CP - Charles Pike

MM - Michael Monteleone

MM
OK, Charles, let's see. Maybe you could tell the story of how you first came to know Lord Buckley.

CP
Yes, I would love to tell the story of how I first came to know Lord Buckley. It was May 14th, must have been some place around -

MM
Wait, wait, wait - [break in the taping - the tape picks up as Charles is relating a story told him by Dick "Prince Owlhead" Zalud about Buckley hitting Dick up for money]

CP
[imitating Prince Owlhead telling a Buckley story] Desperate for money. I felt very bad. I want to the bank and withdrew fifty dollars and I brought it to him at this hotel. I called him up in his room. He answered the phone and he said, "Ah, conscience!" He must have called everybody he knew asking for fifty dollars. And, of course, two or three people would come through.

MM
So, maybe he made a couple hundred dollars.

CP
Maybe he made a couple hundred dollars. That's how I first heard of Lord Buckley.

MM
He was a great con man. Alright, now that you've quit channeling Prince Owlhead, could you please bring Charles back up? Charles, I would like to ask you the same question I just asked Prince Owlhead, which is how did you first meet or come under the influence of The Lord?

CP
[regular voice] Well, I'll never forget it. I'll never forget the instant that I heard Lord Buckley's voice. It was like a giant circular saw had cut off the top of my head, thrown my skull cap out on the roadside and the sun was shining in. There was light in all these dark places that had never really had light in them before. And we were going past the Bistai Hoodoos, headed towards Route 666. I was on my way into Albuquerque. It was May 14th. It was the day that Frank Sinatra died. Frank Sinatra lay on his deathbed dying while I first heard Lord Buckley's voice.

I was in a truck with a friend of mine, Chris Overson, a photographer. We were doing a jazz benefit at Senior Pepper's, which is the airport where we sometimes do our performances. And we were going to bring beat poetry and jazz music to the Four Corners. And we had a great sextet, the Subterranean Sextet. And we were planning on doing some Kerouac. We were going to be doing some Ferlinghetti. The standard Beat fare. And, as we were driving to pick up one our performers, who was flying in from Chicago to Albuquerque - we were making the three hour trek down to get him - we were driving down Route 66 - he popped in this tape that a friend had given him. It was a compilation tape called "Beat Poetry" I think by Rhino Discs.

And we sat and we listened to Kerouac talking with Ben Hetch, which was kind of funny. We listened to Rod McKuen recite poetry. I'll spare the description of that. And then this voice came on and I thought it was Scatman Crothers. He started talking about [uses a little bit of Buckley in his voice] the Lion and how, how the Lion was at India. And India dug the Lion, swung the Lion, grooved the Lion. [regular voice] And thought, man, what the hell is this guy talking about? And we were laughing because, you know, listening to Rod McKuen's poetry and having heard that described as "jazz poetry." And then to hear this person come on speaking in sentences where we could only understand one out of every five words. We started laying like, "Oh, hey, whoo! We're stuck in a time capsule now." And about a minute, two minutes into the piece all talking in the truck had stopped. And we were like going, "Woooh, what the fuck is this? What the hell is ? That is wild! Who is this guy?" We're turning it up, you know, so that we can drown out our voices. And ask him who he was. And he was talking about the "ding ding players" and the "wang dang players" and the "reed heads" and the "lute heads" and we realized then that the was talking about Gandhi. We didn't at first and it was like this flash of brilliance. And we were very upset that we hadn't discovered him before hand because we would have included some of the material in our show. But, at this point, we still didn't know who he was. We heard this voice and we didn't have any way of finding out who he was.

And I had heard a friend talk about his teacher Del Close and how he would talk about this seventy year old Englishman named Lord Buckley, who was this dope smoking man who talked in the language of jazz. He was this crazy man. And I thought, "Wow, you know, this could be Lord Buckley." And we went and we did our show. It was an interesting experience. But, we became obsessed with Lord Buckley. And Chris went out and found two CDs that he turned me on to. And he was working at the college and he had access to the computer, where he found "Lord Buckley Online" which is a true American treasure. And he brought me down to the college. I don't drive. This computer that I have is not online. I didn't even have this computer at that point in time. And he let me tap in and check out some Lord Buckley stuff. And every little piece that I read made me more and more curious. Who is this guy? Why haven't I heard of him? Man, this stuff is brilliant. And we went further and further into the, the website. And we found Oliver Trager's address. I contacted Oliver Trager on email. I dropped him an email, you know. Typing it in - the first email I ever sent. And I was trying to cool and hip, like, "Yo, King Oliver, I just called to shake your tree." You know, trying to talk in, what I imagine, was some kind of hipsemantic. And the next day he answered right back and sent his phone number where to contact him. Because my, my friend Chris and I were interested in starting a Church of the Living Swing here in the Four Corners area. We thought, "Wow, this is the way to go." And, within, within a week Oliver had sent me a lot of recordings of Lord Buckley and we began a, a correspondence.

And it has been, you know, one of the great rewarding journey's of my life. Getting into the mind and psyche of this man who was a true American prophet, as important as Edgar Cayce, as important a democratic and American as Thomas Paine, or Thomas Jefferson. And it's been, it's been wonderful being able to uncover and listen to this material and explore it. And I think that, think that America is missing out. And when it catches up to you, you're going to feel a little cheated.

MM
Why do you think he's like Thomas Paine or Thomas Jefferson?

CP
Because he spoke out the truth. He spoke out about situations in America the way that he saw it. He saw that there was a fallacy in our society. That we lived in a fallacious society. That there was this separate but unequal thing going on. And that everyone who was created "level in front" was not level. Or some people were more level than others. And he would address, he would address the issue of race in his work at a time where other people weren't doing it. And through words, through the power of imagination, through the power of rhythm and jazz and whatever else he was tapping into. He was able to take important pieces of literature from the past and put them into a language that was fresh and vital and up to the moment. Thereby making it something, something new. Something that you could discover on your own. And it gave it new life. Whereas it might sit moldy, covered with dust, in some library in the minds of some professor or deranged street person in some unintelligible form.

MM
What is it about his work that, that - well, the audio, the audio that you've seen, what is it about - what is the most distinctive characteristic to you?

CP
The most distinctive characteristics are, for me, the hypnotic quality of the rhythm of speech. He will begin to reel you in like the most sophisticated Bible Belt preacher speaking in a homily that just entrances you. And you, you lean into listen to it and he increases the rhythm and he increases the volume and then punctuates it like, like a cymbal in a jazz riff. And you get caught up into this. And while you're getting a kick out of these verbal cerebral gymnastics that are happening around you, suddenly messages start creeping through. And, there's something about going to him, going to those words, coming to understand what they mean that make you feel better about yourself. They make you feel you're - you might have had more intelligence than you realized you have. Because you're getting this thing for the first time in a language that you don't even really understand. And I think that that's an incredible facet in a communicator. I rank him right up there with Jimmy Swaggert and Ronald Reagan as the great communicators. I hope I didn't hurt anybody's feelings.

MM
Alright. So, tell me about - what, what is the thing that strikes you the most when you listen to these recordings.

CP
The thing that completely overpowers me when I listen to Lord Buckley is the rhythm that he creates that draws you in to him. He'll start off slowly speaking a beautiful metaphor with an increasing pitch and fervor punctuate by noises, by exclamations, like a very intricate jazz cantata. And, before you know it you're in the middle of enjoying the verbal gymnastics and the interplay of the mind and the rhythm. You suddenly find out your learning something and then you start to feel like a genius too because, you know, you're understanding something that you've heard before but never fully appreciated. And in a language that is completely new that you never really understood before. It's just this new language and old messages combining together to create an amazing effect. It's hypnotic.

MM
You're a wordsmith. We'll get to the performer part in a minute but, but you, you know, you're quite the gymnast with words yourself. What are the mechanics of what he does? What does he do that's not so apparent from just listening. But that's, that is really intelligent in his work?

CP
Well, he's found a way of incorporating the subconscious mind. A lot of us, through our lives, we learn to be diplomatic and to say things the way, perhaps, people would like to hear them as opposed to the way we feel we should say them. He has a way of speaking from the subconscious mind. Any, any words, any, any thoughts that might be suppressed are, are expressed. They're just spun off in this wild language which kind of takes you a step away from it. It's less confrontational and more philosophical.

MM
Is there anything specific he does with - by the way that was very sweet. That's, that was really lovely. Is there anything he does - oh, like, Tom Calagna pointed out, you know, little, little bits like "two to toothless" and, and - is there anything like that that strikes you - little phrases that you always retain?

CP
Oh, they're too many, too many phrases that just come in at all different aspects of my, my awareness. I've got a little daughter that loves to run around yelling, "It's you and me behind the tree!" And "He ain't even slipped the cat a Nabisco up to now!" And the idea of, you know, wanting something from someone - expecting great things from someone, you now. And the guy hasn't even offered you a cookie is a great example. And in his story of Alvar Nunez Cabeza De Vaca, "The Gasser", he has this one line that I just love. "Man, the cat was not on the razor's edge. He was on the hone of scone, if you see what I mean." And, you know, just the, you know, scone it's round, it's lumpy. There's nothing, there's nothing sharp about it. But just that this man was on the very edge of - in perception I don't know what the hone of the scone is but - Man, the image was just incredible.

CP
Del Close, who was a friend of Lord Buckley's, was obsessed with the image of the "electronic elephant's ear." He'd just crack up.

CP
One of the things that really struck me was the way that he appeared to have a reverence and love for the people to which he was speaking. And I felt as though great things were being imparted to me by someone who cared. And it made me feel - it made me feel like I have a potential maybe to be a better person if I could maybe learn to relax and care and love. And not worry so much about how I express myself but to express myself.

MM
When - you've now studied him quite a bit. Having done the play and having kept, kept at it after you finished the play. How, how would you account for somebody who came out of very poor circumstances, of out - his father was a coal miner and, you know - I don't think he even finished high school, as far as we know. How do you account for somebody like that? How do you account for - I mean, you know, somebody going into show business I think I can understand. But, he went into show business, did the natural thing, you know, Vaudeville, big bands, moved into television as best he could. But then he also, the last thirteen, fourteen years of his life, seemed to flip into a place nobody had been. Do you have any thoughts on that?

CP
Well, you know, who are we? How do we know who we are? Is the person that we are, day to day, from the moment we first have some form of cognizance, is that who we were meant to be? Is that the person who we really are? Maybe one day something, you know, something will happen, something - some ball will fall into the right hole, some notch will slip into a groove and messages come. Maybe day to day is just preparation for what's to come. Who know what he was meant to be and when he was meant to become that. I don't mean to, to be sacrilegious and I don't feel I am because I think it's impossible to talk about Lord Buckley, or to talk - and be sacrilegious. To talk about Lord Buckley, to talk about religious matters because I find that they're very close and by this I look at the lessons of Christ, the lost years of Jesus Christ, who was blessed with certain gifts, endowed with certain gifts from the very beginning. But, then at a certain point in his life, very close to his death, he was given divine revelation and went on a mission to try to help, to spread the word. And, perhaps, that's what happen to this little boy from Tuolumne who's father was never home, who's brother, his oldest brother, was beheaded in a horrible accident, who lived in one of the toughest towns in any country, tap dancing on the street corners for pennies. Who, who knows when that true person, that we were meant to be, comes into play. Are we born awake to that person or is it a mantle that we, that slowly falls upon our shoulders? Do we slowly grow into this? I don't know, I think, at some point in time, he must have had some kind of spiritual awakening.

MM
How about the vehicle he chose? The idea of, of combining literature, history, the Bible in, in providing, providing or conveying these stories via the language that he chose. Do you have a take on that?

CP
Yeah, I sure do. I think it's so fresh and so brilliant. It's been done before, you know, James Joyce spent his life trying to do that. He felt that art should incorporate all of life, all of language and all of the literature that had come before. And it could be fused together to make certain points at certain given moments, both in thought and in the physical reality.

And I think that he saw that the language of the jazz musician was the freshest, the newest language. I think he saw that language needed to evolved or it would die. And I think, like, like a great linguist, he went back and he took tales, tales from Aesop, tales from Shakespeare, tales and language that were inaccessible to common people and he infused them with this new American language. And he made it fresh and con-temporized it. Made it American.

And that he championed the voice of the great American Beauty Negro was wonderful too because he's showing us, in these people, that are, that are of us, that are - of our brothers, of our race of humanity, that have been very oppressed. They have been able to rise above the cruelties of their physical environment and create language and escape on wings of art. You know, with their mouths, with their voices, with their music. And the freshness, the improvisation and the fact that you had to figure out what it was before you could suppress it gave you this window of opportunity to jump through and tell a whole bunch of things like it is and allow people to put the big picture together themselves. Because some of things that he spoke about might not have been the whole message but they are different parts of it that are the elocutionary that build up the tolerance in a system for the big message.

And I think, essentially, the big message is The Garden. And I, I don’t know where to do, how to tie that up in any neat kind of bow. Other than to say, you know, there’s only one way straight to the road of love. And he was the man putting up the street signs. He was the guy out there painting the, the dotted yellow line along that road. And I think that his contribution to language is important as, as James Joyce’s or as Stern’s or as Ginsburg’s or as Kerouac’s or as any writer of the twentieth century. I think that you cannot, you cannot deny the man. You cannot deny his power, you cannot – you can argue about his sincerity but I don’t think that you can deny it.

MM
You can't deny his sincerity?

CP
I think you can argue about it but I really don't think that you can deny it because what he did was who he was. And, apparently, once he got to the point where he couldn't be who he was, he ceased to be.

MM
You're referring to the end?

CP
Referring to the end. Where he's - his voice is denied him. And he expires. You know, you take away the wick, where do the flame go? Then where is the flame, where was the flame before the wick got there, you know. Where does fire come from? We pull it from the elements and it materializes in front of us. We warm ourselves around it. We look at the, the reality of the colors. Even though we can't hold it in our hands, it can burn us, it can warm us, and then where does it go when it's gone? How come it comes back? I think Buckley will come back too. He's coming back right now through you, through a lot of other people that realize that -

MM
Through you as well, Prince.

CP
Well, thank you, I'm - I would like nothing better than to think that but -

MM
Now, can I ask you to do something?

CP
You bet.

MM
I love the combination of James Joyce and Buckley. Do you think you could do that really condensed, Cream of Pike soup?

CP
I could try.

MM
OK.

CP
OK. I think one of the most important and overlooked things about Lord Buckley is his skill with language, his ability to take and fuse elements of culture and make a succinct message. I think that, like James Joyce, who believe that, that the modern literature, that the important literature of the day had to take from everything that came before it, all the literature, all the politics, all the thought and feeling had to be all condensed and put together into a common thought in order for it to be valid. And I think that Lord Buckley did that as well as anybody. Not just this century but, you know, knocking on back in time.

MM
Ttell me your hit on the, two things. I'm thinking about the Ed Sullivan Show, which you watched those, those riffs. And I'm thinking about two different aspects of that. One is just your reaction to the gag and also, I'd like you to address what I, at least I perceive as, are the subversive elements of that, those performances.

CP
Alright. Most American audiences that have had the privilege of experiencing Lord Buckley on television, via the cathode cathedral, were only able to witness a minute portion of the sermon, you know, the most minor of miracles, you know, not the spitting on the mud and opening up the eyes of a blind person, or raising up the dead. It was the transference of thought and culture, mixing it up, bringing it out through other people and managing to bring sensitive subjects out and making it funny at the same time.

The Four Way bit, as seen on the Ed Sullivan Show, which had been a staple of Buckley's act for a long period of time. Once he stumbled on to the magical conjuring of Mass Pantomimicism, where he would perform Little Theatre. He'd bring people up from the audience at random, place them onstage. And, using the different characters from the Amos 'n' Andy show as his palette, he would have these people speak in conversations as varied as rocket science or sports, or the drug abuse, like the benzedrine flip which he let slip into one of his Ed Sullivan routines. It might have been the last time he was one too. He would get these people acting, performing, giving up of themselves using his voice, which was not his voice. Which he had appropriated from Amos 'n' Andy, but presenting this little charade, this little ballet of people in such a way that it brought them all close together. We laughed at their discomfort knowing that it could happen to us. And there is, there is something about that, the control element that with this man is in the house anything could happen. I watch how he would provoke someone like, like Buddy Baer during that, that one show. How he, he would put him in the position where he would poke him and prod, make his hat fall off, make him look completely foolish, knowing that this man is twice his size. You know Buckley was a giant of a man. There's something about the way that he would provoke, provoke large people into confrontations. The way that he was not afraid to, to confront in order to gain results. And it's a shame that we are limited to that, that, that Ed Sullivan didn't have the foresight to allow him to bring the language of hip into the household. Because he certainly would have been the big door to do it. We are grateful that he let him into the anteroom though. Because if Ed Sullivan hadn't had him on television a lot of people would have been denied the gift of seeing Buckley. But, unfortunately, it left him trapped in the position of only showing that one routine. Thereby giving a lot of America the impression of a period of seven years that, "Man, this is all the cat does!" Which I think might have, ultimately may have done him a little more harm than good.

MM
How about the subversive qualities specifically?

CP
I'm not sure that I understand what you're -

MM
OK. What I'm thinking of - you hit it on the head with the benzedrine float. You know, just your impressions of the Four Chairs Bit. And then the idea of benzedrine float, the inner circle of the circle the [MM makes inhaling sound] you know, , all the things that telegraph to hip people in the audience that he, he knew what they knew what they knew, what they knew, what they knew.

CP
One of the most fascinating and accessible venues of Buckley was the Four Way Bit,
Little Theatre. There was this tiny, little theatre venue that Lord Buckley would bring to television and open up the curtains and it was one of the only productions that they would allow him to perform. He would get on the Ed Sullivan Show once a year. And he would bring people up out of the audience, stick them in chairs and, through an act of "Mass Pantomimicism" he would use their bodies to convey his will. For his, for his platform he would use the Amos 'n' Andy Show. And all the characters onstage would, would be using and utilizing these voices. [CP does a variety of Buckley voices] Crawfish over there. Oh, you'd have Amos talking over here. You'd have Andy over there. And, oh, you would have Sapphire. [regular voice] And he would get these people up there moving their mouths, feeling completely silly. Not knowing what's going to happen next. Which the element of danger is. Probably the biggest performer in the Little Theatre. He would get them talking about things. And suddenly they'd be, oh, talking about how nice the weather was and little elements would start to slip in to [CP makes sound of inhaling joint] Little Theatre. And, before he would start, he would take one extra long drag off of his cigarette as if there was something magical in that tobacco which could transport him to another level of performance. And, well, it transported us to that level. And suddenly Sapphire, in the midst of talking about how she dug what was being put down, would be hearing about a new drink in Hollywood called "the benzedrine flip." And it's probably the only theatre on television where that was the cocktail that was served. There would be, there'd be conversations about monkeys taking over NASA. Just this, this little world where the voices were all Amos and Andy. The people that were in it could be anyone but it could be you if you don't watch out and you don't know what you might be responsible for saying. And there's something about the element of, of control and of projection that - I guess what I'm trying to say is that we're taught to say and do a lot of different things and a lot of things that come out of our mouths are things that have been told to us by other people. Once you put yourself in front of other people and your expressing and sharing ideas with them, the person listening is free to draw their own conclusions. And that's a very dangerous place to be.

MM
Now, the idea of Amos 'n' Andy is sort of politically incorrect.

CP
Yeah.

MM
I myself watched Amos 'n' Andy and I think that the black comedy that is on television now is far more insulting to black people then Amos 'n' Andy was. Now, granted, I'm a white person saying this. But, I look back on, on Buckley's choice of Amos 'n' Andy and I go, "Well, it doesn't bug me." Do you have any sort of take on his appropriation of that language?

CP
Yes, I do. Amos 'n' Andy were enduring characters that had been part of the national consciousness since the early days of radio. And those characters went through radio and went into early television. And thereby became part of - it was a multi-generational crossover element. And people knew who these characters were. So they didn't have to suspend their disbelief to hear the voices. And these voice first came over the radio and, therefore, the person's saying the voices were really characters that you created in your imagination. Because you didn't know who was really saying this. And, therefore, by appropriating these, these character he was, in a sense, holding the audience's hand, giving them something familiar in order to have a platform to depart from to have fun. And I don't think that there was meant to be anything insulting in it. I think it was just to, to make it accessible and to show off the, the great gift of his voice.

MM
Could you comment on the - the material itself on the Ed Sullivan Show - they did something about the "Monkey Scientists" sending a man to the moon, they did something about Rita Hayworth and -

CP
Ali Khan.

MM
Ali Khan. They did a thing on -

CP
That's a lot of money for be floating - for a chick to be floating out on.

MM
They had the thing on baseball. And they did one more which I can't remember. It was the one with Max Baer. Buddy Baer. Can you comment on that material? I mean, like, if one was to review - if one thinks about the material that he actually project - presented in that -

CP
Lord Buckley chose very topical and current things to speak about through the Amos 'n' Andy characters. They had to deal with pop culture and what was happening in the pounce of that particular now. Inner baseball city rivals: you've got, you've got Yankees, you've got Dodgers, you've got Giants all out there and at any given point in time the World Series might come down to two of them facing off against each other. And that was a big thing in New York where The Ed Sullivan Show was performed. He would, he would talk about baseball. He would, he would talk about Rita Hayworth and Ali Khan because everyone was fascinated that this, this movie goddess, who had been intimate with Orson Welles, Charlie Chaplin, this was - she was a source of fascination, this, this beauty and Ali Khan, who taps into Middle Eastern mystery money. All these wild things that - it was on the the lips and tongues of every American at that point in time. He would play into that and he would feed that to them like another little cookie to help them buy into the story so they would, they would listen to some of the humor. And it was all basically done in the spirit of fun. And I think that's very much what Buckley represents is the spirit of fun and the spirit of letting go. The spirit of playtime, you know. And when did becoming an adult mean that it had to be such a bad thing? You know, why, what - when did crossing this age barrier mean that you had to give up all the gifts of freedom, fun and imagination that are inherent to childhood? Although, granted, they are taken away from some people a lot sooner than others.

MM
So, there is that sense of him projecting "You don't have to get so uptight when you're an adult."?

CP
Oh, very much so. Very much so. That people took themselves so seriously that they were caricaturing themselves. And they were in danger of creating a false society. Because they were so constraining and straight jacketing themselves that there, there was no naturalness left. It's all artifice and ridiculousness. And we have to communicate with each other on, on some other kind of level. We have to break through some of the social barriers and talk about the common things that, you know, maybe nice people shouldn't talk about.

MM
You know, Barry Sanders, a professor, said that Buckley's style was so distinctive in the sense of that he elevated audiences versus like, what he said, Don Rickles putting them down. Would you agree with that?

CP
I would very much agree with that. I think that Lord Buckley was all about elevating the audience, lifting them up and making them feel appreciated for a period of time. And hoping that afterwards that they would share some of that with each other and themselves. I think that if you come upon Lord Buckley and you hear him and you hear his message and you walk away unaffected it's probably because you're dead.

MM
There's a number of pieces: "Nero", "Murder", "Marquis De Sade", "The Raven."

CP
He talks about the horrible things that man does to each other and has done to each other.

MM
Well, what's that all about?

CP
Well, it's about the truth. It's about reality. And let's face it, baby, people shits, you know. And, yeah, he's just pointing out, you know, "Hey, I've seen this show before, yeah, man, you got all those Christians stretched out on the crosses. You're giving me the same show night after night. You know, I'm tired of all this. It's time to move on to a, to a more civilized court. Treat each other a little nicer."

MM
Well, why do you think - I mean, those pieces are every bit as powerful as the pieces like "The Nazz" and, and "The Hip Gan" and "The Gasser." They have every bit as much of his genius in them. But, it's shadowy.

CP
Well, let's not forget without darkness there would be no light. And without, you know, what I'm trying to say is that you have to have one to have the other. In order to, in order to view an object in space you have to have some kind of light to see it in. And I think he just held things, the dark and the light. And, ultimately, I felt he was using both to get to the same message which was that it's OK to laugh and feel good about things and to talk about things. And that, even in the darker lessons of history, we can find the human element, we can find some level of humor, and something to laugh at. And, perhaps, that particular facet of mankind is what has allowed us to survive from the time of Nero up until the time that those monkeys take over that Air Force academy. I think those cats should be running it all, also. I think he was right on the beam with that.

MM
Tell me your favorite pieces.

CP
Wow, I find new ones that I'm in love with all the time and for different reasons. Some I love for their irony. Some I love for the spiritual message they impart. Some I just like because of their absurdity. I love the Fred and Charlie routines. The little tiny, little pieces. [CP does a Buckley voice] "Get the lion off the front of the boat. What is the lion doing on the front of the boat?" [regular voice] Those little tiny bits I, I think are hilarious little threads. I mean, he makes this tapestry that's big and convoluted as a Frank Kapra/Preston Sturges movie. These reoccurring characters that come through. Little themes. Horrible things happen. Nice things happen. Suddenly you're on the train and "The Train" is a wonderful piece. He uses the rhythm of language to build a presentation to get you on this train with him. And he brings all these characters in and out of the train checking up on things. The train builds momentum. They keep coming through checking up on each other. And he keeps building, building, building. And then suddenly the train has crashed and it becomes just another event that we hear on television or radio. And he's on to the next routine which takes you some place else. I love "The Train." I love "Murder" because of where he takes you there. The psychotic episode that is "Murder" is amazing. This character sitting there with a bloody knife and head having these horrible fantasies. It's like Walter Mitty, you know, on a benzedrine binge, you know. And then to be woken up and told to go out and clean the chicken coop. So, so much about humanity - I think a lot of people could buy into that. He played around with the dream world too. Which was wonderful. He was a surrealist. He was like Salvador Dali. He'd talk with Mr. Morpheus. He would, he would take us into his dream world and explore it a little bit. And because he did that, you know, he could see that from some of our dreams, maybe there's something else going on inside up there that we don't know about. "The Hip Gan" is brilliant. I think my favorite piece though might be "Georgia, Sweet and Kind" because it draws a horrifying picture of life in America contrasting it with the popular image of America then the reality of it. Singing the song "Georgia, Georgia on My Mind" and contrasting that with the lynching of an African American man who happens to be walking on the sidewalk at the wrong point in time. Taking the horror of that lynching and the sweetness of the presentation of that song, done in Louis Armstrong's voice, draws horrifying and very realistic portrait of the plight of the black man in America. And I think that it's one of the most sensitive and profound pieces of comedy in popular culture anytime, anytime.

MM
You have done a considerable amount of performing as well, onstage, yeah?

CP
Yeah, a little.

MM
Could you comment - well, we'll wait for this dog to...

CP
[doing a Buckley voice] "Get that dog off me. So help me I'll plug him. I swear to God I will."

MM
Don't shoot him Fred, he's a thoroughbred. Maybe you can comment on, on his pipes. Oh, yeah, as a performer - the beauty thing like you were talking about the lions - I mean, who would think of a lion on the front of a boat?

CP
Front of the boat. [imitating Buckley] "The animals are in heat and the wind's blowing this way!"

MM
"The animals - I'm trying to do the accounts. I'm trying to do the books and the accounting and keep us, keep us straight - keep the ship going and -"

CP [imitating Buckley] "Fred, what are you doing?" "I'm polishing up this firehouse."

MM
[imitating Buckley] "Would you kindly tell me why you dropped that woman from the third floor?" [regular voice] She smelled or something. She was giggling like a schoolgirl or something.

CP
[imitating Buckley] "Do you realize you have set back!" [regular voice] One of my, one of my favorite lines if from "The Chastity Belt." I'm trying to remember - I just forgot the line - now that I've brought it - Oh, [imitating Buckley] "You've been ooohing a little too much around here lately." [CP laughs]

MM
My favorite line from that is "It's me, baby, the king." You know, there's some lines that he does that I don't - I, I - if you were to ask me why I think it's funny - to analyze it I really don't know how to say. You know, like - what's one of the lines? In, in the "Marquis De Sade", when Prince Minsky comes in, and all of a sudden he says, "And he ain't spending his money." And everybody in that room cracks up. And it's not - I don't know why exactly. You know, because he hasn't set it up. He hasn't said he's been spending all his money. All of a sudden he just says, "And he ain't spending his money." And it's funny, you know. I - some of his things - there is another - there's a metalevel to it or something.

CP
He is like a Robert Rauschenburg of, of rhyme and rhythm. He can just take things that, generally, aren't related and place them next to each other in a monologue, and thereby create a special context to them that makes, makes the mundane very funny. And he's not afraid to pry open the package and look inside the box that's for sure. I think you're going to have these dogs barking here.

MM
Well, we'll just have to - we'll have to live with it. We've got a little buzz, we got a little dogs. I guess that's just going to be the - the way it swings right now, so -

CP
Because "dog" spelled backwards, well you know, but "buzz" spelled backwards.

MM
"Zzub"?

CP
No, thank you, don't mind if I do. I'd like to talk about Buckley as a performer.

MM
OK.

CP
Because, you know, as a performer - every single performer, when they're discovering their identity and figuring out who they are, they start watching, assimilating characteristics. They start applying what they see. And translating it into their own physical language, their own verbal language. Trying to develop their skills, their trade. Someone that wants to sing - well, everybody tried to sing like Al Jolson then Bing Crosby then Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley. You know, they're - you, you develop, you develop your tools. You find aspects of other performers and other things that you admire and you incorporate them. And so, consequently, because you're always on the look out for something to improve your kick bag. You're always looking for a little something someplace. And you're always judging who else has got their shtick and how well they do it, like, "Ha ha, I don't have anything to worry about today. I can do a lot better than he can. I'm going to blow that fucker right out of the water." You know, we're performers, we've got egos, you know. And we love each other but we're competitive with each other. We also like to cut each other's throats, stab each other in the back and then, you know, comfort each other when we start bleeding. But with Buckley you watch the full gift that this man has. And he's like a one man Shakespearean company, you know. He's Henry Irving and company. He's going out there, he's not only the entire band, he's all the players. And he's a Shakespearean player and then he's, what they used to call at the Old Globe, the stinkers, the common man out there in the crowd. He's got this vocal range that - it weaves a tapestry of persona. And it's all beautiful and it's American. I think that he really was delving into American iconography long before many other performers were. And with a skill and range that few performers have. Like, you've got people that can use their voice wonderfully like, like Rich Little. Who could do a wide variety of voice and was very talented and funny but lacked a certain amount of charisma to make you fascinated about the character of Rich Little himself. And then you have like Robin Williams who has - may be comparable to Buckley because of the inability to rein him in and control him. The wide variety of voices - but then, at the same time, Buckley had this discipline which would allow him to, word perfectly, recreate routines and pieces of literature that could be as long as, as twenty minutes. Words coming at you at such a rapid rate of delivery. His control and command over memory - memory in terms, "I got to get it from my mind and get it out right away." Is, is incomparable. His vocal range, what he could do with his voice, still to this day few people can do. Jim Carrey's got great control of his voice and his range. But Lord Buckley had more. Laurence Olivier was a chameleon as an actor and could play a wide variety of roles. But Laurence Olivier was once told that he had a weakness. Right here [CP points to his nose] and, because of that, he had to physically alter his appearance in order to feel like he wore a character. And all Lord Buckley needed to become a character was someone to listen to him. And everybody was his audience. He wasn't playing to just anybody. He was playing to everybody all the time. And it was quite a gift. It was quite a raging flame while it burned. And we are still feeling the heat from that flame right now. And - oh, man - the guy.

MM
How about the physical - you know, you've seen as much video as we know exists of him right now.

CP
Sure.

MM
How - could you comment on his physicality?

CP
Oh, yes. First of all, you look at Lord Buckley's face and he talked about having that TV map. His chin was this lump of scar tissue. He was missing teeth. You could see, you could on his lips and on his face. You look at Buckley. You see his face that looks, I don't know, like a cross between Sydney Greenstreet and George Sanders. And then you look closer to it and you see his big, elongated chin and his wild eyes. And you see the scars. The mass and lumps of scars that make up his face. And you know that he is a man who has seen hard-times. Who has taken a lot of beatings. You see, in some of his performances, like - I can't remember specifically which one - he's left out the whole side plate of his teeth. Which, you know, might have made it easier for him to get [CP makes Buckley trumpet sound] kind of noises out. Which is how great he could play just every instrument in the band. He was the band. You see this man who has taken this incredible beating. But this noble, gigantic demeanor - he looked like he was, you know, carved out of onyx and black stone. Just tremendous amount of strength. And he would use his hands to make these gestures. And from the splay of his fingers and the bend of his fingers you can see that these fists have broken themselves banging into things, beating on things. And there's this gentleness, this sophistication coming out. And this demeanor that seems regal. But, underneath it, when you really look and feel the pain, the scars in the face, and the calluses, the broken bones that have healed in the hands, you know that this is a man who has had to fight. So, when I look at Buckley, that's what I see. I see a fighter. I see someone standing up to the world and ready to slug it out so long as he can say what he wants to say. And that he's willing to defend himself to say it. It's the kind of impression that I get off him. But there's élan and elegance to the man too that, you know, he was kind of like a burly Fred Astaire sometimes. The way he would just, you know, move about the stage. The scene, the little brief segment from the "Gate of Horn" where he is doing "The Nazz" and he raises his hands up in the air and you can practically see lightening and sparks jumping off the man. He looks like he's possessed. He looks like Billy Sunday. He looks like the most powerful, charismatic preacher, full of the Lord, giving off these intense religious vibrations. It's palpable. It's just very palpable.

MM
How about the cigarette stuff?

CP
The cigarette was an amazing prop like Harpo had the horn, like - Groucho had a cigar, Harpo had a horn. Been digging down into his kick bag, Buckley would always come out with a - he's just coming off break. And he'd start off his piece by taking a nice, deep inhale off of his cigarette. Which I guess to a lot of people cigarettes represent freedom. Because you know, "Hey, I'm going to do something for me. I'm going to take a break from work. And I'm going to light my fucking cigarette. I don't care what you say." He'd always come with a cigarette and he would find the appropriate moment to take the last hit and to discard of it. And he just used this, this piece like a conductor would use a baton. It was a wonderful prop for him. Like Groucho's cigar, like Harpo's horn, like Ed Cantor, for a while, had drawn on glasses. It was - he used it for punctuation in a way that would just make Philip Morris stand tall and proud. And it was an amazing devise because he does that with a cigarette and makes it a [imitates Buckley use of a cigarette] instrument of transportation. And, you know, you can't look at the guy and not want to smoke. Some people might think that's a bad thing. I don't know. I haven't had a cigarette for about seven years but, you know, just talking about it now - every time I see Lord Buckley perform, you know, I want, I want a Camel or a Chesterfield right then, you know. I want to smoke a cigarette with that guy.

MM
Do you wish you'd met him or seen him perform?

CP
Oh, gosh, I do. I've talked to a couple of people who have had the fortunate visitation of Buckley in their dreams. Which is something that I've never had and I feel, gosh, you know - if that's all, that's all that I have to look forward, you know, when can that happen for me? Because I very much would have loved to have seen him perform. Because he was, he was such a bright shining facet in this big diamond of America. And, at some point in time, when they broke up the jewel, you know, the chip that was him, you know. It didn't get placed in the setting it got lost and, you know, all I've seen are Zerconian's, you know. I would love to have the opportunity to hold up that gem and let the light shine through it and look at the great prism of it's immaculateness. I would.

MM
Has anything come up that you want to say that I - we haven't addressed yet?

CP
I'd kind of like to talk about the mythological character of Lord Buckley a little bit. Which is the Buckley that I approached in the play. Because I see him very much as being a, a Don Quixote type of figure jousting at windmills. Physically the best years of his life have past him and people can't recognize the mental gifts but he's still out on this, this mission. Which in this case is really to try to feed his family. And to do what he does as best as he can in a world that is - there are fewer and fewer places where he can do it. I think that there are certain characters in literature that we can look at throughout time that are very much Buckley. I think Job was a Buckley like figure. I, I think that Don Quixote was a Buckley like figure. I think that, that Pozzo in "Waiting for Godot" is very much a Buckley like figure. I think Archie Rice in "The Entertainer" is very much the story of Buckley.

It's a hard, hard, hard life to get out there and to try to make someone feel better by making them laugh. And often times audiences will come in with the attitude of, "Well, go ahead and make me laugh." Already, you know, putting you on the defensive at the anticipation of having to make them laugh. And I think one of the sad things about Buckley is that, early on, he did find some things that made the audience laugh and made them laugh constantly. And for a comedian - you are addicted to that laughter. You have to have that laughter because if they're not laughing that means they're not getting it. If they're not getting it that means you're not communicating it. Or you're communicating it bad. Or it's, ultimately, if they're not laughing it's because you have been able to amuse them. You haven't been able to elevate them. And he believed that laughter was all that was grand and noble in life. And to stumble on to those things like the 4 Way bit that, that he knew would make audiences laugh, kind of became his, his prison. Because he had so much more to offer but, invariably, if the audience doesn't get it you start feeling down, you start feeling desperate and you just want the approval of their laughter. And so, to fall back into the 4 Way Bit, which isn't meant to be offensive, but, which because of a reverse political backlash, has suddenly made it, you know, politically incorrect. Even though his intent was always to elevate and never to suppress or to make fun of. I think that he was denied the full expression of his gift and the ability to push it further sooner because of that. And I think that is one of the great tragedies is that, you know, as entertainers we want to come through for you, you know. We want to come through for you and we want to give you something to take away with you. We want you to laugh. And the things that you have to do to stoop for a laugh - to get a laugh. Sometimes you do things you don't want to do. You do things that are embarrassing to yourself. Things that might hurt your own psyche or hurt other people. Or talk about things that you might not normally talk about it to try to get a laugh. And then when the laugh does not follow, you know, you've, you've done something degrading to no purpose. And that doesn't elevate anyone and it's a horrible thing that every comedian and every performer falls into - gets trapped into and I think that the prison of the 4 Way Bit ultimately, you know was, his cage, his death as a performer. Brought him to a wider audience and kept him from a wider audience. Love you Lord Buckley.

MM
Alright, let's talk about Del Close. You've had - Del Close is no longer with us in the corporal manner.

CP
No. During the period of time that I was working on my Lord Buckley piece, he was one of the collaborators and one of the directors. He was to direct the piece at the workshop. He expired and had his head removed and shipped to the Goodman Theater. But Del was a big life long fan of Buckley, who he meet when he was in his early twenties and the influence and the impact of that relationship was a constant throughout Del's life. And the week before he died he was saying that he thought the story of Lord Buckley should be put onstage. And he wanted very much, before he died, to see that happen. And he did not make it but this Saturday is the fortieth anniversary of Second City and the Lord Buckley play is being performed there. And Del is a character in the play. And all the people from Second City that are still alive that will be coming back to enjoy that - Del and Severn Darden will only be represented from characters from the Lord Buckley play. And I think that's a kind of a neat thing that Lord Buckley will allow Del to be there in his enclave of friends and comrades. And that Lord Buckley can be there also where he belongs. Because he was a pioneer in modern psychological comedy. And Second City was the little gestation pool. The little petri dish of social humor. Well, of course, I mean, you had your cowboys out there like Lenny that, you know, and Mort Sahl that were doing it in their own way. But, Second City had a school. First two times I ever heard of Lord Buckley it was always in relation to the name of Del Close. I knew him - throughout the time I was in Chicago I knew of him by reputation. And there were two schools of thought on Del Close. There was the one - he was the, the genius improvisational teacher, guru, Druid, wiggy Hoo Doo guy who could take you to a level of artistic expression and personal insight that few people could offer. Thereby allowing you to have an elevated experience. And the other school was that he was, you know, a used up junkie who never was funny. And that, you know, he's taken up a lot space that someone else could be using. Which, you know, there's a lot of people who felt one way or another or sometimes both at different times in their life. I didn't know Del very well until I started this project. I met him on the streets of Chicago on Belmont Avenue. He came running up to me and asked me what I was working on now. And I told him I was doing some performances from the Duplex Planet magazine. He started snapping this rubber band on his wrist. Snap! Snap! Snap. And I - I didn't know who he was, you know. This was just some mad, middle aged guy that had, you know, clued in on me, wanted to talk to me and was snapping the shit out of his wrist with rubber band. You know, he had, he had these black and green rings marks up and down his arm. And he had like fourteen rubber bands on there. And he was snapping them, snapping them. I'm like, "Man, what is with the rubber bands?" And he says, "Oh, I'm trying to stop smoking. And every time I do this it releases a little bit of dopamine into my system. Which counter acts my neurological need to smoke." Snap, Snap, Snap." Every time he says "smoke", you know, he snaps it lke five times. I said, "Wow, you know, I've been trying to quit smoking myself." And he says, "Oh. Well, here let me give you a stop smoking kit." And he took a rubber band off and he gave it to me. And I said, "Thanks a lot, I'll see you around." And a friend of mine, later on - he was across the street. I was going to his over to his house. He saw this transaction. He was a student of Del's. He was like, "What goes on between you and Del Close?" "Like nothing, what do yo mean?" He said, "Well, I saw you over there talking. He gave you something. What's up with that?" I said, "Oh, he just gave me a stop smoking quit." He's like, "Ah, he's like. Wow, that's really fucking bizarre." And then another time I saw him on the street. And he looked into my eyes. I was holding my, my new born baby Zoe. He looked into my eyes and this look of almost complete panic came over him. He started walking fast the other way. Which I thought was an extreme reaction too. And so I started chasing him trying to sell him my baby, you know. [uses Middle Eastern accent] "Come on, come on, Mister, come on, five dollars. She's a virgin. I can guarantee it. Come on, I give you five minutes alone with her. Every hole, open, open, close, open close, you likey, you likely. [regular voice] And he's like, "Oooooooh." You know, a little bit of desperation and moving away. And that was like the last time that I saw him. And that would have been 1995. And then, during the course of my Lord Buckley explorations, I come across the name of Del Close. Then I remember that this friend of mine had told me, "Wow, yeah, Del Close used to hang out with this seventy year old English man who smoked reefer like a mad man. And spoke like a negro jazz musician. And, "Wow, is that Del there? No, I'm reading about Del and Lord Buckley here. LordBuckleyOnline. That's really wild, I'm - I wonder if I could call Del on the phone and talk to him about Lord Buckley." I was really nervous about it because of the extreme reaction he had the last time he'd seen me. And I called him up on the phone. I got his phone number on the computer. I looked up this telephone directory on the computer. Found his name and called him. And he said, "Isn't that wild. I've only had a phone for two months. The minute you get a phone it starts ringing off the hook. And it's always old girlfriends or old drug dealers. What do you want?" I said, "Well, I'd like to talk to you a few minutes about The Lord." And he said, "Well, it just so happens I, I don't have a class to teach tonight. I've just smoked a fat joint and the Bull's game isn't on yet so I'd love very much to talk about The Lord." He told me some stories about Lord Buckley. He ended up talking for like forty-five minutes. And he did most of the talking and when I hung up I was like, "Wow!" He talked to me about coffee with L. Ron Hubbard, thanksgiving dinner with Dwight David Eisenhower, who it turns out was a cousin of his. Just so many things. Del was on the cutting edge of everything. He's in "American Graffiti." He is in "Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer" He was around here and there. He was everywhere, you know. "Neal Cassady thought I was the only one that could do a light show that made sense." You know, he was - he knew everyone. He was everywhere doing everything. And I was - I hung up I thought that was pretty amazing. I was very excited. I called up Oliver Trager and said, "Oh, I just talked to Del Close." Oliver says, "Did he tell you this story, this story, and this story?" "Yes, he did." "Well, groovy." And then I called up my friends at the Prop Theatre and I said, "Wow, you know, I've been getting heavily into Lord Buckley. And I just talked to Del about it. And I'm just really excited." And about two weeks later the theatre called back and said, "Wow, would you consider writing a show about Lord Buckley if we could get Del Close to direct?" I thought, "Wow, wow, maybe. Let me ask, let me ask Oliver Trager and Michael Monteleone and let me talk with Del. And I talked with Del about it. And I asked him if he remembered meeting me. If he remembered the stop smoking kit. And he said, "Oh, yeah, I remember, remember having a sore arm for a year there. Did it work for you?" You know, Del died of emphysema. He smoked himself to death. And he asked me if, if the kit had been successful. And when I think back on it, yeah, I actually did stop smoking that year. Maybe it was the kit. But, I told him that he came right up to me and he began speaking to me as if he knew me. And he said, "No, not him. He would never do something like that. He would never approach a stranger on the street. You must know me." I said, "No, we'd never met before." He said, "Well, then it's pretty obvious that we know each other from someplace else." And -

MM
Was it a reference to a, a different life?

CP
Yeah. To a different, to a different life. Exactly. And -

MM
You should told him he owed you money.

CP
Well, then he would have just hung up on me like the rest of the girlfriends and the drug dealers.

MM
Oh, that's right. You're right.

CP
He told me to call him back any time. You know, he'd answer the phone. He say, "What's on your mind?"

MM
That was his -

CP
Yeah, "What's on your mind." And I'd talk to him and he, he was very excited about the possibility of directing a show on Lord Buckley who he thought -

CP
Del said that the moment - when Lord Buckley had gone to this warehouse where circus artifacts were being stored. He had a friend that wanted to buy a horse for his child and ended up buying this circus. And Buckley went down there and was going through the, these trucks and things. He finds this giant purple, jewel encrusted elephant robe. And, at this point in time, he's not "Lord" Buckley. He's "Dick Buckley" the guy who emcees the Coliseum Walkathons, wise guy, alcoholic Dick Buckley, smart ass Dick Buckley. And he puts on this elephant robe and he has a revelation. You know, he dropped to his knees with the impact of the revelation and he says, "Yes, yes, I shall." And then he gets up and bows and says, "My Lord." And when he stands up he, he's become "Lord Buckley." And Del referred to that moment, the moment of transition, when he became a ennobled under the weight of that elephant robe, as being the greatest moment of transformation in twentieth century comedy.

And Buckley was a very important person to him. And he would constantly stressed what a big influence he was on both he and Severn Darden. And Del died the week before we were to go into rehearsals. And, the day that he died, my cat Poet who just got attacked by a coyote last week, and this, you know, doing his best to survive and get better and be the lovey boy that he is - the day that Del died he drug an eagle talon into the house through that cat door over there. And we came out and he was sitting there and there was this eagle talon just sitting there. We didn't know what it was. And I looked and I realized it was an eagle talon. And that's some heavy shit, you know. Especially out here in this part of the country where I live. That's a wild thing to receive: the gift of an eagle talon. And I took it and I put it in a bag and I threw it away. Because it's also very illegal to be found with eagle parts. I could go to jail for ten years and be fined a hundred thousand dollars. And then, the next day, the cat came back with another eagle talon. And the next day with a wing [sound of knock on door] Well - there's somebody at my door now. So we'll have to talk in a little bit. [end of taping]