A few months ago, I bought tickets for a show for a date night for my husband and myself.  Our date nights are few and far between, and we were both looking forward to this show last night.  But with my aunt’s death early yesterday morning, we weren’t sure if it was appropriate to go or not.  Does one go to a humorous show on the day a loved one has died?  But, we knew my aunt was in heaven, we knew she loved to laugh, and we knew that if we could ask her what to do, she would say, “Go to the show!”

So, we went.  And we had a marvelous time.

What was the show?  We watched John Cleese, of Monty Python fame, perform a one-man show consisting of him telling stories about his life in comedy television.  The show was held in the Fox Theater in downtown Redwood City, an old historical landmark theater.  JJ and I went early and had supper at a fabulous little Italian restaurant about two blocks from the theater.  It was a good thing we did, because when we came out and walked to the theater, the line to get into the show stretched for two blocks in the other direction!  If we had been trying to park right before the show, we would have had to park quite a distance away.  We were both pleased about that.  And the food was wonderful at the restaurant!

The show itself was — hilarious!!  We laughed and laughed.  Apparently, John Cleese and his wife recently divorced VERY unamicably.  He has to pay her $20 million, leaving her richer than him!  He talked about this at the beginning of the show, explaining to the audience that he’s doing these shows simply because he “needs the money.”  After spending a little time hilariously ripping on his ex-wife (and her lawyer), he began to talk also hilariously about his childhood, his early years in TV, his time with Monty Python, his award-winning show Fawlty Towers, and a bit about the movie he wrote “A Fish Called Wanda.”  He wore a simple pair of jeans with a collared yellow shirt and a jacket, and the props on the stage consisted merely of a small table and chair with a glass and water pitcher on the table, a podium on the side of the stage, and a projection screen hanging in the middle, onto which various pictures were shown that connected to what he was talking about.

Here are a few interesting/funny highlights that I can remember from the show:

1. When he was ranting about how much he has to pay his wife in his divorce settlement, he mentioned various female celebrities and how often he could have married and divorced them and paid them settlements that would have equaled the $20 million.  He said something to the effect of this: “I could have married Pamela Anderson 2 and 1/3 times.  I could have married _____ 3.4 times.  I could have married this woman from Fremont (and he showed a picture of some minimally attractive woman) 200 times.” – except that he couldn’t get out the end of the joke because he was laughing so hard at the picture of the woman from “Fremont” [a city right across the Bay].  It was hysterically funny, especially because Cleese was buckled over laughing himself.  It was SO funny!
2. He was the only child of his parents, born after they had been married 13 years.  They hadn’t been planning to have children, so John’s arrival was a bit of a surprise.
3. He made the joke that he was born to parents who were “poor, but honest – the worst kind of childhood of all.”  The way he said it was so funny!
4. He made a lot of jokes about his childhood hometown of Weston-Super-Mare, in England.  He said it was a town where absolutely nothing ever happened.  However, it did get bombed in WWII; Cleese said the Germans bombed it simply to prove that they had a sense of humor.
5. When Cleese graduated from high school, he applied and was accepted to Cambridge.  However, for some reason there was a glut of graduates (I forget why), so he had to wait two years until it was his turn to enter Cambridge.  During those two years, he was offered a position teaching 10 year old boys at his old elementary school, and he took the job.
6. He met Graham Chapman at Cambridge, and they were doing comedy together almost from the start.  Cleese studied to become a lawyer.
7. He somehow (I forget how) ended up in a musical on Broadway right after his college graduation, even though he couldn’t sing a note.  Under order from the music director, he mimed the words along with the rest of the men in the chorus.  One night when he did try to sing along a bit, the music director noticed and sternly reminded him after the show, “No singing!”
8. Recently he asked his fellow Pythons what their favorite “silly” scene from the “Flying Circus” shows was, the the unanimous choice was the fish slapping scene.
9. The “Black Knight” scene in the movie “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” (the one where Arthur lops off the arms and then the legs of the Black Knight, even as the Knight refuses to acknowledge defeat) was one that every producer of the movie wanted to take out.  However, when the movie was shown to preview audiences, that invariably was one of the people’s favorite scenes, so it stayed in.
10. Michael Palin can make Cleese laugh more than anyone.  Cleese shared a story of the time the Pythons were performing live in the Hollywood Bowl, and Palin changed a line in the “Dead Parrot” sketch, which completely cracked Cleese up.  He was laughing so hard he couldn’t remember his lines, and when it was his turn for a line, he turned to the Hollywood Bowl audience, who filled in the lines for him.
11. Cleese is apparently very anti-marketing and anti-political correctness.  Every time he mentioned marketers, he loudly spat onto the floor.  He also said that political correctness has ruined a lot of good comedy.

In the lobby, there were T-shirts for sale that said “I Saw John Cleese Perform” on the front, and on the back of the shirt it said “Just Before He Died.”  JJ and I thought those were pretty funny.  Other T-shirts for sale had silhouette images of Cleese in various poses of his “silly walks,” and on the back it said “Alimony Tour – Year One.”  There were also autographed hats that said, “What Would JC do?”  It was all very funny.

At the end of the show, when his “time was up,” he took a few questions from the audience.  There was a microphone ready on one side of the floor, and people lined up in the aisle to ask him a question.  He took about 5-6 questions, and they were all good questions from people who were much bigger Python fans than I am.  But one of the questions I remember: Someone asked about the PC-ness of the song “Never Be Rude to an Arab.”  It made me go home and dig out my Monty Python Instant Record Collection CD and listen to that song; it is most definitely NOT a politically correct song!

All in all, it was a really fun evening, and it has made me want to dig out my video of “The Life of Brian” and watch it again.  I’ve also never watched “The Meaning of Life” after an aborted attempt with a friend in high school; maybe I’ll give it a try again.  I know it’s full of black humor, but perhaps it will strike me a little differently now.  Our local PBS station also often plays old episodes of “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” — I’ll probably watch those a little more closely, too.

It was fun to get out, fun to go to something that made us laugh, and it was just fun to see a famous person — in person!  At the very end of the show, Cleese mentioned that he recently moved to an apartment in San Francisco, so who knows?  Maybe he’ll be around in this area a little more.  Then again, I know a number of other celebrities live in SF, too, and I never see them either.  I’m not one who moves in celebrity-ridden circles, you know. 

Meine Tage sind derzeit wieder sehr ausgefüllt. Die Vorbereitungen für meine Teilnahme an der Antiquariatsverkaufsmesse “Quod libet” nehmen meine Zeit in Anspruch. Nicht nur das Selektieren der mitzunehmenden Bücher, ihre Aufbereitung und Beschäftigung mit den Werken und den Autoren, sondern auch die Organisation des Drumherums wollen erledigt werden. Einladungen und Kataloge verschicken, Versicherungen und Transport klären, usw. Nun bin ich ja einer der ganz kleinen Antiquare, und ich frage mich wie bewältigen diese Arbeiten die wirklich großen Antiquariate. Naja, sicherlich haben die auch ihr Personal dazu; bei mir geht alles über eine Person.
Eigentlich wollte ich im Dezember noch an einer weiteren teilnehmen, habe dort mich aber zu spät beworben, und wurde auf nächstes Jahr vertröstet.

Die Zeitumstellung zur Winterzeit kommt mir als Eule immer sehr entgegen. Ich brauche auch überhaupt keine Umstellungsphase. Eine Stunde später aufstehen, geht mit links und etwas später zu Bett mit rechts und links.

Ein Blick auf meinen Rabe-Tages-Abreiss-Kalender ist immer einen Blick wert (habe ihn leider in den letzten Monaten sträflich und zu Unrecht vernachlässigt, denn ich finde diesen literarisch kulterellen Spot-Kalender wirklich Superklasse; freue mich aufs Nachlesen der abgelaufenen, ungelesenen  Tagesblätter. Man erfährt einmal, welche Vipi s (very iportant person, indeed) Geburtstag oder Sterbetag haben, und bekommt zusätzlich durch einen kleinen Beitrag, Cartoon, etc. meist was zu lachen in dieser tristen von schröcklichen Nachrichten durchzogenen Welt. So heute: Geburtstage: Paganini, Thomas Dylan (der mit dem Milchwald), Sylvia Plath (wollte schon immer was von ihr lesen) und … ja John Cleese wird rüstige 70. Das ist der Star der Monty Python Gruppe, sehr vereehrt von mir; siehe “Das Leben des Bryan“, “Die Ritter der Kokosnuss“, und.. natürlich “Ein Fisch namens Wanda“. So richtig komische, zum Lachen zwingende literarische oder filmische Arbeiten sind äußerst selten, finde ich. Es ist wohl sehr sehr schwer, die Menschheit zum Lachen zu bringen. Monty P. schafft das, jedenfalls bei mir. Es gibt natürlich jede Menge Leute, die behaupten das Gegenteil und können mit dieser Art von Humor überhaupt nichts anfangen, und finden es schlichtweg blöden Klamauk (so, meine Frau). Übrigens twittert John Cleese, man kann ihm also”folgen“:. Hab ihm über twitter zum Geburtstag gratuliert; meine Frau hat sich irgendwie an die Stirn getippt.
Ja, was ist noch auf dem Kalenderblatt? Eine Städtewerbung, speziell für bibliophile Typen: “HAY-ON-WYE, a four pub town in Wales, macht Anlockwerbung mit der Aussage es sei die Gebrauchtbuch-Hauptstadt der Welt. Auf ihrer website titeln sie: Hay-on-Wye has become world famous for its secondhand and antiquarian bookshops. At present there are approximately thirty major bookshops in the town some specialising whilst others carry general stock.” Hm, wir wollten nächstes Jahr nach Schottland, aber vielleicht lässt sich das ja verbinden.
Also, der Kalender gibt ne Menge her, vielleicht sollte ich hin und wieder aus ihm zitieren für alle Nicht-Raben-Kalender-Besitzer.
Dabei kommt mir auch die Idee, die Kalenderblätter nicht abzureisen und wegzuwerfen, sondern den Kalender jungfräulich zu lassen, vielleicht könnte man da ein Gebrauchtgeschäft für Liebhaber generieren; inhaltlich ist er unvergänglich und auf hohem Niveau. werde dies mit dem nächsten 2010 mal ausprobieren. Bei 2009 fehlen zu viele Seiten.

Zum Schluß noch ein Zitat, das ich gefunden habe (so richtig nach meinem Geschmack): “DAS NICHTS NICHTET” (Martin Heidegger).

Leo

Ok, so in the opening scene, there’s a mom who’s holding the baby. I dunno someone really old and motherly like Sarah Jessica Parker.
We zoom in on the baby.
All of a sudden, holy shit, he injects a tiny syringe into his mom’s shoulder (the audience is like “what the hell? Babies don’t typically do that!”).
The mother says “I’m tired,” and the baby makes this smirk-face, because he injected her with knock-out juice.
She lies on the couch, and as soon as she’s out cold, he gets up and pulls a watch and high-tech goggles out of his diaper (audience is like “whaaaaa?”).
The baby puts the high-tech watch and goggles on (note: babies aren’t good at stuff like this, so we’ll have to CGI the babies, or have an animal trainer teach several baby-clones how to do things on cue or something).
He speaks into the watch, and holy krap, it’s Bruce Willis (the audience is like “this baby must be a badass Die Hard baby”) and he’s like “Squad 8, what’s your status?”

So squad 8 is like “Operation put mommies to sleep is complete.”
And Bruce Willis-baby is like “Then it’s go-time. Move, move, move!”
And there’s all this action as the Bruce-Willis baby CGI-runs (because babies don’t run the way Bruce Willis runs) through the house, and straps on all his high-tech gear (including a jetpack! Audiences LOVE jetpacks).
He heads out the back door, and the neighbour’s CGI dog is all like foam-mouth-city and he’s gonna bite Bruce Willis-baby, but Bruce Willis-baby pulls this HUUUUUGE steak out of his diaper (it was too big to be in there! Hahaha!) and throws it at the CGI dog.
The dog’s all happy (the dog needs to make a good happy smirk-face) and Bruce Willis-baby pulls his flight goggles down over his eyes as we zoom in to see how cool he is. Then BLAMMO-WHAMMO his jetpack blasts off and he’s flying into the sky (we should have a shot where his mouth is getting pulled back because of the wind while he’s flying so fast. People love that).

He flies into this secret satellite and it’s full of babies! (families will love this movie!)
The leader of the babies turns around and is like “it’s about time!” and it’s totally Samuel L Jackson-baby! (note: the faces should look like the actors. We can probably train babies to hold their faces certain ways, or just CGI over them)
And Bruce Willis baby is like “don’t hassle me” or something cool, and Samuel L Jackson-baby is like “enough! It’s time for the mission. The secret mission that we’ve been working on for 50 years” (audiences will be like “those babies can’t be 50 years old, can they? Is this a sci-fi movie? Because it rocks!”).

And so John Cleese-baby pulls up a badass holographic display of earth and the whitehouse and stuff, and he’s like “gentlemen, it’s time to destroy the aliens” (audiences will be like “this it TOTALLY a sci-fi movie! I knew it! AWESOME!!!).

And it turns out that all the adults are actually aliens! And it’s this whole mind-fuck conspiracy scam with aliens trying to take over the government for the past 50 years (note: the babies are still human babies. We don’t really have to explain the whole 50-year-old babies or how they figured this all out or anything).

So then Samuel L Jackson-baby is about to say “Lock and Load,” but Bruce Willis-Baby interrupts him and says “Yippee Ki-yay Paratrooper Babies” (note: this is his famous line from Die Hard, only altered to fit our movie. Audiences LOVE when he says this. Trust me!) and Samuel L Jackson-baby gives him this look like “I’m pissed that you interrupted me, but you’re still awesome for saying your catchphrase and go get ‘em tiger.” (we have to make sure all of this is conveyed in his look. Again, there’s a Russian animal trainer I know who’s really good and can probably train babies to look this way into the camera. You guys should have lunch and work out the details.)

Then all the babies load up into these ejector pods and launch all badass down to the planet.
But the alien-adults knew that they would be doing this, so they’re like “Fire!” and it’s totally an all-out war with the alien-adults and the human-babies with fire and explosions and plasma guns and rockets and lasers and robots and all like pew-pew-pew-Kabooooom!!!!
(this battle should last at least an hour and be really fucking awesome or ELSE!)
Then the battle is over and the smoke is all everywhere like fog and Bruce Willis-baby finds Samuel L Jackson-baby lying on the ground, and he’s wounded (audience is like “that’s even MORE sad because he’s a baby!!! I’m going to cry! I’m crying!”).

So Samuel L Jackson-baby is all like coughing blood everywhere and Bruce Willis-baby is like “I’ll take care of your mother for you” (Tragic Irony!).
So then Bruce Willis-baby turns to the other babies and they’re like “all the aliens are dead” and he gives this rousing speech about how they’ve made sacrifices, but they’ve done a good thing and now they can just go back to being normal babies

Then Bruce Willis-baby goes back home, and the dog who was barking at him from before kneels before him instead (Dogs have a heightened sense, so it would make sense that they know he did a good thing and killed a bunch of aliens).

Then he puts all his equipment up in its secret compartments and when it’s all hidden, he crawls back onto his mom on the couch.
She wakes up and she’s like “oh, I must have dozed off. I hope I didn’t miss anything exciting” and Bruce Willis-baby winks at the camera and we roll the credits on a job well-done!!! (Also, I think we should get a tie-in with Burger King and Mattel to do some promotions and make toys and stuff. Kids LOVE toys. Trust me on this. Especially from movies!!!)

The world is sometimes thought to be divided into those people who have a sense of humour, and those don’t. Laughter is universal among human cultures, and so we could perhaps infer from that thet everyone has a sense of humour.

In fact, surveys show that most people think they possess a sense of humour, although other people are slower to spot this characteristic in them.

For example, many people who can remember, and faultlessly trot out, hundreds of standard jokes are usually rather dull people; the same can be said for relentless narrators of anecdotes, who seem to have a story for every occasion. As the late columnist Jeffrey Bernard once wrote: “Anecdote is not a form of conversation.”

These are not the sort of people who are likely to write humorous books; their humour is received, not self-generated, and contains no originality. By contrast, people who spontaneously generate humorous material tend to possess one inherent characteristic — the ability to laugh at themselves. To be able to view the world as absurd, it is necessary to be able to view ourselves as absurd, or what we possess is not a sense of humour, but megalomania.

But what is the basis of humour and how can we best transport it to the written word? A great many serious thinkers have considered the conundrum that is humour. What is funny? Do we all find different things funny, or is there a common theme underlying humour?

The Canadian author and psychologist Stephen Pinker describes humour as an “anti-dominance mechanism”; we laugh with other people in our group and laugh at an adversary whom we wish to strip of their assumed superiority.

“Humor is the enemy of pomp and decorum, especially when they prop up the authority of an adversary or a superior. The most inviting targets of ridicule are teachers, preachers, kings, politicians, military officers and other members of the high and mighty,” he wrote in his book How the Mind Works.

The corollary is, Pinker says, that we engage in banter with our friends to show that we can use this mechanism with them in a non-threatening way.

“Kidding is a precision instrument for assessing the kind of relationship one has with a person. You don’t tease a superior or a stranger, though if one of you floats a trial tease that is well received, you know the ice is breaking and the relationship is shifting towards friendship. And if the tease elicits a mirthless chuckle or a freezing silence, you are being told that the grouch has no desire to become your friend (and may even have interpreted the joke as an aggressive challenge.)“

People
When it comes to writing, this theory of humour translates to one important point. We laugh at people, not things. And we laugh with people. Humour is a people-based business. So any attempt at written humour must bear this basic truth in mind.

In the first place, it means not throwing in humorous material, or a piece of coruscating wordplay, if it doesn’t fit the story.

British comedian and writer Ricky Gervais wrote: “I’ve seen so much stuff that’s been ruined by writers’ getting carried away with getting a good joke in. We threw jokes on the floor if they made someone look too clever or undermined the story.“

In similar vein, talking about his TV writing, Gervais wrote: “You can’t just have decapitated jokes. Then what you’ve got is a sketch show.“

Another universal truth about humour is that it has to be true to be funny. Again, this relates back to the notion that we laugh at people, not things. If we cannot make the connection between the humour and real life, if the humour doesn’t ring true, it fails. One of the problems for humour writers is precisely that real life is funnier than our imaginations.

Anthony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, who wrote the British comedy shows Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister, said: “After we wrote each episode, we would show it to some secret sources, always including somebody who was an expert on the subject in question. They would usually give us extra information which, because it was true, was usually funnier than anything we might have thought up.“

Jay added, about a particularly humorous episode: “I can’t tell you where, I can’t tell you when and I can’t tell you who was involved; all I can tell you is that we knew that it had actually happened. That’s why it was so funny. We couldn’t think up things as funny as the real things that had happened.“

This is undoubtedly true. We only have to look at the depths of idiocy (and consequent humour) on websites like E-mails from Crazy People or Failblog, to see that real life has reserves of humour that far outstrip the imagination of the poor author.

The final requirement for humour is that it must have a purpose. Humour without purpose takes us back to the joke-telling and lengthy yarning genre or the “decapitated jokes.” The purpose can be satire, or the humour can operate in its own right to construct character and environment in a novel.

It can even work as a plot device. Talking about the writing of the British TV comedy Fawlty Towers, John Cleese said he tried to make the most important plot moments the funniest in the show, to disguise the plot and make it less visible.

In the episode Communication Problems, the plot turns on a bet that Cleese’s character (Fawlty) has made, and this is wonderfully created (but obscured) by a hilarious dialogue of misunderstanding between Fawlty and his hapless Spanish waiter Manuel.

Humour must be about people, must have purpose, and it must ring true. Humour is not just jokes and stories. Plus humour is usually predicated on an us-versus-them basis, “us” pricking the ego of “them“. The controversial Dutch cartoonist, Gregorius Nekschot, sums this last up as: “Harmless humor does not exist.”

He may be right, but humour can vary from the gentle (P.G. Wodehouse, David Nobbs or Garrison Keillor) to the harder-edge satire of Tom Sharpe and Carl Hiaasen, to work like Nekschot’s own, which many people consider deliberately offensive.

But all of these forms of humour need to be well treated and well crafted in order to stand up in a book, a topic I’ll discuss next.

(to be continued)

This made me chuckle
JohnCleese: Well, I have had that Civet coffee. It was quite good. But, I prefer the beans that have passed through a cat. They’re slightly sweeter.

Anoche salí con mis compañeros por el Born. La noche había empezado tomando unas cañas al salir de la oficina, y terminó con un decepcionante mojito. Pero entre ambos puntos hubo pizza italo-argentina y los mejores helados italianos.

La Cremeria Toscana es una heladería escondida en un rincón del Born, muy cerca de Santa María del Mar (Canvis Vells, 2).

La combinación de Dulce-de-leche-con-pepitas-de-chocolate y Canela me hizo pensar en muchas cosas.

En Deborah fumando clove-cigarettes, contándome cómo, de niña, andaba masticando una ramita de canela. Y en dulce de leche made-at-home, tomado directamente de la lata de leche condensada con una galleta, viendo a John Cleese en Clockwise, y pensando Sabes hace cuanto que no me reía así?

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Inspired by a funny little post by the ultimate fashion guide and brand whore BryanBoy, I gave myself a new bag yesterday! Well…more like revived an old canvas bag where I keep my paint. The fashion god, Karl Lagerfeld created his own twist on the shopper bag. Typically these are reserved for hippies wanting to save the world. (I have 6 of them) But his modest, “Karl Who?” bag freaking cracks me up! I do so wish I could be so powerful that I can design my own bag asking what my own name is. It’ll will happen one day…just you wait. “Cleese Who?” bags coming soon

Isto já começa a parecer o “Tá a gravar”, só falta a nossa Carolina Patrocínio ou a abertura do estabelecimento com o nome “Amo-te Escondidinho”…
Mas não resisti “postar” (que é uma expressão sempre bonita de se dizer) mais um vídeo, já vão perceber porque.

John Cleese dos Monty Python, serve-se da comparação entre o futebol americano e o futebol do resto do mundo (soccer) para fazer uma sátira a atitude e mentalidade americana.
Genial, como sempre.

h/t dotter

John Cleese

I LOVE Python, and I’ve got them all on DVD, but when they released a set of DVDs last year called ‘[cast memeber's] Personal Best’, I was skeptical.  Were these just crappy compilations?  Were they just trying to squeeze more money out of shows that were already widely available on DVD, and which I already owned.  The answer to both questions, is yes.

I caught part of the John Cleese ‘Personal Best’ on PBS last night.  He’s my favourite Python, so it was a pleasure to watch the bits, but why are they all chopped up like this?  Having a collection of Monty Python sketches, as good as they might be, is jarring.  The original episodes were perfect, half hour experieces.  What’s next, a collection of Dickens’ best chapters?  It makes no sense.

To ‘add some value’, as they say, there were interstitials between the sketchs with John Cleese being interviewed by someone.  These were essentially original sketches, and they were not that good.  There were three characters, the interviewer, the nurse, and the wife, and none of them were actors, and it was made painfully clear.

Cleese himself did fairly well.  He was playing his cranky old man character, and he’s funny when he pokes fun at himself like that, but the anti-woman, anti-Jew, anti-John-Chapman jokes wore a little thin.  Not that I was offended.  Again, he was playing this character, and you were meant to laugh at the idiocy of this senile old man.  I get it.  It just wasn’t that funny.  It was predictable.  When someone asks ‘cranky old Cleese’ what he thought of John Chapman, I know exactly what’s coming.

This collection would have been much more worthwhile if Cleese had been interviewed seriously, and if the sketch were all but removed.  In other words, I’ve seen these all before, they’re sitting on my DVD shelf, so maybe just an interview would be interesting.

From 1979, part 1 of 6 (the rest available at youtube)

Bon ok, c’est un titre racoleur. Evidemment que je ne le hais point. Mais bon, il abuse quand même! Non content de nous réjouir depuis quelques années d’un humour presque pas mal du tout, de pousser la performance jusqu’à rendre une présentation seesmic amusante (en voilà une gageure!), voilà que Mr se permet tout simplement de rentrer en collision avec LE monolithe de l’humour britannique, le chantre de l’absurde et de la délicatesse de l’esprit, la sacro-sainte désacralisation.

Songez que l’ignoble individu est allé jusqu’à pénétrer l’intimité du plus délicieux des Pythons, qu’on le devine caresser le plus fins velours (la scène du dressing est torride!) du plus grand des gentleman farmers de la gaudriole intellectuelle, le Dieu John Cleese.

Vinvin pousse l’affront jusqu’à afficher une moue distante comme pour mieux nous écraser de sa condition d’élu. C’est insupportable!
Bienvenue donc dans l’intimité de John Cleese

Bravo Mr Vinvin, espèce de saligaud, veinard parmi les veinards.

I’m just a jealous guy…

Nous sommes arrivés, Whit (le caméraman et monteur), Dean (le co-producteur) et moi, vers 9h00 du matin, devant le “cottage” de John Cleese. J’avais le coeur à 8000. J’allais enfin le rencontrer et me faire pipi dessus…
Son fidèle assistant et ami, Garry, nous a demandés d’attendre dehors et de nous préparer, “John sera prêt dans 20 minutes”. C’est ainsi que ça se passe. Les admirateurs, venus pour bosser, préparent leur petit matériel tandis que la star internationale prend son café. John Cleese, pour moi, est une référence. Il a rempli ma vie bien avant les autres, j’avais 14 ans (voir mon texte de Octobre 2005). Mon épiphanie fut la découverte du Holly Grail. Ce jour-là, ma vie a basculé. Me retrouver 25 ans plus tard face à lui, le géant, c’etait un truc de dingue. Et puis pas juste pour lui demander un autographe. Non, pour lui parler, échanger, obtenir des réponses, savoir où il en était et connaitre un peu plus cet homme, passer du temps. Il faisait un soleil de feu sur Santa Barbara, nous étions déjà en nage avant même qu’il arrive. L’idée était de commencer par l’interview, assis, sur sa terrasse, et ensuite de faire le tour de sa maison. En plein divorce, perdant sa chemise (mais pas à la rue, rassurez-vous , John Cleese voulait nous montrer ce que c’était d’être juste un homme comme les autres…

Il est arrivé et je me suis doucement déstressé. La marche stupide, le chevalier sans jambes ni bras, et les centaines d’heures de Flying Circus et Fawlty Tower, tout cela ressurgissait devant moi en une seconde. Il a ouvert ses grands bras, sourit, et balancé un “How are you Cyrille ? Can I call you Frog?”. Hehe… Voilà pourquoi on est un Grand, en restant sympa et en personnalisant immédiatement les relations les plus improbables. Garry nous avait dit que la veille, John était d’une humeur de chien à cause de la tournure que prenait le procès, et que ce ne serait pas facile… “Tout ou rien”, a-t-il rajouté. J’ai dis au Maître que j’etais tendu comme un string, que je n’étais pas journaliste et que le lui parlerai de comédie, de politique ou de religion, pas des Monty Python. Bien sûr j’aurais rêvé lui poser des questions de fan sur les Monty Python, mais d’autres l’ont fait mille fois avant, et bien mieux que moi. Je décidai donc de parler d’autre chose. Je lui ai demandé s’il était heureux, on a parlé de psychanalyse, de religion, de méditation, de comédie, de ses modèles (il a tout de même pris un thé avec Jacques Tati, … Il répondit à tout sans hésitation, de plus en plus chaleureux. Il a balancé un peu sur les Monty Python, expliquant que son meilleur ami était Michael Palin, mais que c’etait plus “compliqué” avec Terry Jones et Eric Idle. Je n’ai pas voulu en savoir plus, et je garderai le peu que j’ai entendu pour moi. On ne brise pas ses idoles, même si elles sont complices. Au cours de l’interview, je lui ai demandé ce qu’il pensait de Sarah Palin, ma bête noire (si je puis dire). Vous avez sans doute vu la vidéo, comme plus de 1.140.000 personnes à ce jour. Des petits moments de grâce qui n’arrivent pas souvent… Ce n’était pas le but, mais c’est arrivé.

L’ambiance était vraiment excellente et je crois qu’il m’a bien aimé. Un constat sans doute sans intérêt, et purement égotique flamboyant. Je sais, c’est un professionnel, il a fait cela si souvent. Une star comme lui, c’est comme une bonne gogo danseuse, si elle est douée t’as l’impression que c’est toi qu’elle regarde tout le temps (je dis ça, on m’a raconté … Nous avons fait un break, il était fatigué. Le temps de faire un rapide debriefing. Les gars m’ont assuré que c’était bien. J’en savais trop rien au juste. J’avais l’impression d’être un peu en retard sur l’action, parfois un peu décalé par rapport aux vannes, sans doute à cause des subtilités linguistiques… Au derushage, j’ai vu que j’avais raté une ou deux bonnes vannes, tant pis.

Il est revenu et nous avons commencé le tour de la maison (video ci-dessous). Une simple promenade dont nous n’attendions rien de plus qu’un bon moment, et c’est que nous avons vécu. Un très bon moment. Mes passages favoris sont la visite de son bureau devenu pour un temps la chambre de sa fille (une bombe atomique). Cela ne se voit pas au montage mais nous sommes bien restés 10 minutes, à analyser chaque tableau, chaque recoin. John (je l’appelle John maintenant, hehe) était d’ailleurs bien souvent mélancolique quand il contemplait les oeuvres aux murs, surtout l’une d’entre elles, realisée par l’artiste le lendemain de la mort de son fils. Il avait les larmes aux yeux, et je me suis dit qu’une fois de plus les clowns étaient tous des êtres sensibles. Beau cliché que je me suis bien entendu garder d’évoquer . Pendant ce temps-là, encore toute endormie sous la couette, sa fille de 23 ans rouspétait, habituée, mais en lançant quasiment à chaque fois d’excellentes tirades : “Tu devrais carrément leur lire l’Odyssée” étant ma préférrée. L’autre passage (court dans la vidéo), est la visite de la cage à chats. Je n’ai pas eu le courage de lui dire que j’étais sympathisant du Comité Contre les Chats. Il y en avaient partout qui me collaient et me léchouillaient sans vergogne. Beuark. Je les carressais du bout des doigts en pensant à Judas et en souriant bêtement.

A la fin dans la cuisine, il m’a pris dans ses bras pour la photo, sympa, inoubliable. Nous avons papoté, “hors caméras”, et parlé de son adaptation d’un Poisson nommé Wanda en Comédie Musicale, projet qu’il co-écrit avec sa fille qui dort.
Quand je suis parti de là, j’avais l’impression d’une grosse gueule de bois. Quatre heures avec la légende. Comme si j’avais enfin couché avec un ancien fantasme de jeunesse : content d’être allé au bout, mais désormais le fantasme avait une forme, une odeur, une réalité… Un homme comme les autres.

Ce n’est que quelques jours plus tard que j’ai doucement commencé à réaliser la chance que j’avais eue. Et plus le temps passe, plus je savoure. Inexplicable. Le fantasme reprend le dessus, les images, la raison, les souvenirs… Il redevient peu a peu la légende et j’en oublie presque que tout est arrivé.

Pour ce moment, je m’étais simplement juré de ne pas essayer d’être drôle ou de tenter de l’impressionner. Je l’ai juste laissé faire, tentant de réagir comme il fallait quand il me sollicitait. C’est un homme chaleureux, sympathique et très cultivé, capable de parler des Lémuriens ou de Weston-Super-Mare (sa ville natale) avec passion et cruauté à la fois. Nous nous sommes jurés de nous revoir

Ca peut avoir des avantages d’être un VIB (Very Important Blogger), on rencontre des gens formidables!
Je tombe coup sur coup sur Korben qui fait des bisous à Sébastien Chabal et sur Vinvin qui fait des calins avec John Cleese. Les veinards!

A ce propos Loic Lemeur twitt que la vidéo de Vinvin interviewant John Cleese sur Sarah Palin a passé les 1 million de visionnages (1028915 à cette secondes précise où je frappe mes touches), alors si tu veux encore augmenter le compteur, just have a look ! Mention spéciale du jury dans les premières secondes pour le rire de Mister Cleese.
Etant en cure de désintoxication de cynisme ravageur de notre époque amorale, nous ne raillerons pas le slide final de la vidéo qui rappelle que les opinions dissidentes exprimées dans ce clip sont bien celles du dangereux Monty Python et pas celles de Seesmic.
Moi quand chrai grand, si chui VIB, j’aimerai bien dîner avec Bourvil et Jacques Brel.
Des fois que tu ne sois pas geek: blog de Korben, blog de Vinvin, blog de Loic Lemeur

Fonte: Blog do Felipe Epaminondas

hilariously true.