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Cleese across America

The tour has begun!

So, Anyway… is officially out in North America, and so is its author. The first round of publicity is in New York City, with a photo shoot, a book signing, a public interview by The New York Times’ Dave Itzkoff, and assorted interviews with press across North America.

The Times Talk is long sold out, but will be telecast live at http://timestalks.com/detail-event.php?event+john_cleese

Of course, one of the highlights of the day had to be the book signing at the Fifth Avenue Barnes and Noble, where John signed hundreds of books and chatted with virtually all of his fans. They all left smiling—and most of them left with an armload of books!

John even ended up meeting with more fans during lunch at New York’s famed Carnegie Deli. After enjoying one of their massive but delicious specialties, John posed for a picture and will be joining their wall of fame soon. Stop by and see what he posed with!

Wednesday morning, don’t miss MSNBC’s Morning Joe, where John is scheduled to appear live during the final hour of the morning. There will be numerous other interviews throughout the day, leading up to Wednesday night, when John will talk about his autobiography on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart! This is going to be a good one, so don’t miss it!

#soanyway #johncleese #montypythonlive

#johncleese #soanyway

John Cleese is looking forward to death –although considering his mother’s longevity, he may have a long wait…

Celebrity Blackmail…

The countdown to the DVD/Blu-Ray release of #MontyPythonLive has begun, and what better way to get the blood stirring than the updated version of “Blackmail,” which became “Celebrity Blackmail?”

Jan Hooks

Shocked and saddened to hear of the passing of Jan Hooks. When I used to spend time out at SNL in the late 80s and early 90s, she was one of the most talented members of a talented group, which included Phil Hartman, Jon Lovitz, Kevin Nealon, Nora Dunn, and Dana Carvey, among others. I can’t say I knew her at all well, but I knew enough to say that she was as nice a person as she was talented. And that’s saying a lot.

I’m writing this on the first full day of autumn, but it was still summer last weekend when I saw this:

Cleese in the Middle…

…of the U.S. I started posting John’s U.S. events for his promotional tour for So Anyway… (his upcoming autobiography). Yesterday I revealed the events for New York, Washington DC and Boston, today, it’s Chicago and Kansas City.

November 11: John will be appearing that evening at the Tivoli Theatre in Downers Grove, IL, just outside of Chicago, through the courtesy of Anderson’s Books.

November 12: John will be in Kansas City at 6 pm (more info here.)

And more info in the west coast events coming soon!

Cleese Invasion: East Coast Edition…

As I mentioned earlier, John Cleese is indeed touring North America and Europe soon to promote the release of his upcoming biography So Anyway… As a part of that, he’ll be doing a lot of bookstore events where you can see him with your own eyes…

Nov. 4 he’ll be at the Barnes and Noble on Fifth Avenue in New York City at 12:30 pm.

That same evening, Nov. 4, he’ll be doing a TimesTalk in NYC, for which you can buy tickets here.

At 8 pm the next evening, Nov. 5, he’ll be interviewed at the BAM Harvey Theatre by John Hodgman, tickets available here.

Nov. 6 at 7 pm in Washington DC, he’ll be interviewed by NPR’s Scott Simon; tickets are sold out but you can apparently get on a wait list here.

Nov. 7 at 6:30 pm, he’ll be at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum for another talk, with tickets available here.

I’ll post more with his Midwest schedule, hopefully tomorrow.

A word to the wise: many of these are likely to sell out; the Washington DC event already has. If you’re hoping to get to any of them, best get your tickets now! If they look a little pricey, it may be because most include a complimentary copy of So Anyway… with ’em.

Sports Sunday!

Thought I’d take the sting out of the Bears loss watching the White Sox, or maybe the WNBA Finals. Bad day for Chicago…

Roy Leonard

There aren’t too many Chicago radio legends left, and we can’t afford to lose the ones we have. Unfortunately, we’ve lost Roy Leonard, one of the nicest, most decent gentlemen to ever pick up a microphone.

There are plenty of tributes to him all over the web, so I won’t try to summarize his career or write anything lengthy. In addition to reviewing movies for many years, he even took over for Frazier Thomas on Family Classics. He was even nice enough to interview me on occasion and help me promote my Monty Python books, and I’m happy to say that the difference between the on-air Roy Leonard and the off-air Roy Leonard was non-existent.

Need more? Well, he was one of John Cleese’s favorite interviewers. John once said “Any actor who says he enjoys publicity is a Goddam liar. Nevertheless, I have enjoyed a small number of interviews in the last 15 years and most of them were with Roy Leonard.”

Thank you Roy, and condolences to his family.