Andrew J. Lederer

i wish i had known. i would have loved to have his army boots.

but maybe it's better i didn't know. you can't keep everything, as he, in preparing to move to a smaller place, has come to understand.

but what other treasures has he given one last look and then discarded? probably more important stuff than "combat boots".

sure, it's good i wasn't there to covet everything remotely symbolic or intriguing but what would i have learned about his life if i had simply helped him to assess and discard what he had accumulated over the years?

how much more would i know about my father if i had taken one thorough trip through that museum?

oh, well.

another opportunity lost.

i've long wanted to purchase its wares, but i've been too insecure even to go in, 'cause i know they'll know i'm just a looky-loo who's not going to buy anything.

i particularly wished i could afford something there in recent weeks as i've searched for the hat that would save me from scalp cancer and aesthetic disrepute.

well, yesterday, i was walking toward jimmy's no. 43 to do a set and as i passed the store, a girl who worked there -- maybe even owned it -- was outside and when she saw me in my grandpa's hat, she said "nice hat."

maybe she even said, "cool hat."

whatever . . .

i told her it was my grandpa's hat and she expressed her pleasure at its vintage.

i explained what i thought was wrong with "retro" hats made today and she agreed.

i think she was even kinda flirting with me.

. . . wow.

that really is the hat

but my allure when wearing it is illegitimate. without it, i would simply be a dismissable slob of the sort who gets willfully ignored by perfectly normal people in the street.

damn that hat.

why can't i possess the magic that's in the hat.

wabc was the number one top 40 radio station in the new york area (or close to it). right now, for memorial day, rather than remembering fallen soldiers, abc is remembering its fallen format, playing tapes of broadcasts from those years. (it's now a successful talk station.)

with dan ingram (who i never loved but he was their number one jock) playing in the background, i'm looking out the window at the hazy, cloud-dotted sky, wondering when i'll be out there among the clouds, really part of the world outside rather than the world inside my head and my room.


just like back then.

i don't drink a lot of grape soda. maybe i haven't had it in years. but today at the chinese place, they said i was entitled to a free can for spending ten dollars, so, for some reason (interest had been building in me), i chose welch's grape.

when i was a kid, there was a commercial featuring character actor billy sands (i think he had been part of the platoon on bilko), where he (i think), said, with a revelatory tone, "you've never really tasted grape soda before 'til you've tried welch's." (then there was a jingle that said the same.)

well, you know . . .

it's true.

it's hot here in new york and it was refreshing.

i want more.

of course, now, the independent is saying sodium benzoate, an additive in soda, will damage my mitochondria and i'll get cirrhosis of the liver or something similar and die.

(that grape soda was good, though.)

on my invoking/exploiting robin ince for blog-style entertainment value. he's a nice guy and i have other people and things i really need to obsess about.

f'real,
lederer

(you see? it's you, not me.)


i have no problem with calling things as i see them but i suspect i may have created a mistaken impression, which is that eugene mirman has it in for me.

truth is, i don't think he gives a fuck about me one way or the other. i just think that whatever minuscule percentage of thought he may be forced by circumstance into giving me is negative.

and i think (no, i know) that that's bogus.

it comes from the adversarial relationship we were placed in when we both were doing shows the same night of the week at rififi combined with the fact that i'm not in his hip circle of friends and so must not be worthy. (a simplification, perhaps, but not far, i suspect, from being the truth.)

when i wrote that i thought he might have talked me down to robin ince, i wasn't implying a vendetta, rather something circumstantial -- for instance, my name coming up, as in, "i'm supposed to get andrew lederer a ticket," and eugene responding, "[place shallow, negative assessment borne of ignorance here]."

now, robin actually has some reason to be wary of me, 'cause i've been discomfittingly insecure in his presence.

and i apparently ruffled the feathers of some true believers when i did his "book club" and questioned the validity of natalie haynes' enthusiasm for "diagnosis: murder." (i know it seems stupid, but i got a lot of flak for that, though not, i should point out, from robin.)

so, if eugene reflexively dismissed me in conversation, it might have tipped the ince interior scales in favor of "i better steer clear of this lederer guy," which has the same practical effect as conspiracy, though it is, in fact, an accident.

but what bugs me about it is the fact that robin had, maybe even earlier that same day, sent me a note saying he'd get back to me and then he didn't.

if i had gotten a short, brush-off message, i don't think i would have felt so dissed. (i wouldn't be happy, but i would have felt that interpersonal protocols had been obeyed.)

thing is, i actually gave robin another chance (important only to me -- he didn't ask for a "chance"), by going to see him at eugene's show on sunday.

i had genuinely wanted to see robin perform for americans and was rooting for him as an edinburgh brother. (i had wanted to see him in tribeca more than i'd wanted to see gervais.) i thought, maybe, no matter what the circumstances were, when i said hello, he'd be glad to see me, greet me warmly, and that would be that.

but it didn't happen.

instead, he looked uncomfortable, which, of course, doesn't conclusively establish anything.

but, i mean, he should've seen through whatever the bullshit was that might've caused his discomfort.

for god's sake, i was wearing the hat.

for a while i wore a gray, felt fedora, my long hair hanging from its back as if they were one unit, perhaps from a joke store. (ah, but that was another day.)

i'm more of a self-contained fashion icon now, except in the summer, when my insufficiently hirsute pate is subject to the ravages of old sol (the sun, not some rampaging jewish guy) and i find myself ever in search of a hat that will protect and suit (which is, i think, the motto of the los angeles police department).

it's like looking for the holy grail -- i never seem to find it and wonder if one even exists.

so, generally, i end up with a mr. magoo/woody allen-style, crumply "fishing" hat, which neither flatters nor diminishes too greatly my basic (non-)aesthetic.

or, sometimes, i wear nothing at all, leaving my scalp to the limited protective capacity of an inexpensive sunblock.

and that's how it was when i went to new jersey last sunday, draped in my (minimally) beard-appropriate clothes.

i had nothing but no-ad 15 on my skull.

luckily i spent a good deal of time in the garage, helping my father remove stuff from the attic in anticipation of a move. then, while we were looking in a closet, my father unexpectedly said, "you want your grandfather's hat?"

well, there ought to have been a heavenly chorus behind me.

it was the hat.

a recreational, older guy's hat from thirty years ago -- genuinely cool.

in perfect condition. looking like the hats on st. mark's place are trying to look.

i asked my father why he had saved it and he said he thought that i had told him to.

if so, i mystically set aside my own future salvation by doing so.

kinda makes you believe the universe is filled with hats more powerful than we can ever imagine.

i wasn't going to shave off my beard because of my associate's comment.

that only made me more determined to keep it.

but my father was back in new jersey and i was gonna see him for the first time since tucson (the last time i shaved off my beard) and i didn't want him to perceive the unruly appendage as the crystallized embodiment of everything that is, was and will be wrong in my life.

with the right clothes, the beard would probably look ok, however, i didn't have the right clothes and i didn't have the time or funds to get them in advance of my jaunt.

but then, when those four successive check cashing places rejected me, though my money was in my pocket, it was out of my hands.

so, i was forced to move new jersey to another day.

which meant, when "bearded me" was treated like i wasn't there by that normal-looking girl, i was no longer about to go out to my dad's place.

and the fifth check cashing place had given me my funds.

therefore, i didn't have to shave to avoid parental condemnation -- i could buy beard-appropriate clothes.

of course, in a way, this would be a cheat -- i had been judged irrelevant while marching around as a homeless-looking bearded guy, not a well-dressed manly guy. how could i show the world that the former guy was ok while being another guy who simply had some of the same hair?

but these were questions i could put off.

anything was possible as long as i had my facial hair.

it was katy wik of penny spubb ignoring my myspace friend request as others are added to her roster of cyberfriends daily.

it was robin ince writing he would try to get me a ticket for a gervais preview (i offered to pay), then not only not doing it but becoming incommunicado.

that's why it pleased me to see the discomfort on his face as i passed him on the stairs where he sat smoking during eugene mirman's sunday show. (a few moments later, i saw a cell phone on the empty steps. had i so jarred him he forgot his phone?)

oh, yeah -- and eugene mirman --

is he a good guy?

a part of me suspects eugene belittled me when he drank with robin on wednesday night, which is about the time i stopped hearing from robin about the ticket.

on the other hand, i got two smiles out of eugene in the past week.

but i think i just looked vaguely familiar the first time -- hidden by the beard, i think it simply took him a few moments to realize he was recognizing someone he'd rather be ignoring.

and the second time, i was standing with janey godley.

so, i didn't get a single eugene mirman smile that didn't have an asterisk.

but john oliver was incredibly warm (incredibly funny, too, on eugene's sunday show), even though i'd only met him twice before.

or maybe because


update (15:27): i just got a myspace friend request from john oliver. see? good guy!

he says it makes me look homeless.

but, you know, a girl who works for the onion responded very favorably to it the other night.

however, my friend says the small handful who'll react favorably will be outnumbered by those who are turned off.

i was gonna shave it off -- even bought the razors, but then a girl in the street treated me as if i didn't exist (actually, as if i looked homeless.)

she acted like i was a lesser entity; one she could, should, and did ignore when i asked an innocent question as a parade passed unexpectedly through union square.

so, i decided to keep the beard for a while.

i'll make this mean, old world love me at my worst.

i'll show those nazis.

it has higher interest rates, but you gotta mail your deposits in. so, when i need money fast, i have to go to a check cashing place.

well, as you probably know, i have mounting expenses that are piling on top of me, so that's exactly what i decided to do saturday morning, having finally received the checks from that comedy newswriting gig late friday afternoon.

sure, i would lose a few bucks to "the vig" but a check cashing place can give you money, fast. and there's a check cashing place right near my apartment, so what could be easier?

well . . .

they refused to cash the checks because they were from a bank of america account and bank of america, they said, wouldn't confirm checks for them.

as a result, i went pretty far, to a check cashing place in my old neighborhood where the guy knew me.

but he wasn't there and the girl who was said she couldn't call the company on the weekend and so i was out of luck 'til monday.

the place near where i used to live in kensington (brooklyn), some distance from there, wouldn't cash them because they weren't sent to a nearby address.

so, i went into manhattan, where the nolita place said the computer red flagged the transaction and that was that.

no money. couldn't go out to new jersey to help my father pack for a move as i had planned. foot still hurting from gout.

i decided to take the subway home.

but for some reason, i decided to surface at 14th st./union square rather than immediately changing trains. don't remember why -- maybe i wanted to see if there were good samples at whole foods and/or trader joe's and/or the union square greenmarket.

i guess there were.

but also, there was another check cashing place. one i'd never been to before.

and they said they couldn't cash a check when the the company isn't in their system.

but the company was in their system.

hooray!

very zen thing that sculptors say they do when they turn a block of stone into a replica of an elephant? just chip away everything that doesn't look like an elephant?

i kinda wish people could do that when they look at you. just mentally chip away everything that doesn't look like you.

i will sometimes spend considerable time in front of the mirror attempting to see myself as i wish to be despite elements that conspire to make me look like something else. rather than changing essential elements -- maybe some of them are unchangeable -- i will move around in the light, push hair around, angle my my head, maybe even squint, and just generally do whatever is necessary to assure myself that i can be seen as i wish to be.

and it's true. i can be.

but i won't be. not likely, anyhow.

because other people aren't going to go through hoops to see what i want them to see. they'll see what's there within the context as they find it, not to mention their own perspective.

as "consigliere" to the green room in both new york and edinburgh. i'm helping to present scottish comedian janey godley, tonight in her autobiographical drama, "the point of yes" and tomorrow in her well-reviewed one-woman comedy, "good godley!"

if you feel like coming, the shows are at 8pm at the green room, 45 bleecker st., new york.

good stuff.

(end of plug.)

island today with julian hall, the comedy critic for the british newspaper, the independent. he was in town to cover the ricky gervais show at the (as it's now called) wamu theater. we looked at old buildings and old people and had a drink looking out at the ocean from the bar of the most probably doomed ruby's.

the pre-"rehab", increasingly demolished coney is lookin' sad but the history-infused charm is still strong.

fun.

one of the great and life de-affirming things about myspace is the fact that you can see when and if people have read your messages to them and just who is ignoring your friend requests. it gives you a clear understanding of just where you're at in a passive-aggressive world that doesn't always tell it to ya straight.

take the laces out of my sneakers. so i could wear them without it being too painful too walk.

but when i went to the store or wherever, the shoes' tongues (i took 'em out of both sides, for balance) flopped around ridiculously.

i kinda looked like i had panting dogs on my feet (or on my "dogs," as my friend alan would likely have said, unwilling to let lie fallow any field of wordplay available for harvesting).

which wasn't a problem locally, as apparent indigence or craziness is probably protective against crime in the transitional area in which i live. but now i gotta pick up a check from city lights television (as detailed earlier) and i don't wanna look like . . . well, me.

so, i cut the tongues out of the sneakers, allowing me to walk but making imperfection less instantly recognizable.

i guess i should leave quickly, once i have the check, so they don't have too much time to scan me.

also, now, once the check is cashed, in addition to my other expenses, i have to buy new sneakers.

but i guess i can use these as slippers or something for walking around in the night.

seems there's a silver lining to every foot problem.

is much better and never got to the crippling point i reached the first time i had an attack, maybe because i went to the hospital and had a deep-dish anti-inflammatory shot before getting to the point where it was too painful to walk.

because of that, i'm not even gonna go in and get the stomach-destroying medicine that was prescribed for me.

i'm not being an idiot -- gout attacks go away whether you do anything or not. treatment is about pain, so as long as my pain is minimal and i'm mobile, i might as well not put stuff into my body that, last time, my doctor made me take with two stomach medications and a full meal, yet it still caused bleeding that required me to stop taking it. (yes, that was partly because i'd hurt my stomach before i started taking it, but the doctor didn't know that when he made me cushion myself thrice over, so . . . )

if the 600 mg of motrin i'm taking every 4-6 stops working, i'll go in and get the indomethacin and colchicine, but, for now, i'll pass. it's worth noting that last time, when my doctor took me off the indomethacin after just a few days, he said, "i'm more worried about your stomach than your foot." (it's not so good beyond the gastrointestinal effects, either.)

the positive side of this is that it's put me back on water, which i've been drinking like a fish (by immersing my whole body and swimming through it as i do).

i'd wanted to drink more water; i'd meant to, but instead i drank coffee and diet soda and felt dehydrated but hoped more diuretics (which both of those are) would somehow supply the hydration i needed.

and i'm so fucking persnickety. my apartment co-inhabitor was keeping the brita water-filtering pitcher out by him, so i stayed away from it, even when it was in the 'frigerator, fearing it had been drunk directly out of (which seems unlikely given it's design) or otherwise rendered impure in some fashion.

what?! less pure than aspartame?.

than a bottle of soda purchased from a small, dark, cluttered shop with a cat running around it?

boy, water makes your skin look good.

my hands are beautiful. (i'm sure my new tube of sunblock is helping with that as well.)

but i don't regret the coffee.

just the other day, it took me to a little corner place near the current domicile, with outdoor tables placed perfectly for watching the passing parade. sitting there, i met an artist who'd moved to the neighborhood in 1957 to go to art school and never left.

he told me about the elevated train that used to rumble above myrtle avenue and all the demographic and sociological changes during the decades he's been around.

and then we were joined by his friend, who'd come to the neighborhood as an art student in 1971, after leaving the (vietnam-era) army, and had likewise settled in what was for many an undesirable neighborhood and seen it through its darkest days and its many changes.

there we were, new yorkers from three different eras -- two of us natives -- talking about the places we grew up, their differences and similarities, our mothers (it was mother's day); learning from each other.

it was a trip.

so, i'm gonna go back there, gout or no gout.

but next time, maybe i'll have a hot chocolate.

I'm getting my check on Friday!

in the same facility.

i pay (theoretically) $74/month but if i were taking that space today it would be $25.

so, when i got paid up to april 30th and wasn't auctioned off on may 3rd, i figured when i got the city lights television money, i'd take care of it and that would be any day.

but now it's more than two weeks and the city lights money hasn't come.

and fees have been added to my may storage bill to make it about $100

still, if i paid it today, i'd only have to pay about half plus the much cheaper new unit charges -- a reasonable compromise between perfection and monetary doom.

but i can't pay it today.

and i have gout.

and now my father has finally sold his house (pending a long time) and i probably have to move what i'm taking into my storage this weekend.

but i can't if i haven't paid.

and i certainly can't tell my father my actual financial situation.

but even if i find the money, i gotta move units before we bring the things from jersey or else i'll be paying the higher rate for additional days.

but i have gout.

i'll probably get it taken care of, though.

'cause anything is better than having my father know the truth.

when it became clear things were only going to get worse.

my temporarily permanent roommate recommended i go to st. vincent's, at least in part because it specializes in helping poor people who "aren't skels." (yea! i'm not a skel!)

however, i ended up going to methodist because the first train that came was going in that direction, there would be less stairways if i went that way (when it hurts to walk, this is a major consideration -- i almost opted for the bus instead of the subway for this reason, but also 'cause it was a nice day and the bus would have kept me outside), and finally because my cousin is a big exec in the chain that owns methodist, so if for some reason i needed backup, i might've been able to call him.

they've really fixed up the emergency area at methodist since the time i went there with a cold. (they mocked me for it but i didn't know. i thought it was something bacterial that could kill me.) everyone was nice and nobody made me feel bad about anything. (and there weren't any skels.)

while i waited to be seen my foot grew worse, fast. i was glad i hadn't stopped at smiling pizza to eat and read the paper as i had seriously considered doing when i got out of the subway. i had taken the laces out of my shoes so i could tolerate wearing them on the way over but now i had to take off my right shoe and hold it in my hand.

yet when i got to the treatment area, they wouldn't give me the cortisone shot that had fixed me within an hour the last time i was afflicted. apparently, it isn't protocol. (last time, i went to a regular doctor's office.)

the woman who was treating me said maybe it was because steroids require follow-up that an emergency room doesn't do. so, she gave me a shot of some anti-inflammatory.

but no magic bullet.

and on top of that, there was no social worker around to arrange for me to get poor people's freebie drugs.

so, i was told to come back today to get the medicine i really needed. in the meantime, she sent me home with motrin (ordinary ibuprofen) to take when the shot she gave me wore off in maybe 6 hours.

thanks for the help, sister. (ok. i know the omissions were not her fault.)

actually, the limited service did help. i still haven't needed to take a motrin even though it's a lot more than 6 hours since the shot was given.

still, i'm gonna take some motrin, though the pain is quite tolerable and barely pain right now, 'cause it's an anti-inflammatory and clearly i am still inflamed.

but what seemed on the precipice of becoming a multi-day-robbing emergency has become workable thanks to the fine service at new york methodist hospital of park slope.

. . . Gout!


according to wikipedia, second attacks usually occur within 2 years. (it is now 22 months.)

i can still walk.

puttin' on my shoe may be a problem, though.

and to think i walked across the williamsburg bridge yesterday.

in fact, i walked all the way from the clinton hill area in brooklyn to 25th and 3rd in manhattan.

and last week i walked to and from, across the brooklyn bridge one way and the williamsburg the other.

the day before that, i did the manhattan bridge to the "green room" in noho.

tomorrow, i may not be able to stand.

as last time (of course) i did all the wrong things just before the attack and even after i suspected one was coming on.

hey, it's been almost 2 years -- i forgot what i'm not supposed to have.

so, last night, i had beans and scotch and coffee as the infirmity descended.

and i switched to diet soda lately. (guess what.)

i keep moving my toe as if waggling it will prevent the uric acid crystals from settling in.

two years ago, my gout treatment was the first time i used my brand new, government-funded, poor people's health insurance (to treat the "disease of kings"). now, due to an error on their part followed by a year of avoidance and inactivity on mine, i don't have any health insurance.

i wonder if my father has any of his stomach-punishing anti-inflammatories left.

he did this to me with his gouty genes.

of course, he also did this life thing to me, so you win some, you lose some.

best i can figure is i lost it in november, the next to last time (thus far/that i know of) that my gym lock was cut for keeping things in it overnight.

don't know why i would have left something like that in there but i was movin' around at the time and i might have indulged some bad thinking 'cause i wanted a lighter backpack.

maybe i didn't notice it 'til now 'cause my friend's old cellphone is similar-looking and, naturally, i still have that, about which i care little.

my solitary, improvisational talk-throughs of "me and hitler," my well-reviewed 2005 edinburgh show, were on it along with the unbelievably confused first performance. (the second night was great.

when are they gonna make those machines that can pull memories out of your head and record them for external retrieval and presentation to others?

this blog is now setting the pace for my comedy rather than the other way around.

for instance, my set tonight was based on my desire, as expressed in recent posts, for normalcy.

i even talked about the vanilla cupcake. (it was funny.)

and i expanded on the blogged-about notions by talking about my feeling that i didn't quite come out at the chisel-jawed, totally erect end of evolution as traditionally pictured.

all in all, it was very satisfying and a significant number of compliments were proffered.

and hey -- this is kind of cool --

there was a guy who'd come all the way from homer, alaska and thought he'd be really exotic in our downtown manhattan realm.

but two of us had actually been to his home town.

so, there were three people in one small east village showroom who had been in the same small town in alaska.

(like i said -- cool.)

after the show, i ventured briefly into the downstairs bar and this girl i'd chatted up the other day looked less than happy to see me.

i wish she'd been upstairs to see my set.

i was so happy yesterday, i even indulged my new penchant for "normalcy" by buying a non-bargain-priced bottle of "bath and body works" shampoo.

but when i went to pay for it, i discovered i had seemingly lost a five or ten dollar bill, which, along with the waning effects of coffee and the wine i'd tasted at a nearby merchant, plunged me into crankiness and depression.

i resolved to spend less money than i intended for the rest of the day and skimped, strangely enough if you know me, on food. so, instead of buying nice things to eat, i made do with what i had in the house, which resulted in my dinner being that stick-to-your-ribs latin favorite, rice and beans.

anyway, today i'm looking at comedian mark watson's "crap at the environment" site and i see he has issued a challenge to readers to go a day without eating meat and -- whaddaya know -- i did that yesterday.

that's right.

all i had all day was the rice and beans, a vanilla cupcake (see i feel alive today.) and a bag of north carolina-made, previously unknown to me-brand potato chips.

seems i'm green without even trying.

of course, that's only if you define the day as going from waking to sleeping. if you count it as midnight to midnight, i also had a tender, delicious slab of london broil (which i'm told they don't have in london, so for the benefit of the uninformed, it's steak).

but that was before i went to sleep on "friday" night.

i'm good.

really.

no, i am.

maybe it's because i'm out wandering around in a breezy, mostly sunny day. the trees are turning a deeper shade of green as their new leaves spread into full, lush, summer canopies.

but it took me a whole day to prepare to be out in the day.

after two days of lying around, sleeping a lot, and basting in my own natural juices, i spent yesterday doing laundry, putting clean sheets on my bed, eating and drinking as required and, finally, showering, so that when i woke up today, i'd be more or less prepared to face the world.

it's always been like this. i frequently have spent three days indoors, not leaving the house at all (maybe a walk to the supermarket to get tomato paste if absolutely necessary). then exited the cave to go exploring and reacquaint myself with the glories of the world outside.

i always tell myself i'm gonna do more of it -- that with the world this wonderful, i'll surely be motivated now to spend my time out in it, not hiding like a brown bear in winter. but the protective solitude of inside proves darkly seductive almost immediately. it's like when i go out early in the morning and am so moved by the perfect newness of the light and the abundance of day to work within that i determine i will meet this morning again and soon. the only thing that happens soon is that i go back to leaving the house at 5 in the afternoon.

i'm sitting out in front of the tea lounge in park slope now. a little while ago a girl who really knows how to do minimally-colored tattoos and multi-tone hair walked confidently by.

what would it be like to know her? what would it be like to know anybody?

when my living situation was unsettled, i was too much in the world in the wrong way. now i am too much in my own world.

when i go outside, i take my protective cave with me.

when i am in, i recognize how unprotected i am from the slights of the world and am reluctant to venture forth into the warmn and sunny, cold, cold world.

in recent times, ive finally been made aware of the fact that i'm not any different from hordes of other people in having these feelings. but even that feels like a gyp as i spent so many years feeling different that -- in a way -- it was the one thing i had that was mine -- the individuality of my experience. (i'm different.)

now, it turns out i'm just like other people? my unique place int he world is not unique at all?

what good is that?. what good is unknowingly "shared" aloneness?

ok. i can embrace normal.

i bought a vanilla cupcake today 'cause that seemed normal.

and i sat with the nice-looking saturday people in front of an attractive coffee, sandwich and baked goods place in fort green and ate the cupcake as breezes carre4sed my face and plant-type reproductive shit blew into my face and over my things.

and you know what?

the cupcake wasn't good. and neither was the coffee. i go out of my way to be normal and i can't even enjoy it.

oh, well.

i went to the movies the other day 'cause that seemed normal.

saw spiderman.

it was good.

the latest "electra elf" played at the pioneer cinema the other night. i say it's the latest one but really, it's the latest one completed -- my work was shot 4 years ago -- the first day we ever shot.

i was so much better in it than i've been in recent episodes that it would have depressed me if i weren't so successful of late in putting a nice, protective cushion between me and my emotions.

i told the audience last night at mo pitkin's about my declining quality and attributed it to personal growth. i said i now have such a complex and nuanced view of the world that it is close to impossible for me to perform with the certainty necessary for maximum effectiveness.

i don't think that was entirely bullshit.

tulips illustrate the pitfalls of both greed and not knowing your limits, not to mention the delusion of individual exemption from the rules that bind others.

they open and look beautiful and open further and inspire as their petals stretch outward and up toward glory but they don't stop. they want more. more sun, more glory, more freedom and continue spreading past the point of reason until their backs break and they fall into oblivion.

meanwhile, the tulips next to them, only just blooming, ignore the fate of their neighbors. "they were orange tulips," one says of its neighbors. "we are purple tulips. it can't happen to us"

and soon, they too are gone.


i finally assimilated enough new york latin ambience to find myself saying -- as i passed a pulchritudinous beauty in the streets of the east village yesterday -- "hello, mami," or something of that nature. (but not so she could hear it. sheesh.)

so, why do puerto ricans and maybe dominicans and other latins call hot women mommy? i know it's not spelled that way but that's what it is.

i suppose it is a recognition of biological and sociological reality to see the maternal in someone who makes your loins stir, but isn't there something disturbing there as well?

maybe not. (see "i want a girl just like the girl that married dear old dad" and "my heart belongs to daddy" for references of trans-cultural legitimacy.)


here i am -- it's close to midnight and i'm walking through a massive chasidic neighborhood with a gastrointestinal issue that's nearing emergency proportions.

it seems to be a holiday or something (lag b'omer?) and the streets are filled with well-dressed chasids. but there are no restaurants or bars or anything -- not just none that are open -- none at all.

but there are synagogues. large ones, small ones, elegant ones, decrepit ones . . . i know if i go into one, i'll be conspicuous but i think maybe if i say i'm a jew it'll be all right ant they'll let me use the bathroom.

but i'm afraid they won't. i'm afraid they'll say i'm impure or something and that if they let me use the toilet, they'll have to take the seat to a mikvah or ritual purification bath.

i know this probably isn't true. but what if it is? i don't wanna chance the conspicuousness and discomfort and anyway, if they do turn me away for some reason, it'll make me angry and probably make my situation even more of an emergency than it already is. (my kishkes [intestines] will churn.)

so, i start looking for a vacant lot that isn't fenced in -- anything -- and finally i see an off-brand, shithole of a gas station -- pride -- maybe it's the only "pride" station in the world. a young guy and an older one with a gray mustache are standing in front of the small structure -- do they even have a toilet?

i don't know what they are -- latin? indian? but the old guy points and there i am, a jew taking a shit in the only place i felt comfortable asking for help -- a run-down restroom with "love allah" on the inside of the door.

a philly cheesesteak sandwich and some cherry coke zero.

what a way to start the morning at around noon!

listening to itunes on my computer. the music i had on my ipod shuffle when i was in london.

getting nostalgic. only listened to stoned soul picnic once tonight but it brought me back to when i walked from notting hill to the barbican center, part of the time in a light rain (ooh -- i'm a girl watcher just started playing -- that's a walking alongside hyde park in bayswater in the middle of the night song as is i touch myself, which i played over and over one night walking back to notting hill), playing it over and over again -- i just had an image of walking past st. james cathedral -- on my way to see robin ince at nicko and joe's bad film night.

that was the night robin said he liked my beard and asked me why i grew it and i said i couldn't afford razors and i wondered what he made of that.

stoned soul picnic also made me think about my pot-smoking neighbor from los angeles' miracle mile area who was one of the guys in the power rangers outfits on the american version of the show and loved laura nyro (who wrote the song). i made my "office" in the bedroom closet and the weed-aroma would crawl in through the cracks in the old walls.

that's the bedroom my roommate fran and i once got locked inside without a phone but my computer had a fax program and i faxed a friend to call my mexican building manager who came up and busted in, saving us.

i feel lonely tonight.

had a fight with the fringe programme office today and almost lost my show listings. one may be altered but fortunately they're both in and my debt to the fringe is completely paid. wrote press releases and online ticket blurbs for the green room, new york after i shook off the stress from the programme battles.

richard harris' macarthur park is playing.

any time an american gets angry or indignant with a british individual or organization (yes, organization with a z in it -- why have the letter in the alphabet if you're not going to use it to represent the zzzz sound?) he is being damned, either openly or silently, as a loud, arrogant, pushy american.

this is true even if right is on his side. in many instances, it's a way for them to control us; to keep us in line and out of their faces, because they know we're embarrassed at the prospect of being seen that way.

well, i'm saying fuck it. i won't be controlled by a national stereotype.

i will do what's right, as i see it, and trust that my internal compass will guide me correctly.

this american chooses to be free of british oppression just as out forefathers did all those years ago. (or were there five fathers? -- i'm never sure.)

"be true to your teeth and they won't be false to you." -- soupy sales, american

it's awfully clumsy, isn't it?

i finished it and sent it through and thought to myself, "boy, now they can really experience the day." then i happened to look at it and it was largely a bunch of moosh.

actually, taking just one chunk out of parentheses, dividing it into paragraphs and adding a few words would have made a tremendous difference.

so, why didn't i do it?

well, i hadn't looked it over -- i don't have all day.

(okay, as it turn out, maybe i do.)

i even thought, "a lovely day like that. who wouldn't want to share it? i'll send it out as a myspace bulletin."

oh my god, when i saw what i'd done, i quickly removed it. (blogging is sort of real-time, so you figure people will forgive your periodic clumsiness but when you say, "i have chosen to send you this as a bulletin," there's the implication that it actually represents your abilities and that you are proud of the piece.)

btw, didja notice i suddenly capitalized a street name in the middle of the all lower-case post? (all lower-case is easier when i'm writing fast because my laptop has a slightly damaged keyboard.) i don't know. that's just wrong.

and if you're not reading this on its main page, blogs.chortle.co.uk/andrewjlederer, go there now. i just put a general disclaimer onto the right side of the page that i kind of like but i probably won't keep it there. (tell me what you think.)

anyway, back to the good andrew tomorrow -- we hope.

(that wasn't a royal "we". i figure you hope so too.)

onward and offward --

and now my nose is almost completely plugged up for the first time this allergy season.

fortunately, the antihistimine i took yesterday worked great (it's one-a-day, so i'm gonna take another one shortly) as i went to the botanic garden, where one of the largest collections of cherry trees in north america was at close to its peak. lush blossoms were just beginning to yield their petals to the wind and i let myself get showered in pink and whipped by delicate pink whirlwinds with little (immediate) ill effect.

the streets of brooklyn were generally beautiful yesterday. i walked past ps 11, a one-story elementary school in a mostly black neighborhood, and they were having some kind of schoolyard party where, as the kids took swings into the sky, playing live in the background was a terrific, cool jazz band.

tulips were in bloom in a variety of colors, shapes and markings.

i stumbled across a block party, a wonderfully new york event, different from a street fair, where it's all sausage and pepper stands, and sock salesman. a block party closes off one city block for the day and lets its residents revel in each other's company, cooking food, chatting, playing games . . .

when i was growing up, my parents didn't like block parties -- at least, my mother didn't. i think it was part of the "we don't do that anymore philosophy -- we don't have to hang out our clothes to dry anymore, we have a dryer; we don't recreate in the street like poor people. (but who knows?)

i guess maybe others on our block felt that way too 'cause i didn't really have a block party block.

there was one, though, one year while my parents were away on vacation. (now that i think about it, maybe there were others during years when I was with them on vacation.) my grandmother didn't participate but i met a lot of people on my block for the first time. (and i wasn't a little kid -- i was college-age.)

they were nice. and interesting.

anyway, this block party was at the edge of prospect heights and immediately after i walked by, i was at the botanic garden, which i entered through the main gate off Eastern Parkway (where, i'm told, my great grandfather used to have a dry cleaning shop. i tried to figure out where it might have been, as if -- with no knowledge of its specific location -- there was any way of doing that. i was taken to his place by my grandfather once when i was little and what i remember about it was that it was dark. as an adult, i recounted that memory to my mother a couple of times and her response was to laugh in a way that seemed to mean my memory was not wrong).

i'm not exaggerating when i tell you that the view upon entering the garden was breathtaking. i couldn't believe how beautiful it was. the colors, the shapes, the play of light and shadow upon them -- i honestly couldn't believe it.

i just kept saying, "holy crap," as i walked through this intensely perfect place.

in fact, when i left the garden, i considered not leaving through that gate because i didn't want to revisit the area and have it not measure up. (and on the other hand, i was fearful of being hit again by its intensity -- i felt i couldn't take it.)

the cherry garden was wonderful -- the older and newer trees seem remarkably in sync this season (maybe the freak blooming in january from the unexpected warmth recalibrated them somehow.) in the distance was some of the greenest green i've ever seen from the new leaves on prospect park's 5-600 acres of trees. but it got ruined for me, after like an hour of satisfaction, 'cause the light was changing and i hit a spot where it looked (incorrectly, i learned, as i examined more closely) like the trees were shedding blossoms to a greater extent than they were in bloom.

once having experienced that, i couldn't get it out of my mind. the imperfect replaced the perfect. i couldn't get the other feeling back.

that's why i risked leaving through the main gate and seeing its wonders a second time -- i needed them and they were still pretty good but shadow was pushing away light, so the transcendence was more limited.

on the way to the now-dimmed gateway, i passed through a grove of trees which had purple blooms in bunches like grapes. an eastern european guy, with family and/or friends was eating stuff off the tree.

there were no berries that i could see. was he eating small, berry-like, new blooms? is this what they munched on during the soviet era while waiting on line for toilet paper?

i didn't ask.

instead, i ambled out of the garden (passing deeply perfect violets along the way) and into the brooklyn museum next door, where i soaked up ancient egyptian vibrations from their massive collection, then passed chasidic families african-style restaurants, an old building festooned with the studebaker logo and other wonders, headin' for home, where i cooked fajitas in honor of cinco de mayo.

pretty good day.

time to take some antihistamine.

before i got that short-lived writing job, the company that was considering hiring me checked my blog a gazillion times because they were worried that if they hired me i might say something about them or reveal company secrets or whatever.

well, i still haven't gotten the money they owe me and, yes, it's partly due to my delay in filling out the paperwork, but i'm still upset that charlotte glynn, the girl in accounting i've been dealing with there, hasn't answered any of my e-mails in over a week and i have no idea if they've processed the paperwork, if they're sending the check, if i have to pick it up -- i don't know anything.

the guy i worked for, scott kaseta, hasn't answered my e-mails either.

and the two people he told me to submit stuff to so i could get more work from the company, chris stout and kevin moore, haven't responded to me either.

now, maybe charlotte is on vacation or sick and maybe scott was dropped when they lost the heavy news account (oh, yeah -- that's what i was writing for -- heavy news), and maybe chris and kevin have nothing to offer or just don't like the stuff i've sent them.

but as far as i'm concerned at the moment, city lights media sucks.

hell, as far as i can tell, they weren't good enough to be kept on as suppliers of heavy news and i'm not making money as a result. (i was a custom tailor and worked within their template. too bad they didn't tell me they were on shaky ground -- i might've been able to help them by improving their product.)

so, anyway, they suck

it must be true.

it says so in a blog

on the web.

lying in bed -- drenched in bright, morning sunlight.

i wanna go out. while it's early. while the sun can still brush me lightly with the promise of a perfect day.

but i gotta write press releases for the green room, new york. (scottish comedian janey godley's gonna do the opening week.)

i shoulda written 'em yesterday, but while napping at the house where i'd been watching the cat, i suddenly and unexpectedly received a message telling me that a guest of the ex-wife of the guy whose apartment it really is (but who's now now in california) was coming to stay that very day, within hours and so i spent the day cleaning pots and pans, vacuuming and doing laundry.

and missed most of the sun.

pushing the press release-writing into today and ensuring i'll miss some of today's sun as well.

of course, i could've written 'em last night. but it's hard to worry about the sun when it's dark out.

and anyway, i had won ton soup and was watching house.

and from about 3:30 to 6:30 am, i searched the web for histories of the cott beverage company and royal crown cola, also taking time to tell a uk-based friend he was indeed like albert brooks but not necessarily in good ways.

so, really, i couldn't have written them before now.

. . . maybe it'll be sunny tomorrow.

i gotta take a break.

the latest on my list of pressing expenses:

A friend who accidentally stole $1000 that I left in his care while at Fringe '04 lent me the money to pay the '07 programme fees that the Fringe was aggressively after. (They threatened to drop me from the book.)

Well, actually, he lent me enough to cover the two entries at the discounted rate, while the Fringe was asking for the full rate. Well, actually, he said he said I could charge $1000 to his card -- the two discounted fees were around $1100, but I figured that was in the official leeway zone. (I guess I'll find out.)

As far as the potential sale of my belongings in storage, my sister, whom I'd never asked to borrow a large clump of money from before (not this sister, anyway -- there's a reason I didn't ask the other one) stepped up to the plate and I am now paid up 'til April 30th. (You'll note that it is now May 2nd.)

I'm gonna call tomorrow anyway to make sure they don't sell my stuff by mistake. Now, I have to go there and shift to a new, cheaper space. (I wonder if I'll do it in time.)

I have not yet gotten the $700 I'm owed for the comedy newswriting.

The Fringe is insisting on the rest of the undiscounted rate plus the money I still owe them from last year or -- despite the fact that I've paid them 1100 dollars, they will drop one of my listings on May 7th.

This doesn't make sense to me. One of my shows is a full-price, ticketed show. They can withhold monies from ticket sales to cover the rest of what I owe them and make out like bandits.

On the other hand, if they drop one of my listings, they'll owe me money. But I'm gonna do my shows anyway -- the Fringe office just won't get as much money for them.

Plus, if my Green Room listing is not in the book, the Fringe office won't get a taste of my action from it. And if it's the Free Festival listing that gets dropped, the show that follows will be hurt because less people will be there to linger and see what's next.

Is this good for the Fringe? (Rhetorical question.)

By the way, the amount (they say) I still owe is just under $700, the very amount I haven't yet gotten for my writing work. I sent the money person at the fake news company an e-mail yesterday asking when I should expect to get the check.

There has been no answer.


Both Listings:

Andrew J. Lederer
(Laughing Horse @ Berlin)
Two different shows daily. 12 noon - 'Freestyle' (improvised stand-up comedy); 14:10 - 'Every Day I Write the Book' (seriocomic account of one, er, difficult year).'Could turn the dullest dinner party into the social event of the decade' - Metro.

anthology07
(The Green Room)
A changing array of top Fringe comedians tell stories from their lives, straight, without the artifice and stylization of conventional stand-up. A Time Out (New York) Pick. **** 'Thoroughly entertaining comedy' -- Three Weeks. Official Fringe Award-Winner, 2004

writing promotional copy exploiting the very notions i decried in yesterday's posts.

but that was business and this is pleasure.