Andrew J. Lederer

at the phoenix on old cavendish (as opposed to the phoenix on charing cross). brett vincent and martyne green(e?) just went outside to have a cigarette.

i'm sitting at the same table as they are but i'm not with them. the room is filled with people of some (social, at least) comedy scene eminence, including the genuinely eminent paul byrne and a girl who goes out with nick doody (i think), who is always friendly to me in edinburgh but doesn't acknowledge me too much here (and she saw me do my awful set at the king's head in crouch end last month).


(show started)


it's now the interval. (turns out the [possibly] nick doody girl is named kirsty.)

i didn't feel like i could push myself into the vincent/green(e?) pre-show conversation and didn't necessarily want to but as i listened to it, i realized their conversation (also involved was a blonde woman i don't know) was full of the basic small talk i would have contributed but with an underpinning of familiarity and implied relevance that my small talk would not have had (the same words from me would have seemed forced.)

i was supposed to meet ava vidal here and after the show started i kept checking my cell phone for texts from her, hoping the visible checking would make me -- sitting at a table with people i kind of knew but not interacting with them -- seem connected to someone (or something) and therefore not just a lonely lingerer at other people's party.

eventually, i resigned myself to the fact that ava -- who had been uncertain about the location of the show -- was not going to come.

but she did. (hooray!) . . . and almost immediately went off to to work on her set.

of course, i had greeted her conspicuously and gotten up to go over to her but by the time brett vincent arrived at the bar to get another drink, she was focused on prep and i was again alone and noticeably so. (sigh.)

tiffany asked me if i wanted to maybe do the show next week. (hopefully, actual involvement will make me feel more comfortable then.)

i should have a drink to induce comfort now, seeing as how i'm not going on (i thought i might so i didn't pay to get in -- i hope i wasn't "caught") but if i can spend only five quid a day (i haven't been doing well at keeping to that), i can make it to january.

maybe ava will buy me a drink.

second half has just started. (simon munnery is headlining. i was standing near the door when he came in and hoped he wouldn't attack me about the anti-semitic thing with his wife, who, by the way, i love.)

i think i'll venture back into the (rather sedate) maelstrom.