I OPEN THE CURTAINS TO AN OVERCAST, IRISH SORT OF DAY. THE SKY IS LEAKING. NOT RAINING EXACTLY, BUT IT’S DAMP. MY DRIVER LAST YEAR IN IRELAND SAID THEY’D HAD A VERY GOOD SUMMER.
“It only rained twice. Once for six weeks and once for twelve.”
He had another follow-up line ready.
“What has the Irish weather and Cher got in common?”
“I don’t know.”
“Neither of them has been fucking sunny in a long time….”
Hills and white wooden farmhouses. In the dark woods advertising hoardings stick out. A large sign says ADULT SUPERSTORE 17 MILES. How come when they use the word “adult” it always means “childish”? An “adult bookstore” means books with only pictures. We pass the Zanesville Pottery and cross a muddy river. There are signs for Ohio State University. Small clapboard housing. A railhead. Fields of shorn stubble next to the pale gold of the uncut corn. Patches of flooding. The eyesore of a gravel works, and everywhere forests, brown sticks of bare trees with no leaves. The wispy woods flash by and give way to gently rolling hills. We are heading east on I-70 toward Columbus. We pass dark red Dutch barns. One more show in this run of four and then a break. I’m beat. We left Pittsburgh at six in the rainy predawn, with a hiss of brakes under the sodium lights. I opened an eye and a curtain and then went back to sleep. We had spent the night in the theater parking bay. Most of the company ventured out after the show, but I was too knackered. What am I doing here? No, I don’t mean on the planet. I mean on the tour. I raised this question yesterday and I think it’s time to try and answer the question.
First of all there is a testing aspect to this tour. Can I still do this? Can I really get through the whole journey? About eight years ago I could hardly move for Epstein-Barr. I was losing two or three days a week to debilitating depression and flulike lethargy, but thanks to the miracle of modern doctors my chum Kipper got me to try out a new treatment, and it worked! Now, although I have to take a shot every day (one small prick for man, one giant leap for mankind), I have all this newfound energy. I feel younger than I did at fifty. (Thanks, Kip.) So I do it because I can. Life is the art of the possible.
Secondly, it’s my métier. It’s what I do. I know how to make people laugh. It may even be the only thing I know how to do. It is rewarding, and I don’t mean financially. (Just as well—see later.) Making people laugh pleases me and meeting them afterward is inspiring. I used to dread meeting Python fans. I felt unworthy and embarrassed, but now I like it. We have made them laugh, often touching them in significant ways at important times in their lives. I know how important Beyond the Fringe was in my life, so I can understand that. I can’t take credit for it, it’s not what we were trying to do, but it is certainly an effect. We did a good job. We cheered people up.
Thirdly, it’s something to do in the evenings. It is more exciting than just staying home. There is the sheer adventure of touring America on a bus. Hey-ho, the open road, the traveling circus, the medicine show. It ain’t a bad way to see North America, and it’s not forever.
Fourthly, it is really good for writing. I always had this fantasy of sitting in a Winnebago, banging away on a laptop while Tania drove me around America in a G-string. A fantasy not at all shared by my beloved. And while it is true that ’Lish, the large English gentleman who drives me, is not the same thing, even without the G-string, still I would never be sitting at home writing my memoirs like this. There’s just something about the constant sound of the motor, the long, unwinding road, the many different places we visit, and the sheer time available that invites introspection. Each night I stare at my face in the mirror as I do my makeup. What an odd thing to be doing, I think, but what would I rather be doing? Do I miss being on film location stuck in some trailer, trying to memorize someone else’s lines? Do I, hell. I’d far rather be preparing to sing “The Galaxy Song,” or performing Nudge Nudge with Peter. The show goes by in a rush: one minute I’m walking out for my stand-up and the next it’s the intermission. Act two shoots past as I talk directly to the audience about my life. I move them, and they move me, and suddenly we’re all singing “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.”
So there you are, I’m halfway home: twenty-eight shows done, twenty-seven to go. It’ll soon be Thanksgiving in Chicago, then the wintry leg up in Edmonton and Calgary and then over the Rockies and down the West Coast and then home for the holidays! It’s a doddle.17