I AWAKE REFRESHED AT 4:00 A.M. AFTER A NAP. THISMORNING I HAVE TO FACE THE PRESS. I AM ON GOOD MORNING CANADA, BUT FIRST I HAVE A FEW HOURS TO MYSELF. I LOVE EARLY MORNINGS. I LIKE NOTHING more than a little laptop and a nice cup of tea. Oh, and a decent pair of pants, of course. And a good book, comfortable shoes, cashmere close to the skin, and a decent bed—that goes without saying. A warm bath, naturally, Egyptian cotton sheets, a plumpy duvet, and a Taylor guitar—mustn’t forget that—as well as a fabulous sound system, a portable CD player, and a nice invigorating massage from a scantily clad…Come to think of it there’s quite a lot more I like than just a bloody computer and a mug of tea.
This is supposed to be a greedy bastard tour but sadly I have already strayed miserably from the concept and brought along a large cast to help me onstage and off. Point man is my partner, the semilegendary John Du Prez, who has spent twenty-five years writing and producing songs with me, from the Python days and now to Broadway with Spamalot, a musical we have adapted from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Oo, look at the leaves, they’re so beautiful…. They’re not beautiful, they’re dying!
Jennifer has a degree in lap dancing from the University of Phoenix online.
My foil onstage is Peter Crabbe, a huge, terrifying, shaven-headed hunk of a man who is not averse to leaping into women’s clothing at the drop of a chapeau. Peter will do duets with me, such as Nudge Nudge and the Bruces, and will also abuse the audience as a member of Homeland Security, a role he will rewrite every night as he panders shamelessly to local prejudices. On Friday in Rutland he will be ranting about New Yorkers coming out to watch the trees turning.
Onstage also is the lovely Jennifer Julian, who I exploited on my previous tour of North America. She is a very funny blond comedienne whom I have stolen from her radio station in Montana. Jennifer has a friend who made us a Penis Fish for the Bill Maher show and is currently making some kind of aquatic muff diving creature and a trouser snake. All these beasts, as well as Jennifer, will be along on the tour.
I seem to have developed a silly walk. I have been limping for the past three months and have been undergoing thrice-weekly physio for tendonitis, but my doctor, the legendary Kipper, announced just as I was leaving that it might be gout (what?) and gave me a couple of pain pills. They worked, too, but had worn off by the time I reached Canada, so I came into Toronto Airport in a peculiarly silly crab walk, with a bit of a sideways twist. Serves me right for my joke about John.
It was at Cambridge that I met the incomparable John Cleese. That was forty years ago. Nowadays John is using a silly walker…
It’ll be me who needs the walker on this tour. Will I ever again dance naked in front of the Taj Mahal by moonlight? [No. And he never has. The Greedy Bastard is clearly using too much tea again.—Ed.]
The Canadian immigration official, softened by my oblique and obviously insane sideways approach to his desk, politely claimed to have seen my TV ads, so that’s a good sign, although he didn’t say whether he had bought any tickets. There is a hilarious moment in the arrival hall as baggage claim plays their own version of musical chairs, constantly switching the numbers on the luggage carousels so that just as seventy passengers have settled expectantly with their trolleys, they flash a new number, which sends the whole lot scuttling off down the far end of the hall. Then they change the number again. This is a good gag and clearly amuses the baggage handlers, since they try it a few more times. Eventually the baffled passengers give up and hover about in the center of the hall, muttering, defeated. This must be some kind of Canadian indoor sport.
My greedy bastard agent calls as I reach the room. He announces there is a beautiful woman on the phone with him. He seems to employ only beautiful young women. I must watch him rather carefully on this tour. He spells his name “Marc,” with a c, and that is a little too hairdressery, don’t you think? I bet he’s a secret Mark who upgraded. He is sending me T-shirts for approval. This is what the Greedy Bastard Tour is all about: shifting merchandise. They refused to make the shirt I wanted. They said there would be no market for a shirt with the Penis Fish on it. Well, little do they know about the bastards who come to these shows…
These islands are filled with many diverse animals such as the bipolar bears, who are depressed from watching too much Fox TV News, and the little Penis Fish, which looks and behaves exactly like a little…fish.
The second day of the Greedy Bastard Tour passes in a whirlwind of interviews interspersed with sitting in traffic jams in the Don Valley Parking Lot, which is what they call their freeway. Everyone seems to like the Greedy Bastard Tour title, though Good Morning Canada will not say it on air, and when I mention it, they look shocked. Mild irreverence passes for wit at this time in the morning, and they all look very happy as I leave. Unless it’s because I’m leaving. Only John Gibson on a Fox remote seems alive to the satirical possibilities of the title. “It’s the greedy bastard era,” I hear myself say, and I add, “I always liked your hair.” He tells me he has ten wigs in it if I’d like one.
I am so brain-dead by the end of the day, after being endlessly questioned as to my motives for the Greedy Bastard Tour (duh, to make money) that I inadvertently say the “F” word on CBC Radio. Ooops. There is a shocked reaction from the control booth, and some people hold their hands over their mouths while others sneakily put their thumbs up in glee. Avril Benoit takes it in her stride and skips straight along. On CFRB (no, I don’t know what it means, either) John Moore permits only one question from a listener, a man who goes on and on about how much he loves Monty Python, and how much Python merchandise he has bought. He has spent hours watching Monty Python, he says, “while spanking the monkey!” I don’t even have the good taste to let it go. “Spanking the monkey?” I say. “What kind of freak watches Monty Python while beating a chimp?” The host cuts quickly to the news and the newsreader says—honestly, I swear—“Welcome to the spanking news!”