Andrew J. Lederer

Simon Munnery's charming and attractive wife is not a Jew-hater.

so am sleeping.

kissed a novelist the other night.

gotta do laundry

have a gig tomorrow.

but not gonna feel alive like i did with some 2 and a quarter hours a day of stage time while in edinburgh.

soon my sharpness will again be softness.

i wonder what i should eat.

1. i overheard international fest director telling william burdett-coutts early in the festival that he kept trying to get in touch with the new fringe director but the guy never had time for him/was too busy seeing shows.

int'l director said fringe director doesn't ever have to see a show; he doesn't have responsibility for shows, he just runs a box office.

i liked that.

(for the record, the int'l director admitted he's heard the fringe head was a good guy.)

2. the scotsman's claire smith, warmly drunk, with extreme kindness in her eyes, said i was unfair to her poet friend anita in this blog. (i apologized.) claire said she liked the open me better than the mean me; preferred the andrew who facilitated connections between people out of pure, powerful goodness, seeking no personal gain.

her examples were my hooking her up with rain pryor and paul provenza.

but of course, i co-produced rain's show that year and this year hooked claire up with provenza as part of my work on behalf of the green room, so maybe i was looking for just a touch of personal gain.

3. told reg hunter i admired his delivery tremendously but pretentiously offered that i was looking for a comedy style freed from the limitations of a single, set style.

he said that was jazz and i said i'd been called a jazz comedian, which he didn't think sounded implausible. told me to wait right there, he would be right back, this was the best conversation he's had at the festival.

i waited a while then moved to other friends, so it's hard to say whether his return to that part of the bar was the promised coming back. (but i didn't feel dissed. we were just bar denizens in motion.)

4. kate copstick said i carry with me "a miasma of sadness" or something like that.

i asserted she had not seen me sad this entire fest; that i was now "zen".

she said if that was the case, the i had changed.

but maybe the truth is that i've been responding to changed circumstances.

it was bus exhaust coming through my window.

on "late night lounge with reggie watts" at the green room.

1am.

i know proximate fringe people were planning to indulge.

i hope the amount i breathed didn't create microscopic strips of dead flesh on my heart that will come to haunt me later in life.

strange that i didn't drink water after ingesting massive amounts of if.com champagne but woke up feeling alright after only a little sleep. maybe it was from ambient cocaine smoke's energizing effects.

i hope the large detox special i had at the gilded balloon's juice bar will help save me.

and, after a terrific noon show and an effective anthology, it was a disaster.

got back to berlin from the green room huffing and puffing, covered with sweat with only 3 minutes to spare. there was a massive crowd waiting for me -- andrew roper was beaming supportively and had set up the room to accommodate the clamoring mass.

only thing was, it wasn't really set up well for me.

i'd found i did best in the room if i left it informal and unset-up; people, even a large crowd, would naturally form kind of a circle around me (or something similar) and it facilitated the storytelling style of the show.

but this set-up, while it would have been fine for joke-oriented stand-up (where what you're saying is important, rather than how you say it) was not going to work. people were far-flung and i had to connect, so knew it was going to be a tough haul.

normally in this run, i've been explaining at the outset that i'm going to tell a story and that if anyone was expecting something more jokey and didn't want to sit through a monologue, i would not be offended if they decided to move on. but with a big crowd like this, it would have been bizarre to do that -- to greet a room filled with people by basically saying, "i'm not gonna do what you came for, so get out."

so -- ambivalently -- i plowed forward, wondering what would happen.

i toyed with doing my less serious thing, but even that -- improvisational and personal in style -- was not easy to accomplish with the crowd split into different sections of the room.

therefore -- going for broke -- i started the monologue but, unfortunately, with their ears tuned to joke frequency, the crowd was not picking up on the quiet humor in my piece.

and i don't want to make anyone miserable, so i basically stopped the show. i told the audience i'd probably made a mistake in trying to tell my story, which i could tell seemed dry and boring to them, but that i felt shifting back to a lighter tone would not work at this point, so if they wanted me to simply stop, i would do so.

i said if they wanted me to continue, i would go on and if only some of them wanted me to go on, i would continue the story for them. and a lot of people left, after which i moved the remainder into one area and continued.

they seemed genuinely interested and we all felt a lot better, but i changed the order of the story elements to juice things up and that left the remainder of the story bereft of necessary climaxes and interest turned to tolerance which turned to impatience, which marked the show a failure.

it was, i guess, my fault. i probably should have reorganized the crowd and implemented all necessary explanations and disclaimers.

then again, it's become a tradition that my last show, no matter how well the run has gone, is a poor one.

but, of course, that was not really my last show. i have one more "anthology07" tomorrow.

malt whisky tasting and lecture in leith with chris "shockwave" sullivan of freestyle love supreme and the two girls from that popsicle show at the assembly rooms. (not just rare malt whisky but didn't have to pay and had ox-flavored crisps!)

some dancing at "you think you're so funny" (as tony woods called it) party. (great music! -- andrew mcclelland was djing.)

drafting and sending an angry e-mail regarding a pr dispute with venue during my "anthology07" show, then telling an unauthorized (i didn't authorize him) videographer to turn his camera away from the stage, "angrily" rushing toward him and covering his lens with my hand like a disgraced politician walk or a celeb fed-up with a paparazzo.

singing to reg hunter -- who's been doing "man love" schtick when we encounter each other -- "man love, that's whatcha got, that's whatchoo got" to the tune of the old song "bad luck" at a party in a posh flat (essentially) next door to the castle.

wandering around town admiring the geography and the architecture with fellow american lewis schaffer.

as i injected some into my monologue in an effort to introduce more truth.

of necessity, you leave things out of true stories to make them tellable but the tone should be accurate -- people should have a sense of what they're not hearing. i felt i was coming across too much as a vulnerable victim of circumstance, which is, perhaps, more appealing than reality.

hubris is a big part of at least the subtext of my story and, as i told elise harris later in the day, a tragic comedy needs a hubristic king who facilitates his own undoing.

unfortunately, the nice, old men who were in my audience were not the prime demographic for this new shading.

oh, well.

later, more arrogance perhaps or maybe just attitude laced with silliness -- i got to berlin about a minute late for my 14:10 show and the people who'd been waiting for me had gone in to see the other show -- "the very near future". i entered the other space and demanded that they return to my performance sanctum. when they refused, i branded them, "betrayers!" and generally made a comedic scene.

the guy who's in that show couldn't look me in the eye when he later left the venue. i reentered a couple of times to continue my spiel -- before his show actually started -- and i think he felt competed with or undermined when, in fact, i had given him a terrific warm-up, reminiscent of variety and chat shows where another performer wanders in and supplies a touch of the unexpected.

andrew roper said i should realize the guy was very young and probably not yet equipped to deal deal with that kind of stuff and/or view that through that kind of prism. (it was funny, though.)

later, i did imac hunt's pro-am celebrity karaoke for a bunch of firemen who sang along during the "mack the knife"-off which pitted me against fierce celtic competitor and eventual winner, paul kerensa. then came some loitering in front of the assembly rooms, where i met rich hall's adorable little daughter (dixie ray, i think her name is) and rich said i could get in free to see his play tomorrow or today.

pretty cool.

last night, after dinner with reg hunter and his/our friend amanda, i was walking with lewis schaffer and, while talking with claire smith and her good friend tash, ran into carlos gomez, new york actor/poet/good guy.

proximity to the green room may have turned south bridge into part of new york.

it's kinda like this is our gang's territory and you better fly our colors while you're out there or you may be in jeopardy.

but we're well-aware that other gangs have marked their territories as well and woe unto those who stray carelessly into their zones.

that's why, when i later boldly (except for the fact that i was nervous and half-hoped i hadn't been booked) ventured into canadian territory to do phil nichol's (and tiffany stevenson's) "old rope", i made sure to have a neutral party accompanying me (london-based elise harris). the presence on the bill of fellow new yorker and green room act jason trachtenburg added another layer of protection to the mix, so i did not feel entirely alone when i walked onto the stage and improvised meaningless drivel with slow-paced, illusory confidence.

i think the audience mistakenly thought i knew what i was doing and seemed to hang on every word, imagining i was actually going somewhere. we'll never know, though, as the show was running late, so i had to cut my improvisational journey short. (i may be doing a longer set later in the week during which there's a good chance i will be "found out".)

once the show was done, as quickly as i could, i hightailed it back to the green room, where fellow brooklynite reggie watts was preparing to start his show and a comforting sense of normalcy prevailed.

there's no place like home.

first show had a lovely, older audience.

a slightly tough audience turned out for anthology, but i softened 'em up and made 'em smile. dominic maxwell, who said he might show up, did not.

there was a tiny crowd in for the 14:10 berlin show, which included a guy who remembered "me and hitler" fondly from 2 years ago. he'd come to it with his grandfather, he reminded me, so i showed him my grandfather's hat.

i suspect this is going to be a very effective monologue -- 16 performances to go.

highlight from yesterday -- a very quiet, 18-year-old scottish boy smiling at me after a performance and saying (i think verbatim), "very good show."

doing "old rope" tonight.

of the scotsman asked me if i would put a friend of hers on my "anthology07" storytelling show -- a performance poet who does shows at the jazz cafe. not only did claire ask me but her friend called to ask directly.

then, on the show. not only was she long-winded, pointless and terrible, but she basically told the audience that she wasn't really a storyteller and wasn't sure why she was there. (aside from the fact, of course, that she asked to be.)

as a result, i have a negative audience review potentially hurting my ticket sales on edfringe.com for a show that virtually everyone loves.

boy, that pisses me off.

(special thanks to nicko for not showing up that day.)

of my compressed "run" of "every day i write the book".

two of today's shows went well, one very well --- the truncated version i did at "anthology07". that tells me that thought the monologue isn't really right, it's still pretty good and is suffering, when it does suffer, from the expectations thing.

since "anthology07" is a storytelling show, the audience has no problem with me telling a story. (duh.) the berlin audiences come in with their individual understandings of the word "comedy" and some can yield to what i've got in store but others can't. (i do explain to them what i'm going to do and even if they don't end up liking it, they're generally very nice.)

ironically, the piece was much funnier at the storytelling show, since -- freed from the impulse to look for "jokes", the audience could relaxedly respond to things that just were funny.

i tried to pep up the comedy aspect of the 14:10 berlin show by hanging comic notions tangential to the story on it's scenaristic branches but i think that might've turned out to be a distraction from the through-line. interesting to see what tomorrow's 3 shows will bring.

whether i would have had as much fun the night before if i hadn't been drinking?

well, i went out last night at about 3am (after sleeping from about 8pm 'til then, so i wouldn't be a mess again today) and i was intensely insecure, tightening up during encounters with phil nichol, brett vincent, hils barker, paul provenza, tiffany stephenson, a girl i like who works at the underbelly, and more.

still, all i drank was part of a diet coke. i didn't yield to temptation.

and i made tom stade laugh.

so, who knows?


in other news, having declared war on reviewers who don't identify themselves or arrange to enter free festival/fringe shows in advance (so that ff performers have the same advantage of knowing that paid venue performers do), i am now officially declaring war on the if.comeddie awards.

i am almost 100% certain they've sent no one to my show and even if they did, it was most likely nica burns' gardener or some similar sham presence without authority.

it doesn't matter whether i'm award-caliber or not, someone from the awards, with actual judicial authority, should have attended. otherwise the awards are a fraud.

the awards, having neglected me throughly, have proven themselves illegitimate and i will shout this from the highest trees until honor and decency are proven to have prevailed. (my disdain for the awards' legitimacy will not, of course, prevent me from attending their party and eating and drinking everything that is offered.)

last night was the first time i ever met stephen grant.

after all the online stuff, i forgot i didn't know him already.

basically the number of shows in a full fringe run -- i decided i would act as though my fringe began today and turn all three of my daily shows into "every day i write the book". (i'll still have a guest each day at the "anthology07" storytelling show -- and "every day" is a story -- so nobody's expectations should be betrayed.)

it was a great chance to start over and, in many ways, the first show today, at berlin at noon, was the show i had wanted to do from day one.

i didn't get to try it again at anthology, 'cause they forgot to put our tickets at the half-price hut (we got a lot of people when we listed it yesterday), but i wasn't unhappy, 'cause last night's cavorting left me depleted and i was happy to wait for the 14:10 show at berlin.

the second berlin show was intended to replicate and improve upon the noon show but, as i expected, it was actually worse, due to sophomore slump, a hangover of sorts, the less-than-organic feel of attempting to remember what i'd said before, a changed balance due to additional story elements, and a weak (non-)ending, missing at least one of the elements from before.

still, it think it was pretty good; interesting generally, though some audience members were probably unhappy, which i don't believe was the case with the noon show.

i had a massive audience (relatively speaking) for the noon show.

at first, there were only about 8 people and i'd already told them what i'd be trying to do, show-wise, when tons of people started streaming in. i worried the larger crowd would make it harder for me to experiment with the monologue, but they were a truly wonderful audience.

and the afternoon show "sold" all 25 tickets available through the fringe.

from my (wine-weary but optimistic) perspective, it's been a pretty good day.

last night.

went to the various bars. had lengthy conversations with strangers. drank copious amounts of wine having eaten only one and a quarter (approx.) parsnip chips and nothing else all day.

got to bed somewhere around 5.

i didn't have to drink, did i?

i could have had fun, anyway.


between my three shows, i have 25 performances left.

that's a complete run.

i hope i take advantage of them.

has come to the mark watson party several years late. they "survived" 24 hours, they claimed, but in fact, the weak, self-pampering quasi-journalists have divvied up the responsibilities, so that an assortment of different "writers" cover the show in separate multi-hour chunks -- exactly the way not to understand the magic, power and allure of the show, which relies as much on stockholm syndrome as its host and guests' considerable gifts for its impact and success.

kudos to the undeservedly influential paper for not waiting until even later to mount a half-hearted attempt to cover something well-known and loved now for years

(see, here's the beauty of this [accurately observed] post -- now, if the scotsman does get around to reviewing my show and they don't like it, i can claim they have a vendetta against me for publicly reminding people that the journalistic emperor isn't wearing many garments.)

came back to the mark watson 24-hour show tuesday afternoon to find there was no room for me in the tent and was galled because two girls were sold tickets, right in front of me, and ushered in, while i had already bought a ticket and was clearly waiting to reenter.

it seemed to me, as an existing ticket-holder, i should have been accommodated first, especially since i felt somewhat self-righteous about having even bought a ticket.

in my humble opinion, i am a man of such supreme eminence that i should have been a guest of the show. but in a spirit of magnanimity, i didn't try to finesse my way in. i had the money and was under the (hopefully correct) impression that the money was going to charity, so i swallowed my ego and punted normally.

therefore, my growing anger, as i sat outside the tent, was coming from two separate perspectives -- i felt both mistreated as a punter and ignored as an entertainment great.

so, when i heard steven k. amos being welcomed warmly by the crowd that i was not a part of, from an audience perspective, i felt i was missing something i should have seen and from a performer's perspective, i was pissed they weren't recognizing that i ought be showered with garlands; that i was clearly at least the equal of steven k. amos.

with the resourcefulness that is my hallmark, i checked to see if the tent's other door would open -- and it did. so, i entered, stage left, and had only to climb clumsily over a fully set-up drum kit to get to an empty seat from which i could bask in my triumph.

now, last year i distinguished myself in a greek tragedy competition during mark's 36-hour show, so i was looking for an opportunity to show off in front of his audience once more, and when i entered, they were looking for someone to sing "ebony and ivory", a task for which i would be perfectly suited.

but i was afraid to take the stage, fearful that i would be spotted as an interloper by the person who refused me entry and humiliated in front of everyone, suffering defeat just when triumph was almost in my grasp.

so, i sat, silently, stewing as others were showered with attention and enthusiasm that should have been mine.

shortly thereafter, the crowd moved en masse to waterstone's, where mark would be reading from his new novel.

when i got there, he was choosing people to read with him, but my hand was ignored, though an unworthy "normal" right next to me was given the honor.

with proud petulance, i left the store just in time to avoid hearing a word of the reading. if i was not allowed to participate, i would not allow the ideas expressed in the book into my consciousness.

instead, i returned to mark's c soco tent, where i was told my earlier,unauthorized entry had forced an important member of the production team to leave in order to observe the fire codes. my self-righteousness and sense of triumph turned to guilt (and i only made it worse by trying to explain myself).

the rest of the show was not fun for me, not just because of the guilt, but because i was still pissed off that i wasn't recognized as the equal of, say, arthur smith, though i did enjoy myself for a spell when favored guest (and lederer equal) andy zaltzman said my name a number of times in those distinctive zaltzmanian tones.

no too much later, however, i realized i would never be the focus of the show, so i left (thinking to myself that this whole thing was now too cultish anyway).

fast forward to last night, the night of the big pleasance mid-fest party. it was already late when it got going and i wanted to get a full night's sleep, so i could get up early and do some work on the script for my 14:10 show, but the festival-goer in me didn't want to miss anything, so i decided to briefly breeze through the pleasance, just to get the feel of the thing, and then go home.

however, i was refused entry to brooke's bar (which i had left just over an hour earlier), told politely that, for the night, it would be available to pleasance pass-holders only.

i didn't fight, as i was going to leave immediately anyway, but i knew damn well there were people in there who didn't have a pleasance affiliation of any kind, but were considered important enough to receive deference.

how dare they not recognize that i, a veritable andy zaltzman or steven k. amos in my own right, was due the same respect as the other luminous denizens of the fest.

these rules do not apply to me, i thought to myself, and i'm still angry that a snapshot of fringe '07 -- the artist-studded brooke's bar in party mode -- was denied me and will forever leave an empty space in my brain.

maybe i will protest by not returning to brooke's bar for the rest of the festival. then they will not be able to claim me for their promotional benefit, should they, for some reason, suddenly recognize my value.

do you think i can boycott the bar at night but still go there in the daytime to use the free wi-fi?

will that undercut the otherwise massive impact of my protest?

for a more writerly than talkerly version of my show, "every day i write the book", aloud to the audience today and they seemed to like it.

i hadn't even looked at the notes between the time i wrote them and today, but i remember excitedly thinking i could actually write a show, a notion i distrusted almost immediately.

but maybe i can and should.

i may write more of this version of the show and try it out tomorrow. (at berlin -- venue 158 -- at 14:10.)

comics who've been prostitutes or ended up in the nuthouse thought to be "raw and uncompromising" and somehow truer, realer, deeper and better than others?

are these experiences common or even particularly relevant to most people's lives?

(if you see my 14:10 show at berlin, you may think these rhetorical questions are somewhat hypocritical, but i don't think they particularly are.)

but i was hoping it would pour on fringe sunday. (see this.)

notwithstanding that sentiment, after my last show, i headed over to the meadows and had a blast. most notably, i saw this fire-juggling, whip-cracking, very funny "street" act named "arizona jones".

i don't usualy pay attention to the circus-y stuff but, man, that was real entertainment -- more entertaining than most comics, actually. (probably including myself.)

and the band playing in the music tent -- the fontanas, i think -- was awesome.

there were kids and dogs and generally happy people.

okay, the fringe society did a good thing.

good enough, in fact, to mostly take my mind off my current peeve -- reviewers who think they can come to free fringe/festival shows without either arranging it in advance or identifying themselves upon arrival so that free acts can have the same benefit other acts do of knowing when they're being reviewed.

there was a guy at my 2:10 show who was miserable but didn't want to leave, even after i told him he should feel no guilt about departing. i realized afterward, he might have been a reviewer who had to stay, maybe for three weeks, which promised they would notify me in advance of such a visit, but se4eing as how they sent to my morning show a guy who hated comedy, who can trust them?

to stave off the powerlessness i feel regarding this situation, i have hatched a plan: i'm going to claim that any media outlet which gives me an unfavorable review after coming unannounced has given me five stars. (maybe it'll be four stars, which is more believable and therefore, probably more galling to the outlet.)

i will put four or five stars, attributed to that outlet, on flyers and posters, in e-mails and press releases, and in all promotional materials relating to the show they have panned (slated).

the media outlet, in response, will either have to ignore it or challenge it publicly -- giving publicity to me and my cause. (i may hedge by using the wording -- "have you heard andrew j. lederer got five stars from _______________?" which doesn't actually say i got them. but then again, i may not.)

fight the power, people.

follow me to the promised land.

(did you hear i got five stars?)

after our venue meeting at berlin the other morning, i heard the other performers laughing outside the room as i comedically assessed the venue at the top of my show. it felt good to hear appreciation and approval from other comedians.

at other times, i've seen the expression of other performers waiting to come in and set up at the conclusion of my show, as they seem to wonder, "what the fuck is he doing?" and think to themselves, "this isn't comedy."

but comedy is not just jokes.

for me, comedy is getting to "the funny place".

now, i am an excellent joke writer. i can shit and sweat out jokes in my sleep. (an admittedly messy proposition.)

and joke-writing is a noble discipline. people who devote themselves to it successfully should be commended.

but . . .

to me, it is too limited a thing -- a craft that can be an art but is still too much math and not enough colored, dancing, shape-changing clouds. (you'll note the words "to me". as in most things, there are exceptions.)

as i've said here before, my goal (among others) is to be funny -- even when talking about the most disturbing things. to a great extent this fringe, i've achieved that goal.

sometimes, i have not.

it takes an amazing amount of energy to be funny. you can't rely on words; every time is frightening, 'cause it may not happen.

to some who see comedy as jokesmithery, this will seem a self-justifying cop-out, rationalizing what they see as an essential failure to suit the (what they don't recognize as) mundane definition of comedian. i expect this post will raise a lot of hackles and, probably, some 'til-now veiled hostility will be undraped and aimed in my direction.

but -- okay -- i'll say it: getting laughs is easy. i want something more.

and i am willing to achieve something less to get it.

it's understandable that some out there are probably thinking that's precisely the kind delusional, self-aggrandizing, ineffectual rationale a comic would employ to justify to himself and others a dearth of that most glorious of rewards, the laugh.

okay.

the kind where some ungrateful asshole who thinks he didn't get his nothing's worth (it's a free show) will rush off to write some bitchy comments on edfringe.com.

my shows have been going well but circumstances today led me to ignore the theme of "every day i write the book" in favor of "freestyle"-style general goofiness. the show would have gone better had i not tried to return to the theme midway, but i'd have been doing myself no good if i was simply facile and clever to no larger purpose.

which begs the question, "what, at the free festival/fringe do we owe the audience?"

i believe we owe them an attempt, not a result.

i mean, i'm trying to do something great and i believe i owe myself and the potential audience out there (somewhere) a constant attempt to do the better thing; the different thing.

and i owe the non-paying ('cept for contributions) free festival audience a valiant attempt to hit that mark

but i don't owe them a satisfying experience at the expense of my creative intent.

i'm convinced i could've held this crowd by staying the course, but i didn't and my show, ultimately, is a better one because of it.

but not today, as far as the audience was concerned.

it's funny/tragic that in a situation like this, which feels like betrayal to an audience, the crowd doesn't even remember that they used to like you, yet, without remembering, they still hate you more than they would have otherwise because you've snatched from them something they almost got and that you demonstrated you could give them.

i'll bet there was a reviewer in; it's the nature of my luck here that an anomalous performance will be reviewed. in truth, since i made my show a ticketed (free) show, the press should contact me before coming in, but i wouldn't count on that happening.

we of the free fringes, apparently, are not entitled to the privilege afforded acts at real venues; we don't necessarily know the specific days on which we should do our "review" shows (i know i wrote about this last year, but who's gonna dig through the blog for that?) the editors of the various papers will shout, "journalistic integrity!" and assert a surprise review more truly assesses the the reader's potential audience experience but the fact remains that this is not a level playing field as the underbelly's, balloon's, assembly's and everybody else's acts are not subject to this same rigorous "standard".

btw, i have no reason to presume a reviewer was there; i just understand the nature of my fate.

i've tried not to fall prey this year to this kind of moping, but, you know, it's hard.

speaking of which, maybe it says something about me that whenever i see the name of josie long's show, "trying is good", somewhere, i read it as, "trying is hard".

and it is.

had no clean clothes today, so had to put on the same jeans i wore yesterday. only problem is last night at linsay's, i was late for the barbecue and so handled raw sausage with my bare hands 'cause it was dark and they were shutting everything down and i couldn't find appropriate utensils and i wanted to get something on the fire before my chance for a free dinner was snatched away.

while still toxic, i placed my hands in my pockets -- the very same pockets from which i am pulling money and other items that are bing handled by others out in the world today. i thought of buying new trousers to change into but instead am hoping the bottles of store-brand antibacterial gel i bought will protect the vulnerable from my touch.

i've even been dousing my money with the stuff. i'm a caring person. ordinarily, i would have stayed in and done laundry, but i've got shows to do and as we know, in art, there are frequently casualties.

about a comic who has been getting (deservedly) great reviews. much of the interest in him or her and many of the things that were written about him or her, here and/or elsewhere, were originally generated by me in various pr materials. in effect, i -- and some associates -- told the media how to see this comic.

in the feature story there were at least a couple of statements i know to be untrue. it does nothing to diminish this person, who deserves to be written about, but, as usual, the press has regurgitated what its been told, seen things through a prism handed them by others and flat-out misinterpreted stuff as it scrupulously avoids genuine reportage.

but the thing is this -- how come i can get people interested in another performer but not in me?

word is supposed to be "consigliere". (it's spelled correctly in the print edition.)
http://www.thefixonline.com/article.php?issue=9&article=571

also, there's this (i don't remember being asked to make "picks". i think these may have been cobbled together from disparate things that is said.):
http://www.thefixonline.com/article.php?issue=9&article=572

continuation of corona on an empty stomach, but i meant it (i fixed my typos)

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: rino@edfringe.com
Date: Aug 8, 2007 12:34 PM
Subject: RE: fringe sunday - no email
To: "Andrew J. Lederer"

hi andrew.

thank you for clarifying. i was a bit confused by your first email, if not a little hurt. whatever you may feel about 'fringe' is one thing - but to speak to me, 'an artist who is working to make a living doing the best i can to create an event and support as many people as i can' is another thing all together. I AM NOT THE FRINGE. i am a part of it though and am willing to take on the responsibility of the program of fringe sunday. i just don't appreciate being treated like that.

i am sorry you had an issue 2 years ago. this is my second year programming fringe sunday so i can not comment on your experience back then.

i also understand that a group email is not ideal - which is why i started by apologising so if you have any ideas of how to respond to over 250 applicants in a short time then please let me know. seriously - i would appreciate any advice or feedback you may have.

i can't comment about the wi-fi and the club as it is not my department - i am not even in the same building. again i get that it may feel like you are not treated as an individual but how do you propose to deal with so many performers.

what the fringe is? who the fringe is? where the fringe is going? and all those questions and comments are all debateable and i agree they need to be debated. i am not the fringe but i work for the fringe and i know that all the people here want to help and want to do more and want to be supportive of all artists but it is very difficult sometimes with such a massive event. as an artist myself i see the value in both the fringe artists and the fringe society being there for each other. i don't feel as if there should be an us and them attitude when it comes to the fringe office and artists. i do not think that the staff here see ourselves as separate - i mean the staff here are not here because they are forced to be part of the fringe... they are here because they want to be here, they are excited to be here and they want to contribute to the massive and wonderful event that fringe is. i agree it is not perfect - what is perfect though? what and how would fringe be perfect? to whom would it be perfect for? how do we achieve that? all big questions. and all being asked here too.

again i am sorry if your experiences are not always positive - i am open to hearing feedback about fringe sunday and take you comments into account. as i said i am only in my second year programming and very much learning how this big awesome event we all call 'the fringe' works.

i also want to add that all my comments above are representative of me and not the fringe. this represents ME, my opinions as a part of the fringe but not the views of the fringe. i don't want to sound all hippy but we are all doing the best we can, we all work hard and long hours at what we do and we are open to feedback but there are ways of doing that. basically i don't appreciate being spoken to like that - i did not cause your past problems.

i am going to pass your issues on to our director so that he / we can look into them - we do take complaints seriously and do want to act on them.

thank you Andrew

rino del zoppo
fringe sunday programmer
edinburgh festival fringe
t: 0131 226 0035
f: 0131 226 0016
180 high street, edinburgh eh1 1qs
edinburgh festival fringe 2007 runs 5 - 27 august
www.edfringe.com

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Andrew J. Lederer
Date: Aug 8, 2007 12:39 PM
Subject: Re: fringe sunday - no email
To: rino@edfringe.com

thanks for taking the time to write this.

sometimes frustration with a bureaucracy can make you crazy.

good luck sunday.

signed,
this side of my personality

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: rino@edfringe.com
Date: Aug 8, 2007 12:43 PM
Subject: RE: fringe sunday - no email
To: "Andrew J. Lederer"

hey man - i agree... the last thing we want to be is the big bad wolf - one of the multinational corporations of the world.. i get that is how it seems though.

i can see you understand that and i get that it is frustrating for you sometimes.

on the up side i have one bit of feedback already - wifi is up and running and works much easier than in the past. yay.

cheers.

rino del zoppo

______________

and they lived happily ever after . . .

( . . . hopefully.)

leon fleury listed as sole author of the kid's show, "the grean meanie". (it might just be called "green meanie".)

while this is true as far as it goes, if "green meanie" were a movie, i would receive "story by" credit, since the basic template for the piece remains the bare outline i crafted for the 40-word blurb.

that was supposed to be on the record, somewhere (and if it isn't, it isn't leon's fault). but, just in case, i figured i'd publicly stake my claim to the tiny but essential part of the show's genesis that is mine, so that the information is out there, available to those who want to know.

(by the way, the stage liked it a lot, something i had nothing whatsoever to do with.)

sitting in a corner of the assembly bar, trying not to be noticed, i got to see snippets of several shows from georgia (not the one in the american south), including a piece sung by a men's chorus that sounded exactly like jewish liturgical music; he kind of think you'd hear in a synagogue, though it was not jewish, it was, presumably, secular georgian music.

got to see what the head of the international festival looks like. and got to see william burdett-coutts beaming at an argument between a man and a woman told in dance.

the dancing was not precise -- the guy was much better than the woman - but this didn't seem to bother coutts, who probably figures this is the good stuff he gets to show and enjoy by suffering through all that damned profitable comedy.

seems to be leaving the flat around 9 am, taking care of some bidness, and heading to the club bar at the assembly when it opens around 10 to use the free wi-fi and work out a plan for my shows and my day.

today, eastern europeans, led by at least one matronly-looking woman, are all over the usually empty (in the morning) bar and william burdett-coutts is making a speech.

i've been eyed suspiciously, i think, sitting to the side of the room, focused on my laptop.

my typing sounds very loud now that everyone is quiet and listening to speeches.

i hope i don't get kicked out.

or tomorrow night at 10 as part of a piece on american comedians at the fringe.

listen, if you can.

i had three GREAT shows today.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: rino
Date: Aug 8, 2007 10:30 AM
Subject: fringe sunday - no email

hello.

firstly - i am sorry for the group email - i would love to be able to contact you all individually but as it is i am already sending this to you a week later than i had hoped.

secondly - thank you very much for applying be a part of fringe sunday. we received 100's of applications but only have 135 performance spaces. it is with regret that i inform you that this year you have not been successful.

(--trimmmed--)


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Andrew J. Lederer
Date: Aug 8, 2007 11:17 AM
Subject: Re: fringe sunday - no email
To: rino@edfringe.com

Fuck you.


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: rino@edfringe.com
Date: Aug 8, 2007 11:18 AM
Subject: RE: fringe sunday - no email
To: "Andrew J. Lederer"

yeah that is going to get you far in life...


rino del zoppo
fringe sunday programmer
edinburgh festival fringe
t: 0131 226 0035
f: 0131 226 0016
180 high street, edinburgh eh1 1qs
edinburgh festival fringe 2007 runs 5 - 27 august
www.edfringe.com


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Andrew J. Lederer
Date: Aug 8, 2007 11:38 AM
Subject: Re: fringe sunday - no email
To: rino@edfringe.com

i'm not even angry at you and i don't give a fuck about fringe sunday. but your mass rejection e-mail reminded me of everything i hate about the fringe office.

two years ago, i got lost in the cracks and was not rejected. i sent a follow-up e-mail checking on my status the day before the event and was told i had a spot and should respond if i wanted it. i said yes, rushed to the thing in a cab and was told the guy hadn't checked his e-mail, so didn't know i'd accepted the spot and had given it to someone else.

i hung around looking for a fallout and was treated like a guy who was trespassing backstage -- not as an act but as an interloper; a threat..

this year, on the day my show listing went to press (not the deadline, the actual programme press date), i was told my copy, which had been unchallenged to that time, had to be changed to something vague and unsuitable. the repercussions of that are being felt by me daily.

last year, when i complained about the bizarrely cumbersome process required to use the wi-fi in the "fringe club", i was told i was free to go somewhere else.

as if "the fringe" was doing me a favor.

well, the fringe office is not the fringe. the performers/companies are the fringe.

the fringe office has only one reason for existing -- to facilitate what we -- the fringe -- do. without us, the fringe office would not exist. without you, we would happily go on.

when you do not help us, you are failing at your mission; your sole reason for being.

you have failed.

in my experience, the comedy part of fringe sunday is run as if it were an "important show". it is booked to build to a crescendo of name acts (who need the least help). it is built to show off the fringe organization, to make the office that pretends to be the fringe look good.

but once again, you are not the fringe.

you are just a trademark.

better?

first show:
chickened out and improvised for an hour.

second show:
radio 4 was there.

my focus on the two successive three weeks reviewers sunday made me forget my third show was being recorded until i got a call from the bbc producer during my noon show. i wanted to be wonderful, so rather than take a chance on difficult material, i improvised for about a half-hour. but then, i shifted into "every day" and they liked it.

third show:
terrible. almost unremittingly boring and unfunny.

fourth show:
i woke up early on tuesday and worked on the show structure. tested my new ideas during my noon "freestyle" slot and they seemed to work well. later, the two people in my 2:10 audience loved it.

last year, the times' dominic maxwell asked during the first week if he should come see my show and i said, "no!".

last night, i said yes.

he said he'll come next week

and 2 comics who i'm under the impression are quite good have gotten really bad reviews.

it somehow made me less scared.

this year.

i was just at a show, listed in the programme, in a prime hour, in the center of town and nobody came. with this many laughing horse venues there are not enough people simply searching for "free" to keep everyone supplied with an audience.

as for my shows at berlin, there is always an audience but they are not given an environment that feels like it was set up for a show. the place has basically been left unattended, it's poorly lit, the bar is not open for much or all of the day and i'm pretty sure alex at laughing horse has no one available to change that.

as a result, the audience takes longer to relax and the shows can't reach the heights they did when the free fringe/festival had fewer and better venues.

in a way, alex has achieved what peter buckley hill has always said he wanted -- a free festival without any infrastructure -- and this has proven what alex has always said -- that an infrastructure is needed.

unfortunately, it's alex's free festival that is buckling under the weight of peter's principle.

second review of "anthology07" --
http://www.thegroggysquirrel.com/articles/2007/08/06/anthology07/

was just fine. everything was set up perfectly and it was (more or less) a pleasure to do shows there. i arrived the second day, in the rain, to find the front door closed and impossible to open, chasing punters to god knows where.

once i got in, everything has been dismantled and nothing was in place -- not chairs, not tables, not sound, not lights, not signs, not nothin'. (yes, that's a double negative, but i like the rhythm.)

wet from the rain and expecting a reviewer from three weeks, i set up the chairs and tables. some guy, who apparently worked at the place, set up the lights, badly, but nobody knew anything about the sound.

i kept opening the front door but it kept closing when i walked away. finally i found a stantion to hold it open.)

i was stressed out already when the three weeks reviewer stumbled in, wearily, and took a seat in the back of the room, facing a wall about 90 degrees from the stage area. swathed in shadow, he actually appeared to be whittling.

i insisted he move up and face the stage and, after doing so, he announced that he was too tired to pay attention to a show and also probably had been misassigned as he didn't like comedy.

i think he decided, under the circumstances, not to write a review, but if he does, his name is pete spate. so, if a review of "freestyle" appears with his byline on it, take it with a bucket of salt. (unless, of course, he liked it.)

speaking of buckets, there was no bucket for post-show contributions, but it didn't matter 'cause i was late for the "anthology07" storytelling show at the green room, which was also being reviewed by three weeks (presumably by someone who hates stories).

i dashed off, not thinking about money, to take advantage of the day's second chance.

1st performance of my noon show -- "freestyle" -- at berlin, followed by the third day of the anthology07 storytelling show at the green room at 1. (tomorrow's guests: carlos gomez, who was in the spike lee movie "inside man", janey godley and ashley storrie -- we're being reviewed by three weeks, so come.)

i couldn't get from berlin to the green room quickly enough, so i had one of the acts open the show and i had to leave before the show was over to make my 2:10 show at berlin. (this guy, tom, who i think is the awesome deborah frances white's boyfriend or fiance or something, was astonished that, as he put it, i was merely "making a guest appearance on (my) own show", but i did a long set and it was really good, so how bad is that?)

in late afternoon, i did janey godley's chat show and wasn't happy with my performance.

it was so strongly her show with her crowd that i didn't know how i fit in. and i was insecure because my jacket ripped and i was sitting there in just a t-shirt (and jeans, of course) with my gut not concealed in any way.

i finally found a point of connection with the audience that i was able to maintain but it was too late in the show for me to really feel successful.

one good thing -- steve day,one of the other guests, was wonderful and i appreciated it when he said he felt kind of close to me because he'd been reading the blog. (i've heard similar things from a others since getting here.)

show number 5 was a weary set at jekyll and hyde -- all style and little substance -- though some people seemed to like it and one guy from the audience said i was "poetically funny".

not the worst thing i've ever heard. nice, actually . . .

now, i kinda wanna go out. it's saturday night.

but two of my shows are being reviewed tomorrow and i think i oughta get some sleep.

it's crazy that a festival composed of people who rely on their wits is set up so that you bludgeon yourself with alcohol and other indulgences before you even start your shows.

from my experience, anyway, you end up finally showing up to perform -- presumably the point of this thing -- and you're not up to the challenge; you've become a "special" individual, incapable of sophisticated thought.

so, i guess i'll go to sleep.

but, of course, that'll probably turn out to have been exactly the wrong thing to do. maybe i'd be better off staying up all night and showing up at my venues tomorrow, sweaty, unwashed and hungover.

but you gotta play the averages. turning in now is, logically, the best thing to do.

http://one4review.com/Comedy_/comedy2007/anthology_07_.htm

gilded balloon party, green room party, stand party, jazz bar with ashley storrie and bobbie, brooke's bar with reggie watts, rebecca drysdale and one of the god's pottery guys (i'm not sure it was god or pottery) -- they were animatedly talking about "battlestar galactica" or something; i was plunging into a coma.

garbage from the hallway stinking up our flat, evidence in the kitchen of a party that must have taken place while i slept (and i didn't get to sleep until like 3:30), my storytelling show, just the tonic launch, meeting corry shaw (exciting), champagne, howard read's kid "sampson", running into mark watson (i was insecure), no luck getting gilded balloon bar pass, janey godley, julian hall (he couldn't get gilded pass yet either), free festival barbecue, great bacon, falling asleep during free festival preview show, my friend nicole shows up, she read claire smith's comment about this blog on the plane -- actually understood it as claire intended (what are the odds of that?), they're like sisters and hang out together the rest of the evening, i feel tired, greasy, uncomfortable; as if all my movements are strange, labored, conspicuous, damning.

everybody loves my grandfather's hat. do they love it better than me?

i may be slightly drunk. i don't like to write the blog under the influence but in edinburgh there might not otherwise be time.