Chad Smith

My favorite scene in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” has to be when the king comes upon peasants toiling in a field. Of course, British hilarity ensues:

King Arthur: I am your king.
Woman: Well I didn’t vote for you.
King: You don’t vote for kings.
Woman: Well how’d you become king then?
King: The Lady of the Lake, her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water, signifying by divine providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. That is why I am your king.
Dennis: Listen, strange women lyin’ in ponds distributin’ swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony…

And it goes on in that way.

In London and Paris, there are myriad reminders of the power of the crown, as antiquated as it might be in those countries. I walked around those cities and thought about the things that were built, people who were beheaded and religions that were created simply because — essentially — someone was born in a certain time and place to certain parents. By the end of it, I could really appreciate the miniature Statue of Liberty at customs in the Newark airport.

An old cluster of rocks in the English countryside.

Paris from the Eiffel Tower.

Oscar Wilde’s grave.

Tourists shuffle past a crucifix in the Notre Dame de Paris cathedral.

A crowd around “Mona Lisa.”