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MM
Okay, first question I have is what attracted you to Lord Buckley?
AF
Let me try to think of how it is that I ran across Lord Buckley. I'm pretty certain that I ran across Lord Buckley in the course of learning about Lenny Bruce. I did a Lenny Bruce show - I did Lenny Bruce's material for a show once - and if in the course of learning about that, I think that was how I ran across Lord Buckley. And certainly what was interesting about Buckley, what interested me about Lord Buckley was that he did not tell jokes. And I'd never, to this day, I can't tell you that I actually laugh at Lord Buckley's material. But it's so interesting that I just keep watching it. And listening to it. And I suppose as a comedian, comedians are always impressed by comedians who aren't just desperate to get laughs. Since most of are just desperate, and anybody who's got the nerve to stand up there and do their thing and not try, not be trying every second to please, is an awesome creature to the rest of us; so you just kind of go 'How can that happen? How can he do that?' And you know, and also I - the fact that he took things that you just couldn't possibly imagine being funny, like, you know, the Naz, or Gandhi or the Gasser and all that, or the fact that he could do that and not only make them interesting, and amusing, but do it without telling jokes - is just flabbergasting. So I'm just really impressed as a comedian. Like I said, in the most - at his most profound level, it doesn't make me laugh in the most profound comedic sense. But I'm still just so impressed. Most comedians don't laugh, they just go 'ha, that's funny.'
MM
Maybe you could tell me what you think is what his significant contribution to comedy has been.
AF
I would posit his most significant to comedy was the effect he had on the other comedians who saw him. He gives you faith, he gives you courage; by doing what he did he created a, you know, he created a precedent you could follow, that you didn't have to be the slave to the next, till the last four seconds from now that most of us are. Cause professionally you just have to do that. You can't make a living unless you can get a laugh every four to five seconds, and the fact of his work, the fact of his existence, the fact of his success - but more than success, the fact of his work, I think influenced all of us and gave us, those of us who saw him, permission to take chances that we otherwise would not have taken. And that, the capacity of artists to take chances, makes the art infinitely more interesting, infinitely better and richer and the world a better place.
MM
What is taking a chance?
AF
It means that Buckley would go, he would just keep going. I mean it wasn't the fact that they weren't laughing often didn't stop him. He would just kind of keep going. He was trying to do a thing, trying to say a thing, and he was not always looking over his shoulder to see how's it going? He went some other place with the work. He took the work, he used - it's kind of like what I liked about Whoopi Goldberg's initial show on Broadway and what I like about Dickens and about Buckley - these really brilliant comedians, but they're not out there trying to get on Saturday Night Live, trying to, you know, do the, to crack 'em up in Vegas. They are using their comedic skills in the service to those things which they fundamentally hold dear. And in the case of, you know, of all three of those people, they attempted to use their work in the service of empathy and compassion. Now Buckley, I would say, Buckley's work was less specifically about that, you know. His was - the humanity and compassion in his work was more around the bend, whereas like Whoopi Goldberg really got us in and tried to make you feel compassionate for a German gang banger, you know a German skinhead. Dickens really tried to make you feel something for horrible people who ran orphanages. Buckley was more, you know, he was - I mean in some of it he was straight up fun - you know there was the whole thing about"'you are the flowers" and all that; but in pieces like Hip Gahn and the Naz, those weren't like in your face humanitarian statements, but they were. The fact of treating those subjects in that was, was a profound and eloquent statement about the humanity of those individuals and how they - in how they are to be approached.
MM
I talked with a fellow named Barry Sanders; he's a professor of - I guess he does popular culture and things - and he wrote a book called "Sudden Glory" which is about laughter and history. And he said that one significant thing he thought about Buckley, was, he says, compare Buckley with someone like Don Rickles, where Buckley - he says the significant thing was that Buckley elevated people and that it wasn't a putdown. You know when -
AF
Well, I'd have to, you know, far be it from me to disagree with a professor and further, far be it for me to defend Don Rickles. But, have you ever seen Don Rickles live?
MM
I haven't, no.
AF
There's no more warm, loving, compassionate human being ever to grace a stage.
Mm
Yeah?
AF
He's, I mean to all - the man's got four jokes. He's got what the Jews said, what the blacks said, what the polish guys said and I forget the other one. He's got four jokes and that's it. The entire act is those four jokes over and over again. But he puts such warmth, such genuine stone love, far more so than Buckley did. Far more so. I mean, he just puts solid love, he just - you love the guy. You know every moment, every second you know that every insult is someone who loves you trying to make you laugh. So that's not, I would absolutely disagree with that, cause Rickles - usually no one leaves, no one, or I should say, everyone leaves a Don Rickles show with their self-respect and self-esteem wholly intact-wholly intact. Absolutely.
MM
What religious themes do you see in Buckley's work?
AF
Well, obviously he's a Christian who has spent a lot of time thinking about it. I mean he really, clearly spent a lot of time thinking about it and was uncowed by the conventions of his age, even by the conventions of his faith. I mean he absolutely looked at the work with fresh eyes, with his own personal Buckleyesque eyes and spoke of it, and spoke to it with his own unique voice. It's an interesting thing about Buckley, you know, In Judaism they tell you that, you know, Judaism is essentially a book club. You know and all the Jewish and Christianity it's the same book you read over and over and over again from the time you're a little kid until you drop dead you read the same thing over and over again. And every generation reinterprets it and does, you know, and has their own little spin on it. But when you engage the book, the book has it's chance to affect you as well. You know. And clearly the book got into him and spoke to him and called to him and sucked him into it and didn't let him go. And it called to the highest part of his art, the most courageous part of his life; that part of his life that took the biggest risks. You know, where there's stuff that inspired him from the book. And so I guess more than anything else I'm impressed by the degree to which he was open to letting the book affect his art in a wholly original, and honest way, which is hard to do. In the fact of several thousand years of culture.
MM
Yea, a stodgy culture too.
AF
Stodgy culture at that.
MM
Would there be anything that stood out to you, like is there a single thing in his work that you go - that's the signature.
AF
First let me tell you that we're here at the Second City and I spoke last night to Bernie Sahlin, who owned Second City at a time when Lord Buckley was here. And Bernie said, I asked him if he had seen Buckley when Buckley performed and Bernie said, "Yeah I did, it was just like Lenny Bruce and they both hated themselves." And that was his take was that he hated himself. What was your question - now I forget?
MM
Well, no , did he say anything more about that?
AF
Well, he said he didn't mean it in a bad sense, in a negative sense. But the work - the assumption I made and I'm fairly certain that - was that he saw them both as self-destructive people, people who went out of their way to put themselves into trouble and he interpreted that, that penchant for personal endangerment as an expression of anger at self. And that's Aaron's version of what Bernie's analysis was.
MM
Barbara Harris the other day said that he had a lot of depression, she thought he was very depressed. So . . .
AF
Yea, I suppose what has impressed me and surprised me is learning, a) more the sense of the specifics of his dark side, and b) how close that dark side was to the surface. It wasn't like deep down in there; it was right near by. He'd not put layers of comedic skill in between his demons and his audience and his persona. But it was right up and there, you know, and you got the impression sometimes that it took all of his intelligence and all of his creativity and all of his comedic skill to keep that dark side to - from just come busting out there and doing real damage to the world. And that was really very interesting because I find that - it certainly a- stereotypical of comics and I find it atypical just generally of, you know, perhaps it's not -I am from a more gentile tradition of comedy. You know here at the Second City the comedians are by and large middle and upper middle class, well-heeled people for whom hunger and struggle are things we read about. It's like maybe in that generation, you know, it was more typical to be a tormented soul and to have to battle your demons all the way. I don't know, but I just know that certainly the comedians I know - and it's probably one reason some people say that Second City isn't as good as it used to be, and you know, because people aren't as hungry anymore because here we're all fat and happy and drinking "li-qua". Not those good old, you know, people with good old drunks. You'd get out there and get smashed to go on stage and at intermission puke your guts out, and get started drinkin again for the second act. We don't do that anymore. Dog-gone it!
MM
Yeah, really. Let's see. Now this is something I don't know if you want to address or not, which is -and I certainly don't want to make you my token Black person. . .
AF
Sure, sure, well don't complain to me, I'm sure I've dealt with it.
MM
Your reaction to his use of black dialect, the patois, that he adopted for some of his routines.
AF
Yeah, I mean he used stereotypes. I mean there are those classic stereotypes of his day. You know, you have to look at everything in context. I suppose now I like Lord Buckley and I want to think good things about Lord Buckley, so I choose - it's an absolute choice that I choose to believe that he did the best he could in the time - within the context of his culture. I am told, by Charlie [Chalres Pike], that he didn't particularly want to be doing that Amos and Andy bit till he was - you know forever and ever and ever, but I understand that certainly he's one of many, many, many, many, many performers who got trapped into doing a bit that he did very well. And I basically think, again this is another occupational hazard that, whatever it takes to get a laugh, you know. And I think that the world is big and that has to be room in the world for everybody's kind of humor; and the fact that he was not necessarily as, you know, socially responsible in his willingness to do those bits as one might like to have seen - alright, that is something that he will, that his legacy and his, you know, historians will deal with. But he performed them splendidly. You know that's like the old, when Oscar Wilde was asked whether he thought a book could be immoral. He said, 'Worse, it could be badly written.' So, you know, I say that the excellence of the performance elevates the morality of the material.
MM
How about the material about The Naz and The Hip Gan, which really, I mean they're certainly not sort of 'step and fetch it' . . .
AF
No. No, you have me. That's wonderful. I mean that was taken - those were bits perfectly of their moment, perfectly of their day. You know, I mean, he took this new and dynamic little eddy that was floating around in the English language and aimed it at this, these topics that - that's not the only bits he did that to but he aimed them at topics that had never been touched and dealt with them in that way, publicly. You know, and that's when you really hit it right, when you can make - 'cause you know every generation does - there's only seven jokes. We all do have the same material like I was saying before. Every generation does this. He took the language of his generation where he was at right there, and he was the first guy that I know of, and the only guy that I know of, to have skillfully applied it to that material. And that's what you're supposed to do. That's the best of what you can do. You can't help but do the same old, cover the same old material, but what you can do is reinterpret it freshly for your own generation. And that was what he did. That is, in my view, the work of the artist to take that same old stuff and make it and live it and realize it afresh for your own generation.
MM
Do you think he believed by using that language, what he called the American Beauty Negro, that he was trying to honor it?
AF
Well, you know, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Although I would hesitate a little bit to ascribe that language to American Negroes, cause that's a very specific segment of American Negroes that talk like that. 'Cause most of us did not, even back in the 1950s. Very few, if anybody, ever talked like Amos and Andy. And it was, that's why it was funny, because people didn't really talk like that. It was a convention, you know, it was just a convention. It was how we, you know like now the convention of Negroes intercity is "yo bro, whad a homie.' Most people don't talk like that, aren't like that, but that's our convention and that's what he did, so I find it very difficult to think of it as a, as a, well sort of the Amos and Andy thing we can contribute, and the jazz hipster stuff, maybe. I mean, maybe. But when I put myself into that position I think that he was just something wonderful. Something wonderful and seductive and with my own comedian's heart I just think that it's neat. In fact when we've done - the show people have, starting with Charlie, I guess - people have effected some of the language just cause it's fun.
And it's, cause it's one of the questions in the show that we do, cause we did the Seven Ply Gasser. There's one of fundamental questions is like 'why the heck would anyone follow this guy?' Cause he was, when he was not being charming and wonderful, he was terrible! You know, and mean and abusive and all that stuff. But that - I posit and how I dealt with it was that he presented, he assembled from the world around him, a Buckleyn world that was more fun and more interesting that anything that most folks had going for them. That he, you know, he pulled all kinds of stuff together, you know. From Shakespeare, to the jazz guys, to all kinds of stuff and from that, from the pieces from everything around him, he made that Buckleyn world. And that was a wonderful world and the Buckleyn world essentially died when he died. But there are threads of it that live on as material and continue to inspire people in that same kind of way. So I, I don't assume that it was necessarily a -I'm frankly inclined to think that was a bit of a rationalization. But again that's projecting my own tendencies on this. I just think he assembled all kinds of stuff 'cause he wasn't, his whole life wasn't hipster talk, because he brought to the hipster talk all kinds of neat stuff that he pulled from other areas. So he wasn't like just stuck into that hipster thing. So I think he pulled together all kinds of things and it was about him and he made a world that was fun for him to be in that seduced lots of other really interesting people; and it spoke volumes about those people, that it was too visceral, that they were attracted.
MM
And, I think it was, it's particular interesting too that it was in the '50s, which was kind of a locked down . . .
AF
Sure and part of that was that, you know, that the '50s a lot of people, I mean a lot of artists, obviously this is not to be found. People were reacting to the conformity of the era. You know, I will say thought that Buckley did what certainly, and I'm only really familiar with the Western tradition, but certainly what Western artists have done since the very least the Enlightenment, which is to -he's don't what middle and upper middle class Western artists have done, which is to reach down. To go into the outcasts of the culture and pull that stuff up. Like Picasso ripped off West African forms, but I mean it's what you do. I mean you kinda, you know, because the fat and happy people are not gonna make revolution in art. You know, you ain't gonna change the art world by hangin out with your peers. I mean you gotta go somewhere else and it's why high fives came out of the, came out of urban gay culture. It's why ??? and sister and so many of the things that enliven our modern speech is stuff that's just straight out of the people that we beat up. You know. Because their culture, because they are denied entrance into the big, happy, fat mainstream culture, they're forced -and actually in the play Buckley talked about this, but they're forced to come up with something that's original and dynamic and real. And those of us who are fat and happy can look and 'Oh, wait a minute, there's life going on over there -can I come and play with you guys for a little bit?' And you can only take a little piece of it and you come back to your dinner party and you amaze your guests.
MM
Buy a little piece of the revolution and hang it on your wall.
AF
That's right, exactly. Nice, safe, you know.
MM
What is it about Buckley that you're trying to emphasize in your direction and with the play?
AF
Well, there are a lot of things about Buckley. I mean, first and foremost you gotta entertain the audience, in my humble opinion. So first of all you got to think he's entertaining. In this case, that means funny. I mean my first concern was will the material work. Because if they don't buy, if they don't buy his material, if they don't buy his art, then you're gonna have a lot of trouble. So they gotta buy that. And then, you know, you want to try, I mean the idea is to kinda try -well, what I want to do is do what the playwright does. Cause that's, in this process this is the new place festival and the game here is what the playwright says. So you know, there are things that the playwright is trying to bring out about the character, about his, you know, his some of his dark sides and about some of the odd relationships in his life. Some of his journey and how he was instrumental in some of the misfortunes that befell him. And so there are things that the playwright is trying to do with the play, and my desire, and I'm sure all of our desires and anyone's desire in this kind of process, is to try to bring those things out so that the play-wright can see them and decide whether they're any good or not.
MM
Do you have a favorite routine?
AF
Oh well, you know. Everybody loves the Naz. That goes without saying. Um, I guess I have less of a famous routine, favorite Buckley routine as a favorite Buckley state. You know, the . . .Buckley was a state of mind, he was a psyhic space. A. . . Buckley to me was kind of kind - a friend of mine - a woman objected, told me that she objected to guys stopping to wait for her to get first off an elevator. She thought that was sexist and patronizing. And I said that I disagreed with her. I mean she has a perfect right to do what. . . but I think that it's kind of neat that here you're in some busy building and in the middle of some guys going "I fucked this guy, and I shoved him and I kicked his. . . .", then the other door opens and they are transported back to the late seventeenth century and can, this just kind of grand world of lord and ladies and the rules of chivalry. And I think what I like about Buckley is just that. I think of him as a romantic, as an idealist. And those are the qualities that I would hope he reminds me of; he reminds me that there are values, and when you can be as courtly and as well mannered and as respectful as he was on his, on, in the best of his work and in the best of what I under-stand to be his personal, that's what I remember and it moves me and hope would stay in my own heart.
MM
Beautiful. Ah, let me ask, I guess we have two questions more. One is if he had a weakness, what you would say it was as a comedian?
AF
Drugs, alcohol. I mean you look at some of the bits, I mean marijuana too, I guess. But that you can clearly tell that the timing and the crispness of a modern comic was not there. There was, you know, it was too fast, let me tell you, as a -I say this with, I look at his work with modern eyes now. It was a different world back then, I suppose, and he was not the only guy in that kind of hipster world who sounded, through the modern ear sounded like he's done a few things, had a few substances. And I think that's a - but I do consider that as an artist a failing, because I don't think he was able to do, when under the influence, he was able to do with his instrument that which you, all that he was capable of. On the other hand, I suppose there are people who would argue that his right hemisphere was freed up by Mother Mary, but I don't know, I don't quite buy that these days.
MM
Last thing would be, how is it that a comedian could be funny without telling jokes?
AF
Bud Freedman, who founded the Improve said that, says that it doesn't so much matter what a comedian says when he's on the stage as what the comedian says after he's left the stage. That like I said to you before, that Buckley is a space and a frame of mind, 'cause what happens is any audience, when you hit the stage, any audience will give you the benefit of the doubt for thirty-forty seconds, something -ususally even more longer than that. In that time you only have to touch them in some way; you have to connect with them, most commonly you persuade them that you're funny, then they go 'Okay, he's funny.' I'll relax, I'm okay, my time is safe. Buckley created this thing, this space -and as I said, I laugh him without laughing-he had a, you know, he took you to a place that you wanted to be, so that you would go along with him. He's kind of like, I tell you this is going to sound so stupid, I hope I can make this point: Edward Teller, father of the hydrogen bomb; I saw him give a lecture at the Museum of Science and Industry. He talked for four hours one day on quantum physics and four hours the next on relativity. He would, he was far, far, far smarter than I was. And he would say things like, 'Well, as you can see x time 3 to the 4th power equals 17 times 3 to the tenth. Well, in the Middle Ages, they thought it was 17 times 3 to the ninth!' (Laughs) Well, because he was into it, because he dug it, because his love of it was so clear, you stayed and you were compelled even though you personally didn't know what the hell was going on, you knew there was something wonderful happening there. You could just tell it, and that's what I think with Buckley; there was something wonderful going on; there remains something wonderful about the material. It's irrelevant whether you're laughing or not. It's kind alike Bert Lars' son wrote this book about show business and it was called "Astonish Me." Which is all that you ever want; you just want to go 'Wow!' I mean, sure you come to a comedy show and you think you wanta laugh and whatever -all you really want is to be amazed. You want what Jeffery Sweet said, something wonderful right away. And that's what Buckley gave you and that's what was so fantastic about it, and it didn't matter whether you laughed or told jokes or whatever it was, he took you and he transported you to this wonderful place. And then when you left the stage, you knew you'd been on a journey that was worth the trip.
MM
That was beautiful. It made tremendous sense.
AF
Oh, alright. I'm glad.
MM
Cause I've seen Edward Teller on television and to think of him laughing out loud at a joke about . . .
AF
Oh, it was so funny. He was so funny because I was such, I am such a groupie, I got the -after it when he went to lunch, I -me and a buddy of mine who was studying physics at the time, we just stood there staring at the blank stage where he had been. And the, like the people who ran the thing saw us and said, 'What the fuck are these guys?' 'You guys wanta have lunch with him?' So we went to, we got to have lunch with him.
MM
Get out!
AF
No, yea, cause we were just sitting there and he felt sorry for us --we were obviously - everyone had left. We were just sitting there going, 'Wow, it's Teller.' So I'm sitting next to him, you know, and I -he says 'How was the lecture? Did you enjoy it?' And I said, well I didn't understand all the calculus -I didn't understand any of the calculus. But you know you were such a good teacher cause you shown through the essence. And he said, 'Well, you know whatever you believe about religion, you have to admit we are descended from apes. And the way you make an ape think something is important is you have another ape jumping up being excited about it. So I tried to be an excitable ape.' Which for Teller, you know, was pretty funny!
MM
Yea, that's great. Listen anything you think of that you'd like to say?
AF
Ah, let's see here. . . ummMM
MM
with my eyes. Yes, this is Aaron. But you ever see me, it looks like I was put together like by an adult, and you know the pot got me. You know, Lord -well the other really interesting thing about Lord Buckley, I'm coming to understand, and one of the great things that works for him was that he had just, it's an underrated skill, an under-rated aspect of performance, He had phenomenal physical power. You know, we don't think about that a lot, especially in people who are funny. But he had great physical power and was able to focus that physical energy, and that was a part of what made him work. Cause we are, you know, it's like any brightly shining flame. You know, with it's energy affects you and, and gets inside you and that's one of the tricks of Buckley that gets lost in the cleverness and charm of Buckley.
MM
Just a raw physical . . .
AF
Just raw physical power that he just was . . . he was there. When he was there, you know, . . . he said, 'When you make love, make it; when you lay it down, it stayed there.' When he on the stage, he was on that bad fellow.
MM
Listen Aaron, thank you so much.
AF
My pleasure, my brother. |
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