That’s right, American fans. The So, Anyway… book tour is wrapping up in America. Friday night, Nov 21, JC will be at the Barnes and Noble at The Grove, interviewed by the wonderful Tim Meadows; come one, come all. Then John will be at the Miami Book Fair on Sunday the 23rd, then back to London for the final leg of the European tour.
And if you can’t make it to Miami or LA, you’ll be able to see him this week on Real Time with Bill Maher.
And best of all, you can spend a few hours with John with the very funny New York Times bestselling So, Anyway…!
And keep watching as I keep posting and tweeting @khowardjohnson

We interrupt our regularly scheduled @johncleese #soanyway postings in observance of the passing of the great Mike Nichols.
Of course, Mike was the director of Monty Python’s Spamalot; Eric Idle has made no secret how much he learned from him during the production. Without Mike Nichols’ input, Spamalot would likely have been a much different show. He was, needless to say, a fan and a friend of the Pythons.
In the coming days, he will be the subject of numerous lengthy, amazing tributes to a life and career the likes of which we seldom see.
I crossed paths with Mike Nichols on a couple of occasions, and each time he was wonderful to me.
I had tried to reach him when I was writing my Del Close biography (The Funniest One in the Room), but hadn’t heard back.
Del had long talked about a rivalry between the two of them—Del always implied that it was a triangle involving Elaine May when they were performing as the St. Louis Compass Players. Del’s interest in Elaine was both romantic and professional, while Mike was primarily involved with the St. Louis Compass—and improvisation in general—because he wanted to work with Elaine. Of course, Mike eventually won out, and he and Elaine eventually went off to New York and Broadway fame. Del had always held a grudge and claimed that Mike had not behaved well.
Del’s version of the story was reported in Janet Coleman’s book. But the more I studied it, the less it added up—there were just too many contradictions.
And then, dear @ericidle invited me to the first public performance of Spamalot during its Chicago preview. There was a small party afterward, and at one point, I saw Mike Nichols waiting for his car. I approached him and introduced myself, not sure what to expect. He couldn’t have been more gracious, felt very badly at the thought of Del holding a grudge. I promised to email him a copy of that portion of my manuscript.
It took a while, but I eventually heard back from him. I had sent him what was, more or less, Del’s version of events. He disagreed, but in the most gentlemanly way imaginable. He pointed out the inconsistencies in Del’s version and walked me through his side of the story, which was rock-solid and fit all of the other facts that I’d gathered. He also admitted that they were both young, and he didn’t always behave as well as he might have. I made all of the necessary fixes, and I think he was happy with my work. (For more details, check out The Funniest One in the Room; it’s a long story.)
Among my other takeaways was the regret that Del hadn’t lived long enough to reconcile with Mike, which I’m confident would have happened sooner or later.
This has been a terrible year for comedy legends, in the last 12 months, we’ve lost improv founding fathers Bernie Sahlins, Sheldon Patinkin, Theodore J. Flicker, Garry Goodrow of The Committee, and too many others.
Mike Nichols’ career with improvisation and The Compass Players didn’t mean much on a bio like his, but it was tremendously important for improvisation.
He was a good man.
#johncleese #mikenichols #soanyway #montypythonlive #ericidle #ioimprov #spamalot #mikenichols

My pal Mark Evanier does as good a job as possible of summing up the Cleese-Idle event Tuesday night as is humanly possible. Here’s the link to prove it: http://www.newsfromme.com #soanyway #johncleese @ericidle @johncleese

John Cleese and Eric Idle will be taking the stage tonight in LA. Ears will be burning in London tonight. Especially for people named “Terry.” #soanyway #johncleese

A funny thing happened on the way to blogging about the entire John Cleese So, Anyway… promotional tour: it’s moving way too fast for me to keep up with! Instead, I’ve turned to tweeting @khowardjohnson to try to keep up.
That doesn’t mean I won’t be posting photos, giving updates, and passing along comments here. But most of the more immediate material seems to be ending up on Twitter. Whenever we’re travelling, John will inevitably turn and say “Let’s send a few tweets,” which is how the whole “My Dad Shot Hitler” thread started.
I’m writing this in Vancouver, where John did a spectacularly successful signing last night at Chapters (and boy, is Vancouver a beautiful city!). We’re off to Victoria in a few minutes, and another show there tonight. Sunday is Seattle. Boy, this is going fast!
If you want to catch any of his West Coast appearances, don’t hesitate—most are sold out, but a few—including Nov. 21 at the Barnes & Noble at The Grove—are still available (check my earlier posts for details). Watch for John that same night on Real Time with Bill Maher.
And most of all, do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of So, Anyway… You won’t regret it.
#johncleese #soanyway #montypythonlive #montypython

Some exciting news that I’ve been waiting a while to officially announce:

My old pal Tim Meadows (Saturday Night Live, Ladies Man, Colbert Report, NBC’s Marry Me, and many more) will be interviewing John Cleese on November 21 at Barnes and Noble at The Grove in LA.

How cool is that?

Contact the Barnes and Noble for more info, but this is NOT one you’ll want to miss!

Ran into Justin Trudeau again, this time at the CBC interview. Agreed to carpool the rest of the day. #johncleese #soanyway #justintrudeau @johncleese @justintrudeau

With bias aside, the kickoff week for John Cleese’s So, Anyway… has surpassed all expectations.

The media interviews have gone very well (and if you haven’t seen John and Jon on The Daily Show, drop everything and google it!). And the interviews and audiences have all been outstanding—each one different, but great. (Hopefully the standard won’t drop too badly this Tuesday night.)

So when will you be able to see John Cleese for yourself? If you’re in the middle of the U.S. of Canada this week, you’re in luck.

John and I will be flying in from the Great White North for an interview at 7 pm on Tuesday night at the Tivoli Theatre at 5021 Highland Avenue in Downers Grove, IL. There, I will subject him to a thorough grilling about Cleese minutia, the likes of which other interviewers can only dream. A few tickets remain—contact Anderson’s Bookshop in Downers Grove or Naperville—but you’d better do it quickly!

Then on Wednesday, John will be interviewed by none other than Camilla Cleese at the totally sold out iO Theatre in Chicago before an audience of students. Apparently, Miss Cleese has known the author for a number of years as well, so this sounds like it’ll be much fun. If you didn’t get tickets in the first 36 hours, eat your hearts out…

And, because he’s a glutton for punishment, later on that Wednesday, John will be interviewed at 7:30 at the Midland Theatre in Kansas City. If this was in any other city, it would be sold out, but because Kansas City theatres are large enough to house entire towns, a few tickets remain. John has vowed to continue his non-stop interviews with Kansas City media until no tickets remain.

Somehow, we will not be doing an event on Thursday evening, so John has vowed to continue his unrelenting assault on the Vancouver media prior to his public book signing at Chapters Robson on Friday night. And next Saturday night will be a sold-out extravaganza at the Farquhar Auditorium.

Next Sunday, join Seattle Cleeseheads for 93 minutes of amazement and enlightenment at the University Temple United Methodist Church for a University Bookstore interview.

As you can tell, a great many of these are sold out and the rest are selling fast. Most of the ticket prices include a copy of So Anyway… and I would suggest acting quickly. Everyone seems to be having a very good time…

Boston Cleeseheads will be glad to hear that John has safely arrived in town and will be interviewed tonight at the JFK Presidental Library. Tomorrow: Toronto, where, unlike Boston, tickets are still available!

Canadian fans: we’re completely sold out in Victoria, but we still have tickets available for Toronto on Saturday. And John told me that “I may take the whole audience out for dinner afterwards.”