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 Three. Northampton to Albany.
Wednesday,
October 22, 2003
How
bad is this? You're feeling very tired the morning after a
show and instead of having to get up, someone takes your
bed for a drive through the New England leaves. You've
got your favorite CD on the stereo - The Academy of Ancient
Music By Request- and Neville Mariner is revving up the best
of Bach and Gluck and Handel and blue suede Schubert as you
float down the mighty roadsides of North America. You're being
driven through the heart of New England in a big wide bus.
I tell you, sometimes this trip seems like a magic carpet
ride. We're traveling though deeply wooded country along the
Mass turnpike. Black slate cliffs plunge at crazy angles beside
the road. We're barreling through acres of woodlands, yellow
trees and cranberry colors and the bright bark of the birches
gleaming. Sudden still ponds reflect the sodden grey sky,
and everywhere the knitting colors of the woods are interspersed
with the dark peaks of the evergreens. Sometimes we are in
deep channels of forest, and then the river valleys broaden
out into wide pastures where patient brown cattle stand in
the damp of the meadows. In the distance misty mounds of hills
are laced with light rain. We squeeze through endless toll
booths, James Taylor songs in mind.
And
so was the turnpike from Stockridge to Boston..
An English sky, is low and lowering as we pull into the third
truck stop this morning. Someone needs the bathroom. There's
a huge rusty semi-trailer parked, Mobile Chapel it
says on the side, Transport for Christ. It's starting
to rain, slanting grey streaks across the windows, trying
to snow already. Yoiks. It is snowing.
Last night in Northampton was the best show we have ever done.
It may be the best show I have ever done in my life. The combination
of a night off and a young crowd lifted us into somewhere
really dynamic. The house was packed. They were on their feet
doing YMCA before the Spam Song. I felt loose and free
at the same time, kept the pace going and yet was able to
wander off text at will. Thank you Eddie. We have up to now
been playing to a theater crowd and this was our first real
college experience and boy were we in the right playing field.
My cousin Peter Oundjian came. Drove 200 miles to see me.
He is currently a visiting Guest Conductor - tonight the Houston
Symphony Orchestra in Mahler. "Not many laughs,"
I say. I saw him conduct the LA Phil recently in some exquisite
Ravel. He got raves. That's my cousin, I say, proudly. He
is soon to take up the role of the Music Director of the Toronto
Symphony Orchestra. Impressive eh? We are planning a very
stupid evening together with an orchestra. Poor bastards.
We haven't yet decided where or even what exactly. John and
I run over some ideas we might consider: Eric the Half
a Bizet, Peter and the Rabbit, The Three Minute Beethoven,
plus I am keen to have John orchestrate the Mexican Hat Dance
for a quartet of Leaf Blowers. Peter suggests Denver, at dinner
but I'm fading fast - a long show, a long signing, my batteries
are running really low. I need to go back to the bus and cocoon.
The Egg at Albany is ovoid. That's a clever way to say egg
shaped. It was apparently built by Nelson Rockefeller to impress
foreigners. It succeeds. I look around for a huge cement chicken
theater nearby. But no luck. So clearly the Egg came first.
A gigantic egg is an unlikely shape to find sprouting amongst
tall buildings on a hill above the Hudson. There were three
Eggs in the world once and this is the last left standing.
(You can't make a Hamlet without breaking Eggs?) It is referred
to in all our Tour notes as a U.S. Government Facility. Makes
it sound like a loonie bin. Our buses are parked deep in the
bowels of the loading bay, with a constant scream of cars
zooming through an underpass all day. No place to stay. John
and I take the runner and reconnoiter. She is reading one
of my favorite books, William Manchester's A World Lit
Only By Fire. Amazingly it is her daughter's Ninth Grade
reading - along with Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf
and The Odyssey. That's pretty darn impressive reading
for a fourteen year old. Her mom shows us the ten minute Albany
- historic buildings from the 17th century, a nice grey turreted
castellated building, a classic Greek columned Gallery, an
imposing seat of Government (this is the state capital), the
mighty Hudson river and some lovely leaves in a school park.
Then we go to Jack's for oysters and clam chowder.
The theater is ultra modern. We have played so many different
places: one night stepping gingerly under cold water in an
ancient moldy labyrinth, the next in high tech heaven. This
one has a strange almost elliptical freight elevator which
leads directly to the back wall of the stage and a couple
of perfectly round elevators, run by a cheerful man in a motorized
wheelchair. Inside, the loveliest plush red auditorium folds
round the inside walls of the egg and reminds us that the
womb is, well a soft egg and very comforting. We go into our
routine.
| 4.30 |
Onstage
for sound check and rehearsal. (Today we restage The
Getty Song.) |
| 5.30 |
Dinner.
Salmon and scallops in The Ladies Chorus Room. (Sadly
no ladies, just the ghost of former intrigue.) By the
way, why are Ghosts never naked? They are either fully
clothed or skeletons - they are never anything in between.
"And over here we have the ghost of the naked lady"
- think of the merchandizing possibilities. The headless
lap-dancer. |
| 6.10 |
Nap
for ten minutes. |
| 6.30 |
Weightlifting
and exercising to pump up and wake up. |
| 7.00 |
Shower
(bliss) |
| 7.10 |
Make
up. |
| 7.20 |
Larry
Mah comes in at T minus ten to tape the radio mike to
my back. |
| 7.25 |
Final
wardrobe check. Silk Prada Dressing Gown on. Yeah baby.
Beginners please! |
Tonight
there is traffic chaos outside so they delay the curtain.
This turns out to be a clever merchandising ploy since we
direct the audience back into the lobby to buy reading matter
and our sales take a boost. This is The Kitty Carlisle Hart
Theater, and oddly enough I knew her. A lovely lady, very
jolly, very funny. I met her in Barbados where she would winter
frequently. How nice to have a Theater named after you. The
Eric Idle Theater. The Eric Idle Egg. Home of the Single Entendre…..
The old yolks home…
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