IT IS VERY SAD BEING PULLED OUT OF A FAMILY THANKSGIVING DINNER IN CHICAGO TO CATCH A PLANE FOR CANADA. MY DAUGHTER IS IN TEARS, MY WIFE HUGS ME. IT’S LIKE GOING OFF TO ACTIVE DUTY. [NOIT’S NOT, YOU TWAT. NO ONE will be shooting at you.—Ed.]
I love being part of an American family. Tania’s extended family of Russian, Italian, Mexican Americans have always accepted and embraced me. They are about as far from showbiz as it is possible to be. We are twenty-six at dinner. I sit among all ages from nine months to ninety. Kids are running around shrieking, everyone is talking at once, helping cook food, or watching football. I feel all the joy it is possible for a non-meat-eating limey to feel on Turkey Day.
I like the fact that this holiday is not about shopping. It’s a thank-you festival. Before the dinner we sit at the table and hold hands in a big circle and everyone says what they are grateful for in the past year. I always find this very moving. I admire the way Americans feel at ease in saying what is in their hearts, without embarrassment or British reserve. I say how grateful I am for Tania and Lily and how proud I am to be part of this family.
Unfortunately the car comes for me in the middle of our White Elephant game. I have just drawn a very tacky table mat of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh and was determined to hold on to it at all costs. Now I have to go. Lily is heartbroken that I am leaving again and dissolves into tears. I feel heartsick. I hate this parting. I have been away from her too long as it is. I have the familiar leaden feeling of heading back to boarding school. I try and reassure her it won’t be for long, but who am I fooling? I sound like my mother.
When I call her from Minneapolis airport a few hours later she has cheered up a bit. We were here on the tour on a warm sunny day only a week ago. Now Minneapolis is freezing and covered in snow. The airport is deserted as I await my connection to Canada. I wrap myself in my cashmere ring stole, woven from hair follicles hand plucked by a Pashmini serving wench from around the testicles of a mountain goat, and brood on the unfairness of life.
Only fifteen shows left in twenty-two days, but there’s still a lot of traveling: four and a half thousand miles to be precise, and I’m glad I had a few days off. I needed that break. Thanksgiving Day is a good day to travel. No one is around. The security people look happy to see a face and help me pass swiftly through the process, giving little hints.
“Watch that belt buckle, sir, there’s nothing I can do if this alarm goes off.”
In thirty seconds I am inside. Good job I left an hour and a half for this security process. I tentatively approach the empty Northwestern First Class lounge. Once again Python works its magic.
“Am I entitled to come in here?” I ask a pleasant young lady.
“You are,” she says, “because you are Monty Python.”
A couple of returning passengers grab my hand and thank me fervently. I’m too early even for the previous flight. So I catch up on e-mail. Turns out I was right about the Python reunion picture. I thought there was zero chance we’d all get together again just for a photo op, even for Vanity Fair. John is still sick and has canceled his Vancouver trip, so we are to be photographed in different parts of the world and stuck together by computer. Some kind of collage. A virtual reunion. I’m sorry, Graydon dear, but I did warn you.