TC - Tom Calagna

MM - Michael Monteleone

MM
It's almost been a year since we did the last -

TC
Yeah, isn't that amazing and now we have an update and how has Lord Buckley been this last year? [changes to another voice] "Well, let's dig him up and check him out." "Yeah, looks OK, put him back he's cool."

MM
That's him.

TC
"That's him"

MM
What is that line, "the cat's so strong they dig him up every six months" ?

TC
"There's a cat so powerful that every six months they dig him up and say, 'That's him?' 'Yeah, he's cool. Alright, put him back." That's a heavy dude!

MM
So, what have you learned in this last year?

TC
What have I learned? Well, my study of Quantum Physics is going very, very well. What have I learned? I, you know, we're doing the - we have a new Buckley show, as you are well aware because we filmed it the other night. I'm now sort of recreating Buckley's live nightclub act. We've abandoned the biographical sketches that were in Richmond's play [playwright Richmond Shepard] and now we are just doing sort of a reenactment of a bunch of his routines with a band. With a terrific musical accompaniment. And it's been just a gas. I mean, it's just a gas. You know, I wish it were more successful, i.e. I wish we could get more people into see it. But it's an interesting phenomena because whoever comes to see it, digs it - if they knew Buckley it's far out, if they didn't know Buckley they think it's interesting. So it reinforces in my mind that there's a reason to be doing this. But how to reach the audience and grab the populance is still the dilemma. But that's what I'm doing right now. I'm doing an "Evening With Lord Buckley" Two sets, forty minutes with a band doing, you know, Buckley's Greatest Hits. I mean, at least a bunch of them anyway.

MM
Even the old - you're doing the old -

TC
Doing "The Chairs" routine, doing "Governor Slugwell", doing "His Majesty the Policeman", doing "Jonah", "The Nazz", "The Hip Gan", "Martin's Horse", "Horse's Mouth", "Willie the Shake", I think that's about it, "God's Own Drunk" I said that. And in between there's music.

MM
"Hipsters Flipsters"?

TC
Yeah, "Marc Antony - Willie the Shake" And a little bit of improve, you know, as it grows it develops more. The problem is we are only doing it once a week. And we're not - you know, we're getting fifteen, twenty, eleven, thirty people, you know. It would be great if we built some momentum but we've no money to advertise etc. So all of you that are buying this video tape in your local video tape store, send your friends. And if you can't send your friends just send me a check, thank you.

MM
You know, it just occurred to me while you were saying that, that, in someway, you face the same dilemma that he did.

TC
Yes, yes, it's - I think it's uncanny. You know, Oliver [Oliver Trager] said that to me when we got involved, you know, that when you get involved in searching out Buckley's life, reenacting Buckley's life, thinking about Buckley's life, looking into Buckley's life, you get sucked into the Buckley Vortex. And your life then transforms, you know. And part of it becomes, you know, the next thing you're borrowing money, you're broke, you're drunk, it's late at night, you're on the streets, you're lying to someone, but you're having a good time while you're doing it. So, yes, some of the similar problems: getting people to come and pay attention. But, you know, it works. I mean, Buckley's words work in 1998, that's the real message. An audience, I mean, you can have any kind of show and not get an audience. So, you know, that's not unique unto Buckley.

MM
What is it about his stuff that works for you?

TC
I think it's timeless, universal observations. I mean, I think he's sort of a beatnik Jerry Seinfeld, you know, if you think about it. I mean, just like Jerry Seinfeld doesn't curse, doesn't swear, doesn't tell jokes. He goes up there and he makes observations life. Well, Buckley did it in a more abstract, hip way but it's the same observations, you know. So people listen to a story of Christ in hip talk and they listen to the story of "Jonah and The Whale" and "The Nazz" and they understand the universality of what's going on, you know - how you discover things about yourself and life.

Truisms, I think Buckley spoke the truth. I mean, I've said that many times. You know, I think the guy told the truth. He told the truth in humor and he told the truth in fascination with life. The man was fascinated with life. And I feel very akin to him on a multitude of levels. And I hope that comes through the performance, you know. I mean, not only do I think I have the ability to look like him at certain times but I really do feel akin to him. I think that his understanding and spirit is my basic understanding and spirit of life. Which is: it's a gas! You know, it's a gasser. It's a gasser. You know, His Majesty the Policeman, Jesus Christ, The Hip Gan, you know, Vasco de Gama, Willie the Shake, whoever it might be, you know, Amos 'n' Andy what ever it is, man. If you stretch it out, you know, it's like his line from "The H-Bomb", you know. It's like humor is the solvent of the soul, you know. And humor is the universal bloodstream that we all share. And when we lose the humor that's when life becomes drab and dark. And if you can regain the humor, or if you can extract from someone else, well, that's a miracle. You know laughing is religious. It truly is.

I think Buckley repeats himself a lot. I think that's one of his - I think if you wanted to be critical of him theatrically, it's - you know, man, "The Nazz", "Jonah", it's like the same story, man, the great cat, the miracle, yeah, you know why? Because that's what life is at it's core, you know. It's reliving the miracle of life and I think that he helps remind you of that. You know, you sitting there and you go, "Oh, yeah, right. Oh, that's crazy." And it's on a bunch of levels. There's the word plays and then there's the philosophical plays, the emotional plays, and the spiritual plays and then there's the, "Wooah, what was that?" you know. And I think that's the key and the secret to what this man has done and said.

And the concept that - you know, you and sitting in a room, you know, forty years after the guy died, talking about him is pretty unbelievable. I mean, it's not a guy that was famous. You know, it's one thing to sit and talk about, you know, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, you know, forty years later. Because the guy was a famous man. But Buckley was not famous. And he's my epitome of the true heroes of life. To me the true heroes of life are not the people you know about. It's the people that lived life, you know. They didn't go for fame. They didn't go for fortune. They went for a successful life. And I'm sure we romanticize Buckley's life. I'm sure there were days he sat in his room with a figurative gun pointed at his head. You know, with his head in the toilet bowl ready to flush the thing. I'm sure he yelled and screamed and cried and kicked and bemoaned. But the truth is that the guy kept going. He plowed through. And he had moments, right up until his death, he had moments: Driving down the street in a coffin, you know, promoting the show, whatever it was. He exuded a vibrance of enjoying this journey we're on. You know we all get born, we all die and it's, it's - the whole point is what are you doing in between, you know?

And some people think the whole point is to gather up as much money in a CD as you can get. And, you know, money is cool, man, but that definitely ain't, that definitely ain't the reason.

MM
It was like we said too, you don't know whether you are going to leave on page twenty-three or forty-seven.

TC
Right. Right.

MM
What are you going to do?

TC
Right. You got no script. You know, to me the people that say, "You know, I'll do this for fifteen years and then I'm going to retire." Well, it's a concept and it could work that way, and, you know, the day you're about to retire, you know, the number four bus could hit you in the back of the head. And it becomes the great Twilight Zone episode [Season 1 Episode 8 "time Enough At Last"] with Burgess Meredith when he gathers up all the books after the world's been blown up, because he was locked in the - You never saw that one?

MM
No, never.

TC
Oh, he's locked in the bank vault. He's like this book nerd. And every lunch hour he goes into the bank vault and reads a book. And while he's in there the world blows up, nuclear war. And he comes out and, at first, he's mystified by it, but then he realizes that he never gave a shit about nothing but reading books anyway. So he walks over to the public library in New York and opens the door and walks in and starts gathering every book he ever wanted to read in his life. And he piles them on the steps of the public library and he's about to start his journey that will - you know, by himself on this earth. Nobody to bug him. His wife can't yell at him any more. His boss can't yell at him and he trips and breaks his eyeglasses. So you never know.

MM
Oh, that's beautiful.

TC
And the moral is: read the book when you got it on the subway because, damn, you don't know where it's going after that do you?

MM
You don't know when your eyeglasses -

TC
Don't know when your glasses are going to break, baby.

MM
You know, Buckley, did the medicine shows, did the Walkathons, did the Vaudeville, big bands, there were probably a thousand people like him. Came from little towns, came from poor backgrounds, did the medicine shows -

TC
Oh, yeah.

MM
What made the difference between them and him?

TC
Well, that's a really interesting question.

TC
Well, that's a really interesting question. And somewhere lies the truth of - there probably are some other Buckley's that came out of that. That are even more than Buckley, you know, and just never made it. What's separates Buckley is that he had a spiritual hip view of life that went beyond the slapstick Vaudevillian humor, or the nightclub big band comic. I mean he approached - I think he approached his performance as he did his life.

And that's what separates him. It's the same reason we make heroes out of certain people. It's because they do what we don't think we could have done. They get separated because when you think about what Buckley is, when the guy went off stage he was still on the train. You know, he was still going to Ripley, Ravanoy, Cranoy. You know, he just never stopped.

And that's an amazing trait in a person. You know, he made himself bigger than life. I mean the fucking guy called himself "Lord Buckley", you know. His name wasn't Dick Shawn or Red Skelton, you know, it wasn't Stuffy Lewis or, you know, Snuffy Sternwise. It was "Lord Buckley", I mean, the cat said, "Hey, you know, I'm on the throne, man. I'm living life. I'm a king!" Why? Because we are all kings if we want to be. He decided you wake up and could be a king. You could have your own kingdom. It could be the size of breadbox but, you know, if everybody in the breadbox salutes you when you walk by you're the king. And he mesmerized people. And people followed him around. And I think he was a leader. He wasn't a follower. Buckley was a leader.

And I think we admire his conning. We admire his sensitivity. We admire his perception. I think what separates him, in my mind, is that when you heard Buckley speak, between the vocal sounds he made and the words that were elicited through his mouth, it was on another level. It wasn't a comedy record. I mean, for my generation it was a very spiritual - it was an LSD thing, you know, it was like "Whoooah!" You know, he knows. He knows what we saw. You know, it's an affinity that you develop with someone, when you hear someone. It can't be done from pure entertainment either. You can't have that feeling just because the guys a great singer. It's got to be Bob Dylan. You know, you hear Bob Dylan, the guy's not a great singer. But the guys words they cut through your head. You know, they go, "Wow, man, how - I felt that. I know what he's saying!" And that's what Buckley was like. Very, very similar to me to a Bob Dylan kind of character.

MM
I would agree.

TC
And I think that it's fascinating that there's a Dylan album with a Buckley album on his mantel piece in the photo, you know. That's the kind of stuff us Buckley people say, "Whooah, you'd catch that? Check that out, man. Did you see the Dylan album with the Buckley thing." You know. There's only like eight people in the world that you can talk to about these things but you can really call those eight people and say, "Did you check that out?" "Yeah, I saw that! Wow!" "Don't forget to tell Jim!" "Yeah, Jim will know." "Yeah, Jim will know." "OK, he knows." "Yeah, alright." "Don't tell Sally. She doesn't give a shit."

MM
You know, you said something

about humor, losing humor, you know. If you don't have humor - humor is the solvent of terror and tension and the soul. And, you know, when you were saying that I made a note that, you know, it's the same theme as at the end of "The Gasser".

TC
Yes, if you have the spirit and you use it it grows and develops and nurtures and follows suit and goes forth. And if you don't, if you don't have, if you don't let the spirit out it dies. And, to me, that's life. I mean, you know, you can wake up in the morning and you can say, "Oh, my god, I'm a day closer to death." Or you can say, "Oh, my god, I've got another day to do something." And it's, it's, you know it's half full/half empty. It's the way you look at life. I mean, anybody can get up and say, "Man, we're fucked, I'm fucked, man. You know, I owe the gas company, the this company, my wife's pissed at me, my kid's a drug addict. I don't know what's going on. I don't want to talk to him. I hate my job." Or you could get up in the morning and say, "Man, another day! What are we going to do today? What's going to happen today? What am I going to see differently today? What's going to gleam today? What's going to shine today?" And, to me, humor is the differentiation of it all. I mean, you either look at life and you see something and you see the humor in it or you take it real seriously and say, "Oh, my good, I can't believe that happened. Oh, my god, look that fell down the stairs and it broke and now I've got to buy a new one." It's all attitude, man. It's all attitude. And I've felt that way from my youth. I've felt that way from day two, man. It's - I'm a humorist. I'm a person that loves life and sees the humor in everything. The humor in the humor, the humor in the seriousness, and that's what Buckley brings out in you. You know, he could take a subject, you know, like that great interview you've got. I forget the guy. With the Hitler thing.

MM
Yeah, Charles Campbell.

TC
Charles Campbell, has the photographs. I mean, you know, OK, you could sit back and say, "Hey, you know, Hitler, you know, hold on a second. There's a lot of funny things. Hitler ain't funny. No, no, Hitler's not funny." But in the grand scheme of the grand scheme of the grand scheme Hitler was just another putz. Another putz that thought he could do something he couldn't do that made effects on things that are transient and come and go. And the truth is that the human race is transient and will come and go. Forget Jews, forget religion, forget Italians, forget - it's all nonsense. It's all these things we create in our head. And it's like Mel Brooks - I mean, Mel Brooks took Hitler and made humor out of it. There is - of course, there's humor. You know "Springtime for Hitler in Germany". And Buckley felt that there was humor everywhere. All you had to do was [gestures] and pull it out. And I feel the same way, man. And I think you lose that, you lost that you're in trouble.

MM
It recedes from you.

TC
It recedes from you, man.

that gloriousness that if you feel that gloriousness. It's the old thing of, you know, if you believe - you know the, you know the motivators that's a big thing in the '90s. You know, we went from religious zealots to intellectual zealots. And the intellectual zealots, you know, Tony Robbins, he sits up there, Tony Robbins, you know, he looks real sharp. He's a good looking guy and he's got a big house behind him and says, "You know, if you believe, you can do it and you can walk on water." And you know what? He's right. I mean Tony Robbins is right. He's not making that up. And people want to believe that and think they believe in and try to believe it, and they can't believe it, and they do believe it and then they lose it. And they aggggggh. Well, you know what? If you wake up every morning and you think you can you probably can. And if you wake up every morning and you think you can't. You definitely can't. So you might as well wake up and say, "Hey, you know, I think I can do that today." And then you realize that the journey is the experience, not the result. That's another key point. People are too result oriented. "If I do this and this and this I GET this. And what I really want is THIS." Well, did you want to do the things to get there? Because if you didn't then why did you do it? Because if you die on the way there and you didn't get it, what'd you do? [does a dialogue between two voices] "You know what I'm saying?" "I think so." "OK, thank you. Stop arguing. Shut up a little will you, listen to the man." "OK, I will."

MM
"Get those lions off the front of the boat."

TC
[does Buckley voice] "They're in heat man and the wind is coming this way. Have some heart. I'm trying to run an expedition." [returns to normal voice] Yeah, that's a crazy bit. You think about some of those little things you hear on the record.

MM
Oh, and he just tosses them away.

TC
Yeah, and I also. But you got to remember that there are physical things going on there that you can't know what he's doing that are - you know, you can imagine because every time you see a picture of the guy - I mean, the guy emotes, you know, power. So you can just imagine what he was - "Have some heart, man!" You know, like the audience is going, "What the fuck? You think he's OK, is he alright?" "Yeah, I hope so." "He's not going to attack us is he?" "I hope not, no." "He's drinking though. Oh, he drinks. He likes to drink. Hope he's not too drunk."

MM
From a performers standpoint. You've done a lot of performance, not only of Buckley but in legitimate theatre and clowning.

TC
Yes.

MM
Commedia del Arte.

TC
Commedia de Arte.

MM
His - I guess I'd like your comment on a piece like "The Gasser". It's got tremendous visuals in it. Tremendous - he somehow, in a very few words, evokes huge -

TC
Oh, yeah. Amazing. Amazing use of language. Amazing use of language. He - there isn't a word in a Buckley routine that doesn't have a purpose in creating a bigger picture. You know, my favorite example is always the same one "two to toothless." You know, I told you in "Nero"I heard that maybe ten, twelve times before all of a sudden it clicked. And what clicked was - and I'll try to describe it - I see this giant arena with thousands and thousands crosses. And people pinned to them in a Christ like crucifix. And, all of a sudden, I start seeing little kids and teenagers and the next thing you know there's a grandfather. And that's what "two to toothless" did. "Two to toothless" "Two to toothless" three frigging words the guy painted a picture that would take Cecil B. DeMille two weeks and four million dollars to film. And he does it with everything he says, you know. You know, "the parrot had the best go of the whole lick. He had the feather overcoat. The other cats didn't even have a Union Oil map." Yeah, there's the parrot, all the guys are lost standing around bumping into each other. It just goes on and on. The man was a great, I don't know, is it "alliteration", what's the term that, you know - he creates images with words that are grander than the word, much grander than the word.

MM
Well, sometimes they call that person a "poet."

TC
He definitely was a poet.

TC
Buckley was definitely a poet. He was a singer. You know, even when he wasn't singing. Because heeeeee could dooooooo. Mengalong, [Tom makes all kinds of sounds]. I mean he was, he was an instrument. He was a very big instrument with tremendous range.

MM
Oscar Janiger thought of him as almost like a troubadour, in the style of a troubadour. Vaughn Marlowe said, you know, there's very little difference between him and say Homer. Homer would have sat around a campfire. Buckley, you know, stood on a stage in a nightclub very similar. You know, that - if you were to put him in a - what role he had in his culture and in history was that - it was the same that Homer did, the same that a mediaeval troubadour did.

TC
I think this is a similarity I've always felt to Buckley. Which is - you know like if I go to a party or someone's home, it's expected that I'm going to be an entertainer at that evening. You know, if you're sitting around with eight people around the couch and there's a lull in the conversation, they're waiting for Tom Calagna to start, you know, to jump start it. And I can't imagine that Buckley ever walking into a situation where he didn't just take command and fly with it. I mean, obviously more powerful than I would but the same kind of thing. I mean, I can just see people going around saying, "Hey, what's happening, how you been? Hey, listen, you know Buckley's coming over later." And everybody going, "Oh, man, really? Oh, fantastic!" Because you knew that the doors were going to fly open - I mean, the guy was not going to sit in the corner with a martini, you know, and a pig in the blanket, you know, looking over the scene, you know. I mean, you know, "Hey, gee, I hope I get laid tonight." You know, he was going to go, "Well, what's happening here? Everybody take off your clothes. Anybody got a joint? Put the movie down. I don't want to listen to that crap. Put something good on." You know, And you knew he was going to take over. And people need those people. You need, you know, you need those people because not everyone can, you know - there's a place for everybody on this earth.

I think Buckley was a prophet. You know, I think, not to be sacrilegious and not to over idolize him, and not to make light of prophecy. I believe the man was a prophet. I really do. I believe - I said this the last time we spoke. I believe that he was a foreteller of the future. He came here from another time and space. And he came out and, you know, at the risk of having the Christians want to slaughter me. I mean, think about the parallels. He died young, he preached all over the world. He was critizied, ridiculed, basically they killed him, you know. People thought he was crazy. People thought he was nuts. He was irreverent. He wouldn't fit into the standard items. He wouldn't accept, you know - he wasn't one of these guys that, "You know, you've got to listen, Dick, you know. What you really got to do is - you need a blue suit for this interview. You know, play the game." Fuck that! You know, I mean, you got a job - what's that great story he's got that voice over on a cartoon and he goes out and blows a joint and loses the job. You know, you can look at that a lot of ways. "Man, was that stupid?" "What an idiot." "What's the matter with him. Why couldn't' he - " And the other way to look at it is, "Hey, man, you know, the guy's happy, he smokes a joint." If the world didn't figure that out maybe the world made the mistake. It doesn't mean he made the mistake.

And they'd kill Christ if he came back again. Everybody knows that. Everybody know that.

MM
Well, the Christians.

TC
Yeah, they'd kill him in a second. If some fucking hippie started walking around the streets in a jaloby robe, you know, with a pair of sandals, talking like Christ. They'd put him in an institution in a half a minute, man. There isn't a church or a priest in America that would take that sucker in. "I'm the son of God. I can cure mir -" "Yeah, right, OK, good. Jimmy call up the guard. No, no, you'll be fine. A little Thorazin, Prosac, we'll straighten you right out."

MM
The little bit about, you know, he was the kind of guy who could get eight guys to jump off a bridge with him

TC
Well, let's see. I mean, you know me, I don't write anything down. Buckley was a guy that could command people to do things that they wouldn't ordinarily do. They wouldn't think of doing, they wouldn't want to do, they didn't think they were going to do it, they didn't know they were going to do it and all of a sudden they're doing it. I mean, you know, if he was at a party and said, [Buckley voice] "Hey, listen, the idea is that we should go up to the George Washington Bridge and all jump off butt naked at midnight." [normal voice] You could envision people looking around going, [other voice] "That might be far out, man, you know, yeah, alright Dick, yeah, let me pull the car out. I'll be right around the corner meet you in the front.", [normal voice] you know, and you would wonder, [other voice] "Well, why am I doing this?" [normal voice] You know, which is kind of like, it's kind of like - the images of that come out in the "Marquis De Sade" you know. You know, [Buckley voice] "the next thing you know these guys are in a low bow to this cat and invite him to sit down at their table and never saw the cat before in their born days." You know, Prince Minski, "The door flew open and all of a sudden they're going 'wwwwwwwssssssssssoooooo'." [normal voice] And he was Prince Minski. You know, I think that's the - the truth is that Buckley was Prince Minski. That was a side of Buckley. And that whole circle thing, you know. If you take Christ and you go all the way around the corner he becomes the Marquis De Sade. If you take the Marquis De Sade you bring him over around the corner maybe he becomes Christ. It's two parts of the same thing. It's the yin yang. And I think that's what Buckley was doing. I mean, think about it. You know, you got these guys, [Buckley voice] "Vrrrrrpttt, they following him through the mother primeval. All of a sudden they come to a black lake with a blue boat on it. Minski says, 'Get in!'" [normal voice] You know and they do it. I think that's what he was talking about. That's who Buckley was. Buckley was a guy who said, "Let's push the envelope." And he could get people that never ever pushed an envelope to push with him. And they'd turn around go, [other voices] "What the fuck? W hat are we doing?" You know, "Well, I don't know he - he ain't made no bad moves?" "No, he ain't no bad - No he's cool. And so forth. He's cool. You alright." [normal voice] You know, that's what's going on. I mean he's sort of telling his own life in that story. Think about it, you know.

MM
I never thought about but he is Minski.

TC
[Tom switches between Buckley voice and voice of others] Yeah, "Come on guys, what do you want to do tonight?" And also, I think he's telling about how people who think they want to play in the big leagues, you know, "Hey, man I was at that party, that was a wild party!" And he looks at them and said, "Hey, you like to party?" And they say, "Oh, yeah, we like to party." "Really? You sure you like to party?" "Oh, yeah, we loved to party." "Alright, come and party with me, baby. Varrrrrrpppppt!" You know, and all of a sudden they are going, "Well, I don't know, you know, I don't know if I want to party that hard." "Oh, really? Well, you're down now, baby." You know, "Can't turn back now. I'm the baddest cat that ever lived." [normal voice] Yeah, good and bad. Good and evil. Right and wrong.

MM
The sacred and the profane.

TC
It's a thin line that people don't want to address. He not only addressed it. He undressed it. You know what I mean? He just said, "Hey, don't you think you should laugh a little less and pray a little more?" "It's the same thing, baby." That's the truth, it is the same thing.

TC
People don't want to deal with that because it's a very, very, very, very, very difficult concept to put inside a logical mind.

MM
A middle class mind certainly.

TC
I mean, that's right, we had that conversation with your friend Ursula the other day and half jokingly she was concerned about my fascination with Hitler. But I'm sure she was also truly concerned about my fascination with Hitler. But I've got to tell you something, you know, if you ain't fascinated with Hitler, I mean, if you can't be blown away that some cat, some unemployed putz, you know, sits down and writes a book and just about, [Buckley voice] just as he was - just a half a mile, you know, six inches from the top,and he couldn't get over it - [normal voice] He almost took over the world? Are you crazy? You're not fascinated by that? Come on! I mean it's the Anti-Christ. Christ/Anti-Christ, you know. You go round and round and round. It's all the same thing. I think Buckley understood that straight up.

MM
Is it possible that that's the mentality that he ran into that didn't get him over the top? Was that people could realize the he was going to put that right in their face some how?

TC
I think a guy like Buckley could not be great in his own time. It's not possible. It's just not possible. It's a combination of factors. It's, he didn't care enough about being great. The world didn't understand him enough. You know, you just don't become great - a guy like Buckley wasn't going to make it. He wasn't going to be on "Good Morning America" you know, and make the cover of Time Magazine, and be entertainer of the year. He was too far out there. There's a game, there's a framework that you've got to fit in to appeal to the general populance. And he - it wasn't him. It was going to happen. I mean, was he going to get recognized? The hippie culture would have made him into a major figure. But what's a major figure, you know? Is, you know, is William S. Burroughs, I mean, you know what I mean? You know, like you can look at Bob Dylan and say, "Oh, yeah, well, now, Bob Dylan, you know, he's on the Kennedy Center Honors with a tuxedo on." Did you see that by the way? That was a trip, man. Sitting next to Charlton Heston. Bob Dylan with a medal around his neck and a black tuxedo. So, maybe, I guess, maybe Buckley could have gotten world famous, I don't know. But, my sense is no. My sense is he didn't become big and famous because he didn't want to and he couldn't of. He just was too out there. He was too on the other side of midnight, you know. He really was.

MM
Can you see Buckley sitting next to Charlton Heston?

TC
Yeah, can you imagine that? I mean, you know that if Buckley was there he would have lit up a joint and gotten thrown out of the whole fucking thing. He would have said, [Buckley voice] he said, "Mr. President, or Prejudice, (tokes on a joint) Hillary, hmmm, you're breast's are looking lovely tonight, my dear. And your daughter is she available? (tokes on joint again). I want to thank the Academy."

TC
[normal voice] If he had had his own weekly television sit com we would be sitting here today trying to find out everything we could about him, recreate his humor and life, you know. And listen to the same routine. I mean, that's what blows my mind, is that I put a Buckley routine on in the car and I can laugh out loud. And this is shit I've been listening to for thirty frigging years. Now how many things can you say that about. I mean, I get a smile. I can hear stuff and just flip. And I strain to listen. I strain to hear, you know, all the live stuff of Buckley? I know you do this. I know you do because I know you well enough. But you strain when - when you're into him as much as I, you strain to hear what that waiter said to the guy at the beginning of Dan MacGrew. And there's a bit - there's one of my great lines where you hear Buckley say, "Leave it there. Leave it there." You know that line? And I have this whole vision. I have this vision of: there's a drink and the waiter thinks it's finished. And Buckley's smoking a cigarette and he says, "Leave it there. Leave it there. It's cool. I'm cool, baby. Don't, you know." Or, you know, the other thought I have is maybe it's a twenty dollar bill, you know, for the drink and the guys about to take it or give the change and says, "Leave it there." You know, whatever it is it's - you can see him. You can get a sense of what an amazing thing it would have been to have been in an audience, to walk into a club in Greenwich Village in 1958 and sit at a table and order a vodka and tonic and have Lord fucking Buckley come out, man. Because, you know, it's just - the guy had it. For me he had it, you know.

MM
I listened to the beginning of that new CD, the "Marquis De Sade" one and he starts into the routine and then you hear, I think it's his engineer saying, "Baby, you make me feel self conscious."

TC
Oh, yeah.

MM
Now, what happened there? Was Buckley talking right to him? You know, I mean, it's like you said, it's almost like the crack in the curtain is open and you get to go back forty years in time and have little quick glances.

TC
And you get to create your own story. Because the story is not clear. So you paint your own story. And you take your feelings, your thoughts, your experiences, your love of Buckley, your knowledge of him and you create a story. And it might not be the right story. But it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Because it does create a whole story for you.

MM
When I talked with Lady Buckley, six months before she died. She talked of him in the present.

TC
Like he was still there.

MM
Oh, yeah. I mean, it wasn't like the illusion like, you know, she was deluded that he was still alive.

TC
Right.

MM
But the spirit of him was -

TC
Did you tape her?

MM
No, silly me, no.And I never got another audience with her.

TC
You spoke to her in person or on the phone?

MM
On the phone. I was about eight blocks from her as it turned out. She was a delightful, lovely person. You know, Millie and Dick said that when she, at sixty-five years old, when she came to visit them, she'd get up in the morning and do her exercises. She'd put her leg over the refrigerator to stretch, at sixty-five. Stretch, can you imagine?

TC
I've never really seen a photo of her. I heard she was a beautiful woman when she was young.

MM
Yeah, she was. I have some stuff. Just, you know, reproductions from -

TC
Were they together a long time?

MM
Thirteen years, fourteen maybe, fifteen at the most. They met somewhere between '45 and '47 I think. And lovely time for them I think. I mean, I think she was wacked too.

TC
See, I think the point of Buckley, you know, the point of what we're doing: writing a book about Buckley, performing Buckley, doing a documentary on Buckley, trying to make a movie about Buckley, trying to recreate Buckley. I think it's a very fascinating project. I think that the point is not to convince the world that this was a great man. I don't think the point is to make sure that a lot of people in the world know about Buckley. I think the point is simply that we have the need to tell his story. I don't think it matters - one more time - the result's not the issue. You know, to get caught up - can we make a Hollywood movie? Can it be a great, you know. Will you and Oliver become Matt Damon and Rob Affleck and sit there with your grandparents at the thing and talk about what an incredible.

MM
It's like a sacrament.

TC
You've got to do it. And if somebody hears it they hear it. And if they don't hear it, they don't hear it. But you've got to scream it, you know.

MM
Do you feel transported when you perform?

TC
Not all the time. I wish I did. But many times I do. And I feel self-rewarded every time. It is self-rewarding to do Buckley. Whether anybody's listening or not. For me to get up on a stage and start doing "Jonah" and "The Hip Gan" and what ever it is, it is self-rewarding. It's its own frigging reward, man. The words are still beautiful. The sounds are still relevant to me. And the concept that I can feel his intention coming through me is a self-rewarding thing. And there are times when I do feel, you know, channeled. That I do feel that I'm channeling this madman. Yeah, it real reverence that I have for him. And it's not hokey and corny and stupid, you know. I'm not sleeping with the guy's photograph. Neither are you. I mean, that's part of what it's about. It's not about idolizing. It's not about - it's not like I'm a Beatlemania guy. It's about, man, you want to turn people on to Buckley. I've done that my whole life. Long before I met you and long before I did Buckley. You know, I'd meet someone and if I though they were really cool, if I really dug them, you know, as much as I'd want them to go eat at Latanzi's, my favorite Italian restaurant, or go see, you know, a great movie that I believed in, you know, I wanted them to hear Buckley. You know, you want to share him. And you can only share him with people that you think you can share him with though. Because some people are going to go, "Hmm, yeah, that's ahhh, (yawns) no, no, that's interesting Tom, it's very, very, it's cool - we've got to go now. Thank you very much for dinner and the lovely music. I think he's nuts, Joan. It's the drugs. He smoked too much pot."

I've always described Lord Buckley as a verbalist. And within the verbalism that he profounded and expounded was a man that commanded such presence and such respect that basically he could get anybody to do anything at anytime. And, in my opinion, he was one of the great mesmerizers that's I've ever known. A man that could mesmerize and command at any moment.

[Tom does Buckley spinning wheel sounds]It's the spinning wheel, baby, [more sounds] knock a little patch on the cat's pants [more sounds] swing up a little coat for grandma [more sounds] stop buying Prince Albert in the can [more sounds] get rid of those Queen Victoria records [more sounds]

MM
This guy Greg Palmer, the guy that did the "Vaudeville" thing?

RC
Right.

MM
He talked with some people who said, "You know, you would do your act, seven, eight times a day. And they wanted exactly the same every time."

TC
Right.

MM
Can you imagine Buckley in Vaudeville doing the same thing exactly the same thing every time. I'm sure that didn't hold for him. I know Dick and Millie told me a story about one time he had a disagreement with the manager of the theater. He came out, he sang his Louis Armstrong song with his traveling case in hand. As soon he was finished he jumped off the stage and walked out through the audience and out the front door.

TC
Never heard that story. That's brilliant. That's absolutely brilliant. Well, you know, it works all kinds of ways to, you know. Sometimes I struggle to improvise. And if you force it, it doesn't work either. You know, "I've got to come up with a new -" But the other thing is, you've just got to do it, you know. And that's the example I told my kids all the time. I said, "Man, you've got to keep going."

MM
Do you take courage from Lord Buckley's life?

TC
I take inspiration. His life inspires me. His words inspire me. His photographs inspire me. His performances on television inspire me. He - I have heroes in life, you know, and he's one of them. I'm a sports freak. I mean, you know, if you show me an old clip of Babe Ruth talking to an audience. I mean, I'll look at every nuance of the man's - you know, you look - Babe Frigging Ruth, I mean, you know - you're talking about guys that separated themselves from the whole ball of wax. And that's what Buckley is to me. I mean, I can watch anything that man has done - the little amount of video that's available to us. And it's fascinating, the nuances, the eyes, the eyebrows, the look, the label that - what ever it is. You know, I told you the last interview, one of my favorite things in that, in that Ed Sullivan is when he drops the cigarette and just does little thing with his foot. Doesn't drop a beat, doesn't' focus on it, nobody else - I mean, you could probably show that tape to a thousand people and nobody would ever notice that. But, to me, it's so revealing. It's this, [Buckley voice] "Ladies and Gentlemen, I'd like to take - and I want you -" [normal voice] and it's like a throw away. It's like I've also said, to me the interesting lines are the throw aways. It's the throw aways. It's the asides, it's the, you know, it's the Groucho Marx, you know "Would you care to join me?" "Why you falling apart?" It's those lines that are like, "Holy shit, I mean, that's " you know, [Buckley voice] "Vrrrppppt, that cat's pushing Shakespeare!"

TC
[normal voice] "Oba dee, oba dah, I'm with me, you with ma." Whatever that line was. That's a great line from "Nero"

MM
"Oooh ba doo, oooo bah", something, "Ooobadah, Ooobad doe"

TC
"Dee, I'm with you, you're with me." "You're with me, I'm with you. Vrrrrpttt. Another, Nero, 'Man, that cat's pushing Shakespeare."

MM
You know what I love about that intro to is that, the beginning of "Nero" like that. Is that you get a whole sense of how pampered he is, how everybody is sucking up on his butt. That Praetorian, the Head Praetorian studs, "Man, he's pushing." I mean it's a shit poem.

TC
Oh, yeah, no, that's the whole point. And it's funny, I think that's one of his greatest bits, man. There's some stuff in that that just blows my mind. And then just think about the intro. You know you talk about creating a picture. You know,

TC
[Buckley voice] "Well, he we is. Here we sure is in Rome." [normal voice] And you see these two black guys. You know, these two Amos 'n' Andy characters with big fedoras, wide brim jackets, you know, they just won like ten thousand dollars at a horse race. And instead of blowing it the next day they said, "Man, what have you - you never been to Rome? Man, let's go to Rome." You know, and they're walking around the streets, "Man, here we is, here we is in Rome. After winning all that money in the horse and racing." He says, "Man, look at that pad, man. Look like some big time contact got about half way through and ran out of loot." And the other cat looks at him and says, "What you talking about, man? That's Nero's pad." "Nero's pad? Who's Nero?" "You don't know who Nero was?" [normal voice] I mean, what an incredible concept. I mean, instead of just doing Nero, he does this wacked out Amos 'n' Andy introduction. That always blew my mind, you know. What a way to lead in. Instead of saying, [Buckley voice] "Man, Nero " like he does with many of his bits. "You know, Nero was the kind of cat -" He say, "Man, Nero was the kind of cat have a main day breeze all the time."

MM
Yeah, there is something - I think he suckers you in because you think it's all about Nero, and then all of a sudden it's about salvation.

TC
And the line too, my favorite thing is, the guy says, "Ah, Nero, about them Christian cats." "What about them Christian cats, man? Why you always bugging me with the Christian boys. They ain't as hip as I is is they?" "No." "Well, then stop bugging me with the Christians." He say, "Yeah, but, Nero, you don't know what them Christian cats has been putting down about you." "What they been putting down?" He says, "Well, they say you ain't nowhere, you never been nowhere. 'Cause you nowhere in front." "Snatch them Christians!!!!" [makes noises] Up go the Christians snatchers. [normal voice] You know it's this great concept. [works into Buckley voice] It's like you see a guy sitting in his office, you know. And he's on the phone and there's a chick on his knob, you know. And he's doing lines, you know. And all of a sudden, when the guy says, "Excuse me, Mr. Nero?" "Don't bug me, man, I'm busy." "But, Mr. Nero, the Christians..." Say, "I don't care about the Christians." He says, "Yeah, but they said you jive." "Really? Get them Christians!!" Pulls the chick of his knob, "Get them Christians!" [normal voice] Anyway, maybe I'm reading in to it a little, Ladies and Gentlemen. It is a great bit. And Obba Dah, Obba Dee, whatever -

TC
[Buckley voice] Kind of a cat that you come over to his house - a little Saturday afternoon gin session, man, and about half way through you run out of juice and the cat - you run down to the corner to pick up some juice, when you get back this cat done sold your family into slavery and burned your pad down. [normal voice] I mean, I always remember the first ever time I heard that., "Man, that's a bad dude." Man, you know, you want to paint a picture of a heavy cat, man. You invite the cat over to get stoned, you run out to get another six pack and he sells your family to slavery, burns your pad down. I mean, you know, like, in other words, there ain't no doubt. You know what I mean? He paints pictures where it's real clear, man. There's not gray areas with this dude.

MM
And what a universe of characters. I mean, a whole universe.

TC
It's a great, great, it's a great bit. It really is a great bit.

TC
[Buckley voice] "Just as the cat's beard was catching on fire."

MM
What do you think of that line, the one about the breeze. Some people -

TC
What line?

MM
When everybody's on fire and he says about, there's something, there's a line about, "What a breeze." You know, "What a -" [break in taping]

"You don't want to go there the populance is down there. You done burn the town down last Tuesday." "Get the chariot!" "They're very salty, you done burn the city down last Tuesday."

MM
Are you amazed - I mean he really created, the catalog of characters he created that are so vivid and unique, I mean, it's extraordinary.

TC
Yeah, yeah. It's funny - I had a conversation with Paul Zaloom about this, you know - his favorite thing about Buckley is not the grand stories. And I understand that. In a lot of ways, he's right. Things like "Black Cross", the little asides, the throw aways. You know the grand stories have become a little cliché amongst people that know Buckley because they're grand stories. But they aren't throw aways. They're phenomenal. And, although it'd be hard for me to say that something like "Jonah" is my favorite bit, it's not. But I will tell you that it's one of my favorite bits to do. Because I really, really, enjoy, as a performer, the repartee between The Whale and Jonah. And I love doing that transition. You know, as a performer, man, that's fucking awesome. To have this schizophrenic conversation with yourself. And I think it's really gotten - I think I do it well now too. You know that [snaps fingers rapidly] snap transition. And it's not about, "Oh, I'm a whale." You know, it's about [Amos 'n' Andy voice] "Hey, man, you know, the whale is like, you know, this guy. You know, like, hey man, you know." [normal voice] He's a big fat, big fat dude, you know, powerful dude. The other guy is kind of like a cool, you know [Amos 'n' Andy voices] "Hey, man. What's happening, Mr. Fish?" "What's happening, Mr. Fish? What're you talking me like, you know" [normal voice] That's what it's about. You know, Buckley created the images. It wasn't, you know, it's not like a cartoon. Buckley's using the images of real characters to talk about real characters to create fantasy stories. [tape ends]