Back in the day, he and I loved to schmooze in East Village cafés about the craft of comedy writing.

Eddie Brill from facebook

He told me two things:

1. Deliver it without apology.
2. Be yourself.

Good advice. It’s come in handy still, whether I’m making a presentation, teaching, or writing.

On the first point, Eddie said, I shouldn’t deliver a joke and then go, “No, no, I’m just kidding.” Don’t undercut yourself. Men don’t do that. And if you’re insecure, the audience will know it. Audiences want their comics confident.

On the second point, in my material, I had a couple of rehacked jokes. He told me to jettison those. Use only your own material, don’t update, rework, of rewrite other people’s stuff. He was deadly serious. Of course, he was right. Again, for me, it was a confidence thing — I thought the old classic jokes were better than my new ones. Not so.

I think today’s article about Eddie Brill in the New York Times does not do justice to a comic who definitely mentored me in my sort-of-successful-but-not-that-successful comedy career. I still write comedy. And when I do perform, in any capacity, I try to deliver it without apology and be myself.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 3,600 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 60 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Turturro lets the stuffing out of the chair. (photo by Richard Termine for the New York Times.)

My husband’s translation of ‘Cherry Orchard’ was so naturalistic. A few minutes into John Turturro’s opening scene, I squeezed Chris’s arm and whispered, “So good. Genius.”

Chris (John Christopher Jones) did a brilliant job of situating the audience right there with the family at the grand Russian estate as it falls into disrepair and bankruptcy, sold to the local boor — or is he a self-made man? — played by Turturro.

An actor at the cast party told me it was the only of Chekhov’s place that the author considered a comedy. (Actors can be so smart — like real artists, not just empty-headed celebs!)

Chris worked hard of this translation, obsessed by it for months. He spent a lot time sitting in front of the computer. I know how hard it is to write.  It is mostly about keeping your seat in the chair.

I have seen Chris in a number of Chekhov plays. From those plays, I can see what life was like back in the day before people realized you should work out to lift your spirits. Or perhaps, people, try some anti-depressants?

In Chekhov’s plays my heart always breaks for the way the characters ridicule the intellectual, the perpetual student. Ugh.

This production is not depressing. I loved the party scene where the family, led by Dianne Wiest, and the guests wait to hear about the fate of the estate. The party goers’ spirits were as light as the stuffing from the chair that flew around the stage when Turturro ripped open the furniture.

For some reason, I always imagine the cherry orchard bathed in late afternoon light, like in the Van Gogh painting of the olive orchard. The cherry orchard never appears on stage yet it is a character in the play, once great and now parceled away — like so many nations, families and nature itself. 

On the cab ride home from the opening night party, I read Chris the The New York Times Review of ‘Cherry Orchard’ off of my smart phone, hitting bumps and speeding up Third Avenue. It was a triumph for Chris.

Where the party was.

I woke last night at 1 am and then again at 2:30 am because of shouting on the street.

Due to some massive and elaborate scaffolding outside my window — another city hazard — I couldn’t see what was going on, so I crept towards my front door.

My husband was asleep on the couch. He often falls asleep in front of the TV (Parkinsons!) So without back up, I headed across the lobby in my barefeet and pajamas (PJ bottoms and a red tee shirt from the Rethink Church campaign emblazoned with the message, “Impact the Community”).

One of the doormen, E., appeared at my side. Doormen are great back up!

E. said he’d already called the cops once.

It was a drunken party on a stoop across the street.

“Guys,” I yelled, because there were about 12 guys shouting and one woman in a red dress shushing.

“C’mon, keep it down,” I yelled. “We have kids sleeping around here,” I said that. I did. I played the “kids’ sleeping here” card.

E. told me, “A group of people, led by the woman in the red dress, got out of a Columbia University ambulance. They were honking and yelling and left the flashers on in front of the building.” That must’ve been my 1 am wake up call.

We turned to go. The guys grumbled, but began to disperse.

One ran across the street to catch me.

partygoer attacked the pillar on the stoop

His eyes were glassy. ”I was having a party and my friends started destroying the pillar on the steps.” He wanted sympathy. I did too.

“Okay…Be neighborly,” I said. “Quiet the party down. People are sleeping.” I’m a huge fan of sleep (and I’ve written about Mommy Needs Sleep.)

If you live in the country, the sounds of nature, like dogs and birds, may wake you, but here in the city, it’s laughter, yammering, stolen ambulances and vandalism.

To cover your back you need back up.

I woke last night to the sound of thunder. How far off I sat and wondered – Bob Seger

There is nothing in my view that is commercial — no billboards or neon lights. From my office window, there is Riverside Church, the George Washington Bridge, the Hudson River, and the New Jersey skyline.

When I ride my bike to work I go for miles and see nothing but trees, grass, and occasionally a hawk. That is why I call this blog My Beautiful New York.

Along the Hudson walkway, there is so much art. This one reflects the water and the buildings in the distance.

The sky was beautiful tonite. It is a walking meditation along the Hudson River any time, but especially at sunrise and sunset.

Haven't been blogging much lately, because I'm planning a party and trying to finish my NaNoWriMo novel. NaNoWriMo=National Novel Writing Month.

The muted fall colors and the sun somewhere behind the fog made me feel so good. So peaceful.

There is something sad, inevitable, beautiful about autumn in New York.

Maybe the bittersweet beauty is the reason writers write songs about New York this time of year. 

Yesterday I was in Washington Square Park along with hundreds of other Occupy Wall Streets supporters.

Let me come clean, I would like to say that I was there for the demonstration, holding a witty, anti-establishment placard, but I was actually just passing by to meet my friend and fellow writer, Dan Wakefield, to commiserate on the writer’s life.

We weren’t the only peripheral people there. Right near the arch, there was a mandala being created from huge ziplock bags full of colored sand. The artist would step in and leave his shoe print in the art as he sprinkled colored sand like powdered sugar on the cement.

I loved the colors. And it was amazing that in this square crowded full of protesters, families and college students, there could be sacred art on the ground. No one stepped in it, except the artist.

It seems everyone respects art — much more than they respect the greed of corporate America. Times are a’changing. Let me get my placard and come up with some witty words.

I’ve written about The Angel Above Us a few months back. She is a part of it all, yet she is above it all too. She is about to take off, yet she’s firmly rooted in place. Oh, to be an angel and watch the whole passing parade.

I’d heard that this section of the park was supposed to be a quiet zone. Yet a few weeks ago, the break dancers had music blasting, the little dogs were yapping, and all of the world’s languages were coinciding, right here at the center of Central Park in New York City.

And now you know why I called this blog My Beautiful New York.

In New York City I write at the kitchen table with a view of a wide airshaft. Usually there are construction materials piled in a corner back there. On Tuesday and Saturday mornings, garbage pick-up days, I hear the porters wheeling bins of garbage. Sometimes I notice a light in the windows in the backside of another apartment building. I wonder if someone’s just had a baby, is going to the gym, has an early breakfast meeting, or is getting dressed. I wonder what they’re doing up so early.

But then I go back to my writing, submerge myself in my own world.

This was my view from the Mountain Meadows Bed and Breakfast in Keene Valley, the Adirondacks.

When I am up in the Adirondacks, I still wake before the family. I make some coffee. Or like the other morning, I woke up at Mountain Meadows, a sweet little Bed and Breakfast in Keene Valley. I had a lovely writing spot.

My mind wandered. I wondered about nature, not about people. I thought Wow, is that a hawk?  Maybe it’s just a crow. Sunlight moves across the mountain in a parallelogram.

I don’t write. I just wonder. Sometimes beauty inhibits my creative flow, but feeds my soul.