PERCHED IN MY AERIE ON THE TWENTY-EIGHTH FLOOR OF THE WESTIN GRAND HOTEL ON A RAINY VANCOUVER DAY, TAPPING AWAY ON A LAPTOP, I AM INEVITABLY REMINDED OF THE DAYS WHEN I WROTE HALF MY ROAD TO MARS NOVEL here while filming Dudley Do-Right. I loved the rain then as day after day of filming was canceled, and I could stay in my suite at the Sutton Place Hotel and just write. As I Look down on the rainy grid of a gray Vancouver day, the cars have their lights on, the mountains are shrouded in mist with just the thin white streaks of the ski runs showing against their whalelike hulks. Below me the large, white crane, which at night is lit up like a Christmas tree, is swinging what looks like a grand piano around. Surely not?
The Vancouver show was a blast. I don’t remember a noisier reaction from an audience ever. Not even in the old Python days. Two thousand one hundred people were jammed into the Orpheum Theatre, and boy, did they have a good time. Huge explosions of laughter greeted my opening gags, waves of sound like thunderclaps came bounding back from the depths of this old theater. They almost pushed me over onstage. It was gigantic. I don’t recall anything like it. It was almost scary, and this old house, decorated in Moroccan bordello style, reverberated with their response. I can die a happy man, with “Remember Vancouver” on my lips as I expire backstage in some Birmingham shithole.
The Canadian Northwest has been triumphant for us. All our houses were sold out by the local House of Blues guys, who presented me with an engraved silver pen in gratitude. I am glad to say they used our original poster, and it was everywhere. We started out loud and full at Edmonton, built in Calgary, and last night in Vancouver capped it all. They screamed and bayed and stood and roared. At the end I said I’d like to try out a new piece John and I had just written, and craved their patience for the world premiere of this new song. Well I could hardly get past the first line. John played a soft Christmassy “Jingle Bells” intro. It was Bing Crosby time.
“Fuck Christmas,” I began.
Well, I had to stop. The gales of laughter that greeted that line were overwhelming. We began again, more huge laughs. They laughed and cheered at every single line. At the end of verse one I had to stop them, they were applauding and yelling so hard. We managed to get through verse two to hysteria but the capper last two lines had them screaming. I have never witnessed anything like it. It was beyond gratifying. John stood up behind his piano, beaming, and we shook hands. We have been working together for many, many years and have got used to being ignored, unpaid, and rejected, and yet we soldier on because we like each other and we like what we do, but neither of us will ever forget the reception for that song. It was like the end of a movie. As we shook hands with tears in our eyes you could feel the credits rolling. A remarkable moment in life, and one I feel very proud to have experienced. I sometimes look at John onstage and feel so grateful he is in my life. He follows me about on these insane trips with never a complaint or a murmur. He is constantly working unpaid twelve-hour days in unpaid studios turning my sketches into fully orchestrated music. He is a total joy to be around, and is the wisest and most patient and most professional of men. How did I ever do without him?
Peter had been against this song from the beginning. Something about it really upset him, though Jen and Gilli both said, “No, it’s funny.” But at the rehearsal he finally came up and said nicely, “I’ve changed my mind.” Perhaps it was the two street teamers, Tracy and Amanda screaming with laughter from the back of the hall; perhaps he had realized that it really isn’t an attack on Christianity, but on shopping. Still, I took the precaution of trying it out in the encore slot after the main body of the show with just John and me onstage and with “Lumberjack” to follow as an escape route. I needn’t have worried. “Fuck Christmas” is going to become a legendary song, a perennial, played and sung wherever disgruntled shoppers gather in superheated malls.
Fuck Christmas!
It’s a waste of fucking time
Fuck Santa
He’s just out to get your dime,
Fuck Holly and Fuck Ivy
And fuck all that mistletoe
White-bearded big fat bastards
Ringing bells where e’er you go
And bloated men in shopping malls
All going Ho-Ho-Ho
It’s Christmas fucking time again!
Fuck Christmas
It’s a fucking Disney show
Fuck carols
And all that fucking snow
Fuck reindeer
And fuck Rudolph
And his stupid fucking nose
And fucking sleigh bells tinkling
Everywhere you fucking goes
Fuck stockings and fuck shopping
It just drives us all insane.
Go tell the elves
To fuck themselves
It’s Christmas time again!