Hanging Out with FM and Bill Murray

michelej1 · #1 02-27-2013, 08:44 PM

Deadspin [author recounts spending time with FM in 1990, while with Bill Murray watching Baseball. I've excerpted the FM parts]

http://deadspin.com/5986709/the-spor...th-bill-murray

The Sports Fan: What I Learned From Three Days Of Watching Baseball With Bill Murray by Peter Richmond

In 1990, Peter Richmond spent three days with Bill Murray in Chicago, eating and drinking and watching ballgames at Wrigley Field. He wrote about the experience for The National Sports Daily. His story was recently republished on Bronx Banter and appears here with permission.

We also had eggs Benedict with fresh tomato slices, and some pretty good swordfish, but the most appetizing dish by far was the fruit bowl that looked like a Dutch still life in Mick Fleetwood's hotel suite on the forty first floor. Unfortunately, he never offered us any, even though Bill was polite enough to read aloud from the unpublished science fiction manuscript written by Mick's dad, the late Wing Commander Fleetwood of the RAF, at 3 a.m., while the rest of Fleetwood Mac drank pear brandy down at the bar.

Back at the bar in Bill's hotel, Fleetwood Mac had a bodyguard named Roman who looked as if he'd sprung from the cellar of David Lynch's imagination. He had a smile like he was being shocked by electrodes. Bill asked the bartender for an aquavit. Everyone in Fleetwood Mac immediately asked for an aquavit. They were wearing a lot of silver jewelry and black clothes. Every few minutes one of them invited Bill to accompany them on their jet the next night to Columbus, Ohio. Bill smiled politely a lot. Mick Fleetwood drank everyone's aquavit before they could, and kept saying profound things in an elegant voice. Then he invited Bill up to his suite to listen to his late father's poetry. Bill could tell it meant a lot to Mick, so he agreed. Besides which, the band's conversation had reached the level of chatter between tree slugs.

The poetry was pretty good. It was on a cassette. There were a couple of dozen beers arranged on ice in a huge silver bowl, like shrimp cocktails, only they were beer bottles. Mick offered us beers but none of the fruit.

Bill had an 8:30 radio appearance the next morning, so we left at 3: 15. As Mick saw us to the door, he asked me what he'd said that I'd written down on the corner of my Cubs program while we were at the bar, and so I read it.

"The English, the English," I quoted. "The English are the hushpuppy brigade continuing to trample the world in disgrace."

"You're the only one who has that," Mick Fleetwood said, nodding, with a smile. He's right. I am.

Back at Bill's hotel, no one was in the bar. Fleetwood Mac had gone to Columbus, but Bill's family had arrived in the RV. It was one of the great trades of all time.