Diaries 1969-1979_ The Python Years - Michael Palin [79]
In the evening, a rather poor meal at a dimly lit restaurant called Golfs – it was trying its hardest to be exclusive and smart, and personified the worst aspects of North American snobbishness: ‘Would you care to be seated for a cocktail?’ Or, when we wanted to eat, ‘Oh, indeed, sir, the hostess will come and seek you out.’ And, when we were sat at table, ‘This is your table for the evening, your waiter will be Randy.’ At least that got Graham interested.
Despite the gloomy fears of Tony Smith, the ticket sales at Regina had increased greatly in the last two days, and we had a very respectable 60% house.
Wednesday, June 20th, Vancouver
At last the end of term has arrived. Tonight, in this well-appointed but fairly unexciting town, surrounded by pine-clad mountains, 8,000 miles from England on the edge of the Pacific, we perform Monty Python’s First Farewell Tour for the forty-ninth and last time. Vancouver has treated us well, with the most extensive publicity coverage so far in Canada, plus more than the usual parties and receptions – and, in a 3,000 seat theatre, one 70% house on Monday, over 80% on Tuesday (when we broke a fifteen-year record at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre – taking $3,000 on the door) and tonight a complete sell-out, with people turned away.
Thursday, June 21st, San Francisco
We caught the 4.00 United Airlines flight to San Francisco via Seattle. The American Customs and Immigration at Vancouver Airport were less than welcoming, and we left Canada, this warm, friendly, straightforward, happily unexciting country, in a morass of red-tape, form-filling and an indefinable feeling of mistrust.
Arrived in San Francisco in the evening. As we drove from the airport it was dull and rather cool, and the cloud hung low over the mountains around the town like duvets hanging out to dry. Our hotel was called the Miyako. The hotel is designed in Japanese style, both inside and out, but this turns out to be compromised in many ways. Only a minority of the rooms are what I’m told is authentically Japanese – i.e. beds which are just light mattresses on the floor – the lobby is run with traditional American Western hotel efficiency – so much so that I witnessed the peculiar sight of a Japanese man trying to check into this Japanese hotel, and being unable to make himself understood.
Saturday, June 23rd, San Francisco
Nancy, Terry J, Neil and I and Eric are driving today down the coast road from SF to LA. We hired a couple of cars, which Buddah paid for, and at 7.00 or thereabouts, made our first stop at Monterey. With my susceptibility to romantic names, I felt we had to see Monterey, but it was rather anti-climactic. The harbour is a good deal less attractive than Brixham, and there was little hint of the magic of the place in the jettyful of sea-food parlours, amusement arcades, rotten gift-shops, which sold ashtrays and books by Steinbeck. We drank a beer and set off towards the even more romantic names like Big Sur and Barbary Shore. A pilgrimage from Steinbeck, through Miller and Kerouac to Chandler.
We reach the mountains of Big Sur around 8.00. They are very beautiful -ridge after ridge ending in steep cliffs into the sea. Forested and wooded slopes with strong, clean smells on the edge of the Pacific. But it’s slow driving round the promontories, down steeply into the valleys and up round the mountains again, and there are few hotels or restaurants – it being a national park.
We stop about 8.30 at the Big Sur Inn – a remote, low, cottagey building which wouldn’t have been out of place in a Beatrix Potter illustration. I went in to ask if we could have a room for the night – and found myself in a comfortable, cheerful pair of dining rooms. Antiques and old furniture were everywhere, but not in a set-up, stylised, decorative way, but just as a haphazard collection, like a crowded Victorian sitting room. They had no rooms or reservations for dinner.
At 1.00 we stopped at the Holiday Inn in Santa Monica. They were full, but told us of