Norton Futilities

Back in 2014, we did a pre-tour tour, promoting the tour that was coming up the following year. We went to New York and to London, doing TV appearances, including one on the Graham Norton show. 

If you want to hear my boss sing or me play on this clip, save your time. The version on YouTube has been stripped of our performance. I don’t know if that’s because of music clearance issues. my appearance being too frightening, or some other reason, but I won’t be hurt if you skip watching it all. 

I saw it all, however, from my vantage point at the keyboard, and there’s a little detail I’d like to share. When we arrived at the studio for rehearsal I was sitting at my station as Taylor Swift walked across the stage in front of me, and I had what I thought was a brilliant idea: the producers should arrange to have John Cleese teach Taylor Swift how to do the ministry of silly walks bit for which Cleese is known. Cleese may not be able to stretch enough to do those moves these days, but Ms. Swift is well-equipped to kill with that routine using those legs which are undeniably long. 

Of course, there was no one to whom I could make my wee suggestion, and I was tasked with playing the piano (which, let me repeat, you will hear none of here), and not brainstorming schtick, so a chance for a great laugh was lost to history. 

One other thing: you may think that Neil and Taylor Swift are both pretty well-known internationally, but the clear star in the room, as far as the audience was concerned, was Kevin Pieterson, the cricket player. To me, Cricket was just a character played by Connie Stevens on Hawaiian Eye. In an odd coincidence, Connie Stevens once attended a party at our house, although I don't remember why.

I also note that if you delve deeply into the comments below the Graham Norton video (never a good idea, actually), many viewers were most focused in John Cleese’s crotch and Neil’s ears, neither of which I noticed.

Mitigating factor: I best reward I got out from this appearance was a colorful snapshot (not the one above) I shot of the guest seating area on stage. I later used it on the cover of my Jazz Time CD, thinking no one would ever recognize it. I was wrong about that--a surprising number of people did.

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