NEW YORKER IS COMING TO TOWN
Interview by Cynthia Aukerman

Andy Friedman, a New York native, will be bringing a special program to
Randolph County at 7 p.m., Saturday, September 25 at the Railroad Depot. His
appearance is presented by the Art Association of Randolph County.

In an effort to understand more about what this appearance might entail,
reporter Cynthia Aukerman asked Friedman several probing questions. Below
are the questions and Friedman's answers.

Aukerman has decided that this event is going to be way too good to miss,
even if she can't put an exact title to it.

Tickets are $10 for members ($13 for non-members) and are available from
any AARC member, or by calling the AARC at (765)-964-7227, or at the door.
The AARC accepts MasterCard.

Q: What are your pictures and stories about?

A: I always thought of myself as a country blueser or rock'n'roller without
a guitar. I got different instruments, that's all. My music is in the
pictures, and the things I'm saying when the pictures are on the screen are
like the lyrics. And the things I'm talking about are things about life and
living: broken hearts, breaking other people's hearts, falling in love,
being afraid of falling in love, all the yearning, searching and wondering
that lets us know we're still breathing together.

Q: You aren't coming from NYC to make fun of us local yokels, are you?

A: Is there something funny about you? Last time I was in Indiana I did a Q
& A, and the last question from someone in the audience was, "If you're from
Brooklyn, how come you look like a good ol' boy?" To me, there's no
difference between Union City and New York City. Maybe we got more
buildings and more people but you got more farms and better air. Lonely
souls share the same zip-code. We all got worries keeping us up at night,
and we're all lookin' for new ways to get a better rest.

Q: I take it you are funny, and we are supposed to laugh at/with you?

A: That's up to you. If you want to laugh at me, go right ahead. If you
want to laugh with me, the choice is yours. I'm just up there doing my
thing. I always assume that the ones who are with me are the ones who are
there (or stay, anyway) and the ones who aren't catching my drift find a way
out if they want it. I've had very few instances where I was laughed "at."
But that person lost an arm-wrestle on stage by yours truly in front of 600
people, so I guess, as the one on stage, I'll always figure a way to make
sure I get the last laugh.

Q: You won't offend us, will you?

A: I might, but it won't be deliberate or malicious. I can't control
whether or not someone's gonna be offended. Some people get offended right
off the bat when I tell them that I want to perform in their bar but that I
don't have a band. I'm no shock jock, though, if that's what you mean. I'm
not gonna force any whip-em-out-wednesdays or make any kind of racy jokes.
But if you're wondering whether or not to bring your nine-year-old, all I
can say is that a lot of my stuff is about subjects that a nine-year-old
might not be able to fully wrap their brains around just because of life
experience. But I'm no more harmful to a young mind than playing Lightin'
Hopkins to a third grader.

Q: How did you get this gig? Or is there another hipper word for gig? What
is the connection?

A: We in the biz call it "An Arranged Performance Engagement," although few
realize that "Gig" is actually an anachronism for a "Gregarious Individual's
Gallivant." But the way I got this particular arranged performance agreement
is through a friend of mine named Jodi Noffsinger. She's actually from Union
City and she put me in touch with your organization because her mother,
Linda, used to be on the board. Jodi is a real nice person and is doing real
well in the big city. (Jodi works for Fox News in the "brain room" as
something like a reference coordinator.)

Q: Were you born in NYC or are you a transplant?

A: My great-grandparents, grandparents and parents on both sides were born
in Brooklyn. My parents moved out to Long Island and that's where I was born
and raised. But now I'm back in Brooklyn and married and settled down here,
so in a way I consider myself a transplant, but a Long Island
transplant, since I always belonged in Brooklyn.

Q: Will your presentation give us insights into NYC and its people?

A: Not really. What people don't realize is that a musician might write a
song about a street in Kentucky but the listener doesn't know that it's a
song about a street in Kentucky so they just think of any old street, or the
street they live on as a reference. But in the visual realm it's tough for
me, because I'll show the street I live on, when really I'm just using that
street as either a symbol for something else or any old street but because
they can "see" the street and what city it's obviously in they think it's
"about" NYC in particular. You know what I mean? To me, all the images in my work are just musical notes and colors and
symbols that rarely speak about themselves for their own sake. But, in the
end, the fact is a lot of my work comes from the city so I suppose there
will be a certain urban character this is unavoidably centered around the
city I'm from. The majority of the photographs, however, are taken on the
road.

EXTRA:
Ten minutes into the show people are going to catch my beat, they're going
to realize right away who I am and what I'm doing. There is nothing
difficult about my performance, at all. If anything, I'm trying to bring that Merle
Haggard or Bruce Springsteen place to the visual arts. Right now, most
people associate anything to do with poetry or the visual arts as something
up in a high place. But it doesn't have to be.

Sponsors for the Andy Friedman show include: Jay County REMC; Randolph
County Solid Waste Management; and Nick Poling's DJ Service.