I’M DEPRESSED. THERE’S NO MISTAKING THE EMOTION. I AM SAD TO BE LEAVING NEW YORK CITY ON A FINE SUNNY DAY AND I AM FED UP LEAVING MY LOVELY WIFE BEHIND. I AM DOWN THAT I WON’T SEE MY DAUGHTER FOR ANOTHER month, and I am pissed that I was sick for the first show in NYC and had no voice on the one day that all the people I really wanted to impress came to the show. Oh, bollocks. Sod’s law in action. I am saddened that the New York show seems to have remained a well-kept secret, so that we are inundated with reports of people saying if only they’d known they’d have come. That’s always been the trouble with this show: its hit and run. You have no time to build word of mouth, which is the only way to attract an audience without a large advertising budget. We don’t stay around long enough to take advantage of all the people who came and loved us. If the promoters haven’t reached our audience, we’re screwed. They, in their turn, will only risk a limited advertising budget. Nevertheless, this is the third show in a row where my name hasn’t even been up in front of the theater! No posters, no marquee, no billboards, no nothing. What kind of advertising is this? I am deeply frustrated by it all as I climb on the bus, and we inch out of town through the usual gridlock. We pass Carnegie Hall, where we played two nights on my last tour (Eric Idle Exploits Monty Python). You haven’t really lived until you have stood onstage at Carnegie Hall in full drag singing “Sit on My Face.”
We pass the Osborne, a magnificent old apartment building on West 57th Street where I first spent the night with my beautiful wife. Across the street is the diner where I last ate meat: a bacon sandwich in 1977. How long ago all that seems, the seventies: Studio 54 and Andy Warhol, and Mick and Bianca Jagger; trips to watch Muhammad Ali fight Ken Norton at Yankee Stadium, where there was chaos in the streets because the police were on strike. “Just like Arsenal versus Chelsea,” I said cheerfully as I tried to hover protectively over Paul Simon. On a visit to Madison Square Garden to see Ali fight Jerry Quarry, I rode downstairs in an elevator with Henry Kissinger, while Ronnie Wood stood directly behind him, making silly faces behind his back. Kissinger was staring at me puzzled as I was trying desperately not to crack up. All the time a gigantic black bodyguard stood staring impassively at Ronnie, utterly perplexed as to how to deal with this situation. Ought he to attack, to defend? I think he was enjoying it. But I was almost shaking with laughter at the sheer childish naughtiness of the whole thing until mercifully we hit the ground, Kissinger left, and we collapsed howling in a heap on the floor.
Henry Kissinger
How I’m missing yer
You’re the doctor of my dreams
With your crinkly hair and your glassy stare
And your Machiavellian schemes
I know they say that you are very vain
And short and fat and pushy
But at least you’re not insane
Henry Kissinger
How I’m missing yer
And wishing you were here
Henry Kissinger
How I’m missing yer
You’re so chubby and so neat
With your funny clothes and your squishy nose
You’re like a German parakeet
All right so people say that you don’t care
But you’ve got nicer legs than Hitler and bigger tits than Cher
Henry Kissinger
How I’m missing yer
And wishing you were here!
I met Paul Simon in the line waiting to get into Bette Midler’s dressing room to congratulate her on her brilliance in Clams on the Half Shell. We had to wait quite some time, as Elton John was inside giving her diamonds. Well, you have to. Paul and I struck up quite a pleasant friendship. We both had sons of the same age and were both currently separated. Later he would kindly throw a party for my wedding to Tania.
In 1980 I was on holiday with Paul in the West Indies when, late at night, we heard that John Lennon had been shot. Paul later wrote a song (“The Late Great Johnny Ace”) saying he was standing on the streets of New York when he heard John Lennon had died, and I teased him about this. I said I could understand that it didn’t make such a good lyric to say “I was in Barbados on holiday with Eric Idle when I heard John Lennon had died.”
Tonight it’s the Keswick Theatre just outside Philadelphia, and we’re pulling into a car park behind a redbrick building. Hey-ho. Another day, another dollar. Only two months, and we’ll be home…. But I should be there now, watching the kids trick-or-treating, enjoying their joy in dressing up, their squeals of delight as the Hollywood ghouls spring out of their coffins. Oh, bollocks.14
It’s certainly a roller coaster this tour. After the disappointment of the size of the crowd in New York, the theater at Keswick was packed. A delightful, noisy, and appreciative crowd turned out, dressed to the nines in all kinds of fancy costumes. It’s Halloween of course, and I’d been half expecting the theater to be empty, but no, they came along in droves in fancy dress. Quite a few trollops were out in tarty red-and-black skimpy things plus several healthy-looking serving wenches, with the slutty, bosomy look that encourages you to admire the merchandise. God bless dear Nellie Gywn. Many very beautiful women then, complemented by an assortment of pirates, monks, and Mounties. Some people were even in Holy Grail costume, which can now, apparently, be bought on the Web. There was a Sir Robin, a King Arthur, a Sir Bedevere and a Black Knight. I think this dressing-up festival is America’s favorite holiday, and it seems to do everyone a great deal of good climbing into costume and pretending to be someone else. There is a sense of carnival in the air, and a high level of sex. I suspect many of the couples are not going home to watch television. Rather worrying for Attorney General Ashcroft and his Puritans. Americans will insist on pursuing happiness.
I get frequent compliments during my signing, and several ladies want to shake hands with me after my G-spot bit. A large part of men performing comedy is clearly sexual signaling—and the message certainly seems to get through. The female rewards laughter with sexual favors. Men seem more threatened by funny women than attracted. You never hear men say I have this girl with a great sense of humor. No, it’s always her breasts, isn’t it, not her brain. Are we really that shallow? [Yes.—Ed.]
There have been several instances recently of kind ladies leaving little love notes and billets-doux in the encore bucket. I’m assuming they were trying to contact a younger and more available Eric Idle, but of course it is still tremendously flattering to be flirted with by younger women at my age; in fact by any women of any age.
I like older women: they’re more grateful.15