"With my uncertain, self-conscious motions perceived as character rather than circumstance, I began to increasingly fear all manner of potential misperception. I didn't speak as often as I had, afraid the reaction to my words would be other than I wished; terrified I would communicate something other than I intended.
One night, Richard Belzer, who -- when I first came around the comedy clubs as a teenager -- was very nice to me, reacted to the newly timid me by saying, 'I liked the old, pugilistic Andy better.'
We were standing in the back hallway of the (L.A.) Comedy Store and my reticence to speak must have leapt out...I smiled inside at the notion that I had once been 'pugilistic' and, ever optimistic, assumed I would be again. That was, after all, the 'real me'. "
-- Andrew J. Lederer, Comedian.
