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
Twenty. Orpheum Boston.
Sunday,
October 19, 2003
Barreling
down the Boston turnpike at three in the morning I realize
we have now officially become a rock and roll tour. We are
on rock and roll hours. John and I stand with smoking breaths
in the cold air at a truck stop, gazing at the moon, talking
about the show. Everyone is happy with the way it's going
on stage. We just need to tighten a few bits and cues. We'll
work on it today at sound check.
Also
today we have some victims to play with. My eminent and highly
sensible and utterly wonderful and extraordinarily brilliant
agent (he is tiring of the hairdresser remark or remarc) has
been selling special tickets for auction on eBay and tonight
twelve victims (sorry winners) have been chosen to come on
stage. We have some plans for them, the Greedy Bastards. Actually
it's going to help us with the end of Act One since here in
Massachusetts we are not allowed to bring on stage our specially
constructed flat with the words to Sit On My Face on, for
the audience singalong. In line with the modern bureaucratic
response to tragedy, where something must be seen to be done
even if it isn't remotely useful ( a kind of tokenistic response)
here something perfectly innocuous has been prevented from
happening. Because of that awful night club fire where rock
and rollers burned down the audience with amateur pyrotechnics
we are not allowed to exhibit our huge flat with the words
of the Philosophers Song on stage. See the connection? Me
either. I think it is the new Homeland Department of Stable
Doors, responsible for Nail Clippers, airport searchers of
ten year olds and random checks of anything that looks remotely
non threatening. (For God's sake don't profile.) If this attitude
to racial profiling had been around in the forties when they
liberated the death camps they wouldn't have been able to
target Germans, they'd have had to check out the poor fucking
inmates. I think the official philosophy is, if they irritate
us in other ways we'll forget to blame them for not preventing
something they might have averted. [Enough of this, I think
we get the point. Ed.]
I ride up front with Lish, our bus driver, talking about Ozzie
and the Ozfests and the very clever Sharon and their traveling
circus. He has driven them all over America. Dear Ozzie. We
share a doctor - he shakes and I limp - a good friend to both
of us, but we have never met, though my esteemed and highly
valued pal the hilarious Billy Connolly thinks he is one of
the funniest men he knows, and that's good enough for me.
Apocryphally I am told Ozzie watches The Life of Brian
each night before going on stage…
The bus swallows up the miles as we head into Boston. At three
the streets of the city around Chinatown are jumping. The
bars have turned out and the clubs are doing heavy business,
lines of young people buzzing like wasps around a Diner. The
lobby of our hotel looks like the end of the world. Young
couples are crashed out everywhere on the floor, waiting for
transport. The girls look spectacular in semi formal dresses,
the guys, yobbish and a bit drunk. I have anxious thoughts
about my daughter in a few years. Hopefully Showbiz Alzheimer's
will have set in by then.
To bed at four after watching Dave Chappell be very rude and
funny on HBO. I am woken suddenly by a horribly cheerful voice.
It's an automatic alarm call. There is no real person on the
line to abuse back. Carefully I dial the desk.
"Can
you find out who set the alarm call?" I say in my most
reasonable voice.
"Yes
sir."
"I
want them eviscerated" I say.
"You
want them killed?"
"No,
I want them to be disemboweled, their entrails unwound, their
livers extruded, their testicles removed and their remaining
bits burnt and chopped into Boston harbor."
"Right
away sir."
Politeness
is best.
I was severely patient with this swish hotel at four in the
morning when three times they sent me up to a top room with
the wrong key card. The third time a very patient voice said
from inside said "You've got the wrong room." I
am now on a nose bleed floor anxiously profiling the sky.
Yesterday was a brilliant day for me. I did no interviews.
By show time I was full of beans and felt great when I finished,
with lots of extra energy. Today another show but no interviews
and tomorrow a genuine day off - yea Lord. Although I may
have to go to Harvard Medical to see about my ankle.
In New Haven the bus parked right outside The Samurai Japanese
restaurant and over lunch I began a series of epigrammatic
Zen pensees in the Japanese manner. I'm thinking of something
of a cross between La Rochefoucault, Lord Chesterfield, and
Abba.
- The
further one travels, the less one gets anywhere.
- If
you don't get on the bus, then you'll miss it.
- Life
is like a journey. We don't know where we're going to, we
don't know where we're coming from and we won't know if
we arrive. [Not much like a fucking journey then is it?
Ed.]
That
sort of thing. I think publishers will lap this up. I must
get on to my Greedy Bastard Agent and see if he can't whistle
up a couple of million advance. [Dream on baby. Ed.]
Some snappy title such as : The Four Disagreements, The Five
Stages of Unbeing, Six of One, Half a dozen of the Other,
ought to do it. Perhaps dear Graydon Carter, when he finally
gives up the ridiculous attempt to get all five surviving
Pythons in front of a camera, might have a little room to
stick it in his now wonderfully politicized Vanity Fair.
Who would have thought the best current political reporting
would come from a social glad rag? Incidentally I note that
I seem to have discovered the Cleese joy of happily dining
alone. Nobody disagrees with you.
After lunch I bumped into Jen and we walked around Yale. Some
of the buildings are very old. One ancient brownstone proudly
boasted the date 2003. The audience for our show was smart,
though frankly cheap. The previous night our merch flew off
the table. These tight bastards, though we gave them the
very same good time, kept their hands in their pockets.
That is not good enough. There are amusing Rutland Isles Calendars
for 2004 which have been hand written and magnificently printed
and make the perfect gift for people you never quite liked.
Shopping season is almost here. Do not miss this opportunity
to buy a cheap and meaningless gift. Perhaps Hans can put
them on the web site. If not I shall have way too much fossil
fuel this winter…
Skip our Tour Manager is a champ. He works the hardest. Well
after me. Actually before me. A very energetic, patient and
finely optimistic man every day he reminds himself out loud
"I do have a choice." I am very flattered he has
turned down a more lucrative attempt to poach him for some
rock tour. He organizes everything: hotels, transport, per
diem, promoters, accounts. It's a nineteen hour a day job
and he makes it look effortless. Always a model of politeness,
incessantly on the phone and email, I am very lucky to have
him. I must thank my Hair… the wonderful and smart and
very very brilliant agent who is behind all this. Skip looks
a bit like the young Pat Boone and every evening he dances
away madly to YMCA on stage behind the curtain. You can take
the people out of the village… What was that Hilary Clinton
book It takes a Village Person. Actually he is married
to a woman he clearly is nuts about (The Horse Shopper) and
is crazy proud of his seventeen year old daughter who is doing
something incredibly intellectual at the University of Arizona.
Interestingly, most of our crew brighten at talk of their
kids. Peter was heartbroken because his seven year old autistic
boy is going up to strange bald men saying "Daddy?"
He cheers up a bit and we agree it's probably worse for Peter
than his kid. Scott Keaton our phlegmatic guitar tech, and
another man who never puts a foot wrong, brings out a picture
of his young son Cody and beams with pride. Men do have emotions
you see. It's just women who like to say this so that they
can grab hold of them and use 'em for their advantage. I used
to think that women had emotions, men had sport. Now I'm not
so sure. No one in our group seems very interested in the
World Series anymore, they just want to talk about their families...
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