Around
the States in Eighty Days
Being an irregular and erratic account by the
Greedy Bastard himself as he sets out to traverse America on
a comedy tour.
Day
Fourteen. Montreal.
Monday,
October 13, 2003
This morning I discover the luxury of a hot shower in my magic
bus. We are parked in a loading bay beside the Theatre de
St. Denis in Montreal. The view is corrugated metal siding
and chain link fencing on one side and barbed wire and brick
wall the other. Not the most romantic of view in Quebec but
as I emerge refreshed and pink from the warm water I have
a sudden flash of Michael Palin drinking Yaks milk with an
Afghan tribesman - the Python with the Pathan - and decide
to hold my tongue. He's probably out searching for the Yeti,
who will turn out to be a great Python fan and ask him about
the origin of the Silly Walks sketch. I am searching for a
decent lunch and a couple of hours of interviews before tonight's
show. We're all on a quest aren't we? [Oh shit, no philosophy.
Ed] Some are searching for the meaning of life, others
for new pajamas in Gap, but it's all the same quest isn't
it? [No, it isn't Ed.] When you get right down to it,
isn't life just one big quest? We are all adventurers on this
planet, stumbling around between the dark and the light trying
to understand what we are doing here… [I've cut the
rest of this bollocks , Ed.]
Last
night we kicked ass in London, Ontario. I was determined not
to lose two in a row and I tried extra hard to be on my guard
against the steroids coursing through my manly body on their
way to my Achilles heel. So I beefed up with some weight training,
a shower and a cup of hot tea, which is three out of four
for maximum happiness. (Do I need to spell it out? No, I don't
mean a decent dump.) I was pumped and ready and we had spent
the afternoon making some small changes at the top of the
show, so I'm glad to say that London took off like a rocket
and we never let them go till we had them out of their seats
screaming and stomping at the end. God bless 'em. What seemed
like the entire audience was waiting patiently in the lobby
with their tee shirts and programs and calendars to sign,
and all in all it was a very successful evening. I was mighty
proud of myself and must be on my guard in future. My doc
has more medications waiting for me somewhere in Vermont.
Plus a pal of his at Harvard Medical is lined up to try and
diagnose this damn thing but I don't think I'm going to be
anything else but hobbling on this tour. When I went for breakfast
this morning the driver was watching Hopalong Cassidy!
There's a nice cover story in London's Entertainment paper
Scene…. In which Robert Pegg says the Nudge
Nudge sketch is "a classic right up there with Abbott
and Costello's Who's on First" which is praise indeed.
He then goes on to talk about my Road to Mars novel
which I would like to quote at length at the risk of being
utterly egotistical. But then what else is a diary?
Idle was able to put down a lifetime's worth of observations
on his profession in his 1999 Novel The Road to Mars. It's
part sci-fi thriller and part thesis on comedy.
"In
writing the book, I became more interested in discovering
why I had been drawn to comedy and what were the causes
of comedians. I wanted to examine what it is about comedy
that is unique to our species. Would you expect other intelligent
life forms to have a sense of humor? These are quite interesting
questions because they are close to what being human is,
And it raises the question - at what point did the apes
start being funny?
"One
has to ask- why is comedy so important? Why does it evolve?
And I think it's because it is a survival tool, Comedians
are the ones who tell the truth through a sense of outrage
and people can then laugh at it. We're the first ones to
point out that the Emperor has no clothes. Comedy is also
a coping mechanism, It's like making a joke at a funeral.
Grief and comedy are very close to the surface at funerals.
It happened to us with Graham Chapman. It was very solemn
and sad and then John Cleese started it and it just got
to be more and more uproarious and funnier and funnier and
in the end the spirit of Graham, was released and liberated.
Yes of course everyone was sad, upset and in tears - but
we were all laughing. And it's very interesting to me that
comedy could release that - because at the end I had to
sing Always Look on the Bright Side and that was the hardest
thing to do because the music made you just weep - but comedy
made you weep and laugh. For a moment trying to sing it
was just terrible for me. Music is much closer to your tears
than your comedy senses and so it was very, very difficult
to do. But because of all the earlier laughter I got through
it. It was an extraordinary cathartic experience.
"Generally
speaking, comedians are not normal people. They are not
normally evolved. Being a comedian isn't a normal thing
to turn into without some traumatizing experience early
on. With me it was the death of my father and then spending
12 years in a dreadful boarding school. It begins as a response
to insufferable grief and feelings of being abandoned and
so you start to make strangers laugh. You become enormously
entertaining to other people because you're trying to replace
something that isn't there for you. That's not normal -
to want the approval of everyone. We become laugh junkies
- surfing for the great laugh.
"I
sometimes wonder about that in myself - but then I think,
'This is what I do. This is what I do well. This is all
I've ever done. I've learned how to entertain people and
make them laugh. I enjoy it and they enjoy it, so this is
okay." I don't have to do it - but this is as good
a way to touch people an d cheer them up as I'm ever going
to get."
I couldn't have said it better myself….
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