A POSTCARD FROM PALIN! HE IS NOT IN THE HIMALAYAS SWATHED IN FURS STRUGGLING UP BEN MCFOREIGN (A SCOTTISH CLIMBER); BUT SWEATING IN AMRITSAR, INDIA, AT THE GOLDEN TEMPLE. HE SAYS IT AIN’T HALF hot in Punjab, but he is not sweating as much as Basil Pao, who has seventeen cameras to haul. (“Don’t ask me why,” adds Mike.) Basil is from Hong Kong and follows Mike all over the world taking his photo for the calendars and books that are the real money behind these tours. You think I’m the only greedy bastard? You haven’t heard the half of it. Wait till I get on to the tall one,9 whose love for the odd nickel leads him to be constantly yearning for a hammock, an island, and a book, but who we all know will never make it. He has been saying this since 1968, but he works so hard, he’ll never stop. In fact he is in so many movies with “two” on them that we have labeled him The First Among Sequels. John once told me he would do anything for money, so I offered him a pound to shut up, and he took it.
Michael writes to tell me he was thinking of me when he learned of the death of Peter West, a quirky BBC commentator I used to impersonate. Can you be so far behind when your subjects start to kick? By an odd coincidence the postcard is dated September 29—the very day I set out on my voyage and wrote my first diary entry. So that’s weird and synchronistic, isn’t it? I guess Mike and I are interchangeable after all. I miss his comic writing. He wrote some of my favorite Python bits. “Not to leave the room until I tell you” in The Holy Grail is my particular favorite, that and the hilarious jailor scene in Brian.
“Crucifixion? Good. Out the door, line on the left, one cross each. Next—crucifixion?”
“Ah no, freedom.”
“Hmm?”
“Ah, freedom for me. They said I hadn’t done anything, so I could go free and live on an island somewhere.”
“Oh, jolly good. Well, off you go then.”
“Nah, I’m only pulling your leg. It’s crucifixion, really.”
The brilliance of Michael Palin. I do hope he’s being mistaken for me in Amritsar. Thinking of The Life of Brian reminds me of Graham’s brave full-frontal-nudity shot on that long-ago day in Tunisia. Graham had to open a window stark naked to find an enormous crowd outside shouting “Look! There he is! The Chosen One has awoken!” We had just started to film the scene, and Graham flung open the window and the crowd went “Look!” when Terry Jones yelled, “Cut!”
I ’m a limey bastard as you can tell. I ’m married to an American. I like to think I ’ve been invading America for almost thirty years. In fact, I ’ve trained my wife to yell out “The British are coming, the British are coming.”
“Er, Graham,” he said, “I’m afraid that we can see that you’re not Jewish.”
“Props!” yelled Michael.
With no moyl in sight, a small rubber band was procured, et voilà, an impromptu circumcision; the scene could continue. Graham flung open the window again, but this time, big problem: the crowd had run away. This was Tunisia, an Arab country, fairly liberal by Arab standards, but most of the women have never seen bare-assed British men, nor are they allowed to, and Graham’s appearance caused consternation and then pandemonium as the women were dragged away. To be fair, most were laughing hysterically, but the scene could not continue until religious rules were satisfied. The men could be part of the crowd, but the women could only be present for the reverse shots without the full frontal nudity.
Interestingly, since Graham’s demise, I am now the second tallest Python, but Graham, at forty-eight, has become the youngest. The former youngest, Mike Palin, is now over sixty, and John, well, I realize with a shock that he’ll be sixty-four in a few days’ time. No wonder we’re getting to be such cranky old bastards.
I got a parcel from home. Das Boot is here. I can now limp around more comfortably in my surgical boot, though I’m afraid interpretive dance is out. Inside the package are the sweetest notes, cards, and gifts from my daughter, Lily. She is missing me. I feel bad. I know a thing or two about abandonment issues. It’s tough to have an absentee father. I wish I’d blown all the publicity they lined up and flown home to see her. I kick myself for not doing this; my ridiculous English-boarding-school sense of duty again. Lily and I chatter away on the phone, but it’s not the same as having a dad around. Her basketball team is on a winning streak, and she wishes I could see her. Me, too. Guiltily I pillage the gift shop for souvenirs and send her a package.
We do another really good show at the Flynn Center, Burlington. They are a very noisy and appreciative crowd, and we get ’em up on their feet yelling for more. The encore bucket was in almost constant use, people coming up throughout the evening whenever a favorite piece played, walking shyly or brazenly up to the front and dropping in dollars, particularly during the songs. (“Public panhandling,” Jen called it!) At the end I was shocked to find more than eighty dollars in there. Wow, what a difference from Canada. And real money, too, none of those Canadian tire dollars.
I have relaxed into act one and now feel comfortable doing stand-up. I am still learning, but it is fun talking directly to the audience. I am looser and trust my instincts and follow my own thoughts. I can stop my spiel and point out strange people from the audience. Last night I brought onstage a man wearing enormous antlers with a British flag wedged between the horns and “The Duke of Rutland” painted on the ivory. Quite a sight. Almost the entire audience stayed to have something signed. The line in the lobby was huge when I came hobbling in. You could tell it was a college town, as copies of The Road to Mars were flying off the piles. Tom, our powerfully built merch guy, was doing roaring business. One young man came up to me at the table and said, “Baweep, granaweep, ninabong!”
I stared at him blankly.
“Surely you remember Transformers,” he prompted.
And then it came back to me in all its horror. It was a Japanese animated movie, and they offered me tons of money to fly from London to New York on Concorde to record my voice. But nothing is ever for nothing. They tortured me for days recording this one damn line. I was even called back for another session in London, because they weren’t satisfied.
“No,” they’d say through the control booth window, “Baweep, granaweep, ninabong!”
I’d try it again. And again. And again. I tried it in every single way I could think.
“Baweep, granaweep, ninabong!”
“You’re still not getting the sense of it.”
I tried it in every single accent I knew—Scots, Midlands, Norwegian, French, German, Spanish, Tongan—but they were never satisfied.
“Try it again,” they would say. “This is a key plot line, so emphasize the ninabong.”
I hadn’t a clue what they were talking about.
“Do another eight,” they’d say. “This time, make it funny.”
What?? I tried, believe me, I tried everything I know, but I could never manage to make any sense out of that damn sentence. Still, I am in a movie with Orson Welles.
We say farewell to our stowaway. Jennifer Usher has come along for the ride since Rutland. A fine, young blond woman, she decided that she had had enough of her life and would hit the road with us for ten days. I guess living on a bus with a bunch of chaps will make your own life seem better in no time, but we have all been spoiled rotten by having her along, as our wardrobe is freshly cleaned and pressed nightly, and she is always waiting in the quick-change booth with socks prerolled and brown shorts waiting to fling on me for my swift change into the Bruces’ costume. Oh, by the way, can you believe this: She did it all for nothing! So a huge thank-you, Jennifer. Greater love can no man inspire than that a young woman stands in the dark handing him his socks.