Subj : Re: Graham Chapman's funeral speech
To   : Heidi
From : RW
Date : Sat Apr 23 2005 02:15 pm

From: AchterQuack@gmail.com (RW)

Cool, and I know a video fragment for the first half of his speech, but has 
anyone got the entire memorial service on tape??? Please?????


"Heidi" <kill_ugly_radio@hotmail.com> wrote in message 
news:<zrednTthPP6V2vffRVnyhQ@brightview.com>...
> Just thought some people might like to see it, i thought it was VERY john
> cleese!
>
> Graham Chapman, co-author of the 'Parrot Sketch,' is no more.
>
> He has ceased to be, bereft of life, he rests in peace, he has kicked the
> bucket, hopped the twig, bit the dust, snuffed it, breathed his last, and
> gone to meet the Great Head of Light Entertainment in the sky, and I guess
> that we're all thinking how sad it is that a man of such talent, such
> capability and kindness, of such intelligence should now be so suddenly
> spirited away at the age of only forty-eight, before he'd achieved many of
> the things of which he was capable, and before he'd had enough fun.
>
> Well, I feel that I should say, "Nonsense. Good riddance to him, the
> freeloading bastard! I hope he fries. "
>
> And the reason I think I should say this is, he would never forgive me if I
> didn't, if I threw away this opportunity to shock you all on his behalf.
> Anything for him but mindless good taste. I could hear him whispering in my
> ear last night as I was writing this:
>
> "Alright, Cleese, you're very proud of being the first person to ever say
> 'shit' on television. If this service is really for me, just for starters, I
> want you to be the first person ever at a British memorial service to say
> 'fuck'!"
>
> You see, the trouble is, I can't. If he were here with me now I would
> probably have the courage, because he always emboldened me. But the truth
> is, I lack his balls, his splendid defiance. And so I'll have to content
> myself instead with saying 'Betty Mardsen...'
>
> But bolder and less inhibited spirits than me follow today. Jones and Idle,
> Gilliam and Palin. Heaven knows what the next hour will bring in Graham's
> name. Trousers dropping, blasphemers on pogo sticks, spectacular displays of
> high-speed farting, synchronised incest. One of the four is planning to
> stuff a dead ocelot and a 1922 Remington typewriter up his own arse to the
> sound of the second movement of Elgar's cello concerto. And that's in the
> first half.
>
> Because you see, Gray would have wanted it this way. Really. Anything for
> him but mindless good taste. And that's what I'll always remember about
> him---apart, of course, from his Olympian extravagance. He was the prince of
> bad taste. He loved to shock. In fact, Gray, more than anyone I knew,
> embodied and symbolised all that was most offensive and juvenile in Monty
> Python. And his delight in shocking people led him on to greater and greater
> feats. I like to think of him as the pioneering beacon that beat the path
> along which fainter spirits could follow.
>
> Some memories. I remember writing the undertaker speech with him, and him
> suggesting the punch line, 'All right, we'll eat her, but if you feel bad
> about it afterwards, we'll dig a grave and you can throw up into it.' I
> remember discovering in 1969, when we wrote every day at the flat where
> Connie Booth and I lived, that he'd recently discovered the game of printing
> four-letter words on neat little squares of paper, and then quietly placing
> them at strategic points around our flat, forcing Connie and me into frantic
> last minute paper chases whenever we were expecting important guests.
>
> I remember him at BBC parties crawling around on all fours, rubbing himself
> affectionately against the legs of gray-suited executives, and delicately
> nibbling the more appetizing female calves. Mrs. Eric Morecambe remembers
> that too.
>
> I remember his being invited to speak at the Oxford union, and entering the
> chamber dressed as a carrot---a full length orange tapering costume with a
> large, bright green sprig as a hat----and then, when his turn came to speak,
> refusing to do so. He just stood there, literally speechless, for twenty
> minutes, smiling beatifically. The only time in world history that a totally
> silent man has succeeded in inciting a riot.
>
> I remember Graham receiving a Sun newspaper TV award from Reggie Maudling.
> Who else! And taking the trophy falling to the ground and crawling all the
> way back to his table, screaming loudly, as loudly as he could. And if you
> remember Gray, that was very loud indeed.
>
> It is magnificent, isn't it? You see, the thing about shock... is not that
> it upsets some people, I think; I think that it gives others a momentary joy
> of liberation, as we realised in that instant that the social rules that
> constrict our lives so terribly are not actually very important.
>
> Well, Gray can't do that for us anymore. He's gone. He is an ex-Chapman. All
> we have of him now is our memories. But it will be some time before they
> fade.

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