Playboy's 20Q: Michael Palin

We first appreciated Michael Palin as a founder of Monty Python's Flying Circus, the satirical troupe that became one of Britain's most notable exports of the early Seventies. Films followed, in which the Pythons took aim at the Age of Chivalry (Monty Python and the Holy Grail) and Jesus (Life of Brian). Palin has appeared without the Pythons, in A Fish Called Wanda and Fierce Creatures. But he has also given himself wide latitude--and longitude. He's made extensive use of his passport, devising, in British parlance, such television series as Around the World in 80 Days (Palin follows Phileas Fogg), Pole to Pole (Palin follows a meridian) and Full Circle With Michael Palin (he follows the shores of the Pacific Ocean). His reporting from places both familiar and exotic can best be described as English. In his 1999 project, Michael Palin's Hemingway Adventure, he stalks the writer across three continents to re-create the man's nonliterary pursuits.

Contributing Editor Warren Kalbacker chatted up Palin on a recent afternoon. Kalbacker's report: "I found a man who seemed content to be back in London, if only for a moment, before departing for some remote destination. But fellow Pythons are never far from his thoughts. Palin told me he lives just down the hill from Terry Gilliam, though in 'somewhat less commodious quarters.' He injected only one note of uncertainty into our conversation: The whereabouts of John Cleese were not currently known."

1

[Q] Playboy: Assess the state of the United Kingdom at the start of the millennium.

[A] Palin: We are still recovering, not from the last century but from the one before that. The roots of our problems lie in the great days of the Empire, when we were really rich and powerful. The decline began around the 1890s. By the time Queen Victoria died, Germany was overtaking us in industrial output. America was already way ahead. The Empire lasted into my lifetime. I was born in 1943, and for the first 15 years of my life, we had an Empire. And then it suddenly disappeared. We just sort of gave it all away. Cravenly. The last 30 or 40 years have been really complicated; we've been totally at sea. We are an industrial power, but we're probably producing less than South Korea. We don't send out many missionaries anymore. We still make Jaguar cars. But we make them for Ford. It's tricky times; I've got a feeling it might be Britain's Swedish century. We'll become a sensible country, making sensible things and trying to do sensible things in foreign policy. The last century has been the century of confusion, and during this next century we may become more Scandinavian.

2

[Q] Playboy: What do you think the Queen was thinking when she locked arms with Prime Minister Tony Blair on New Year's Eve?

[A] Palin: I think she was thinking, Why have I never learned to cross my arms like everybody else? It might be a lack of physical coordination. The Queen is not a touchy-feely person. She is not allowed to touch people. They are not allowed to touch her, which is ridiculous in this day and age. When you're in her company, you're not permitted to ask a direct question, like, "Will you stop standing on my foot?"

3

[Q] Playboy: Can you set Monty Python's Flying Circus in the larger context of English humor?

[A] Palin: Probably not, but I'll have a crack. If I ramble, just press the electrode and I will twitch to a halt. Python came from two strands. One was the surreal comic strand, which includes people like Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll and even Hilaire Belloc, and the other was the satirical tradition, which goes back to Shakespeare and Jonathan Swift. University comedy, political satirical comedy, had been dormant for the first part of the 20th century, when people were either killing or being killed and economies were failing. That wasn't a jolly time. When we got through the war and we'd all grown fat on American milk and bread and orange juice, we felt the time had come to laugh at those who were supposed to be telling us what to do. Everything I was brought up with always had something going wrong with it, whether it was the distribution of food, medical help or the army or whatever. There was always something that didn't quite work. But at the same time the semblance of authority was strong. There were people who believed and insisted that they knew exactly what was right for those of us who could see that things weren't working. That was irresistible to someone with a comic sense of the world. In Britain, we're always happiest when we can laugh and grumble at the same time.

4

[Q] Playboy: What is it with Englishmen and lingerie?

[A] Palin: I've always been interested in lingerie, as have most red-blooded lads of my age. Vladimir Nabokov was very good on underwear; read Lolita. His description of watching Lolita play tennis, of the skirt lifting--that's wonderfully written. So it's not an entirely English obsession. There may possibly be an English obsession with wearing it if you're not a woman.

5

[Q] Playboy: Your interest in Roman Catholic affairs dates back at least to Monty Python's treatment of the Inquisition. What do you feel are the implications for Catholicism if an Englishman succeeds the current Polish pope?

[A] Palin: There (continued on page 140)Michael Palin(continued from page 127) may be implications for the English tourist industry. This is what we must think about. There is a lot of it's-our-turnism going around at the moment. It's like who hosts the next World Cup championships. I don't think an English pope is likely to happen. We had our turn and we fucked it with Thomas More.

6

[Q] Playboy: In the 19th century, people discussed whether or not God is an Englishman. Care to comment?

[A] Palin: It would be awful because he'd probably be an Englishman you really don't want to meet at all, and I like the idea of God being somewhat amorphous and having a little bit of everything. The God I have in mind, and I often have a God in mind, is far more international and possibly situated so far out in space that you can't distinguish any national characteristic at all. God may well be an asteroid.

7

[Q] Playboy: English politicians carry off sex scandals so well. What can American officials learn from them?

[A] Palin: You couldn't really say that the Americans are dull on these matters, especially after the past year. But they've got to be slightly more elaborate and idiosyncratic. The English sex scandal is much more intriguing. It's not sensible; it's like a very strange detective story. The man who was about to run the new assembly for Wales walked into a police station saying he'd been robbed by a man he'd met on Clapham Common. Which is really a bizarre story. What was he doing walking on Clapham Common? Oh, he just happened to be there, happened to talk to this man, and the man asked him home for tea. And then suddenly he couldn't remember anything else and all his belongings were gone. People started putting two and two together. But it was the fact that he thought he could get away with that somehow. And, of course, it gradually came out that he was in the habit of going to Clapham Common to find male company. But it was the way it was done that was so wonderfully odd and British and complicated.

8

[Q] Playboy: No nation has mastered the concept of an upper class as well as England. What advice would you give to young American millionaires who might aspire to something more than mansions, well-stocked wine cellars and Land Rovers?

[A] Palin: They have to learn that all these things are really of no use if you really want to be upper class. Upper class is something that can't really be defined. If you have money, that's one thing. But it's not just money, it's land that's more important, and if it isn't land, then it's which school you go to, or if it is really land, it's over how many generations back that land goes. So you can never pin down the English class system. If you go searching for it, it'll disappear before your very eyes.

9

[Q] Playboy: Would you care to respond to those who take umbrage at the number of endangered species you've eaten in your career?

[A] Palin: All of the things I've done have been part of my work. They've been jobs. I mean it's just something I've had to do, some sort of employment. You're almost obliged to do outrageous things if you're working in comedy. Good comedy is a reaction to authoritarianism, to being told to do something manifestly ridiculous. I think one of the liberating things about travel is that food and health and sanitary facilities in other countries are always very different from what you've just left. You get the chance to eat snake or dog or because it's the only thing to eat in that particular town. If you were to eat it at home, there'd be howls of outrage. But go order lamb in China and they'll say, "You vicious bastard, how could you? What's wrong with our snakes?"

10

[Q] Playboy: You're not going to tell us that bulls' testicles taste like chicken, are you?

[A] Palin: It's hard to compare them with anything else, because when I sampled bulls' testicles they had been cooked several hours before and had gotten rather cold. So I don't think I gave them their best shot. But they were a bit like a slightly aging pâté.

11

[Q] Playboy: You've said that you'd be willing to absorb a little punishment while following the trail of Ernest Hemingway. Knowing you attended an English boarding school, just what meaning should we read into that?

[A] Palin: Eric Idle once said that boarding school made a man of him and it made a man of his wife. At our school we had people delegated to make the rooms even colder. If it was a cold night, some wretched boy would have to get up and open the window. What I meant was I was prepared to go beyond the library or the bookshop in my search for Hemingway so it would not be a purely cerebral experience. If a 700-pound marlin caught on the end of my rod, I would be prepared to pull it in. If ducks had to be shot, then I would be the man to do it. I did actually come away with an injury, which I got while re-creating one of Hemingway's great injuries, when a skylight fell on his head in March 1928 after he pulled the wrong cord in the bathroom, thinking it was the flush. We rigged this extremely sophisticated camera, which involved a bungeed camera falling within a foot of the top of my head. It had been wrongly adjusted. The camera whizzed down and whacked me on the head and, in true Hemingway spirit, blood poured out. I ended up having four more stitches than Hemingway. He had nine; I had 13. Brilliantly done. Unfortunately, you can't see my scar at all. It says a lot about who looks after you in the hospital and how far stitching has come in the intervening years. Hemingway's remained on his head for the rest of his life. It was a huge scar.

12

[Q] Playboy: Are we as a species, particularly the males, staring far too much at our computer screens, thereby endangering our ability to enjoy hard drinking, hard living and hard play?

[A] Palin: Virtual reality is probably mopping up a lot of real experience. It's to our detriment as human beings. I'm a great believer in bars and cafés and places where people just get together for a drink, and it doesn't happen nearly as much as it used to. Drinking that involves talking is good. Drinking that involves head banging is not so good. And I think people's tolerance of the sort of loud, drunken behavior that Hemingway occasionally indulged in is probably less than it used to be. I was rather impressed by the fact that most people say Hemingway drank enormous amounts. People rarely saw him drunk. It was part of his life, and he absorbed it and was able to write through it. He felt it helped him. It wasn't something he felt guilty about.

13

[Q] Playboy: What does a mild-mannered Englishman find so fascinating about a hard-living American writer? Would it be the man's prose, by any chance?

[A] Palin: I certainly admire his early writing and his persistence in getting it right. What I like about Hemingway is a certain directness: "Look at me. This is what I'm going to be." This is a man who is happy to be judged on what he writes and the way he is and his life and all that. And I suppose, yes, it is the opposite of an Englishman, about whom (continued on page 172) Michael Palin (continued from page 140) there are very few clues. There is a lot of reserve. Hemingway's reputation as Hemingway was so much greater than his reputation as a writer. There's a certain brand image of Hemingway, which is quite extraordinary. The Japanese love it. People will buy furniture named after Hemingway and after his novels. They will go to his house in Key West, although they've not read any of his books. There aren't many writers who appeal to me as a sort of comic situation. Here's a man who had a desperate need to be judged as a great writer, and in the end he's judged as someone who can sell sofas or bedside tables named after Kilimanjaro. His legend supplies me with a world that is occasionally completely absurd, and I think he was aware of that.

14

[Q] Playboy: Your Hemingway travels took you to Chicago and to Pamplona. Compare the Bulls with the bulls.

[A] Palin: The former are a basketball team. They're not the ones that play at Wrigley Field. I didn't want to get that wrong. When I was watching the running of the bulls in Pamplona, there was a certain notion of the bulls as heroes. The bulls are the most dignified creatures in this entire event, in these crowded streets. People are running away from each other rather than from the bulls, and it struck me that a person is far more likely to be trampled to death by a German backpacker than by a bull.

15

[Q] Playboy: As long as the U.S. government maintains the Cuban embargo, will Americans keep missing out on great cigars and maybe something more?

[A] Palin: Beautiful girls. Lovely women. And Havana is a beautiful city. There are 1957 Chevrolets, all with Russian engines. Wonderful combination.

16

[Q] Playboy: You've traveled extensively in the U.S. Can you comment on our fascination with firearms and our insistence on a literal interpretation of the Bible?

[A] Palin: America feels very young and inquiring, hence it's a nervous country compared with tired old Great Britain, where everybody has seen it all before. Charles Darwin was far too smart for his own good. If you're going to have simple beliefs, they've got to remain simple beliefs. You can't start thinking, Well, it could be this or it could be that. Then you're done for immediately. Americans seem to believe that there is something out there that is right, and that you can get to it using two simple steps. Defend yourself, get your spirituality regularly recharged by going to church and reading the Bible. Certainly there seems to be many people who believe that the right to bear arms is somehow part of the American birthright. Part of that is that America is geographically still a wild country. People are surrounded by a great deal of emptiness, and emptiness is a threat, and a threat requires something to reassure you that you'll be OK when whatever creature that's out there comes to get you. America is this mix of what is sort of backward--there are hicks out there--and then you find that there's some incredible scientific facility doing work on genetic mutation. America is still an experiment.

17

[Q] Playboy: What's the fiercest creature that you've ever encountered?

[A] Palin: Apart from John Cleese, the killer rabbit we used in Monty Python and the Holy Grail was the nastiest thing I've ever come across. It was a small motorized rabbit on a wire that led straight to your throat. It was the way it looked at you; it snarled at you with teeth bared. Absolutely ferocious. Generally with animals, if you stand there and stare back, they'll go away. There aren't many that want to tear you limb from limb. An elephant in full war cry is the most frightening encounter I've ever had. We once got between a mother elephant and her young. This they don't like. Elephants are big anyway, but they have a way like cats do of sort of expanding when they're threatened. This elephant suddenly became twice as big. I've never heard trumpeting quite as loud. It's not anything you hear normally in the wild. It's a huge roaring shriek. The guides I was with, who seemed able to cope with anything, never shit themselves quite so fast. Unbelievable, hideous noise.

18

[Q] Playboy: What would you suggest a young American do before he starts the next hot Internet venture? Should he travel and acquire some life experience?

[A] Palin: Yes, go East, young man. An American should go to Europe. The satisfaction I get from going to America should be felt equally by Americans coming to Europe. Within the space of the state of Texas you have ten different countries and ten different languages. Europe might confuse certain single-minded young computer planners of the future. It's good to have doubts about whether setting up a new computer company is the only way forward. I hope it isn't. Confusion is important in life.

19

[Q] Playboy: Can you pass on some of the knowledge you've gained in your travels regarding diet, personal hygiene and language skills?

[A] Palin: I'm a great believer in adapting yourself to the country you're in. Listen to the people there about where you should go to eat and whether you really need a particular bug cream. When you travel you should have any possible medical prophylactic available. Have every injection. Take it in the buttocks like a man. I think it was Lauren Hutton who said that. I lug a huge case of all sorts of beautiful, neatly wrapped, bottled-up pills and medicaments. So I've hardly had to use anything apart from a bit of athlete's foot cream. Eat whatever you're offered because you never know when the next meal will come. I used to laugh at that, but it's absolutely true. You just don't say, "I'm not quite ready for lunch. I'll give it another hour." It's now five hours later, the train is still stuck in the middle of the desert and the man who had some sort of roast has disappeared. And that also involves being fairly unfussy about what you eat. Don't get squeamish about eating testicles or snakes or grasshoppers, if that's what's around, because generally that'll mean that this is what they cook best.

20

[Q] Playboy: A gentleman we know tells us his wife tends to purchase furniture and major appliances when he's away on hiking trips. Any strange goings-on in the Palin household when you're away for long periods?

[A] Palin: Whenever I ring up there's nobody there. So I'm never quite sure what's going on. When I come back, there's a slight freeze on for about a week, as I interrupt the general pattern of life. There's no trace of French marines or Russian milk deliverers. But because I've been away my dear wife has carved out a complete alternative life of her own. Which is excellent. I'm sure it's the secret of being married for 34 years. It's the way marriages should develop. She has her world and I have mine. We sleep in the same bed and all that. But she goes off and learns badminton and all sorts of things that I didn't know she could do before I went away.