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 Five. Greedy Bastard Grammy Nominee!
Friday,
December 5, 2003 - The Hult Center Oregon
I
wake up in Oregon. Amazingly it's still only fall here. We
have come a long way south from the frozen snows of Edmonton,
and a maple tree on Willamette street is still flaming red.
I haven't seen leaves in a month. Beyond it I can see a delightfully
green poplar is still hanging on to its leaves which are bright
against the darker forest of pines behind. It's raining and
cars hiss past along the busy street on which we are parked.
I tried to turn the heating off last night at 4.30 but failed
and I wake up in a sauna. I was dreaming I was being flown
over an imaginary London landscape in a fabulous private helicopter
by Paul Allen and we banked and turned and landed, and when
I woke up we were reversing into our parking slot. Paul Allen
was nowhere to be seen. I was hoping he'd come and play guitar
on something last night, but sadly he was out of town. Bizarrely
my name is in lights outside my window. Hult Center
it says December 5th, Eric Idle 7.30. It's a modern
concrete building so at least there is a chance of a decent
shower. The Moore theater was more like a mine. Backstage
the entrance slid steeply downwards with a concrete goods
slide and some dodgy stairs and then you crouched - there
was no standing up - and proceeded along a series of narrow
passages before stumbling up a staircase with a four foot
overhead speed bump on to the stage level. It was so low even
Gilli had to bend. Then another series of bewildering turns
left me in a small dressing room. A steep narrow staircase
led up to the others. But at least it was all warm. To say
the theater had seen better days is like saying an eighty
year old actress was once a babe. It was utterly dilapidated
and the floor uneven and the house badly needed a paint job.
Tall and narrow, with two high balconies, one a nose bleed
balcony, it is also very deep, but amazingly, once the house
lights dim, and the bright stage lights go on, it does it's
job thoroughly well. It's only a small stage so we can see
and hear each other perfectly and the audience yelps and laughs
and falls about and shouts and applauds and stands up and
demands more. As with all our shows after a night off we are
looser and yet tighter and have tons of energy. Jennifer who
said the immortal words "a c**nt as big as Canada"
on stage the other night, tones down her wild words for the
coffee-swallowers of Seattle. I however don't tone down mine
and give the first American performance of F*** Christmas.
It is greeted with rapture. So Vancouver was no accident.
John taped that first performance on a little mini machine
and listening back to it you can hear the jolt of surprise
and delight of the audience even on the tiny speakers. Afterwards
Seattle people ask me when it will be released!
I was very disappointed yesterday that The Rutland
Isles didn't get a Grammy nomination. We had always hoped
for a nomination to try and break the CD but I don't think
Artists Direct bothered to campaign. So it was a surprise
when Marc Geiger left a message congratulating me on my Grammy
Nomination. I have been nominated - not sure which category
- for reading Charlie and The Chocolate Factory. This
is my second solo Grammy nomination. I got one for reading
my kids novel The Quite Remarkable Adventures of The Owl
and the Pussycat, though I lost out to a dead guy, Charles
Kuralt. I thought that was unfair. I think you should be at
least alive to compete. Dead guys are always gonna win. Python
had several Grammy Nominations in the seventies for Best Comedy
Album, but we always lost out to Steve Martin. When I visit
him in Santa Barbara I see the same nomination plaques I have.
Now I have to face the fact that Weird Al gets another nomination
while the months and months of work in The Rutland Isles
goes unnoticed. Oh well, at least it was released. And you
can buy it in the lobby.
I'm not sure who Eugene is named after. Eugene Levy? Eugene
Ormandy?
That's
the difference between me and Palin. I don't have researchers
cribbing all that information stuff from books. This is all
first hand experience. But Palin doesn't tell you what it
is like to be backstage in Nepal. Or how to get a decent laugh
in the Himalayas. No he's all yaks and goat cheese. He probably
doesn't even wear make-up the wuss. I bet there are no women
throwing panties at him. Well not in his diary anyway. My
wife was very forgiving of my appalling grumpiness yesterday.
A good wife learns when not to listen. I call her to tell
her about the Grammy but Lily who is sick and off school tells
me she has gone to an allergist. She has more doctors than
a hospital. But she still looks great in a swimsuit…
So tonight we are at the Incredible Hult Center.
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