Andrew J. Lederer

a comic says funny things; a comedian says things funny.

i've always felt that was bullshit.

yes, there are people who are more about material and others primarily about manner but comedian and comic are more or less interchangeable; they refer to performers who specialize in making people laugh. as for me, i'm clever, but my priority is being in the funny place. so, when i haven't performed for a while, i get insecure and begin to doubt myself.

unfortunately, new york, as i've written before, is divided into a cliquish (and impressive) alternative scene and a more mainstream scene, which is mostly repulsive.

at present, i am in neither.

sure, they can be penetrated, but it takes a full-time commitment, which i haven't had the time or inclination to muster and, as a result, my recent appearances have been rare.

that's why it came as a bit of surprise to me over the last couple days to find out that i'm really funny.

on the line, waiting a full day (and then some) for iphones, we were mauled by cameras and barraged by interview requests. it made you understand how miserable it can be to be lindsay lohan or paris hilton or any of those who are constantly harassed by media. by the end of the thing we just didn't want to talk to anybody anymore.

but for a while, the attention was fun and i had these people in stitches; they couldn't contain themselves.

the mtv news guys were actually falling over themselves during a lengthy session with me, which may air on monday.

and i was making my line-mates -- strangers all -- laugh for the better part of 24 hours -- teens, oldsters, regular folk, oddballs, blacks, whites . . . it was like being reintroduced to a long-lost me

it felt good.

it made me mad at people for holding me back.

i can't wait for edinburgh.

i did another electra elf this week? i thought i was very good (which means i probably was awful).

i utilized some insight derived from watching previous episodes, which, in a way, wasn't good because i saw a couple of the episodes after sucking in ambient pot smoke, so the insights may have been illegitimately gained through the offices of illicit drugs.

on the other hand, technically speaking, i didn't do anything i hadn't done before.

still, my thoughts were different, since i was remembering having seen myself do these things rather than being completely in the moment or strictly intuitive.

i wonder if that will make the result somehow different. (it'll be interesting to see.)

oh, yeah -- and i shaved off my beard for the shoot.

i'm just me again.

tonight and tomorrow while i'm supposed to be waiting on line for less than minimum wage so a friend of a friend can be the first on his block to own an iphone.

people who really do this stuff have material to hang over their "area" in the event of inclement weather but i don't have that kind of stuff (and can't afford it on what the guy is paying me).

i can't flake out on him -- he's had his heart set on this and i said i'd do it. so, it's gonna have to be up to him to decide whether he values a person more than an iphone.

for some green room acts and, god, arranging for international flights has become hell. they keep wanting more and more information that you don't expect and don't have ready because they never wanted it before -- dates of birth, passport numbers, passport expiration dates.

this is just since last year. what has happened since last year?

it can take so long to buy tickets that the tickets you're buying aren't even available anymore by the time you're ready to complete the purchase, a point i haven't made it to, 'cause i'm still waiting for someone's passport inf.

i think i may have missed a fare discount and i don't have all day -- in this case not just an expression. i'm getting like a hundred bucks to sit in line as proxy for a guy who wants an iphone and i gotta be there before 6.

not much cash for 24 hours of duty but i need the money.

this is my life.

at a comic book convention my artist friend invited me to and was greeted with the smell of sweat and hygienic inattentiveness, so i knew i was in the right place. (location was the hotel pennsylvania, famous from glen miller's "pennsylvania 6-5000", and, clearly, its elegance was still intact.)

such comicons feature all manner of minor celebs, so i excitedly met larry storch, who played agarn on "f-troop" and was a nightclub comic as far back as the '40s. he was terrific in "the aristocrats" and is a wonderful mimic who's supplied many cartoon voices over the years. (i'm particularly fond of the obscure warner bros. character, "cool cat".)

and -- speaking of mimics -- i also met "mally" lewis, daughter of the late puppeteer shari lewis, who has inherited the family sock, said sock decked out as that cute little bit of mutton-in-waiting, "lamb chop".

i wanted to know about something her mother did called "honey halfwitch", an obscure theatrical cartoon series (i see a theme developing), but she knew nothing about it, so i ended up having to tell her what it was.

and -- speaking of celebrity offspring -- i also met gary lewis (sans playboys), no relation to shari/mally but son of jerry lewis and famous for '60s pop hits like "this diamond ring". my friend showed him an album his grandfather -- jerry lewis' father -- recorded and he knew as much about it as mally lewis knew about her mother's cartoon series.

don't members of showbiz families talk to each other?

then again, i didn't know until recently that my father's childhood doctor was his great-uncle, so who am i to talk?

i was telling miss ives about a high school friend whose father was a venerable coney business owner.

said friend was a girl on whom i'd had a long-term crush and the irony of my telling ives about her was much in my consciousness.

y'see, i'd prized valerie (the crush) above people who really were interested in me.

in fact, once, when a girl i met at mcsorley's -- a sure thing in rob reiner parlance -- hooked up with me in california. i blew her off 'cause the crush showed unexpectedly.

i spent the rest of the night having ice thrown on my ardor while my sure thing did her thing elsewhere.

so, now, miss ives -- like the crush -- is a compelling package who has never seemed interested, hanging with me only when we run into each other and no one better's around.

on saturday, we again connected randomly; her friends hadn't shown, so we embarked on adventures together.

i had other invitations.

but i clung to her like a barnacle.

and spilled that green sauce you get with indian food all over my computer bag, i wouldn't have expected the smith street fair had anything more to offer me. but then i ran into shannon, who'd been a waitress at brooklyn's no-longer-extant blah blah lounge, where a guy once came up to me to tell me he'd also seen me at the frog and bucket in manchester.

at first she didn't recognize me but then a smile came over her face and she said, "look at you -- all scruffy and -- " (i wasn't anything besides scruffy, so it stopped there.)

she introduced me to her boyfriend who owns a neighborhood restaurant and hugged me tightly and warmly.

genuine affection.

i felt good until i realized i might have been holding myself in a way that made me look like i had man-tits. depending on the pressure of the chest against the shirt, i either look like i have muscles or mammalia.

"muscles or mammalia" is the "she loves me, she loves me not" of my torso, my chest-on-shirt pressure variations taking the place of the sequentially plucked daisy petals.

i know she loved me but i fear my chest said, "love me not."

behind the torah at last week's bat mitzvah, i felt my posture made me look ridiculous.

then, i looked into the crowd and saw a guy with a video camera recording the proceedings.

well, sheesh, except for the badly trimmed beard and the flyaway hair, i didn't look ridiculous all day. the configuration of the bima may have caused me to stand as i did.

but the permanent record of the event will show me to be an aesthetic goofball.

god, it used to be you could win with personality, transcending superficial insufficiencies. but now you're being recorded all the time, everywhere you go and these recordings will define you in people's memories and for all time.

but they lie.

see, when your personality more than compensates for being overweight or underdressed (or whatever), that's the real you winning (except if you're a master manipulator). but video only shows what it shows.

it's two-dimensional; it shows the outside. (plus it adds fifteen pounds.)

for instance, i once did a one-man show that was acclaimed by all, but the tape didn't record the greatness -- it evened everything out.

the best stuff seemed not as strong; the worst, not as weak.

it didn't accurately show what i did

if it weren't for one of my frequent storage tragedies, that tape might still be around to lie about me.

i woke last saturday to discover that my beard looked perfect, which meant i'd be ruining it by taking a shower -- a shower the rest of me sorely needed.

but i figured it out, washing body and hair while carefully avoiding getting water on the beard.

. . . which worked out fine.

. . . except for a tiny bit of beard hair, which i cut.

. . . hastily.

. . . and a little too much.

so, at the bat mitzvah, there was a little dent in my beard. and i was so concerned about the dent that i neglected to notice the flyaway hairs that had developed above my left ear.

the very ear the photographer had me turn toward him for the requisite extended family photo.

i heard my father ask aloud if he had room on the wall for one more of these photographs.

god, i hope not.

the chinatown bus to dc, an extremely large black man made unfortunate contact with me, seemingly unaware that his size and haste didn't work well on these city streets.

when i got to the bus, at the very last minute, i saw that he had been rushing there too.

he got on just ahead of me and by the time i made it to a seat, he was, for reasons unknown to me, refusing to give the bus company woman his ticket.

he began whining like a sniveling, little weakling about there being too little space for his enormous frame, like he was on the acela express and not a cheap-ass, halfway illegal, immigrant conveyance

then he searched for a better spot (as if there was variable spacing, seatwise) and finally moved behind me as i had not yet placed my seat in the reclining position and he figured that meant space.

helpfully, i warned him that once we were underway, i would be pushing my seat back, so if that factored into his move, he should, perhaps, recalculate.

the seemingly-oblivious-to-his-size giant pouted something along the lines of, "you don't care if someone is behind you?"

my answer, perhaps verbatim, was, "that's correct. i don't care." i told him i had paid for a ticket and that i planned to attain the maximum comfort available.

he moved again.

except for the bathroom smell, which didn't bother me much, it was a wonderful ride.

but over the last couple of weeks, for two bat mitzvahs, i bought two nice shirts.

when i got back to my sister's last night, after a day out with my nephew, my brother -in-law proudly informed me that, unasked, he had washed both of these shirts.

well, i'd been planning to be careful with them but he didn't read the labels and, in effect, ruined them, eliminating the shine from one and likely shrinking the other into goofy-looking tightness.

i'd been so happy about my wardrobe expansion. i don't have the money to buy more stuff.

when i saw what he had done, i plunged into sadness.

thanks for the help.

the summer was about to begin -- the first free concert of the year would be held that night in prospect park.

well, i usually manage to miss the first one and it's always someone good -- this year it was the neville brothers -- so i felt uncommonly lucky. i got there right on time and, though the place was packed, found a spot at the side of the stage from which i could see and hear everything. (like i said, lucky.)

then the show started and the guy to my left asked me to lift my arm from the fence in front of me.

?!

for whatever reason, i did it.

the guy thanked me, explaining that he liked to dance/move freely during the concert and didn't want my arm blocking his mobility. i looked at him like he was a weirdo and thought, "how was my arm resting on a fence going to get in the way of his dancing?!"

meanwhile, he just kept thanking me, again and again.

so i said, "fuck you."

he looked surprised and i said something along the lines of, "i like to put my arm on the fence. why is your dancing more important than my arm?"

i put my arm back on the fence as he said something like, "just don't put it in front of me."

he started moving to the music, making gentle contact with me as if i was in his way.

i pretended not to notice.

eventually, he was gone; replaced by a nice black couple.

boy, that aaron neville sings like an angel.

is a tape of me and him interacting when i was a teenager.

when he recorded it, he said he wanted to play it back for me years later to show me how i was acting. years later, when he found it, he heard how he sounded and it made him cry.

back then, he played it for me and, frankly, i wasn't freaked out by it since i knew how he sounded.

i asked him about it a couple weeks ago and he said he had always vowed he would destroy it if he came across it again but he had never again encountered it.

now he says maybe he did find it at some point in the past and threw it away.

hey -- this was a recording of our real life.

sure, it made him cry but why did he want to destroy it?

'cause it reminded him of the truth?

so, he wouldn't have to change?

if so, he didn't really learn anything from listening to tape, did he?

funny how i rarely go to jersey but was there twice in the days leading up to the finale of the sopranos.

went on friday to get the last of the stuff i was taking from my father before his move and suddenly remembered the squeezy, black, rubber whale from mystic, connecticut that was my bathing companion when i was a kid and which in recent years has resided alongside my parents' tub.

well, he had thrown it out

i'd specifically asked him to be on the lookout for stuff we used as a family and stuff i had when i was a kid, yet with the very thing right under his nose, he failed me.

he wasn't looking out for my interests at all.

i loved that whale.

riding home tonight on the subway.

the lyrics are as follows:
"slee-py. ti-red. booored. frus-trat-ed.
slee-py. ti-red. booored. frus-trat-ed."

(if you want to hear the melody, ask me to sing it when you see me.)

we took the path back to new york, heading toward the world trade center rather than the more uptown stops. this meant a train ride through the pit at ground zero, 'round construction implements and the structural remnants of the twin towers.

what a ride.

i've always sort of scoffed at the tourists who come looking for ground zero because, one, there's nothing there other than a construction pit -- if you don't know what happened (or even if you do, really), there's nothing unusual to see.

two, i feel there's a morbid, rubbernecking quality to the desire to see the site of a massive tragedy.

but

if you're gonna see the site, a trip on a path train is the way to do it.

'cause being inside the pit seemed to communicate the nature and magnitude of the devastation (and the place) in a way that standing alongside it does not.

and -- as if that weren't enough -- once off the train, my friend pointed out one of the only pieces of the original trade center not only still intact but still being used -- the stairs that connected the center to the e train station.

the original flooring is still there -- i remember walking on it before and after visiting the subterranean mall to which it used to connect.

sheesh.

feelings. sometimes you have 'em.

in new jersey.

with her fist clanging like a bell-knocker into my gonads.

it kinda made me nostalgic. (see here and here for background.)

the ringing happened in newark, which my friend and i explored after accidentally taking the path train (the subway that runs between new york and new jersey) in the wrong direction. newark is cool (if that's a legit way to describe it) because, unlike many or most other depressed american cities, it seems to have made little or no recovery in recent years.

walking along its main street, looking at its underutilized buildings from the 19th and early 20th century felt like taking a time machine to the '70s. loud music blaring (this particularly bothered my friend), the sense that no one had money or prospects, the neglected look of things . . .

frankly -- i liked it.

y'see, one is hard-pressed to find an american city these days that is visually unbesmirched by unremarkable new skyscrapers and economic "success". newark is a survivor -- it may be covered by a coat of social and economic torpor but it's architecturally intact -- a real american city from the glory days of industrial america.

sure, i want the people there to get jobs. but not to the extent that anyone wants to build something out there.

hey, i've done okay without a job.

i don't like "series finales". they didn't used to have them and that was a good thing.

"the fugitive" didn't start a trend but "mary tyler moore" did and series began to "end," often in ways that undermined the years of episodes left behind to run in syndication and the minds of fans.

but a tv series is the episodes, the stuff that happens week in and week out, year in and year out -- it's not a book or a movie.

and generally tv characters don't change -- we are watching them in a particular period of their lives when the situations and characters are perfectly poised to create adventures that involve and delight us.

the most important thing tonight's "sopranos" did was to remind us that the point of the thing was the episodes made and experienced over the last eight years, not something that happened in a single episode in a single night.

it was a tv series and that's how it went out, returning to the form the "'twas ever thus" that had been sapped from it by simple minds.

it was like a modern version of the copa at the new york green room the other night.

and

eugene mirman greeted me warmly for the third time in a row. (even before he knew i had something to do with the venue.) he said he liked the space; that it was "warm".

i told him we hoped he'd do something there and he is -- he'll be on a show, along with todd barry, next month.

but

i didn't like being there as management when my peers (or as i like to think of them, my inferiors), were there as comedians.

i expressed this feeling and cal, who's in charge, asked me if i had some kind of show i could put together that would draw.

i said no.

it was like a modern version of the copa at the new york green room the other night.

the place was standing room only, with some 150 people enthusiastically watching a line-up that included arrested development's david cross, if.comeddie best newcomer nominees god's pottery and reggie watts, and the audience was filled with luminaries including eugene mirman, todd barry, the trachtenburg family slideshow players and manager/producer olivia wingate.

you might find the same people hangin' out somewhere like rififi any night of the week, but the expansiveness and theatricality of the venue, the size of the crowd, and, frankly, the higher ticket price made it feel more like an "important" nightclub of yesteryear than a back-of-the-bar comedy hang of today.

also, the relationship with the edinburgh green room was pretty clear as watts, the trachtenburgs, jessica delfino (also in the audience), and i are all doing shows at the scottish location. (and god's pottery will be at the pleasance. plus olivia has shows at the assembly.)

i guess the experience was presaged last week, when janey godley (who did 2 shows the week before) was hangin' with god's pottery, olivia and others.

additionally, the regular monday act, chris "shockwave" sullivan of freestyle love supreme, is an edinburgh veteran.

some kind of nouveau, big-time, transatlantic, showbiz axis seems to be forming.

that a scraggly beard doesn't really work with dressy clothes.

unfortunately, i was afraid to trim the beard, 'cause that often makes things worse.

so, i fussed with it, attempting to pat it into perfection.

but that only amplified the scraggle.

which might have worked had i worn a hat, but the hat wasn't dressy enough. (plus i looked a little orthodox to begin with -- for god's sake, my father kept referring to me as the rabbi.)

on top of that, my linen pants and shiny shirt worked well together, but not with my jacket, which should have matched the linen's looseness but was instead tight and formal. (and too small to boot).

so, i took the jacket off and hung it over my arm.

immediately becoming self-conscious about the fatness jacketlessness conveyed.

a self-consciousness not helped by the fact that my belt didn't seem to have a hole that would create a waistline i could maintain. (either the trousers slipped or the belt was too tight.)

so, i looked sloppy or clueless, except when returning from a readjustment trip to the rest room.

which, of course, caused an insecure stiffness that hid whatever catlike fluidity i might have had and, with my residual gout, prevented me from taking to the dance floor, a wallflowerish omission everybody seemed to have noticed.

boy, i sure showed 'em when i decided not to shave off that beard.

if i'd been clean shaven, i might have looked and felt beautiful at this family affair where i was judged by so many, establishing a character in their minds that will persist until the next affair, which could be a long time away.

if i hadn't showed up in that beard, there might have been no ill-judgments.

but i'd have remembered that girl who dismissed me as meaningless; who probably wouldn't have done so had i been clean cut.

and though i'd have been favorably assessed by my fellow revelers, i'd have known there might be dismissive, ugliness in their hearts.

better, perhaps, to have suffered the indignities of the beard.

i thought i heard a mouse in a glue trap by the window.

squeaking and maneuvering to survive; to escape its ugly fate.

like mobsters trying to escape a hit.


after an hour with thugs who have no regard for human life, turns out there were two mice glued to the trap's surface.

i threw them into a heavy duty plastic bag and walked to the garbage cans in front of the building, the bag's contours changing as the mice struggled within.

i felt bad about it, but whaddaya gonna do?

well, newton, actually.

greetings to all you people in old england from new england.

yesterday, i rode on the oldest electric subway in the world. (yes, it predates london.)

they're in the process of "renovating" it. (i hate that.)

anyway, i brought my laptop here and they have free wi-fi in the hotel but the laptop is locked in one of my sister's suitcases and i don't wanna wake my brother-in-law to get it 'cause he's already complained about my apnea-infused snoring.

so, i got fifteen minutes on the slightly complimentary lobby computer to tell you i'll write my real posts on the fung wah bus back to new york and put 'em up when i'm back at home.

what's to come?

well, let's just say the beard seems like it might not work without the hat, which, sadly, is too informal for a dress-up setting, so i was aesthetically adrift in a sea of celebration and, face it, i was not helped by the belt.

more later.