days at MGM. And... )

And all day, from Thursday night 'til Monday afternoon, they show early movies in pristine 35mm prints in a movie palace on Hollywood Boulevard, exactly as they were meant to be seen

Amazing.

Then came the first time I visited the Fringe, in 2001.

I had come for a few days to see an all-star charity show a friend was putting on. He had brought over some other friends who helped with the project and one of the was a voice actor named Will Ryan, who has been -- among other creations and recreations -- Goofy in some latter-day Disney cartoons. Will and I wandered around Edinburgh together and, after losing ourselves in the festival's wonders, he asked me something like, "Is this now going to become part of the annual calendar like San Diego and Cinecon?"

Well, this year, for the first time in many years, I did not go to the San Diego ComiCon. I couldn't afford both San Diego and Edinburgh and the choice was clear.

I am now in London. The fact that I went to/stayed in London after Edinburgh means that I did not go to Cinecon in early September.

My favorite annual New York street fair, the Atlantic Antic, is this weekend. I will not be there.

I'm doing a gig tomorrow night and Saturday and Sunday. I've been hanging here with people I really like.

I'm a guy who loves old actors, old comedians, old New York, old traditions but in Merrie Olde England, I feel I am looking forward and not back.

Amazing.

_________________
www.myspace.com/anthologypage