King Arthur, The Colonel, and Brian Cohen all have one thing in common. The three vastly different characters from three completely unique time periods were all brought to life by Monty Python's Graham Chapman. However, while those characters might be pure Chapman, Chapman himself wasn't simply Python. He was an actor, a writer, and a daredevil who managed to beat alcoholism and almost cancer; and while he didn't quite survive that battle, he did make it through a friendship with late Who drummer Keith Moon. This Graham, the complete Graham, is the man you meet when you read Graham Crackers: fuzzy memories, sully bits and outright lies.
Crackers, which is compiled by author and friend (Chapman’s not mine) Jim Yoakum with help from Chapman’s longtime partner David Sherlock, is a portrait of the man painted (mostly) by Chapman’s speaking tours. He speaks candidly about his time in Python as well as his battle with alcoholism and the intricate relationship the two had with each other. He recounts trips he made with the Dangerous Spots Club and how, in spite of knowing these men who would hang-glide off of volcanoes and sit in a bus on skies, he considered Moon the world’s most dangerous man. Along with the anecdotes, there are also the "silly bits," sketches that until the book’s release in 1997, had never seen the light of day.
Although the book had me laughing out loud, literally and in public, it is a very serious story of struggle and redemption that Chapman recounts with candor. When speaking about a documentary in which each member of Python was asked to speak about the remaining five, Chapman says how he was rather scared to know what his collaborators would say about him. He remembered at the end of the film all six men believed one truth, "I know you. I know your good points; I know your bad points, but, the hell with all that anyway, because I like you." I truly love that description because I feel that is the truest definition of real friendship. He said that he thought that was a feeling that would always be there and, when you read the Forward by John Cleese (along with the Backward by Eric idle and Sideways by Terry Jones) that was written almost twenty years after Chapman’s death you realize how accurate that statement really was.
DISCLAIMER: I wrote this on the beach using Lauren's IPod (thank you Lauren) which was good because I had just finished the book but bad due to AutoCorrect. Furthermore, when I edited it, it was after having a Margarita with dinner so, there maybe some errors that i missed.
Lovely post, made me tear up.
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