Diaries 1969-1979_ The Python Years - Michael Palin [80]
In the dimly lit bar an ageing lady was playing the piano, spurring on a small and equally ageing group of residents to sing ‘Frère Jacques’. The response was patchy. We sat at a table and ordered brandy and white wine. After a while the pianiste signed off with a sad, slightly drunk, speech to the effect that this was her last night here for a while (God knows where she was going to next), and she was looking forward to coming back and entertaining them all again. This received little encouragement from the ten or fifteen people left. I went to bed about 2.00, and put a quarter in the Magic Fingers.1
Sunday, June 24th, Los Angeles
In no other city have I seen such enormous hoardings advertising groups and their LPs. Grinning faces of Jack Carson, Andy Williams, John Denver and Diana Ross, a hundred times larger than life, look down on the strip. We passed Dean Martin’s restaurant, and, not much further on (across the road from a huge hoarding advertising Led Zeppelin’s latest LP Houses of the Holy with a strange picture of naked children climbing over what looked like the Giant’s Causeway), we found our hotel, the Hyatt Continental. On the side of the marquee it read ‘Buddah Records Welcomes Monty Python’s Flying Circus’. We were in Hollywood.
Monday, June 25th, Los Angeles
At 2.30 three of the production team of the Midnight Special arrived to talk over our spot in the show tomorrow night. They were very American, all slightly paunchy, and wisecracking a lot – but genially. We talked over our prepared programme, which included animation, ‘Gumby Flower Arranging’, a clip from the ‘Silly Olympics’ film, ‘Nudge-Nudge’, ‘Children’s Story’, ‘Wrestling’ and Neil’s ‘Big Boots’. (This programme, like that for The Tonight Show, had to be without John, who flew back to England last Friday.) After going through the details of the show, we had to put on what felt like an audition. A run-through, cold, for these three TV men. Fortunately they laughed a lot, objected to nothing, and we felt greatly encouraged. At one point we asked them what would happen if there was no such laughter from the studio audience. He dismissed our worries lightly. ‘We can always sugar it,’ he said.
Tuesday, June 26th, Los Angeles
At 5.00 we arrived at NBC Burbank Studios to record our eight-minute slot for the Midnight Special. This is a relatively new rock show, which has built up a strong following and goes out at 1.00-2.30 in the morning every week. It’s primarily a music show and is taped in gigantic sessions starting at 8.00 in the morning and going on until midnight. There is an informal live audience, who sit around on cushions, and look modish – a cross between campus and St Tropez. When we arrive at the studio Al Green’s group are just playing, there’s also an English band called ‘Foghat’, who seem very pleased to see us. It seems like bedlam, with groups wandering around, getting mixed up with other groups.
Sitting in the dressing room, we drink white wine from the store across the road (for there is no bar at NBC) and at 8.00 they are ready to tape us. For some reason there are no monitors in the studio, so the audience cannot see our animation or film clips. A friendly, but not ecstatic reaction.
Wednesday, June 27th, Los Angeles
At 11.00, up to the pool for an hour and a half. Graham’s entourage has now swelled to five or six. We have hardly seen him in the last four days. He has been looking for a beach house to rent for a holiday after we’ve finished here. He found one in Laguna. Graham was an eye-opener in Canada. He drank far less, was much less aggressive and his performing was sure and confident – the best I’ve ever seen it. Perhaps it was because he was on his own. As soon as he is faced with the extraordinary complexity of his private life it seems to sap his energies totally. His worst performances on the English tour were