THE MANDALAY BAY IS A GREAT HOTEL BUT THERE IS ONE THING SERIOUSLY WRONG WITH IT: THE FUCKING BIRDS. THESE DAMN THINGS EMIT EAR-PIERCING SHRIEKS ALL DAY. THEY SHOULD BE IMMEDIATELY COOKED, STUFFED, AND eaten. They should be ex-parrots. A dead-parrot exhibit would be far more welcome in the lobby. How anyone can tolerate working at the front desk under these conditions beats me. We flee holding our ears each time we pass by. At least at night they are gone, and we, too, like Cinderella must leave at midnight.
Maestro John Du Prez can’t wait to get out of Vegas. He rolls onto the bus slightly tipsy, presenting me with a peacock feather and a gift, thereby forestalling my own gift presentation. His is a small, carved, wooden Chinese scholar’s traveling trunk. It acts as a pillow and has a double happiness sign on it. It is delightful. He also includes an ingenious brass lock. John always gives the most delightfully zen presents. I have an ancient highly polished piece of tree petrified millions of years ago and a large trilobite, both gifts from him.
There is a great reaction from our Vegas House of Blues show. The HOB employees were all knocked out and said they had never seen anything like it and were surprised at the energy and variety of our show, and there was a very nice review in the paper. Just before I walk onstage at San Luis Obispo John very kindly tells me what a reviewer wrote about me. It makes me feel really good and I smile inside while I talk to the audience. What is that emotion? Ah yes, happiness. I don’t read reviews on the road. I find they are dangerous. You can always find a nugget of criticism in even the most flattering review and this can rankle in your soul until you wake up at night sweating because someone found fault with your shoes. They didn’t like the shoes! This interferes too much with your confidence, and since comedy is like tightrope walking, confidence is vital. So I postpone reading all reviews until later. And then I forget.
I lunch on the Old Pier at Avila with Jane and Jon Anderson. We walk along the wooden planks past floating rafts packed with sleepy sea lions, who occasionally open a languid eye and flop into the water. Seagulls swoop, the sun sparkles off the water, and there is a fine salt tang of ocean. We sit and look at the gleaming beaches and swallow enormous amounts of fresh seafood. Ah, it’s good to be alive and on a Greedy Bastard Tour.
Jon Anderson is an old friend of mine who I met millions of years ago in the south of France and we would hang out together there and in Barbados. He is the lead singer of Yes, and today he is very excited.
“I am very excited,” he says.
“Because you are coming to see my show?”
“That, too; but a wonderful thing happened last night,” he said.
I look at his new young wife with a raised eyebrow. Surely too much information?
“No no,” he persists. “My team just got through.”
He is like a ten-year-old. Last night in a football cup eliminator between a team with the improbable name of Accrington Stanley, his little minnows beat a much bigger League side.
“I know. I saw it.”
Brian began life as a bad joke at the opening of Monty Python and the Holy Grail in New York. When asked what our next movie would be, I ad-libbed glibly, “Jesus Christ, Lust for Glory.”
“But I was the mascot for Accrington Stanley when I was ten!” he says, absolutely thrilled.
After a very pleasant lunch we take a quick look at the legendary Madonna Inn. I was here for the Nash bash a couple of years back when Graham Nash turned sixty. (You haven’t lived till you have seen David Crosby in a pink rabbit costume.) Each room is a riot of clash. The Christmas decorations take kitsch to a new level. Too bad we’re not staying the night here.
Kim Howard Johnson appears after the show. He says he didn’t know I did stand-up. Neither did I. Jon Anderson also had a good time. He is beaming and joyful. It’s too bad we can’t have dinner with these lovely people but once again we sail at midnight. There were one or two blue-rinse walkouts at the first sound of the word “fuck,” an inevitability at a subscription theater. Good job they didn’t stay till “Fuck Christmas!” We are after all in very rich country. People here still vote for Ronald Reagan.