DIAMOND DOG

Sitting in the window of a San Francisco Bay restaurant, Eddie Izzard is thinking about sailor in particular: Popeye. "I said to my Mum 'Get me spinach!' the UK comedy sensation says, spinning a strange, serendipitous story that begins with the cartoon muscleman, his childhood fascination. "And she said 'You hate it!' But I kept on-- 'Spinach! I need spinach!'" he relates in a marbly absentminded mumble that's a good portion of his stage charm. "And I hated it," he sighs, slowly spreading mustard over his turkey sandwich. 'She was so right. My palate is very basic, sausages and the like.
"So after my Mum died, I ended up going to these boarding schools from the age of six. Lots of weird people went there, and this first one I went to was like a prison camp in South Wales. And it was right next to a caravan site, a beach where people would go in the summer. But whenever we went through, it wasn't holiday season, it was schooltime, so there would be lots of deserted caravans and locked-up amusement arcades. One even had a stuffed Dalek from Doctor Who, but we couldn't get to it because it was behind iron bars. Oh yeah-- and there were lots of sand dunes and stuff." Pause for a quick bite of food. "And I don't even know where I'm going with this.

"But I remember: Sausage and chips. That was our one good meal. They had hellish food. They had macaroni and warm milk." Izzard looks up from the plate, his eyes narrowing in disgust. "Have you ever had macaroni and warm milk? I thought I'd leave and later hear people say, 'Oh, macaroni and warm milk! I eat that all the time!' But I've never, ever seen it again. And they forced us to eat it -- even after we'd gone to bed, they'd come 'round and say, 'Hey! You haven't eaten it!' And it just sat there until we ate it. So we had to make plans to throw it down the toilet, but I went to the wrong toilet and. . . anyway, sausage and chips, this is my palate.

But I've been pushing to get more international with my palate. I've been to LA now. I've been to LA. But I didn't go for the streets there so much We took a left here, a right there, and pretty soon it was just another street corner and I couldn't work out where we were." Izzard reaches for his record bog, rummages around inside it for a second, produces a pile of colourful charts. "Maps!" he exclaims, proudly. "So now I've got maps! 'Cause I was a boy scout, and I always liked getting 'em out and saying, 'Look, if we invade here....' But I did, I'd go along and find our exact bearing as a kid." A long, exaggerated sigh that can be heard at most nearby tables. "So I'm sad, in many ways, here in California."

To follow this runaway bullet-train of thought, you'd better hang on for dear life, preferably from the caboose roiling. Even in a casual lunch setting, the mile-a-minute Izzard will take you on a wild free-association ride filled with so many hairpin curves it borders on attention deficit disorder. But that, plus a playful predilection for make-up and women's clothes which he diagnoses as "action transvestite," is this glam-ham's stock in comedic trade. Catch his current one-man show "Dress To Kill" [or his recent English-arena-taped video, Glorious], and you're catapulted into Izzard's surreal, Thurber-ish universe, where just about anything can happen. Animals are a recurring theme-- squirrels defiantly play flutes; all long-eared animals gleefully straddle the bow of Noah's ark, just to let their ears whip in the wind, Titanic style.

Another topic is history: Heimlich, through trial and choking error, inventing his famous manoeuvre; moon-landing astronauts shocking Houston by pretending to be held hostage by just-out-of-camera-range monsters. And don't get Izzard started on religion or British politics [God and Jesus being frightened by a sudden Boo! appearance from the Holy Ghost; the Queen, in one of the artist's most well-known skits, scheduling a multi-keg party at Buckingham Palace with 'My place. . tonight...be there!". He's no intellectual, Izzard maintains, merely a crafty pop culturalist, someone who grew up with way too much television. Ergo, he can script biblical study an Original Sin as if it were a vintage "Jetsons" episode: "'Father, I have poked a badger with a spoon!' 'Now that, my son, is on original sin!'"

On the big screen, you con find Izzard attired as a henchman-cool thug in The Avengers, and as a manipulative band manager in the glam epic Velvet Goldmine. In his stage show, however, he dazzles in a silk Gaultier kimono/smock, tight flared trousers, stadium-huge platform boots, and his regulation lipstick, mascara and Vamp-spooky nail polish. His short, moussed hair is lightly frosted, and his lantern-jawed face at times appears to be made out of rubber, some sort of stretchy elastic, as he mugs, camps and poses his way through gag after incongruous gag. And Izzard's reaction time is split-second. A large bluebottle hums past his head, in plain sight of the audience. He waves to it, informs folks "Hey, that's my security fly. His name is Steve, and he's an the lookout for any trouble out there." And he launches into a manic impression of a hooligan, desperately trying to shoo an imaginary fly from his face.

What makes the 36-year-old Izzard tick? Are his thoughts truly so disjointed, so Ritalin-deprived hyperactive? His odd childhood provides a few clues. Born in Yemen, resettled in England's tiny Bexhill on-Sea, after his mother's death from cancer, he and his brother dwelled in the aforementioned variety of boarding schools. As a toddler, he was occasionally dressed in drag, but by age 21, Izzard had outed himself to his girlfriend of a full-tilt transvestite. At 23, he confessed to family and friends. His gal-pal's reaction? "She was positive and okay about it," smiles the comic, who admits he's growing bored with the make-up bit and today is sporting the slightest hint of eyeliner. "And I remember staring out the window of the flat she lived in and thinking 'I'm gonna tell everyone I'm a transvestite!' A stupid idea, I immediately thought, because I'm obviously not gonna do that! But then it just sat in my head, and every time I came back to visit that idea, I'd think 'Well, maybe that is what I've gotta do.' I kept edging towards it.

"And if you are of alternative sexuality, you wanna know why. Why is my body, my brain, going on like this?" Izzard shakes his head. "But the 'why' is very difficult to ascertain. You just have to say 'it is.' And my decision seemed more positive in the long run. I envisaged decade after decade of hiding and lying, or just coming out with it and saying, 'Fuck it. Swing with this!' And I like to face things down, so l thought, 'Okay, let's do it and the chips will land where the chips will land. Whatever happens, I'll deal with it."

And deal with it he did. Izzard's colourful appearance and skewed, Python inspired wit earned him a solid reputation as a street performer He suffered his shore of catcalls from lunkheaded bigots, and was even physically assaulted for his outrageous dress code. He never backed down. Instead, he turned the tables on one group of attackers, following them into a bar, pointing them out to the police, and laughing the last laugh of the ringleader stupidly confessed his hate crime in the back of the paddywagon.

Izzard recalls the court as if it were yesterday. "Going in, I couldn't remember what the hell this guy looked like. I had a fight with him one minute, 30 seconds worth of fighting, and he was now this haze of features. And I remembered this TV scene in courtrooms where they say 'Can you identify him?' and you say Yes--the gentleman sitting there with the big blue hat and the green ears!' But before anyone in court could do a thing, he looked at me and leered, 'Allo, darlin'! Ahhhhhh!' He'd actually managed to shoot his mouth off yet again. And so subtly! But; Needless to say, Duffs was found guilty, and Izzard starts cackling at the easy verdict. "You know, I don't think he'll ever make Mafia boss!"

"Dress To Kill" began its Stateside run earlier this year, Off Broadway. But its star [who's now signed to the prestigious William Morris agency] had been wowing packed houses since his first Time Out Award in '91. In '93, Izzard's solo act was a West End favourite in London, as was his serious thespian debut in David Mamet's "The Cryptogram" in '94. Several of his perpetually-morphing standup acts become top-selling overseas videos, as well -- Unrepeatable, Definite Article, and Live At The Ambassadors. The experience has bred unnaturally strong confidence. "You can't help but learn it well as a performer," Izzard smirks. "People say 'Fuck off, you boring cunt!' And you have to be able to go 'Fan-tastic line!' That's my Dad, he's coming along to shows now, we're trying to work through o difficult relationship here. But we're in a good place, right Dad? Because we're being honest for the first time.' And you totally change the scenario. So the next time he says it, you can go 'Dad, are you still going on? Okay, you're a cunt too! An even bigger cunt than I am!' And the audience knows it's bull shit, but they're happy to accept this weird scene. It's deflected aggression "

Izzard finishes his meal, but not before liberally quoting Monty Python-isms like "True power derives from a mandate from the people, not some forocial aquatic ceremony!" A few minutes later, he's wondering through San Francisco's classy Palace Of The Legion Of Honour, eyeing a gold-through history exhibit that dotes back to ancient Thrace. Which, coincidentally, was the some subject he'd been discussing an hour earlier.

History. Eddie Izzard loves history. Loves turning it topsy turvy, tossing dates, events and characters into his pop cultural blender and hitting "Frappe." In his act, he's got a bit portraying India and Pakistan as recalcitrant schoolchildren, setting off one-upping fireworks. Today, he takes potshots at Alexander the Great ["Whenever he conquered a country, he said 'Look, okay you soldiers! Now shag everyone"'] and Russia's hypnotic mad monk Rasputin ["They shot him, stabbed him, poisoned him, boiled him in acid, removed his head and impaled it on a spike, but he still kept going. And eventually, he died of a cold".] Much of the gold jewellery on display in the museum features various species of found, etched, molded or inlaid in appropriately regal designs. This gets Izzard skewed back onto his animal tangent. One in which he appears to truly delight.

"I don't own any animals, Izzard clarifies. But I'm into them, I use them. I like giving them rights--that's what I love doing It's exactly what The Far Side, Gary Larson does. And I think you see humans
objectively when you see animals doing what they do And you suddenly think, 'Well, why can't o squirrel hove the right to vote?' And look at the Bible--the world was evil, and the flood was sent to wipe out everything, wipe out all the evil things on the Earth and save only two of everything. And the trouble is, all these animals got shafted, and were they evil? I mean, what is an evil giraffe? How evil can giraffes get? And it's the some with all animals -- exactly how complex are they? We know that dogs can do that, dogs can get really negative and evil on us. But I'm quite fascinated by looking at them and thinking,
'Now if they had a sense of humour...'"

Exiting the museum and tooling down a major SF avenue, Izzard sees many a leashed canine, waiting patiently with their masters at various crossings. Some of the dogs even glimpse him, they seem to stare right back, as if there's some sort of unspoken communication taking place Who knows? Maybe there is. But this Brit is brimming with questions: "What's that church over there?" "Where's the one cemetery in San Francisco?" "Where did the rest of the dead people go?" And, beneath a cloud of oppressive fog, 'Where's the sunny part of this city? Take me to it, right away!". But soon Izzard has skipped ahead to another topic, child actors. Young, cherubic Jack Wild versus old, post "Pufnstuff" Jack Wild Young, bratty Jackie Coogan versus old eggheaded Uncle Fester Jackie Coogan. And on and on his mind goes, never stopping, never slowing for a tangible moment. "I think, therefore I am," posited Descartes. But Descartes never reckoned on someone like Eddie Izzard, a man can't stop himself from thinking too much. The comic even carries a laptop with him on tour, to track all those flurries of irrational thought. Go see Izzard. You'll get a blizzard.

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