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
Sixty Seven.
Sunday,
December 7, 2003 - Met Theatre, Spokane, WA
Eugene
beat the all-time record for the Encore Bucket with $162 donated,
which is amazing when you think that the audience are not
told it will be going to charity. They think they are
donating this to me. So far we have collected over $2,000
in the Encore Bucket as well as several pairs of panties,
some bras and a few cans of Spam. Last night at the Egyptian
Theater in Boise they were quite tight, sitting on their wallets,
though not as much as the Canadians, but they were
a great crowd. The theater was totally sold out and though
it was really a cinema, nevertheless the temporary stage they
erected made it a very intimate space to play, since no one
was very far away. I like it when the audience is that close.
This intimacy is great for playing comedy. You can throw away
lines or get a laugh from just raising an eyebrow. It's far
less exhausting than the huge two thousand seaters which you
have to really work hard in. The Egyptian, as you might
expect, had a Nile themed interior, decorated with brightly
colored birds and sideways-facing ladies with their breasts
showing. It was three dimensional with large painted columns
flowering at the top into palm trees, and between these columns
on both sides there squatted a larger than life figure of
a Pharaoh with gold breasts. This latter touch was most inauthentic.
I don't recall ever seeing a Pharaoh with breasts. "Titankhamen,"
said Jen. The color scheme, though, was authentic, as I can
verify from Major Cleese's expedition up the Nile.
In the Spring of 1991 in a most generous act John and Alyce-Faye
Cleese invited a party of forty friends to spend three weeks
going up the Nile on a luxury boat to celebrate their joint
100th birthday. It was a most amazing trip. They had invited
some very funny people along, Peter Cook and Stephen Fry,
as well as Bill Goldman the screenwriter and some very excellent
shrinks. So it was a very healthy party. We moved quietly
up the ancient river at about twelve miles an hour on a flat
bottomed boat with air conditioned bedrooms below. It was
like traveling through the pages of an illustrated bible.
We passed people in highly colored robes winnowing, the entire
village working flailing corn. Every afternoon we would gather
in the shade of the deck while Stephen Fry read a chapter
of Bunter On the Nile. In the evenings the great Peter
Cook would hold forth in the bar, spinning fantasies of comedy
out of his own brilliance. I would sit on deck at sunset playing
guitar while the banks of the Nile slid slowly past, between
the most amazing rocks and hills and scenery. From time to
time we would stop at an ancient city and go ashore with two
guides who would tell us different stories about what we were
looking at. One was an authentic Egyptian guide from the Cairo
Museum and the other was a man called John Anthony West, a
new ager and revisionist who was dressed like Nigel Spasm
and held forth alternative theories of the age of everything
and unfortunately blew his credibility when he suggested that
the Pyramids had been made by space ships. I can remember
Stephen Fry bursting out of the dining room with a great snort
of derision at the end of this lecture. I felt vindicated
in my choice not to attend but to play a selection of Beatle
songs to the sunset.
The temples and palaces on the Nile are amongst the most extraordinary
remains on the planet. Perhaps fortuitously they have been
covered in sand for centuries so that their recent excavation
has left the paint as bright as when the craftsmen first applied
it. You feel that the decorators have only just left although
several thousand years have elapsed. Matter of fact we've
all felt like that about decorators haven't we?
Before we left England John and Alyce-Faye had organized a
private after-hours trip to the British Museum, so that we
could see the antiquities there, and at the end of our fantastic
journey they arranged to open up the Cairo Museum early, so
that we could see Tutankhamen and his treasures. My mother,
who was given to creative Malapropisms, asked me when I got
back from Egypt if I'd seen the tomb of Carmen Tutu.
Last night was really quite fun as we used the Bus for dressing
rooms. This was not a problem since it is equipped with a
shower and a mirror with bright light bulbs. It's actually
very pleasant getting changed and making up in there while
watching a soccer game, and I would consider using it all
the time if only we could park it close enough. It's fun leaving
the theater and walking outside at half time and climbing
back into our world. Once again the response for F*** Christmas
was deafening and the audience were on their feet cheering
several times before the actual end.
Afterwards I met our street teamers, six of whom were dressed
in home made Sir Robin costumes and had cantered with coconuts
through the local mall yelling Run Away until chased
off by Security. I love this street level involvement of the
fans through the internet which has been highly effective
in getting out the news of our visit and I want to thank all
of you who have volunteered to help out. You guys are terrific.
It means a great deal to us and I hope the merch and tickets
and a chance to shake the Greedy Bastard's hand is enough
recompense. Also thanks for putting Alison in the Encore Bucket.
It was a shame to have to give her to charity. Thanks too
to Gilli and Skip for thinking up, organizing and running
this whole thing. I am a very fortunate Greedy Bastard.
My wife who has turned down a chance to travel with me in
a Queen sized bed to Las Vegas hopes I won't be too disappointed.
Of course she doesn't leave me the option of getting a substitute
in…. No, darling I do love you and I do understand you
are very busy. She was going to come to San Francisco for
a dinner with friends but she doesn't mention this in her
last email. What it is to love a woman you're married to.
Still, I continue to be the recipient of breathless innuendo
from older woman in the signing line. One actually approached
me on her knees last night. Several told me they loved me
and as you can see from the above an attractive teenage girl
actually climbed into the encore bucket. Perhaps I could organize
some kind of competition? The winner gets to travel with me
on the bus to Las Vegas. That should get the wife phoning
in a hurry…
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