{"id":208,"date":"2012-09-28T07:09:52","date_gmt":"2012-09-28T14:09:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/?p=208"},"modified":"2012-10-01T10:08:29","modified_gmt":"2012-10-01T17:08:29","slug":"name-dropping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/name-dropping\/","title":{"rendered":"Name Dropping"},"content":{"rendered":"

Occasionally I\u2019m accused of name dropping.\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s not true, of course, as I was saying to Russell Brand (Boing!<\/em>) only the other day.\u00a0 Name dropping implies a level of superficiality to which I can only aspire.\u00a0 Russell laughed merrily, Eddie Izzard (Boing) <\/em>joined in the laugh and so did Michael Caine. (Boing!<\/em>)\u00a0\u00a0 Marty Scorsese (Boing!<\/em>) asked me to pass the salt, and then Philip Roth (Boing!<\/em>) came in\u2026.<\/p>\n

Start again.<\/em><\/p>\n

I have met many interesting people in my life and many of them were famous, are famous, or would like to be famous, and many of them were not, are not, and would do anything to avoid it.\u00a0\u00a0 I try not to discriminate.\u00a0\u00a0 I think it is snobbish to be prejudiced against somebody just because they are not famous.\u00a0\u00a0 As it is wrong to hold someone\u2019s celebrity against them.\u00a0 It\u2019s not their fault that just because they have a talent in one of the more popular performing arts, people look up to them, worship them, and hunt them down and kill them.\u00a0 \u00a0Fan after all is short for fanatic.\u00a0 Fame is not a particularly desirable state, as Bob Dylan (Boing!<\/em>) wryly observed \u201cA lot of strangers think they know you, and it\u2019s really only useful for getting a table in restaurants.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sad thing about name dropping is that there is a sell-by date.\u00a0 You\u2019re best to either name drop quickly or not drop at all.\u00a0 Out-dated name dropping is terribly sad.\u00a0\u00a0 As I said to Eartha Kitt only the other day\u2026.<\/p>\n

Not recognizing the names being dropped is very embarrassing.\u00a0 At the Olympic Games Closing Ceremony I didn\u2019t know half the names on the bill and had to stop asking as people were beginning to treat me like an old fart, completely hopeless and totally out of touch. (You are Eric, you are\u2026<\/em>)<\/p>\n

I was first \u201couted\u201d as a star fucker by the saintly Michael Palin (Boing!<\/em>) in his diaries of the Python days in the Seventies in New York when we were hot young comedians taking the town by storm.\u00a0 He blasted me publicly for spending time hanging out with celebrities like the Rolling Stones (Boing! Boing! Boing!) <\/em>\u00a0\u00a0Oddly, only the very next day in his diary he wrote \u201cHad lunch with Mick Jagger\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n

So even nice Mike doesn\u2019t escape his own condemnation.\u00a0 We are all fascinated by the famous, though to be fair I<\/em> never wrote about it in a published diary. \u00a0(Nudge Nudge)\u00a0 My problem was often that they<\/em> wanted to hang with me,<\/em> and I am far too polite to say no to Keith Richards (Boing!<\/em>)\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0I was recently asked by the writer of his autobiography\u00a0 if I recalled any of the times I spent with him as he could remember nothing.\u00a0\u00a0 Of course I did, \u00a0Keith was rarely less than interesting.\u00a0 Even when apparently out of it.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0I remember him at a party he threw in Chelsea where I chatted with the very bright Pete Townshend (Boing!)<\/em> while a few of the other Stones (Boing! Boing! Boing!) <\/em>\u00a0gathered round and badgered him in the way rock stars do to members of another group.\u00a0 Really, they are very competitive.\u00a0 They behave like mobbing birds.\u00a0 I once visited The Who (Boing!<\/em>) \u00a0backstage at a Concert in Fr\u00e9jus with Pink Floyd (Boing!)<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cOh hanging out with them now are you Eric\u201d they said, to which I replied \u201cWell at least they keep their drummers alive.\u201d\u00a0 A sardonic reference to my friendship with the late Keith Moon (ex Boing!<\/em>)<\/p>\n

Meanwhile back at the party in Chelsea young Mister Richards lay comatose on his bed under the influence of something strong, and never said a word.\u00a0\u00a0 I stayed awhile because I am very fond of Ronnie Wood (Boing!) <\/em>and the girls at the party were really delicious, though sadly not famous, so I didn\u2019t sleep with any of them.\u00a0\u00a0 One must draw the line.\u00a0\u00a0 Finally, \u00a0just as I was leaving, Keith rose up from his bed and yelled \u201cGoodnight Eric.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 So yes he was there alright.<\/p>\n

Mick Jagger (Boing!<\/em>) \u00a0is one of the most splendid companions on the planet.\u00a0 He is seductive, funny, and very intelligent.\u00a0 Time with him is never dull.\u00a0 And there are plenty of extremely bright rock stars I have hung with like the highly civilized intellectual David Bowie (Boing!<\/em>)\u00a0 the very funny Paul Simon (Boing!) <\/em>the deeply read Art Garfunkle (Boing!) <\/em>\u00a0and the awesome Joni Mitchell (Boing!) <\/em>\u00a0Actors like Harrison Ford (Boing!) <\/em>and Tom Hanks (Boing!<\/em>) are very interesting company, though for company no one beats writers like Salman Rushdie (Boing!)<\/em> or comedians like Steve Martin (Boing!)<\/em>\u00a0 Gary Shandling (Boing!) <\/em>and Marty Short (Boing!)<\/em><\/p>\n

So yes, I don\u2019t think you should exclude people from friendship just because they are famous.\u00a0\u00a0 To discriminate against them for that would seem to be wrong, and I would have missed out on some of my most valued friends.\u00a0 For example the great and good George Harrison (Boing!<\/em>) who taught me more of what life in and out of showbiz is about, than any philosopher.\u00a0 An awareness of death is what George taught, not in a bad or down way, but in a don\u2019t waste your time on worthless shit your days are numbered kind of way.<\/p>\n

My first mentor in this was the poet Stephen Spender (Boing!) <\/em>who I visited in the early seventies in the Alpilles in Provence.\u00a0 He said, unashamedly:\u00a0 \u201cI like the famous.\u00a0 They are more interesting.\u201d\u00a0 Then he gave me his oil lamp as he had just got electricity, and I was living without.\u00a0\u00a0 So in a sense he literally passed the torch, and I read happily under The Steven Spender Lamp until a few years later when we too finally got electricity.\u00a0 Meanwhile many famous celebrities came and hung out quietly in the Sud in the most basic of accommodation. \u00a0\u00a0There is a great relief from fame, which is not<\/em> being recognized.\u00a0 I remember Robin Williams (Boing!<\/em>) \u00a0at the height of his TV celebrity,\u00a0 at a local fete in France, standing in the middle of the crowded dance floor yelling \u201cI\u2019m Mork! I\u2019m Mork!\u201d to the total indifference of the locals. \u00a0For me that was always the best thing about Provence.\u00a0 No matter how famous you were back home, there you could be totally anonymous.\u00a0\u00a0 I was tolerated as an eccentric English exile for many years and it was only when Python won the Jury Prize at Cannes in 1983 for The Meaning of Life<\/em> and we were on the front page of the Var Matin<\/em> that the locals realized that I was part of this odd thing called Monty Python,\u00a0 pronounced magnificently Mon Tee Pee-ton by the French, as indeed to them I will always remain Monsieur Eedler.\u00a0 \u00a0They were very proud of me then, and my window glass fitter would murmur quietly \u201cFelicitations\u201d \u00a0and my plumber would come out to fix the drains a little sooner.\u00a0 I cherish the friendships I made before that point, since I could be sure they were based on the purest of motives:\u00a0 they liked my money.\u00a0 So I played football with them and hung out with them practicing my atrocious French and sharing many bottles of appalling ros\u00e9 wine \u2013 which we called Fighting Pink, for its tendency to break up marriages after lunch.\u00a0 That heavy toxic purple stuff, soaked in copper sulphates, was light years away from the beautiful blush<\/em> wines they now produce.\u00a0 There\u2019s even one called Pink Floyd <\/em>\u00a0which comes from Miraval,\u00a0 the Chateau where improbably many years ago Tania and I watched Roger Waters (Boing!<\/em>) \u00a0recording the vocal of Just Another Brick in the Wall.<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s currently owned by Brangelina.\u00a0\u00a0 No, I don\u2019t know them\u2026.<\/p>\n

Ronnie Wood (Boing!<\/em>) was totally anonymous in France when he came and stayed with me in 1976, just before he became a Rolling Stone.\u00a0\u00a0 Mick had given him a tape of all the Stones songs for him to learn, and a second language tape, which consisted largely of slang, including important things like how to ask for a blow job in French.\u00a0 (Faire le pipe <\/em>I think.)\u00a0 This I suppose was essential information for a would-be Stone about to go a-rolling.<\/p>\n

Mike Nichols (Boing!<\/em>) always appreciates the value of the famous.\u00a0 In fact he rarely works with anyone else.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a good reason they are famous\u201d he says, \u201cit\u2019s because they are the best at what they do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course. The smartest man in the room as always.\u00a0 But Mike also gives an acting class once a week to utterly unfamous actors and is always most generous in supporting writers who, of course,\u00a0 have no names worth dropping.\u00a0 His insightful and encouraging notes are the most valuable on the planet.\u00a0 \u00a0So his will be the last name I drop\u2026<\/p>\n

As George said presciently and succinctly \u201cEven the famous have to die.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Oh and the New Yorker piece is in the October 8th edition.\u00a0 Enjoy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Occasionally I\u2019m accused of name dropping.\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s not true, of course, as I was saying to Russell Brand (Boing!) only the other day.\u00a0 Name dropping implies a level of superficiality to which I can only aspire.\u00a0 Russell laughed merrily, Eddie Izzard (Boing) joined in the laugh and so did Michael Caine. (Boing!)\u00a0\u00a0 Marty Scorsese (Boing!) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":217,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208\/revisions\/217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ericidle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}