Page 69 - Exile-ebook

68 AN EXILE OF THE MIND STANDING IN FOR THE BEATLES 69

mocked up a version of the Russian
newspaper, Pravda, Russianizing
our politicians’ names and hawking
it on the streets of the city. It made
double-page news in the New
Zealand Truth tabloid.
We invited the cast of Cambridge
Circus to a party after their show
for a close encounter of a strange
kind with students drinking beer
from a metal keg. The cast included
Jo Kendall, John Cleese, Graham
Chapman, Tim Brooke-Taylor and
Bill Oddie. This wacky show was the
harbinger of Monty Python’s Flying
The door opener to the Beatles. Circus six years later. Murals adorning the Central Library in Mexico City.

Graham Chapman was in two
in the deafening din, only to be minds whether to take the trip Down out who the ‘gay one’ was and had tured a drunken presidential head
rewarded by even sillier answers. Under or earn an honest living by taken him outside and stoned him to flopped into a plate of fish and chips.
I pretended to be one of the Bea- pursuing his medical studies. The death. He didn’t receive a reply. As the academic year drew to a
tles in the vestibule and twitched New Zealand scenery is incredibly The Folk Music Club invited the close, I enjoyed a short stint on the
at the curtain, giving a little wave beautiful, the Queen Mother told Peter, Paul and Mary trio after their sub-editors’ desk of the Christchurch
to the crowd below. Fans screamed him at a function. Taking this as a show for a jam session. Peter sat on Star and the less salubrious job of
hysterically. More twitches and Royal Command he put his medical the floor twanging away on his guitar riding a garbage cart around the
more screams until I was tapped on career on hold. into the early hours long after the streets of Richmond with manual
the shoulder by a security guard and In the zany Monty Python others returned to their hotel. Puff the roll-up doors to heave in rubbish at
led away. This would have made a years, Graham was one of the few Magic Dragon, he explained to us, the trot. Toys were retrieved, washed
great scoop for the Hawera Star. homosexuals in the public media to had nothing to do with smoking weed. and repaired for impoverished kids
The occasional Canta party was admit their sexuality. A letter arrived The last issue of Canta was com- in time for Christmas.
generously given to be used as at the Python office from a prejudiced pleted by my deputy. And to my horror With possessions sold and no
a carrot on a stick to discourage Christian lady explaining she had the paper appeared with the newly further use for the coffin, I took Tom
students from deserting the paper heard that one of the cast was gay elected student president described Kreisler’s advice to be dazzled by
when exams interfered. and that she would pray for him. Eric as a ‘fall-down pisshead’. To make it Mexican art and set off for central
For something a little different we Idle wrote back to say they had found worse, a large front-page photo fea- America.