WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 962 - Eric Idle

Episode Date: October 25, 2018

Python Week continues on WTF as Eric Idle gives Marc his perspective on the creation of the legendary British comedy group, talks about the making of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, The Rutles, and Spamalot, and explores his feelings about the other Pythons. Eric also explains what it was like growing up at the end of World War II, how rock and roll became his escape from reality, and why he wound up having lasting friendships with David Bowie, George Harrison and Robin Williams. This episode is sponsored by YouTube Music and Quip. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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family. Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5 p.m. in Rock City at torontorock.com. Lock the gates! All right, let's do this. How are you, what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking ears what the fucksters what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast wtf i'm recording this from a different location i'm not in the garage i imagine you can hear a little difference in the

sound quality i'm in a hotel room in New York City, in Manhattan. And I'm actually, I'm in a neighborhood that I'm not usually in. They put me up in Midtown. As some of you know, I will be, I'll be working on the Joker movie. I start tomorrow. And I'm not nervous yet. But I'm going to be. I know many of you know this.

I know some of you still don't think I've addressed the reality of it properly, given my criticism of superhero movies, but I will stand by not only my defense of taking this opportunity to do a scene with Robert De Niro and Joaquin Phoenix, but also in defense of this particular movie, it's not what you think. And that's the truth. I went out to a set. Can't tell you where it is.

But it was outside the city. That's where they were set up for that day. And I got fitted for my outfit. And I've been going over my lines, and I'm ready. I'm ready in my mind. I don't know what it'll be like to be standing next to Robert De Niro doing a scene. Walking, actually. We're going to be walking.

I think I can tell you that. We're going to be walking and doing a scene. I'm going to be walking and talking to Robert De Niro and then standing still and talking to both of them. I can tell you that much. I believe I'm free and clear to say that. I don't think I've let on anything really, but I imagine tomorrow when I get there, I'll be like, holy shit. But who knows? I don't know. Did I mention who's on the show? Eric Idle is here from Monty Python. There's been a Monty Python week. So, New York. Yeah, you know, I've been coming here.

You know, I lived here. I had a big chunk of my life here. And I come here and I always have odd feelings, you know. I don't, this is a perfect time of year. Fall on the East Coast when it gets a little crisp in the air and the sky is clear and the leaves are starting to turn. Some of them have turned. You're starting to just wear that one layer or two layers. It just does something to my brain, gets me into a space, into a – it's not a high feeling. And I don't know really,

you know, what to call it, but it's sort of thoughtful. There's, you know, it's a time of reflection. I really, like, I don't really do what I used to do when I come here. And I don't know how to really stay here more than three days. I left for a reason. And I've talked about that before. You know, it gets to be a little overwhelming, New York, and you get to a point where you just got to get out. But so much of my brain is interfaced with this city. I know how to be in New York, but I think I finally sort of figured out why I don't really like staying here more than a few days when I used to just love it here. And the truth is, more than a few days when I used to just love it here. And the truth is, it's like nostalgia can be sort of malignant. I'm not that nostalgic a person. I don't really think about the past as

a better time or think that things were necessarily better in the past, or I don't revise things from my past or sort of ruminate on them in a way that, that makes me feel like my present is no good. I mean, generally I, I, I tend to forget most of, of what I went through, if anything.

And, and my memories of things, they never tend towards like being better than they, what they were. They always go the other way, really. But I think that in general, you know,

our own personal histories and whatever we've come through and whatever we've gone through sort of define us and i looked up the word nostalgia the definition is a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past typically for a period or place with happy personal associations something done or presented in order to evoke feelings of nostalgia but then if you go to the origin of nostalgia, it's Greek, it's nostos. I don't know if I'm pronouncing this right. I'm not some sort of linguistic person.

Nostos, which is return home, and algos, which is pain. And that sort of evolved into homesickness. And then nostalgia evolved into acute homesickness. and i don't know if they got it right because i think really what's most cathartic to me about the origin is that return home pain i think that's more why we don't go back places like me i i understand how it evolved into like when you're not home that there's a pain for not being home. But I just think if we break it down to nostos and algos is return home. There is pain.

You return home and then the pain will come back. So even in the natural evolution of the word to where it becomes homesickness in that idea of nostalgia is this essence of the trauma of the past like i go around this town i'm like why does it feel a little haunted whatever my life was here it was a fucking struggle all of it i went through a marriage here i went through my stand-up early stand-up career here i went through drugs here i went through complete chaotic you know existential earthquakes of self here you know i you know part of it defined me but i just started to realize that this sort of overwhelming kind of energy that makes new york amazing you know always had this tinge to it because i was always happy to be here but what was that tinge what was that isolating feeling what was that that kind of darkness around the edges outside of it just being new york was that holy shit i was a chaotic fucking mess when i was here just you know at all

different points in the decade or so that i was here and i realized like oh that's it i mean i'm not nostalgic for any of that i mean as cool as it is to come back and kind of walk past the old haunts and everything that's what they are they're old haunts for a reason because they haunted you and they still haunt you and it's like if you really put yourself back in that place from your past it's like i would never want to fucking be there again so it's not getting me depressed because obviously you move through it to a point where you're like, well, I, I, I did. Okay. You know, even given all of that bullshit, you know, I made it out and I'm alive and things are going okay. But that doesn't mean that performing for four people or sweating alone in my apartment or, or wondering, you know, what the fuck was going to happen with

my life, getting fucked up all the time, identity crisis of what what am i doing with my life and that stuff it's all here sweaty marin wanders these streets eternally and it all comes down to like here's new york but here are those two blocks man here are those four blocks here are those two or three clubs this was your life for years and you were sweaty and angry and freaked out and terrified and fucking unsure of everything and just barely hanging on that guy you know if i go back to those two blocks or i go back to that area where those three clubs are i can still feel and see that part of me that that me who i was just wandering around sweaty and angry and lost and fucking you know hanging hopes on nothing granted i got through it but when i get in it it's

sort of like oh okay that's the darkness so maybe my realizing this maybe i should just you know what i'm gonna do i think I think I'm going to go downtown and I'm going to find Sweaty Mark. I'll probably have to wait until it's like two in the morning. Maybe go over to Veselka, sit down with Sweaty Mark and just go like,

dude, you know, you can leave. You know, you don't have to, you know, it worked out. It worked out, Sweaty sweaty mark so let's uh let's get together on this and frame it the right way so you're not nagging at me when i come back here yeah that was that experience i'm glad i put that together return home pain right so eric idol this was a great a great conversation it was it was fun having the honor actually to talk to john cleese and eric idol was it was an amazing experience and and

when i talked to eric and i didn't talk to much about john about this specifically but i remember man i remember do you remember i mean i'm 55 now and i remember when monty python was on pbs that was where you had to watch it and i remember when i first heard about it and turning that channel over to pbs which was generally at that point i guess it was in the 70s and i was young it was kind of flat it was not that engaging i didn't watch sesame street is and i was young it was kind of flat it was not that engaging i didn't watch sesame street i didn't watch mcneil lair i didn't uh you know there were news programs on there but i don't know that i really understood what public broadcasting was but it was on there but i remember late at night you would tune in and those credits the

terry gilliam credits and it would just like it was fucking mind-blowing it's like what am i watching what the fuck is happening and i was thinking about this alongside of thinking about nostalgia and thinking about when i was younger and thinking about you know getting into that space and thinking about sitting in front of that tv set late at night downstairs in the house i grew up in you know alone in the dark in front of that tv set and that Monty Python came on and you were like, what is this? There is nothing like this on any planet except here and now. What is going on? And then it would just unfold. The show would unfold and you're like, what am I watching? What's happening to my brain? It was fucking mind blowing. And I,

and I just really kind of locked into that today when I was thinking about talking to you guys about this, that like, there was nothing like it. And to this day, there remains, it remains that there's nothing like it, but watching that when it was happening at the time it was happening, uh, uh you know having that weird secret feeling of like does anybody else know about this this is insane what am i watching that was the beauty of it and then just taking it in and trying to wrap your brain around it was spectacular it was it was incredible experience and now i get to talk to one of the guys another one of the guys uh eric idol uh has a book out it's his memoir always look on the bright side

of life is now available wherever you get books and this was a conversation that happened a few weeks ago in the garage and uh had a lovely time. These guys are great. I'd like to talk to Palin. Maybe that can happen. I don't know. But this is me and Eric Idle back in the garage. Death is in our air. This year's most anticipated series, FX's Shogun, only on Disney+.

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Be a part of Kids Night when the Toronto Rock take on the Colorado Mammoth at a special 5 p.m. start time on Saturday, March 9th at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton. The first 5,000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5 p.m. in Rock City at torontorock.com. I just I got your book and I picked and and someone sent me the, uh, the oral history of David Bowie.

And I noticed you weren't in there. You're like one of, uh, did they ask you to do that? Somebody wrote to me and said, I'm so sorry. I didn't talk to you. Oh, that, uh, but I don't think they knew we were friends. It wasn't a very broadcast, right? It was just happened. We happened to be friends for friends for quite a long time,

actually. When did you meet him? I met him through Bobcat Goldthwait here in the, I think, 80s. You met him through Bobcat?

Yes. He was good friends, but he loved comedians. I had no idea that Bobcat knew him and I've talked to, Bobcat, he's directed my show,

he's been on this show a million times and how did I not know he didn't know Bowie? Well, I think he introduced us, and then we met on holiday in St. Barts by Lorne Michaels. Yeah. And we got on really well. And then we went and stayed with him several times in Switzerland.

Oh, really? Yeah, we got really good friends, and we went on a couple of cruises with him. With Bowie? Yeah. See, it always surprises me as a fan of people that they just have normal lives. That's the thing, isn't it? Yeah.

Who would have figured? So you're down in St. Barts with Lorne Michaels, David Bowie. Yeah. Just like... But then his kid was there, my kid was there. I just interviewed him. Duncan?

Yeah, Duncan. There's a picture of him in the book, too. Yeah, I saw that. I guess we're on St. No, I don't know where we are on holiday there. Is it an odd thing, though, that when you reach a certain level of celebrity that you sort of have to hang out with the other ones? I think it becomes neutralized.

Yeah. I don't think they aren't celebrities. They're just people you meet who happen to be in show business. In the same business you are. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Or not even the same business. They're doing music. You know, I'm not in that business. You are in that business. Well, peripherally. But I mean, it seems

like that was the, it almost seems like that was the thing you were most passionate about early on. Early on, when I first came to America, most of my life here was rock and roll. So I was up at night only. Yeah. And that was with Harrison and George and people. When was that?

What year are you talking about? I suppose we're talking 75. We first came here in 73. With the troupe. With the guys? Stayed at the Riot House. Yeah. Over on the Hyatt.

It's now the Hyatt. Yeah. Next to the Comedy Store. They called it the Riot House. Yeah. It was crazy. In 73? Yeah. Exactly. That must the Comedy Store. Well, they called it the Riot House. Yeah, yeah. It was crazy. In 73. Yeah.

Exactly. That must have been crazy. Well, we came out. It was crazy. All the guys? All except John, who missed a good time always. Just his nature? Well, he was older.

You know, I mean, he literally is. How much older? Well, he's born in 1939. Yeah. So he will be what? Next year, he will be 80. Yeah. Is that possible? 1939. Yeah. So he will be what? Next year he will be 80. Yeah. Is that possible?

Yes. Yeah, next year. Yeah, my dad's 80 this year. So he's 79 this year, and I'm only 75. Yeah. I'm paling, too. We're the youngest, too. How was he at Cambridge when you were there if he was five years older?

Because after the war, all of the servicemen got a preference to go into cambridge and oxford so he got had to wait his generation had to wait a couple of years and he might have been liable for national service but what he did is he went back to his old prep school and taught latin for two years well that's right yeah i think he told me that it's crazy yeah yeah and it's his happiest time that's what's even weirder he's really really a teacher, John, I mean, in many good ways. So, 73, you're here. It's all rock and roll. 73, we're here.

That was the first trip over. It's the summer of rock and roll. We came out of touring Canada. Uh-huh, as a group. As the group, and that was a rock and roll reaction. It was at the end of, but that was the end of the TV show around 73, no? That was the end of the TV show, Brown 73, no? The TV show was, we know, we were deciding whether to do a fourth series.

And on the tour, John announced he was not going to do that. And so he left us at Vancouver, which was the last days. And we were taken by Neil Bogard, the record company, Buddha Records. So they took us down to L.A. to do promo because we were only on records here. People only knew us as a recorder. They thought we were like, what's that called, Farsine Theater. They thought we just did comedy records. Well, there were two of them, right?

Two records? I don't know what they released here. But they were on Buddha, and then we had to do, we did The Tonight Show. We did various weird promotional things. And that's interesting. So the TV show didn't start airing here until when? I would say it started in Dallas.

What a strange beginning. Isn't it? Yeah. On the PBS thing. Dallas PBS. Ron DeVillier picked it up. It was very cheap from the BBC, and he noticed an immediate spike on Sunday nights. And he persuaded other stations, including New York, to run it, other PBS stations.

I grew up in New Mexico, and I remember that was where you found it. It was this strange thing to find where word got out, and you're like, that's on PBS? What is it? And it'd be on late at night, and you'd be sitting there. You're a kid, and you're like, what am I watching? I was like 13. And for about 25, 30 years, that was it. And that was so great for us because it ran and nobody cared.

Yeah. And it was on. People could find it. Right. In every city. Yeah. All over America. It didn't hit ratings or anything because it's on PBS.

Mm-hmm. And they didn't cut it. Yeah. And they didn't have commercial breaks. Right. So it was just a perfect home. We wouldn't have been there but for that. And it's interesting because that cultivated a true cult audience.

I mean, people became very dedicated to it. It was a unique find. You know, who would watch PBS? And you had this whole generation of people that were discovering something that almost no one knew about. That was the experience of Python. People sort of discovered it like a cult. Yeah. And it was, you know, cult viewing and, ooh, did we know this?

And, you know, when we ever did a tour, they would come out and they'd find other fans at the concert with them. Right, right. That was like news to them. Converts. Yeah. Oh, I see, I see. So they'd go to the show and they're like, oh, you like them too, right?

Other people. Yeah. You know, my gosh, I thought it was just my little secret. So who did I talk to? It was Roger Waters, I think, who I talked to of a generation of people that were born during World War II and sort of the effect that has, because that's one big difference between Americans and Europeans is that Europeans, they got the shit bombed out of them. And it was a real thing.

And that's something we have no real awareness of here. No. And you remember it? How old were you? I remember the sound of the sirens. I was about two and a half when the war ended in 45. Oh, the young. I was young.

But, yeah. But terror, it communicates itself very quickly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so it was an experience. And then after the post-war, it was very bleak because we had rationing until I was 10 or 11. Because it was rubble forever. It was rubble everywhere. And your father didn't die in the war.

My father died hitchhiking home for Christmas from the RAF. And he made it through the war. Made it through the war from 1941 in the back, you know, the Lancaster bomber. Wow. But he was in transport command most of it. Yeah. And then was sort of killed in a road accident

on the way home for Christmas. Oh, my God. I know. But you don't remember that. No, I don't remember that. But you remember his absence. I think so, yes. I mean, they were always absent because they were in the war.

Right. So they were away. You don't remember. But, I mean, I have pictures and his diaries and little things. Yeah. It's very sweet. Afterwards, you put these things together, you know. And do you have siblings?

No. You were only child? Only child, yes. Wow. So after your father passed, I mean, did you just grow up with your mother? My mother went into some sort of depression. So I grew up with what I call my gran and my pop, who I think were her uncle and aunt. Yeah.

And that was in Manchester. And they were very loving and very nice to me. So the depression lasted a lifetime? No. Well, yeah, on and off it did, actually. I think she was bipolar. But eventually then she got a job as a nurse in Wallasey, which is the other side of the Mersey from Liverpool. And I went to school there with her for the first time at five.

And you didn't stay there, though? I was there two years. And then she got an offer from the RAF Benevolent Fund to put me into this boarding school, which paid for the entire education. Oh, so they did that. That's how you got into Oxford as well, or Cambridge as well. Because of that, really, indirectly, 12 years later. But all the boys I was at school with had no fathers. But some of them remembered them passing?

I don't think so. we'd have been kids yeah in the in the book you sort of uh talk about how you that they were all crying and you didn't well that was early on you're you know seven it's a bit of a shock to be oh to be taken away suddenly you're in the middle of a this sort of awful place you know it was awful yeah yeah no it was awful the senior school was awful we were in a dormitory in the senior school which was 100 yards long right with the bed every three feet oh my god yeah no not great no not much privacy there no privacy at all uh and a lot of bullying and quite a lot of beating because you could be beaten by the prefects oh oh really yeah so that was uh that was okay then?

Endemic. And then the masters could beat you with canes. Really? It was their privilege, yes. Did that happen to you a lot? A lot. Why, because you were a smartass? Well, you could put it that way.

I mean, I was once beaten for silent insolence. What chance does that give you? Insolent thing. Yeah, but you looked. We sensed what you were thinking. Yes. And when did you, like, with the British, the entire comedic sensibility is different, I believe, than here in the States. And there's a whole history of comedy that I learn about in bits and pieces.

So when you were younger, at that age, what were your first experiences with with the the idea of being funny or what was entertaining to you well we didn't have much entertainment what we got into most of all was rock and roll so when elvis came and saved our lives so we had little transistor radios we actually built crystal sets first to listen to the music on the radio and so you were you're clever kids well we were smart. Yeah. We figured out, we had all this time. You've got 14 weeks of school. Right.

I mean, it's just endless. And then other people grew up and had teenage lives, you know, going out and dating and dancing. Yeah. But we're stuck in this place. So we listened a lot to music,

rock and roll. It was very, very important. It was life-saving. Really life-saving. Totally. Elvis totally saved our lives. Really? Do you remember the first time you heard it? Absolutely. Really life-saving. Totally. Elvis totally saved our lives. Really?

Do you remember the first time you heard it? Absolutely. Actually, I was in a cat. It was Heartbreak Hotel. And it was 57, I think. And I was at this sort of holiday camp called Butlins, where you went for two weeks. And it was quite fun. But all the girls, they were dancing and jitterbugging to that. To Elvis?

Yeah, Elvis. Broke it open. Unleashed the primal desire. Absolutely. But all the girls, they were dancing and jitterbugging to that. To Elvis? Yeah, Elvis. Broke it open. Unleashed the primal desire of all the children. He seemed to be on our side. He seemed to be talking to us. And were you playing music at that time? I was in a skiffle group, a folk group. And so I started off by playing harmonica.

Can you still play? Brownie McGee. Sonny Terry, Brownie McGee. Sonny Terry, Brownie McGee. I'd be like, pick a bailer cotton I'd do all those things and then we did sort of

black protest songs because I think we associated somehow being all white in Wolverhampton about 3,000 miles from the deep south

right maybe 5,000 miles we somehow associated with those protests the idea of repression and oppression and not being free to do what you want to do. Totally.

So it was between that and British war films where they were escaping from cold hits. So our school, we called it cold hits. It was like the cold hits. Right. And you had to break out always climbing over the walls. So before Elvis was, there was a folk thing happening. I mean, do you remember? Because it seemed like you grew up in this prime era of upheaval.

Yes. Social upheaval. So, like, folk was popular. And did you see yourself like, I'm going to do this? No. No, no, no. It was fun playing guitar. We had a guitarist, a banjo player, and I was a harmonica player.

And then eventually, at 14, I got myself a guitarist a banjo player and i was a harmonica player and then eventually i got at 14 i got myself a guitar yeah and started to try and learn you know the basic chords and play songs and things and that yeah and what was the uh at that time the comedic influences like what were you listening to outside of elvis was i mean you listen into the radio there must have been no no well there were great shows on the radio but they were always on when we were doing prep which was like in the evening right just for change right we do a two hours of prep right means you go into the school you know and your classroom and then do hours of homework yeah compulsory watched homework yeah but you talk a little in the book about you know

being somewhat that some that you were a legacy of performers. Somewhere in your genealogy, there were circus performers. Oh, that's true, though. That's my great-great-grandfather was a circus ringmaster in the 1880s, 1890s. And did you go to the circus? I was taken to the circus at five in Bellevue, Manchester by my pop who was looking after me. And the clowns treated us like royalty. It was unbelievable because his name was Bertrand.

And this guy was called Bertrand in the 1880s. Your great-grandfather. And he was famous. A famous ringmaster. And the clowns. And the clowns were very respectful. You're terrified of clowns when you're little. But I went backstage.

I was kind of cool. Circus royalty. Were you terrified of clowns? Yeah, they're kind of scary. They're anarchic, you know, especially in the real live performances. Anarchic. Very much so. I guess I never thought about it that way, but that's true.

They have this sort of like the freedom to do that. Absolutely. And they mess around with the other performers and they pretend to throw buckets of water over the audience. That's true. Yeah. They're more fun, actually actually in real life like that in bunches i think yeah groups of clowns are more fun maybe an isolated clown could be sad very sad it becomes so much as a bobcat with some kind of strange agenda to kill you i think but i get did you i

guess i never really processed that and you call it like Monty Python's Flying Circus. Where'd that come from? I mean, it was a very strange amalgamation. But only afterwards did I realize I was also in a circus. Yeah. I mean, that struck me as being really strange. And then I looked into my great-grandfather, great-grandfather, and found he was also a comedian when he started.

Before he became a ringmaster, he was a comedian. Like doing the equivalent of pre-Vaudeville, I guess. We have burlesque houses. I would say musical, vaudeville. He was in Folkestone in one of the censuses. There's him and another guy staying there, and they're listed as comedians. Really? I wonder if they were a team.

I think they were. Yeah? No, no, they weren't. But I don't know what they did. Yeah. There's no historical record of that. No vide videotape no audio tape no uh transcripts 1825 this very ancient crack record where they're doing mainly visual comedy what a pity you can't see that but did you you, like, I have to assume that living that kind of life and that sort of, it sounds dark.

It sounds like there was a darkness to it that it must have been a relief to laugh, I would imagine. Laughter was very good because it was our rebellion. And you laughed at the authority and you subverted authority. We learned to climb over the walls and go to the off-license and buy beer and find mixed-mate girls and meet girls and all the decent things. The things you learn when you're in confinement. Well, yes, because it is sort of halfway between being in the military and being in prison. Was that the agenda of the school, to get you into the military? I don't think so.

I think they were kindly disposed. I mean, there were all these sort of semi-orphans that the RAF were paying for. Right. Because they're sort of widows. So it was very hard for single women to have a job and to bring up a kid from 7 to 18. Yeah, for sure. It's very, very hard. So I think they were being philanthropic.

Yeah. And, you know, doing – and we got a decent education. I mean, I discovered, you know, I got on to Cambridge. Yeah. What were your interests when you were at the boarding school? I mean, like, because it seems like,

you know, when you look at Python and you look at the work you did, even in music and stuff, that there is a historical tradition to it, that, you know, certainly the movies at Python, the stuff you guys dealt with was pretty deep stuff, lofty stuff. Well, I had two things.

I had two toys, one of which was my gran gave me a typewriter. So I started to write stories, and that was an escape. And the other thing was my guitar, which was a fantastic mode of escape. And I suppose the third thing I would say is I learned to read. And that's an enormous escape if you're in a huge, crowded community of boys fantastic mode of escape and i suppose the third thing i would say is i learned to read yeah and that that's an enormous escape if you're in a huge crowded community of boys and things you know and you know we played football and missed around and played cricket and you know it wasn't all bleak right i mean i think the overall arc of it was bleak because there's no emotional support right right right yeah or no uh sort of like uh

not i guess emotional guidance or someone to look up to i mean when you don't have a father that's a it's a big void in terms of like well who am i going to be who is going to be my role model but also your mother isn't there so no hugs yeah there's no kind of, oh, you must feel blue. No, no, shut up. Get on. Go over there. You know, it's like. Yeah. So it's a sort of hard. I think it was a tough environment, but good if. I learned a lot of really valuable things.

Did you learn how to accept hugs eventually? Eventually. I persuaded women to let me hug them. Let them hug me, yes. No, of course. I mean, after you left, it was just like a pursuit. Right.

You know, desperate pursuit. Love me, somebody. Yeah. And then you have to learn how to treat, you know, how to actually appreciate women for being women, which takes a lot longer.

Well, yeah, culturally, they're having, it's a big issue now. Yes. They're not just things we play with, they're human beings. But, I mean,

you have to learn that. I think that's true. And that normally teaches you. And also,'re human beings. But, I mean, you have to learn that. I think that's true. Nobody teaches you. And also, I mean, you guys, I mean, you've got co-eds. So that's at least, you know, go with them. Right, right, right. See, they're there. Yeah, yeah.

Try to talk to them. We had to climb over schools and roofs and things to get towards them. So Oxford, you went to Cambridge. Cambridge, sorry. I get the two confused. Is one better than the other? Are they both equally as… No, they have different kind of personalities.

I mean, if you look at Python, Michael Palin and Terry Jones went to Oxford. John Cleese, me, and Graham Chapman were at Cambridge. And I think about Oxford are very much more they're prissier. All the politicians in England come out of Oxford. Always. So they're much more controlling. Cambridge is much more flamboyant. We produce spies.

Basically, spies against the Russians were all Cambridge. They were either gay or extremely flamboyant and drunk and so there's much more enjoyment of Cambridge and show business is tolerated. It's kind of an okay thing

to do to be successful in Cambridge whereas in Oxford you sort of have to apologise for it and write diaries forever so as Alan Bennett said you're not supposed to be very into show business much you know. Except politics is just like not entertaining show business. Well, politics is.

I don't quite know what politics is, but I think there's a degree they do at Oxford they don't do at Cambridge. Which is why they all go to Oxford. But that's funny that the prerequisite for spying is flamboyance and drinking and the tolerance of show business. I guess there is a lot of acting and role-playing when you're a professional spy. There was a famous one, I think his name was Burgess, and he was in America, he's English, and he's in America, and he was an extraordinary

alcoholic, and every night he got drunk and would tell everybody he was a Russian spy. And they went, yeah, yeah, shut the fuck up. He was saying that even after... He was a Russian spy! He ran shut the fuck up. He was saying that even after. But he was a Russian spy. He ran away. Eventually he escaped. That was his big front, is that he was so upfront about it that people didn't believe it.

It's kind of genius. I don't think it was a clever double bluff. He was just drunk. So when you get there, like, so how did that, so the state, how does it work? So you got a scholarship for being a good student? there like so you how did that so the state how does it work so they the you got a scholarship for for being a good student yeah in those days yeah I you get accepted by the college so 23 colleges at Cambridge and the college will take you on and then 23 colleges in different places there's no one town

okay okay so the different colleges in the universe so there's an engineering college or so no they're not just just know that you you're in a college and It's the same town. Okay, okay. So the different colleges in the university. So there's an engineering college? No, they're not. No, you're in a college, and that houses you and has you, but you could be doing math, you could be doing art, you could be doing architecture. It doesn't matter what you're doing. And then you go and study in the university place

for whatever you're doing. Right, I get it. And so. What did you get accepted to do? English, which is nothing at all. That's important. I mean, I. No, you're doing. Right. I get it. And so- What'd you get accepted to do? English, which is nothing at all. That's important. I mean, I- No, you just read.

I didn't do much except do comedy. I actually stumbled into comedy very early on. I met John Cleese in my second term. Yeah. And I auditioned and I did a college review. And my first piece I did ever publicly was a piece he'd written. Really? Yeah.

So, but you weren't, like, I guess in terms of, like, when I look at some of the lyrics of the songs, you weren't in any way obsessed with, you know, the poetry of Alexander Pope or Swift or the funnier Shakespeare, like those kind of, like, you know, historical satirists. Sure, I still am. I love Swift. I love Pope.

Absolutely. It was nice to read English literature. Even Chaucer was hilarious. I love Swift. I love Pope. Absolutely. It was nice to read English literature. Even Chaucer was hilarious. Absolutely. But the thing about studying English is you don't have to go to the lectures. You can read the book in three minutes. Everything he's going to say at the lecture, you could have skimmed through. Right.

And really, they're interested in what you think. So you have to read the text and then respond to it. So what is the trajectory uh assumed of somebody studying english at cambridge did it was it like here like you just sort of like well that's a degree i have now i uh i work at a photomat or a copy store or what i guess you go on to be a teacher i don't honestly know what i guess you could be a journalist you could be a writer right i have an english degree and i'm in my garage talking to eric idol and i'm here in the garage with my english degree talking to you so you know uh i it's nice because i would find that at cambridge

everybody just studying everything else had already read the same books i was reading right so but they were becoming architects right right mathematicians or yeah they actually had the foresight to create a life for themselves that had some security, perhaps. But it turned out it was a good thing to be because I didn't have anything particular to do. So I went into rep for about six minutes. And then I got into writing comedy. What's rep? Repertory theater.

Oh, okay. We did Oh, What a Lovely War, Leicester Rep. While you were at Cambridge? After, just leaving. Oh, so when you're at Cambridge, you meet Cleese and you meet who, Graham? No, Graham had gone down, but I met him at the end of that year. I met Michael Palin and Terry Jones at the Edinburgh Festival. Right, but when you were at Cambridge and started doing comedy,

because I talked to Sacha Baron Cohen, who I believe could not get into. He was turned down. From the, what is it, the Footlights? The Footlights. Now, the Footlights, you know, this is sort of like important for, yeah, but he went on to study clowning with a master. I forget the guy's name. Right.

But I think it was a sort of deciding factor in his comedic career was that he was turned down from Footlights. Was Footlights a historical club that had been there forever? 1883. And what was the idea of it? I was just a review society, a comedy society, and it had its own club room. So it was a little stage at one end and a bar at the other end, which opened at 1030 at night.

And you could stay as late as you wanted. So that was our social life. They did lunches. So from about my... Free drinks? No. No, you got paid. But drink.

Yeah, yeah, sure. I mean, the pub's closed at 10. Right. When we opened at 10.15, it was really good. So you just went on. But it was very social, and then I got to watch all these people like John Cleese and Bill Hardy and Tim McTierney,

they're all performing and doing stuff. Yeah. And that's the only way you can learn comedy. Yeah. And what were, so what was the thing that he wrote that you performed? Like, how did you get in? Do you have to audition? What is the process?

Yes. You have to write a piece and audition, which I did. And I got in with Jonathan Lynn, who's a film director, Johnny Lynn. He did Nuns on the Run and he did Vinny, My Cousin Vinny. Oh, yeah, that's a big movie. Yeah. And what did you write? Do you remember?

I wrote a sketch, but the one I did with John was actually based on what's called BBC BC. Yeah. And it was a BBC newsreader. Yeah. Good even, here is the news. Yeah. Yeah. And it was like, and I did the weather forecast.

Right. There have been, over the last few days, it's been a bit rough. There's been plague of frogs, lizards, locusts. Of the apocalyptic weather forecast. Yeah. And now moving in from the northeast, frogs. Yeah. Right, right.

Yeah. And after that, death of all the firstborn. Yeah. Sorry about that, Egypt. You went biblical. It was a biblical news. Yeah, yeah. It was BBC, BC.

So that got you in. That got me to know a learner. McLeese came across to me and was introduced, and he asked me to join the Footlights, and I never heard of it. So he said, no, just come and audition. So we did, and we got in. Because I watched some old Peter Cook stuff in Dudley Moore. And it just seemed like the way he approached characters was something like the way you guys did. Were you guys contemporariesaries or was he older?

Peter had gone down about four years, but his voice was everywhere. Everybody talked like this because he's E.L. Wistie. I'd like to be a miner, but I don't have the Latin. I did the mining exam. They said, what is your name? And I got 50% on that. There was this weird kind of tradition. It's because I watched some of the goon

show, and there was just really some relentless satirizing between classes. The Irish took a big hit on some of the goon show stuff. Well, they come out of the army. Those goon show people came out

of the army. Peter Sellers and people came out of the army. Yeah. Peter Sellers and Howard Seacombe, all that lot. And then after them came Peter Cook and Dudley Moore and they would be on the fringe. And they were the first satirists. Yeah. And they mocked the prime minister and the army and the queen. Was that happening when you were in college? Just before I got there, 1962, I saw that show and it changed my life. Oh, really?

Yes. I laughed so hard. I couldn't believe you were allowed to laugh at these things. Right. Because you weren't allowed to laugh at these things openly in school. Right. Or even say it, especially in a government-run school. Not in front of the grown-ups.

Authority. Yeah. You said everything. So the mid-'60s was a time where like a lot of that stuff broke open right it was a time of satire in england 63 64 there was a show called that was the week that was on television right which was david frost and so that brought down a government it actually changed the conservative government the power the power of satire on television and what what else was going on like because i've talked to uh yeah talked to musicians, and it seemed like that in London at that time in the 60s, there was just so much going on with theater, with music.

Everything was changing very quickly. It was a renaissance, and it was because there was nothing there. There's bomb sites. There aren't another generation of people who are on television. There wasn't any television. There aren't another people who are comedians they were in the army yeah so we were we came onto an open playing field and created art the young people the young people all of the misfits were sent off to art college yeah and they all became rock and roll right the

who uh the beatles the stones, all were in art colleges. And they came out of art colleges. And they were some bad boys. And so they started early. But we were the same generation. And our lot went into, you know, eventually television and radio. That's wild. And it's sort of interesting that all those guys, like when you talk about, and this is me talking about music, When you talk about, and this is just me talking about music, when you bring up Sonny Terry and Brian McGee, which is a fairly esoteric reference, that those records came through in Britain.

There must have been some premium put on, like, where'd you get that record? It must have been sort of difficult to get those records. Well, I think that was folky. That was the folk world. It was kind of a bit hip for a little while. It was folk. People wore. But even the blues records. I understand. The thrill of getting those.

Because all those bands, The Who and The Stones and The Beatles, not to the same degree, were guys that were influenced by American blues, turned it inside out, and then resold it to America. It was kind of genius. I think the answer to that question is they came in on the banana boats into Liverpool. And they came from the West Indies, and they came from America. Liverpool's a port, like Hamburg's a port. So the records did.

So the records came with sailors. We brought them in, and they liked it, liked the music, and the music spread that way. Yeah, it kind of blows me away what was going on there. And theater was like crazy then too, right? Theater was angry young men. They were protesting. It changes over from

being rather polite theatre of Noel Coward. Yeah. And that goes and becomes very dated suddenly and there's a play called Look Back in Anger by John Osborne. Right. That's it. Which changes everything. Right. And so they become, they were known as the angry young men. And that's, and that happened simultaneously to the rock and roll into you. That's at the same time just as we're teenagers and early 20s yes so like now you have this like this this open it's like the wild west you know for for comedy like you know that the the floodgates have been open and there's nobody stopping you getting in yeah you're in fact we need courage to come into television yeah frost gave us all jobs yeah yeah writers and how did you meet uh jones and palin if they were at uh at oxford

because we i was part of the edinburgh festival okay the cambridge footlights and they were part of the oxford review so we went to check them out so when you get to edinburgh which is still a festival it's the same festival every year the one that's still going on except it's huge now i know everybody looks for comedians but beyond the fringe yeah refers to the festival fringe that's where they came out of. And so we're only a few years later. There's a tradition for Oxford and Cambridge to send reviews there. We were part of that.

And that's where you met them. That's where I went to see them and where I saw Palin first performing and Jonesy first performing. And you go and say hello. You're the same age. You're doing the same things. So funny. They were so funny. Palin was very funny. He was hilarious. I mean, I saw him performing're the same age. You're doing the same things. So funny. They were so funny. Peyton was very funny.

He was hilarious. I mean, I saw him performing for the first time. Yeah. I never forget the sketch. Yeah. He is really funny. Yeah. What was the nature of the sketch?

Well, he came on stage, and he was playing an old performer, and he said, you know, hello, every people. I'd like a very nice to be here. And he looked down, and there's this big present beside him, oh what's this and he looks down and it says oh to Mikey from the audience with love

oh every people, oh my gosh I'm so touched, I thought I was too old and out of touch and nobody cared about me anymore I was, well I don't know what to do. I can only sing my biggest hit, When Love Breaks Your Heart, in a million tiny pieces. When love, and the box blew up.

It was such a great joke. And he played it so well. It was just the emotion of it all, you know. So, did you start writing together shortly after that? They're at Oxford, and then we finish behind where it came. So we finish our courses, and then we find ourselves all writing for the Frost Report, which is a BBC hit show. You just all got hired.

So we're all hired. Yeah, we're writing. He's writing with Terry. I was writing a bit, I think, with Graham. It's so funny. In my memory, I don't know. Like, I didn't know him, Frost, as a comedian. Well, he's not very funny.

He wasn't very good. But he was a good host. And he was very good at knowing who was funny. Right. So he would bring people in. Like, he gave us all jobs. I'm 23. I'm writing on this big hit show on the bbc and

then like so that the because like i think one of the things that you know python outside of uh just comedically was uh was revolutionary was because of the the structure of lack of structure the movement you know from sketch to sketch piece to piece it was uh It obviously wasn't random, but it didn't abide by any sort of set structure. You just kind of flowed lyrically almost. We got rid of punchlines. Yeah. But don't forget, we'd written for all these other shows. Which other ones?

We were professional writers. The two Ron Ears, Tommy Cooper, everybody had written for various other big English comedians. Did you write a children's show for a while? And then we were on a TV show called Do Not Adjust Your Set. Who was, all of you? I was asked to do it, and I asked for Mike and Terry to be with me. Yeah.

And then Terry Gilliam eventually came and joined us. And that's where you met Terry Gilliam? Yes, he just came in. On the kids' show. On the kids' show, and Mike and Terry hated him. And I said, no, no, he's got something. He's American. He's American? Yeah. What the hell do we need this American for? Yeah. And I said, no, no, he's got something. He's American. He's American.

Yeah. What the hell do we need this American for? Yeah. And I said, well, he can draw. He's funny. He's very weird. He's cute. So I persuaded him.

To bring in Terry. And then, yeah, absolutely. And so I think that seems to make good sense to me that you all sort of started to explore possibilities on a children's show. It was nice we had a children's show because we decided we wouldn't talk down to children we just do what we found funny but we couldn't use blue right which is also a very good discipline yeah it's so easy to just be rude yeah uh for a shock so you had to be you had to sweeten it it wasn't ever sweet it's kind of in your face it's still a bit sort of odd yeah we won lots

of awards. It was very popular. And then it was on at 525. And so a lot of people would come home from work early to watch it. Grownups. Grownups. Yeah. Including John and Graham, who were writing movies for Peter Sellers at the time.

They would stop and watch our show. What movies did they write for Peter? Magic Christian? Yes. The Terry Southern bit. John's in that. And so is Graham, I think, in a scene. They were rewriting Terry Southern things and

maybe some other things for Frost. There was a Peter Cook one, The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmel. They might have been involved in that. There were serious script writers. But they locked into the children's show because they're like... They watched the children's show because they're like something. They watched the children's show because John said it was the funniest thing on television. So they wanted to just laugh.

What were you doing that was different than what might have been thought of as a children's show? I think it was just more in-your-face kind of Python thing. It was kind of silly. It was very silly. Yeah. And then we had this group called the Bonzo Dog Doodah Band who were on every week. It was an art school, really weird silly. Yeah. And then we had this group called the Bonzo Dog Doodah Band, who were on every week. It was an art school, really weird group. Yeah.

And I think the whole thing was very sort of, it was kind of funny. It was only about 25 minutes. And the kids loved it. The kids loved it. And then the adults loved it too, which is, and we won awards and. That's an amazing feat. Well, culturally, that seems to be the drive of the movie industry now. It's like if you can get kids and grown-ups to enjoy the thing, then it's good.

Like Adventure Time is an anime. A lot of the animated stuff is like that now. Right. Have you ever had people who watched it as a kid who went on to creative professions come up to you and say, like, that changed my entire view of things? People remember that show of a certain age. Yeah. But then there's Python and then there's, I mean, you know, it depends what age you come in. Yeah.

You know, what you tune into. Peter Cook and Dudley Moore had their own series called Not Only But Also. Yeah. And that was really funny. Yeah. The BBC wiped it. Why? To save tape.

Oh, really? Yeah. It's like two-inch Ampex. They wiped it why save tape. Oh really? Yeah, so like two-inch Ampex They wiped it. Yeah, so only the bits that remain on film because they shot some film bits like the leaping nuns of Norwich Yeah, which is Peter on a trampoline Yeah, the leaping nuns of Norwich very very funny He was hilarious. I knew him. I loved him. He's a door It was he was he was unique because

he was the only one who did improv nobody else the improv wasn't existing in our day it was all scripted but peter could improvise an entire cabaret oh really yeah absolutely and he was unique in that way he was very unique in that way and everybody did his voices and he he went on television and yeah he was groundbreaking and he was groundbreaking. And did you eventually have a relationship with him? Yeah, yeah. We got to be great friends. We were on a film, Yellowbeard, where we had a lot of fun. We went up the Nile together

with John Cleese and Stephen Fry. We had this great trip up the Nile. You went up the Nile? Yeah. Just as a vacation? An adventure? John, to celebrate his 100th wedding with his wife, who he now doesn't refer to, took about 40 friends

up the Nile for three weeks. On a boat. It's an amazing time. So it's like, you know, you've got Peter Cook every night to make you laugh. You've got William Goldman was on there, you know. Stephen Fry would sit on the deck every day and read this children's book called Bunter on the Nile

at tea time. I mean, it was just great. That's amazing. That was amazing. Plus, Egypt is the most fantastic place. Have you ever been? No. Oh my God. It's like if you go down into those tombs, they've only just been revealed, so it's like fresh paint on the walls. Because

they finished and they killed them, but they sealed it. So So it is an extraordinary, it's like alien world. I can't, yeah, and that was what year was that? And then, boo, 90,

possibly three. Oh, wow. And anyway, 92, perhaps. I can't imagine what it's like. I guess you can just go see it. But I think there's certain parts are dangerous still, but I think it's just the most wonderful trip I ever took.

And how far did you go? Where did it start? We went all the way up from the, what do you call the, Cairo. Yeah. And then we got on the boat there, and we went all the way up to the first cataract, where there's a dam. Yeah. And so then we got on a bus and that's two hours further up. You go to Abu Simbel, which is a lake that flooded. They flooded it.

But they raised this temple up 300 feet. Yeah. So it's still, the sun still hits on the longest day and hits the pharaoh through that cave. Oh, wow. And it's, yeah, no, it is an extraordinary place to visit. What do you make of it, like, mystically? Well, it's 5,000 years ago. It's crazy, right?

It's a very long time ago, and they're building these pyramids. Yeah. And... Are you a superstitious, mystical person in any way? Do you think that they're... Not so much. Yeah. No, but I think it's very interesting.

This is our early cultures, you know, and what they're doing. And they're doing hieroglyphic writing. We only really recently discovered how to read what they were writing. And hieroglyphics are back with emojis. You know, it's funny. It's full circle. I noticed that too. We're going backwards.

Yeah. You're going to be completely primitive but completely equipped with technology. Yeah, that's what's happening. There's a thing on the web. You can actually translate your email into Egyptian. And I did it. I sent it to people. It's good, isn't it?

Yeah. And they're probably like, do I have these on my phone? How come I don't know what it's saying? Dear Pharaoh. Yeah. So how did the Python deal happen? saying. Dear Pharaoh. Yeah. So how did the Python deal happen? The Python deal

happened because John and Graham were watching our show and John had been offered a show for the BBC, a late night show on a Sunday night where there wasn't a show. Yeah. And I don't think he wanted to do it with Graham alone and he didn't want to be a star himself. So he wanted Michael Palin. think he wanted to do it with Graham alone, and he didn't want to be a star himself

So he wanted Michael Palin so he stopped to Michael and Michael we've been offered another show and and so we all met together So it's like a strange mix of the 1948 show meets do not adjust your set yeah, and so we said oh well We'll just do this show until our studios ready to do the other show We're gonna do which is nine o'clock on ITV for three quarters of an hour. Yeah. So we never got to that. Right. So it's like they didn't say and we went to the BBC and they said what do you want to do? We said I don't know.

So you're going to have music? Maybe. Yeah you're going to have film. Oh film's a good idea. We'll have film. Yeah. And they said oh just go away and make 13. Yeah. That's what they said. And'll have film. And they said, oh, just go away and make 13. That's what they said. And they didn't care. They didn't watch us. How much of their culture, because you watch a lot

of Python and it's sort of timeless, but there was a lot going on that was pretty radical. I mean, was it happening around you or were you guys so insulated? Well, I mean, I'd been in London, I think, since 65. So I'd been living there, you know. And then with 66 and then the Beatles

and then there was the Summer of Love. Did you go see the Beatles? I never saw the Beatles. When I was working for Frost, George came on and was doing TM, Transcendental Meditation stuff. Oh, so at that point. Is that where you met him? No, I didn't meet him until about after the Beatles. I met him in 75

here in Hollywood. Uh-huh. The screening of Holy Grail at the old Directors Guild. But, you know, we weren't really part of rock and roll. I mean, we sort of. But the culture was very permissive creatively, right? I mean. For us in television, it was totally. Right. We got to make.

There was no time slot. There was nothing on television at 1030. So that's for the start. Second is, it's on late at night, nobody's watching, and we were in color by three months. Otherwise it would look really dated. And then more importantly, nobody told us what to do, and we didn't know what to do, so we just did it anyway. Yeah. And you just figured out, how did this structure unfold how

did you decide we had lots of conversations we couldn't agree on anything so we just started to write it and then we were just starting to put things on a board you say well we're doing 13 shows well that's a bit like that one so let's move it over here or put things together um you know we i think the fortuitous thing is we got giam. Yeah. And Gilliam does all these links. Yeah, the weird animated links. And it looks like that weird, very peculiar, interesting art style. It frames it all. It makes it look like it has some shape.

Right. And I think that's the very fortuitous thing. And then he would just like, I think the thing that I always remember is that, you know, in between sketches, he would just cut to just beats of like maybe, I like to bang bricks together, you know, like just these moments. Right. That would just kind of recur for no reason. Because in my mind, in American comedy, there was no real tradition of absurdism that is as defined as some of the stuff you did. And I think that that seems to come from England.

Yes, there was absurd theater. There's the Albert, the Mayles brothers. There was an absurd tradition and a nonsense tradition from Lear, Edward Lear, you know, going on. Yeah. But ours was, I think, because we could. We were fucking about. You know, it's like. It wasn't intellectual.

It was just. Well, it's like... It wasn't intellectual. It was just with the way you... Well, it was sort of... I mean, we don't want to be mistaken for a show that says enough something completely different and then play a music song. Right.

So we adapted their very slogan and turned it against them. Right. So I think we like to play with our audience. Yeah. Yeah. And say, well, this will really...

This will screw them up. Yeah. It's like the three-sided record. Don't tell them. Just let them play it. Here, you'll love this side. What the hell? People are seriously disturbed by that.

They still haven't recovered from the shock of not finding the record side. It's so weird, the sort of things that, as I think about it now, when I was watching it when I was 13 or whatever, the stuff that sticks in your mind, you know, the Sam Peckinpah Film Festival. That was insane. As a kid, you know, with no fingers and the bleeds. Right. It's Sam Peckinpah's Salad Days. Yeah.

And there was this innocuous Julian Slade musical called Salad Days. Yeah, right. Anyone for tennis. Yeah, right. And it's all very Johnny. All very 20s. Yeah. And then Sam Beckenbauer films it.

Yeah. The tennis racket's thrown, it cuts somebody's head off, and there's blood everywhere, you know. I think we were, I think we just pushed each other. You know, if you're in a gang. Yeah. And nobody else is in charge. You go, and you don in a gang and nobody else is in charge, you go, and you don't want to do anything that's been done.

That's the other thing. So you are advancing it a little bit because, oh, no, that's a bit obvious. That's a bit too Ronnie's. We'll sell it to them if the sketch is a bit obvious. But I think, you know, just putting in things like Gilliam stands there with a ferret through his head as a Viking says, however. And then you move on. You go, what is that?

And you don't need to answer that question. No. Right. But it thrills people at home because they're not seeing people do that. Well, I think that was like if anything speaks to the time and the freedom you had, the idea of not doing anything that's happened before, creatively, is profound. Like, you know, like you guys were able to do it. I think we had the opportunity and we did use it. Was it always a fight?

I mean, no. I mean, it's a fight because you want your material on. Right. And we would argue about whether the chair should be a comfy chair or a straight-back chair or a hard back chair very seriously. Yeah. But it's because you care about your picture of what may be funny. So we did, you know, we argued entirely all the time about whether material is good enough, where it should stop here.

And I think that's healthy. Sure, of course. That's like a great criticism. Yeah. You get great criticism. People are saying, you know, I thought for the first place that was really funny. Yeah. But it stopped being funny.

So let's us, you know, we'd move them around or we'd just, you know, together we'd all barnstorm the thought. So it was like by aggressive committee. Yeah. I mean, it wasn't, there were no emotions involved. No, right. It was like people were very serious. The British were better at that.

They were better at no emotions. They've gone all touchy-feely now. I blame Diana. You know, once they started caring about some upper-class git running into a war with an Arab in Paris. You know, it's all over for the British. They're just the same as everybody else. Bring out your hankies, you know.

That was the end of it. That was, for me, the end of it, but I was here. Yeah, you'd gotten out. Yes, I've learned. You saw it coming down. I thought you were tougher world of America. Well, there's no sympathy for people just because they're sick or poor on any level. On any level at all.

So there was no emotions involved, but there was competition and just sort of you were constantly hard on yourselves to do the best product, basically. I believe so. And that's why John left after the third series, because he thought we were beginning to repeat ourselves. And he'd had enough. And he was quite right.

And off he went, and he rent defaulted towers. Yeah. And we did a mini series, half a series. And then I left because I said it's not it's not the same without john there was there's no the tensions so you were good were you upset when john left was the rest of the crew like why would you do this we got a good thing going i think we were disappointed in various levels graham was absolutely desperate because he needed the money so we did do a second little mini series it's not's got some funny bits in. And then we said, stop that.

And then what was good was that John was happy to work with us on movies. Right. So then we wrote The Holy Grail. Did you all write it? Yeah. Yeah. And that was sort of, that must have been a challenge to, you know, you had a story and you had to follow it. We didn't have a story.

You didn't. When you look at the first drafts of the Holy Grail, it's set in Harrods. People in the ant department and toupee department. So it's all over the place. And then when we came back, we said, no, no, no, stop all that. It's got to be the story of King Arthur.

It's got to be medieval. He's got to be looking for the grail. So that gave us some kind of shape. But again, we still had various disparate things happening. I had to put it into shape when I did Spamalot. I finally made some sense out of it and put a shape on because it's clearly the seven samurai.

You get the guys together, you round them up, then you go on the quest. But the movie was in any bloody shape. We moved it around a lot. But Graham was consistent. He moved him through. Graham was consistent. We understand quest through. Graham was consistent, and you know, we understand Quest. That'll do, it's the plot.

And Graham, also, it's interesting how aware you all were of the characters, even if they were only for a minute or two, who would play them. It seems like there was, how did that sort of happen? Did you guys cast each other, or was it I made this, and I'm doing this?

We always wrote first. Yeah. Finish the writing. Finish the editing. So nobody could hang on to bits they loved because they were going to be in it. Yeah. So then we would cast. Yeah.

And usually it's pretty obvious. You know, Cleese played the hard, arrogant, nasty people. Yeah. You know. Yeah. Terry Jones played the frumpy little women. Yeah. Graham played, you know,

some slightly bewildered people, you know, like Brian and King Arthur. Right. And the rest of it would say Eric or Mike. Yeah. That's how we'd say. So we played those little, you know, middle-class working-class people we enjoyed playing.

Yeah, the doofuses, the enlightened doofuses. Eric or Mike. What was Mike's bit in the grill where they're just playing in the dirt? Yeah, he's in the mud. You could have called me, I didn't know. The king comes along. Oh, king, eh? Very nice.

And who voted for you then? You don't vote for kings. Oh, how charming. How did he become king? Well, the lady of the lake threw, oh, nice. Moistened, bintzing ponds, throwing swords. It's no basis for a system of government. Well, the lady of the lake threw, oh, nice, moistened bintzing ponds, throwing swords. It's no system for, basis for system of government. Right, right.

The enlightened guy. It's just terrific. It's just wonderful stuff. It's really abuse. Oh, did you have fun doing those things? Writing very much so, I think. I think the actual filming was always miserable because we were up in Scotland and it was wet and damp and we didn't have enough money.

But it was funny. And then you guys did, was the Rutles after the grill? It was, right? After Python split up, I had my own TV series called Rutland Weekend Television. Yeah. And I did it with Neil Innes and Neil would do a song or two a week. Yeah. And he would send me the tapes and he sent me one and it was so beatly.

Yeah. And I suddenly had this thought of the Rutles. Yeah. And he would send me the tapes and he sent me one and it was so beatly. Yeah. And I suddenly had this thought of the Rutles. Yeah. And I had this idea of the guy talking to camera and the camera moving away and him starting to run after it. And I thought, that's funny. And so we showed that on Saturday Night Live. And we had letters to the Rutles.

Yeah. And Lorne said, what are you doing? I said, I think I'm doing a documentary on these guys. He said, we'll do it for NBC. Oh, and that's right. I saw that. We're in it for the, we're only, what was the title of the documentary? All You Need Is Cash. All You Need Is Cash.

And I did a sequel called Can't Buy Me Lunch. Yeah. Where I went around people like Tom Hanks and Gary Shandling. Yeah. And they talked about the influence of the Rutles on their lives. Yeah. And Tom Hanks cried. Oh, that's great.

Just brilliant. I mean, I would go around in my Mac as the interview and interview them yeah and there was some brilliant stuff on that how when you were like when did you start to feel you know along these lines because yeah I think out of all the the crew you know America and you as a comedic personality seem to embrace each other. And the American comedic community, you seem to be the most active in being the guy from Python who's hanging out with Shanley, hanging out with these people. When did that start to happen? It must have been sort of an overwhelming amount of respect that came your way. And it must have been surprising initially it was very surprising it happened in 74 when we first came and opened the holy grail and we were trapped in the theater by 2 000 people yeah coming with trying to get that

coconut signed yeah and then we met belushi and people acroyd said what is 76 75 76 and then i think i first did 76 i I first did SNL. I hosted it. Like second season? Second season, second show. Oh, wow. And, you know, I love comedy people. Sure, yeah.

So it was fascinating to be in their world. Yeah. I think I hosted it four times in the 70s. And what was the, did it seem, the writing process there compared to Python? The drugging, the drug problem. Yeah. They would work on a Tuesday night and they'd smoke enormous amounts of marijuana in their offices. The idea that you'd have a joint at the BBC is unheard of.

But they had all these offices barricaded off and they'd write all night. Yeah. And it was completely different than they'd never, because ours is a writer's commune. Yeah, the writers were in charge So I just did everything but there's is much more of a a performer show right and they would build the sets just on a pitch And they would never have time to rewrite and you never time to rehearse or learn it you just read it off cards Yeah, we would rehearse for five days, our Python shows. So we were word perfect. And you were also shooting on film, weren't you, a lot of the times?

We would go and shoot for all of the series on film. There were inserts throughout. So we had to write the whole lot first. Yeah, you can't just kind of do that the day after. Carefully planned. Very carefully planned. Whereas, you know, Sandy Night was live. It was this live vibe

in New York and, you know, quite different. And who did you sort of gravitate towards? Who did you hang out with? Well, I love Gilda. And I liked Aykroyd very much. He was the only one I thought could actually have been in Python because he was a good writer and a great performer. And he was very like what we

did, which is writing and performing. Yeah. And then, you know, Bill Murray came in. That's so funny. I hung with Chevy, who was hurt because he'd been Gerald Ford and was in bed. Oh, really? Yeah, I mean, you know, New York is great. I mean, it was just wonderful to, I mean, I've been through London for 10 years,

and now New York was a nice place to go to. But I must, I have to assume that they were like, just like when you got here, when Python got here, they were like, it was a completely new thing and completely different than anything that was happening in America. And it just sort of like, this is... They were kind of fans when we first went along to the show. They were kind of like gobsmacked.

Because it had just come on PBS as well as the movie opened. So it was a perfect storm in New York. Oh, it's great. Yeah. And where did you meet Robin Williams? I met Robin Williams in England in London in a nightclub. It's called a comic strip. It was at the top of a strip club in 1980,

and he'd been filming Popeye in Malta. And somebody said, you've got to see this. You've got to see this guy. Oh, so you went to see him. You got to meet him. You went to see him perform first. I went to see him perform, and he just killed. And then we met,'ve got to see this. You've got to see this guy. Oh, so you went to see him. You got to meet him. You went to see him perform first. I went to see him perform, and he just killed. And then we met, and then we went out to dinner.

And, you know, it was like forever. And then he moved in. Yeah, no, no. I mean, I loved him. I mean, you just, you can't believe anybody could be that quick. Yeah, it was a real loss, you know. But I guess, what do you know? I don't want to bring the whole interview down, but I miss him.

Well, he had a brain disease. Yeah, I know, yeah. It was Lewy-Boddy's disease. It was terrible. I wondered, because I used the whole interview down, but I miss him. Well, he had a brain disease. Yeah, I know. It was Lewy Boddy's disease. It's terrible. I wondered, because the first one I knew him, I'd just follow him around all the nightclubs. Yeah. He and me would go out. Yeah.

And he'd have enormous amounts of cocaine and go on the road, keep going on until about four in the morning. Yeah. When finally he would seize up and no longer be funny. Yeah. Because of the dreaded white powder. Yeah, yeah. I'm like, I'm going to go to bed now.

But I wondered if eventually because i'm comedy hostage observing people have these brain problems whether that in fact helped it or caused it or you know yes yeah i think we will find out that it's not very good for you i think that's true i think that's what the i mean i tend to think that with uh ms as well there are these neurological problems that come from uh i'm sure it's not good. No matter what, even if it's just cocaine, what else is chopped into it?

You know what I mean? It's not... It's going straight into your brain. It's not like it's FDA approved. Not yet. I mean, this is California. You never know, you know. You were never a drug guy.

Oh, yeah. Are you kidding? I'm English. I'll take anything that's going. You know what I mean? But I couldn't afford what he could afford. Right. So after Gilliam went on to do the amazing movies, you did a lot of those movies with him.

You acted in a couple, right? One. One. Just one. Once enough. Munchausen. Munchausen. I don't know how he put that shit together.

Oh, why? Yeah. It was. 1,000. 1,000. I don't know how he put that shit together. Oh, why? Yeah. It was six months of hell. I said I'd rather go back to boarding school than be back on that movie. Complete chaos. But he is wonderful. I love him. But he only is happy when there's chaos.

Oh, he's one of those guys. Oh, totally. It's like the president. He's an animator. Yeah. Do you trust Walt Disney? Right. No.

They're moving bits and pieces around in their big pictures. And they have complete control of it. So if you're an actor on a show, you're just a bit in the scene. Right. Right. Oh, right. So it doesn't matter if you're dangling from something. What do you mean you fell off?

Don't fall off. I haven't got the shot yet. But where did you find the time? I mean, this is what, your third book you wrote? But this one's a memoir. But you've written several books. Yeah, this is, I wrote a chore diary called The Greedy Bastard Diary in about 2003 because I was on the road. But this is my autobiography because I'm getting to that age where you go, well, you better get it down now or you won't remember anything.

And that's an issue. You don't seem to be having any of those issues well but jones is gone yeah mentally yeah you can't speak and that's really sad and so you know so i just anyway it's the 50th anniversary next year of python yeah so i thought they're gonna ask us questions i better get my thoughts down so yeah and i thought this is a good time to reflect yeah on the eve of that. And so I went off to France and I wrote and wrote

and I would just, it's very good. I mean, I'm 75. It's a very good stage to look back at your life and think, what the fuck happened? Look at this.

Yeah. How weird is that? And I was saying to my wife today, the first 25 years were preparing and then we did Python when I was 26 and for 25 years we did all of that yeah

25 the last 25 years i came to america i've been in america yeah it's like a three different portions of your life are quite different it's yeah in that that the 25 in america you sort of adjusted to you know figuring out how to you know maintain your stature as as a humorous and also function in show business very successfully yeah i mean it was kind of strange to be an immigrant at 50 you know i mean what am i gonna do but it was better than staying in england where they want to pigeonhole you right and then i you know finally we got to make spam a lot which is really yeah i had to like before we go on to that uh in writing because because I've written a bit myself, did you find yourself in the process of writing, discovering memories and being moved by it?

Writing the book. Yeah. Yes. It's kind of crazy, right? I didn't go to a publisher. I thought, I'm going to write the book for me. I want to know what I think and what I feel or what my life feels like to me and then I'll sell it afterwards yeah if they want it but I I don't want to find I'm owe a book to somebody or have an editor on

you and you know that before I knew what I wanted yeah and what were some of the things like in terms of looking back at your whole life both for you know in darkness and light and whatever in history you know what were some of the things where you were like, oh my God, I really hadn't seen it that way. I think what it became for me, I had to try and discover the subject of the book. And what it became for me, the subject of the book was that generation, how odd that generation was coming out of war. I say always, when I was born, Hitler was trying to kill me. Yeah. And now my name's on Mars. Yeah. Because it's on Curiosity, the rover. Yeah. And that's kind of, whoa, excuse me?

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's extraordinary because, you know, that arc is an amazing time. Yeah. And during which time our science has exploded, our knowledge of science, of the universe, and what we've been able to do. People are into the moon.

You know, I i mean it is an extraordinary time it's one of the benefits of peace yeah right and now it isn't sort of interesting that with all those of dances and with that sort of hindsight you know from a real world war that you know we are now entering you know these cultural uh tribalism again and all this insanity that the human animal uh you know is is so significantly flawed that progress is uh is not uh you know what everybody sees as a positive thing yeah i think it's it's sad people don't know what war is you see i say i joke about the younger generation they think a disaster is when they lose the internet connection it's not people

trying to bomb you yeah but war is the really serious thing, and it goes on a lot on the planet. Always. And, you know, now we're getting people who divide us because for their own power. And that's awful. But isn't it surprising, like, because, I mean, even, like,

you don't talk about class much in America, but I guess, you know, when I really think about, you know, history, I mean, it's not surprising how stupid and easily led people are. Well, except they're fighting back. You see, television is very powerful and people can talk and the Internet is very powerful and they can fight back. I mean, who knew that it would be possible to subvert America by these idiotic bloody Russian KGB? Who knew they were? they're not that smart.

And also they don't even have democracy. So it serves them kind of right. But, and they will lose because it's better off to be here than there. Yeah, no matter what. Yeah, so go fuck yourselves. For the time being. And do you think like,

did you also think about how like, you know, the media landscape was much more intimate and smaller, you know, back when you were coming up that, you know, you could get all eyes upon you in a way over time. And now it's so fragmented that I wonder, it's hard to know how anybody becomes successful. It's usually not because of their creativity necessarily. Yeah, I mean, there's many more famous people. And the trouble is that America's gone from the pursuit of happiness to the pursuit of fame and money. And they're not the same things at all.

That's true. And you seem to be pretty happy. Me? Yeah. Yeah, I'm very happy. Yeah. But I came and pursued happiness in America. Yeah.

And I found it. I caught it. Is it a choice, though, or do you battle anything? Are there days where you're like, ugh? Oh, yeah. I mean, you know. But it is. I mean, always look on the bright side.

It's not a bad motto. No. But I came here. I settled down here. I lived here. I put a child through school. I had a normal life. How old's your kid?

She's now 28. But she went to college. And I loved all that. I loved taking a kid to school. Your wife's American? My wife's from Chicago. She's American. Spend time in Chicago?

Yeah. It's great, right? It's a wonderful town. It's a great town. We opened Spamalot there. Oh, you did? Yeah. I picked it.

They wanted to open in Boston. I said, no bloody way. Chicago, the only place. Because they don't give a thing about New York. You can say that. They don't care. Yeah. But in Boston, they have a slight chip on their shoulder about New York.

And they're always looking over their shoulder. Yeah. But Chicago, no. This is the people who don't wear shirts in the winter. Oh, yeah. And they all smoke still. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's like the French.

Nobody told the French. And also, they have a pretty decent theater world in Chicago. Totally. Yeah. A very good theater world. And they're just very funny people. Did you assume that, you know, what was the impetus, like, when you said, I'm going to make Spamalot? You know, what was, where did the idea come from?

Well, we'd been looking. John Dupre and I had written a musical about cricket, which we'd done on radio for, and we were looking for a theme and a subject, and we were here, and I suddenly thought, well, actually, The Grail is a pretty amazing subject because it's a comic musical. It's a bit like The Ring of the New Balance.

It's the Arthurian legend. You can take the large and then mock it as the small. Right. And also, because we had no horses, you can actually do it on stage. And because it's sketchy, it keeps stopping and feels like it should be a song. Yeah. I mean, I'm not dead yet. It's always been a song

surely you just never got to write it till the musical yeah right yeah and in and in terms of writing songs like when he's at the beginning of the book you talk about always look on the bright side of life and i had no idea that it had been recorded by so many different artists and that you know it is sort of in the rotation of uh of songs songs that people do at weddings and do at funerals. Funerals, more largely, yes. And that's true. Number one at funerals. It's a true fact.

It's the number one song at funerals in the UK, which is kind of cute. I like that. Don't you? Yeah, it's amazing. Yeah. They don't pay. No, I know. It's sort of like happy birthday.

How are you going to monitor it? Oh, they pay happy birthday. No, I don't think so anymore. I think it got released into public domain recently. They're not charging parties. There's no one making rounds. It was seriously considered as the alternative national anthem in England. And so they sing it whenever they're losing, which is always great.

And, in fact, when the English were playing the Germans at soccer, football, And the Germans were losing in Berlin. Yeah. Whole of the German stadium saying, always look on the bright side of life in English. Oh, that's amazing. Isn't that great? Yeah. I love that. People say, Germans have no sense of humor.

Rubbish. Bullshit. Listen, the English wouldn't have done that. Yeah, exactly. You had a pretty long relationship with George Harrison. Yeah. Now, the Beatles thing is sort of uh you know what what was your experience like knowing a beetle yeah because like i when i interviewed paul

there was i had very weird mixed feelings because there's nothing quite like the the beatles there's like you know i tend to i said to him i think we know we know beatles songs prenatally for some reason that there's a there's a groove in brains that's just waiting for them to be put in. And they were our generation, so we knew which album came next. And when it came, we'd run down and get the next Beatles album. And that changed the culture completely. Before then, people wouldn't have bought albums of rock and roll. So they were an extraordinary group, really creative.

Were you friends with all of them? I know Ringo a little now. I see him quite a bit. I never met John. I've seen Paul a lot more recently, and he's awfully nice. He's really sweet. I mean, at memorials and things, he'd say, come on, you need a hug. He's so wonderfully down-to-earth and such a genius songwriter.

He's funny, too. He's very funny. Well, that was the secrets of the Beatles. They were funny. When they came to America, everybody knew Ringo's name because he was funny. He had a funny nose, funny haircut, and he was funny. And that's what made the Beatles, I think, when they first hit America, all those press conferences. Sure, sure.

He's funny. It's not that they sing a lot. They, sure. It's funny. Yeah, yeah. It's not like they were singing a lot. They were hilarious. And very identifiable personalities very quickly. And they knew how to be themselves, you know,

as opposed to be cryptic and weird and, you know, fucked up. They would be on the road since they were 14. It's crazy. Yeah.

So they'd done it and then, you know, it got very heavy for them and the split ups and you know so i i was it was interesting for me because i sort of studied it yeah you know to write the ruttles i had to learn everything about them and write them yeah yeah i even played paul yeah and that was quite interesting because his linda was very pro that she loved it oh she, she did? She got a kick out of it? Paul was a little bit less, you know, keen on being. Right, right.

But he's now nice about it. Yeah. And George seemed to be a very spiritual guy all the way till, you know, the end, huh? Well, no, George was always those two, both very naughty, the naughtiest boy in the room and the most spiritual boy in the room, too. He was both. Yeah. But he encouraged the Rutles.

I mean, he was behind it. He showed me all sorts of footage. Oh, he did? Oh, yeah. He showed me a film called The Long and Winding Road, which they could never agree to release because they couldn't agree which bits to cut. They hated, some of them all hated at some bit or another, especially the end. Yeah.

Let it be tapes. So it was really about the so it never coming apart of the band yeah it was but it never got released so i my film was a sort of parody of a film that never got released and then they used all that material eventually when they did the 10 part anthology at the end of the 90s yeah and with your group with your band uh you guys toured you know a few years ago um and uh was that do you how are you still in touch with mike yeah and you're still and john and you are okay yeah we went on the roads for three three tours john and i like two years ago yeah wonderful time um yeah i mean

we didn't tour we came we did a final farewell show at the O2 in London in 2014. Yeah. And it was just in time because Jonesy was just losing his memory. And it was a final performance. We did 10 shows at O2, 18,000 people a night sold out. Yeah. And it was good fun. Yeah.

It was nice. Yeah. And we meet because we have a business. You know, we're business in common. We have to deal with business a bit. Oh, you do? Yeah. But it, we're business in common. We have to deal with business a bit. Oh, you do? Yeah. But it's only like once a year we'll have to deal with it.

Sort out some numbers? Well, it's like, what are we going to do? And everybody says, no, I don't want to do anything. All right, well, let's do that then. Is it surprising to you that Michael took a sort of non-comedic route in a way? I think it's a sadness to me because he was really, he was a comedian that got away. And even now when he comes to visit me sometimes here, you'll look rather wistful. Yeah.

Oh, really? Yeah, because he's one of the funniest performers. And he's such a funny writer. Yeah. But, you know, he's got to have made his life as a sort of national treasure. Yeah. And he's, you know, he's famous. He'll be Sir Michael any minute.

Oh, yeah? I hope they give it to him next year. Yeah. Are you Sir or you're Sir? No. Not yet? Oh, no, no. Why will he get it before you?

Well, he's already a CBE. He's worked his way up. He was an OBE, then CBE. You know, you have to be. Oh, yeah. You have to be polite. I'm not polite. No, there's a line of progression.

Prince Charles asked me to be his jester one night in Scotland at Billy Connolly's because I was making him laugh. And I said, why would I want a fucking awful job like that? Was that even a job anymore? No, of course it's not. But I mean, he laughed his ass off that I said, why would I want a fucking awful job like that? Making you be your jester. Give me a break. You always hear about that, that it was a job at one time.

But it's an important job because if Trump had a jester, he would be much healthier. I don't think he has a sense of humor, really. No, he doesn't. But the point is the jester is the ones that said the things you're not allowed to say. They get your head cut off if you're an advisor. Right. But if you're a jester. Yeah.

And that's why it's so important in Shakespeare. You get your head cut off if you're an advisor. Right. But if you're a jester, and that's why it's so important in Shakespeare, you see that the role of the jester is to tell Henry VIII. You go and tell him. Yeah. Oh, no, we'll get the jester to tell him. Right, yeah, to tell the truth to the power.

That's what comedy is. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, no, Trump could not, his ego could not handle a jester. So, you know, it's got to be on the, it's on the shoulders of Colbert and Maher. That's true, except he doesn't listen to them. Yeah, no. They're mocking him. Some of them get through. Baldwin got through.

I think Sessions is his jester. Oh, boy. He looks like a jester, doesn't he? He does, yeah, yeah. They're all evil, though. There's no, it's just a bunch of evil clowns. Isn't it awful? I think America's going to win

see i have this firm belief in america because america saved us in 1943 when you all came over seems like he might let the russians just take over europe if they want right now though well that's what he wants and that's what putin wants but i think america will win and throw him out i think america institutions and and Americans are true believers in freedom and liberty and will not put up with this. On either side of the aisle. You know, all the FBI people. They're not. They're

Republicans. The people he accuses of getting are all... I'll tell you what we're seeing, and I think you could see it in England too, is that these politicians, you know, really most of them stand for nothing but proximity to power and, you know, honoring business interests. And it's sort of interesting how transparently craven this lot is.

I think the Russians have things on them. All of them? Well, they didn't just tap the Democratic Party. Right. I agree with that. So I think Lindsey Graham, you can explain exactly. I agree with that. That they have Lindsey Graham, you can explain exactly. I agree with that.

That they have things on all of them. I think that's true. McConnell, Lindsey Graham, Paul Ryan. I think they've got big, big, you know, things on them. And what do you make of Brexit? I think it's the same thing. The Russians were behind it. Foul money came in and supported it. It's to disrupt Europe disrupt europe yeah which is what

putin's our whole thing is destabilize destabilize maybe you can destabilize nato at the same time right so um it was it was corrupt yeah i wasn't allowed to vote but it was it was a i think it's it's a disaster why weren't you allowed to vote because i don't have a a house in England. Oh, but you're still a citizen. I'm still a citizen. I can't vote in elections. I can't vote. I pay taxes. But anyway.

Has the feeling changed over there? Have you been there lately? Well, don't forget London was always very much remain. London's the city with the most to lose. The city's having to flee because you can't run business operations. We were winning that game. Yeah. It's a totally insane policy.

Yeah. Oh, boy. We're going to see what's going to happen. That's for sure. And so what's your... Maybe. Yeah. I'll be in my nursing home, you know.

Pass me my gin martini, would you? You seem to have a pretty good attitude about mortality. Yeah, well, that's from George. Yeah? Yeah, he was very strong. Remember, you're going to die. All this is going to go away. He was the most famous person, group in the world,

and he realized that it was all going to go away. And that's why his influence was both interesting and spiritual. I mean, he brought the whole Indian thing into the 60s. Sure. Single-handedly. That's a guitarist from Liverpool. And mean, he brought the whole Indian thing into the 60s. Sure. Single-handedly. Yeah. That's a guitarist from Liverpool. And were you there at the end?

Of his death? Yeah. Yeah, just after. I mean, I was visiting him during the whole time. Yeah. And how was his disposition about it? Was he still fairly? Very comfortable.

Really? Yes. He felt that he was going to be escape the pain of being rebirth of rebirth and so he was very comfortable with the

whole process of dying and there were a lot of Indian things there music and so I'm going oh I don't mind

being reborn I'll put my name down for that one would you so it was the only thing we ever disagreed on he accepted the fact that i didn't believe in anything and he you know he had been a catholic and then he was a hindu yeah so but he

was always very generous spiritually yeah and that religion laughs at things a lot sure like the dalai lama laughs all the time sure yeah yeah it's a it's a very kind of, I don't quite understand it, but it seems to be the most reasonable spiritual practice in terms of acceptance. Realizing we're funny. Yeah. You know. Yeah. That's the best thing.

Outside of ourselves, we're just funny. It may be tragic to us, but it's funny to other people. That's true. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you have to have a sense of humor. We'd all be so depressed we wouldn't want to live. It's a very, I think it's a very useful positive thing. Yeah.

When there's very little hope, at least there's relief. But at least there's no war. People go, oh, no, there's very little hope. Look around. They've got, you know, 52 channels of television. 52? 900. 900. Yeah, exactly. 52? What, 900?

Yeah, exactly. On my phone. Yeah, exactly. But the point is, nobody's bombing you yet. Right. And that's the important thing. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Yet. And I hope it stays that way. It was great talking to you, man. You too. Thanks. Thank you. How was that? That was great.

I'm so glad I got to talk to Eric Idle and to John Cleese. It was, you know, I'm living a life, people, and it's pretty fucking amazing. Even with sweaty Mark running around the streets of lower Manhattan, he can stay there. He can stay there. He can stay there for eternity. But Mark right now is living an amazing life, and I'm grateful for that.

Don't forget to grab a paperback copy of Waiting for the Punch wherever you get books or at markmaronbook.com, and I'll let you know what happens on set if I can, within reason, within the limitations of what I'm allowed to talk about. Okay? Okay. Boomer lives! We'll be right back. No, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice? Yes, we deliver those. Gold tenders, no. But chicken tenders, yes.

Because those are groceries, and we deliver those too. Along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence.

Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now

on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative.