MM
And it's an interview with Prince Vaughn Marlowe, courtier to the court of His Lordship Lord Buckley.
VM
And honored to be included.
MM
Well, maybe you could just tell us a little bit about yourself and then we'll start asking you some specific questions.
VM
My name's Vaughn Marlowe and I'm a member of Lord Buckley's Royal Court. I was knighted in 1960 in Palo Alto, California after watching a performance of his. And I had occasion to see him a half dozen more times before he left the scene went to New York where he did swoop the scene finally, just a few short months later. And I've been always been proud that I was made a member of the Royal Court. I may have been one of the last people to be so inducted into that hall of fame.
MM
Well, Vaughn, maybe we can get you to repeat the story of how you first learned about Lord Buckley.
VM
I was in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1959, had a fellow in a room next to mine, a fellow named Al McCreary. He had a record he kept playing at night, I'd hear this record and it sounded like, oh, what they use to call a race record. I'd heard party records by Red Foxx where he told off color stories and it sounded like an American Negro talking, sounded somewhat like Louis Armstrong and it was this long, long rap that I couldn't make any sense out of but I asked Al, "What the hell is that?" and he said "Oh, this is Lord Buckley, this cat's really far out you've got to hear him." And I went in his room and he played it for me and he'd play it every night and I'd heard it and finally I borrowed it. I had a record player in my room and I played it. And, like I say, by that time I was hooked by the rhythm, by the [snaps fingers] the zig-zag way of talking. And when Al left he gave it to me. And by that time I pretty much memorized "The Nazz" and "Nero", and was known to, with a few drinks in my system, recite either or both of them.
MM
And by this time you knew who it was. By this time you knew who the artist was?
VM
Lord Buckley, yeah. But there was no picture on the album, no photograph. I thought he was an Afro-American dude, you know.
WS
So you had the ten inch one. [a Buckley LP]
VM
Yeah. The ten inch
WS
The twelve inch has a photo on the corner
MM
How old where you at this time?
VM
I was 28, 29 years old then. I became a proselytizer for Lord Buckley. Then about a year later I had an opportunity to meet him, when I went to California.
MM
Tell me that story.
VM
I moved from Michigan to Palo Alto, California, in February of 1960. The morning after in fact I got into town, I was reading the Palo Alto Times or whatever it was and I noticed an ad in the entertainment section that Lord Buckley was appearing at a nearby nightclub, I thought it was a nightclub. And I said "This is great! I get to go see this guy." And I asked my friend, who's apartment I was crashing at, "Where's this joint at?" and he said "I think it's downtown." So, he had to work that night or do something else and I went down there and walked into this coffee house. And Lord Buckley was apparently going to be appearing there that night and I sat down and waited. The menu, all it had on it was tea and coffee and, you know, the inevitable cheese plate, and I thought, "God, what kind of a respectable beatnik place is this? There was no place to buy a drink or no booze or anything." And I asked the Maitre d', or not the Maitre d', the waiter or the manager if Lord Buckley was in the house. And he said "No, but he should be here pretty soon." and I said "Well, tell him that a visitor from the east is here bringing glad tidings." and he said "OK." I sat there a little while longer, smoked a couple of cigarettes, and a guy comes out, a white guy, bald headed guy in a tuxedo [laughs] and says "Hello, I'm Dick Buckley." And I introduced myself.
MM
What was your first impression? Did you still think he was a black person at this point?
VM
Well, yeah until he walked up to my table and I saw he was whiter than I was.
MM
Do you remember your feeling when you saw him?
VM
Surprise. I was surprised that this white man was Lord Buckley, because Al McCreary, my roommate, was black, and he thought Lord Buckley was black. And another friend of mine who loved the record a great deal, a member of the fan club [a half dozen Buckley lovers in Michigan], who was also black, he assumed that Lord Buckley was a Negro. And I was really startled to see that he was a white guy but then he went on and he did his act and I had no doubts that he was the same cat who had made the record.
MM
When he came out to meet you did he sit and talk with you for a couple of minutes?
VM
Oh, yeah, about five minutes, and then in between the shows, when the band was playing, he invited me in the back and we had a beer, sat back there and talked, rapped, mostly I just listened to him riff. I asked him a couple of questions, like I didn't know what "how pretty the tree, how pretty the we, how pretty the she" [from "The Nazz"] was all about. All I could hear was "hubbty hee, hubbty bee, hubbty dee" and [Buckley said] "how pretty this, how pretty that" [and I said] "Ah, yes, of course." and then I got it. And then he went back on and did his second show and I waved goodbye and went back to my place where I was staying and then two nights later I brought my buddy, my friend in, and we saw the show and it was pretty crowded that night. I think it was on a Saturday night when we got there. And he [the friend] was taken with it and the third time I think four of us went in, I brought two other guys, two of his friends. And then another time, no, there must have been a time before that because I was there alone again, because that's when he gave me the album. Or he might have sold it to me, you know, or his aide de camp
WS
Foremaster. [Prince Lewis Foremaster]
VM
Yeah, he probably sold it to me. Buckley called him his aide de camp.
MM
And this was 1960, the year he died?
VM
Yeah, this was in February, March, April.
WS
And he signed it too, didn't he?
VM
Yeah, he autographed it for me. To "Prince Vaughn". I was talking to him about the Beat Generation people, which he was very hip to, and I was very hip to at that time. I was talking about Gregory Corso's poem, something about a breakout of beauty, a generation runs in the streets, shouting "Beauty, Beauty!!" So, he autographed the album "To Prince Vaughn, May you always swing in Beauty. Lord Buckley." Now, I let that album get out of my hands and I kick my ass for doing it.
MM
Did you just sell it?
VM
Jesus, no! A friend of mine borrowed it and a girlfriend of his swung with it.
WS
Swung with a poke.
VM
And my friend kicks his ass too, we're still friends in spite of that. So, he's my documentation, for the story that I did have the autographed album. He will admit that "Yes, I let her, I let that unmentionable unmentionable take off with it."
MM
When you went back stage what did he riff about?
VM
Well, like I say, I asked him a couple of questions, but mostly it was just an excuse for him to drink a beer. Because he couldn't drink it outside, you know, at the table. And then the time the four of us went in the club was really funny because he came over and sat down. He recognized me as a member of the Royal Court by then. And I was obviously a follower so he came over and sat down between the two sets and he started running this thing. I asked him about The Nazz, I said, "It ends abruptly at a point where the story of Christ goes much, much further than that." And he said, "Yeah, well, I'm working on Part II." Or a second part or something, however it was he put it, and he riffed a few lines for me. I remember they were from the Last Supper scene. And so, in fact he was working on a second part but all I heard was a few lines and the only line I remember was, there was some dispute between the disciples about which one of them dug The Nazz the most. And the Nazz, he said something like "Hey, babies what's a matter with you babies now?" and he says "We disputing, Nazz, which one of us digs you the most. Cause we all, you know, we dig you like crazy. Blah, blah, blah, blah. And which one of us digs you the most." and The Nazz says something like, "I don't know which one of you babies digs me the most but, I know that sitting at this table is a finger-poppin' fink who's going to sell me out before sunrise." So, he called Judas a finger-poppin' fink. That's the only line I remember but I remember cracking up when he said it. This was just at a break between his sets when he was sitting at the table.
MM
I think it would have been glorious to hear this Part II.
VM
Well, I had a couple of friends with me and one of them got paranoid. I believe he had heard the record at my apartment, and I think he was in awe of Lord Buckley. And when Buckley was just riffing, you know, he talked so fast and put everything together so quick you had to really be following. But I'll never forget, one of these four cats I was with heard him say "One of you at this table here is a finger-poppin' fink" and he got paranoid and thought Buckley was talking about him, thought he was signifying that he wanted him to split. I had to explain to him that "No, he's just riffing this routine that he's working on. He wasn't talking about you! He was talking about Judas, not you." But he was ready to flee the scene, man, he didn't want to sit around there being called no finger-poppin' fink by this psychic weirdo in a tuxedo. I guess we shouldn't have smoked that dope before we went in there.
MM
From what I remember you saying, you felt that his routines were, that he was an old style professional, his routines were really well polished, he was not just shooting from the hip.
VM
Oh, no, oh, no, there were minor variations in performance as every performer will do. But they were just slips or he would delete a line or he would ad-lib another, an end to a line, but they were all the same routines. He was on his script, he was obviously a professional. I watched him perform to half a dozen people one night and his face was just as red and his voices was just as loud and he was just as intense as he was to a full house, or he had been to a full house a few days before. So, he had the professionals code too: "You give a performance, a good performance, ever single time. You do the best you can." He obviously had served a hell of an apprenticeship. He wasn't just an ego tripping riffer. He just didn't get up there and riff. And then he had a big bag of things he could pull out too, you know, and routines and things he could do. But since he was playing to essentially, in Palo Alto, to a Stanford crowd, there were certain pieces that they liked, this was almost entirely a white crowd. The only black people I ever saw there were two members of the band and the singer, Ada Moore. And they [the Stanford crowd] wanted him to do The Gettysburg Address and Marc Antony's Oration. That's the things they wanted to hear. They were at least familiar with both of them. As far as the American Beauty Negro dialect he used, they weren't too hip to that at all. They didn't know the roots of that and I'm sure they had a difficult time following routines like The Nazz or Nero. I was more familiar with it then they were, with my roots being southern and my association with black people going back to my earliest memories. Even I got lost when I first heard him. But he's using a dialect that's older than he was. Certainly much older than I was. There are echoes of New Orleans in there, there's echoes of 1920's jazz in there, almost a secret underground argot of the slave, of the oppressed. I don't know except with his associations with black jazz musicians and drug dealers maybe where he could have picked all that up. Of course, he was from Chicago and Chicago was never a lily-white town anyway.
MM
And from some of the talks you and I have had, in person and on the email, I get the sense that he was always on.
VM
Yeah, oh yeah.
MM
And did you think that, like when he was sitting at the table with you, was he just improvising things or was he throwing stuff in there that he'd worked on before, I mean did he have, like could he just pop stuff off the top of his head?
VM
He was on, he was definately on and he talked and laughed and jived.
WS
With the Lord Buckley persona?
VM
Yeah, sitting at the table he'd turn around to the band and [say], "That's blue Mr. Brew! Mr. Brew you so blue!" you know, and he's yelling this to Brew Moore who's got this quartet on stage, you know, blowing. So, he was on even when he was off. Oh, it was spontaneous, I don't think they were routines. The only routine I think I ever caught him doing was that one about The Last Supper and I asked for that. But he had his catch phrase and expressions, like all those old hipsters did. But he was high, he was on, I mean by that he was [snapping fingers] he was there to work and he didn't let himself go down between sets. He keep himself up. Whether he went down after the sets I don't know because the only times I saw him when he wasn't playing was once at my place when he came by to see if I had any dope and another time standing outside by my car talking to me and it was still light-hearted and uptempo stuff.
MM
Hey, Vaughn, tell us the story about when Buckley came to your house looking for a little botanicals.
VM
That's a gag. I imagine he used this on a lot of people but, he knew where I lived. He'd dropped me off one night. I'd walked up, my buddy had my wheels. He dropped me off at my place, I lived in a unit, in a motel unit there, in a court. And he dropped me off there and might of had a beer or something, I forget. But, one night, after, it was obviously after his performance because it was about midnight. There was a knock on the door and I opened the door and it was Lord Buckley and he said, "Lay a roach on the Lord." Well, I didn't have any roaches but I did give him a beer, you know. But, "Lay a roach on the Lord." I imagine he had used that plenty of times before.
MM
He was sort of the, kind of the lovable hustler in some ways.
VM
Oh, hustler is probably inevitable for the kind of life he tried to live, or the way he tried to make a living. I'm sure he was always broke, Jesus never had any money either. Yet he could hustle up loaves and fishes and wine out of water and stuff. And I think Lord Buckley probably owed money and debts and owed people things but you got a lot back from him. I mean having Lord Buckley owe you money, there'd be worse things in the world that could happen to you than that.
WS
But, when he had it he was always generous himself.
VM
Of course he was. He was, his reputation was generosity and I'm sure he lived by it. One can't imagine him pinching a penny, or having a bank account that wasn't, just money probably went through him and by him. But, so was, or so were certainly other people that we know historically: The Nazz, The Old Hip Mahatma. Money didn't mean anything to these people it was the last thing in the world. They had to have it to give away to somebody else or to live or get something done. As far as a hustler goes, I had a friend of mine once that was a, kind of a world class hustler himself, if they'd ever turned him loose from the local level. He was at a party one night and he said, "It's time for me to leave town." and I said, "Why?" He said, "I owe half the men in this room money, and have slept with half the women." And I imagine Lord Buckley had been at certain parties where the same could be said for him.
WS
He didn't stay very long? [the night he came for a roach]
VM
No. He laid that line on me one other time too. The time that Prince Lewis told me about Lord Buckley's acid trip, about tripping out in the redwoods. We were standing outside the club and Buckley came out and blew that "Lay a roach..." line.
WS
The Lake Arrowhead thing.
VM
Yeah, he was telling me about that trip and being in the redwoods and how Lord Buckley swang out and talked for hours.
WS
Did he mention the tapes of that?
VM
No, he didn't, not that I remember.
MM
You know this, you know there's this big legend about, there's 18 hours worth of tape, where he's just constantly rapping.
WS
There's no legend, they were made quite clearly.
VM
I don't recall anything about it being taped or not.
MM
So you're standing there with Foremaster and Buckley and -
VM
Either Foremaster or Buckley one night standing by my long short, one or the other of them told me I was the "King of the Earth."
WS
He said more than that he said "You're good looking blah blah blah you got" he said more than that right? He said
VM
He said "You're young" he said "You're good lookin', you got a great set of wheels. Man, you're the King of the Earth!"[laughter] Had the top down on it and everything you know.
WS
It was a Thunderbird.
VM
Yeah, a T Bird.
WS
It sounds like Buckley but who knows, maybe Foremaster picked up on his riffs.
VM
I do remember talking to Foremaster once alone but I don't remember exactly when that occasion was.
WS
What did you talk about?
VM
Buckley.
WS
Do you recall anything?
VM
That's when he told me about the acid trip. And I didn't get it, I didn't understand it, I didn't know what LSD, lysergic acid was in 1959, 1960 rather. But, in my memory I have it associated with some experimental drug or something, or peyote but I didn't know what LSD was. And the story, the anecdote stressed how far out Buckley's mind went on that trip and what he was spinning. And Foremaster said something like "You've heard him wail, but you really should have heard this."
WS
We have the first part of it.
VM
He said it was cosmic.
WS
"Words were shooting out of me like projectiles." I think that [Dr. Oscar] Janiger obviously has the whole copy, the whole interview plus Buckley's recollection of it, or his comments after it.
VM
I can't imagine what Lord Buckley on acid would be like. I mean, it's impossible to imagine that.
WS
I mean how could he be more Lord Buckley than he was?
MM
Can you describe, how does he get his routine started?
VM
He just took it from the top "My Lords and M'Ladies, members of the Royal Court. A little story about Jonah" That's how he'd start, he'd just start like he did on the records. He didn't spritz between routines. He didn't tell unrelated jokes, he didn't try to tie them in except with the very briefest of tie-ins, in other words he was not a rambler, he was no Mort Sahl, he was no Lenny Bruce.
MM
I think you are a little young for this but, when you were watching Lord Buckley, could you see his vaudevillian roots?
VM
Yeah, I could. He came from the old school of vaudeville comedians. I saw Olsen and Johnson's "Hell's a Poppin'!" when I was a kid. I'd seen vaudeville, like I say the remnants of vaudeville in the late 30's and I'd been to burlesque houses when I was a kid. And you could see that this guy had played toilets just like Lenny Bruce did and every comedian did. And I didn't know the history of his evolution from a master of ceremonies probably in a burlesque house, speakeasy, to the hip comedian and the hip figure he became at the end. But you sensed a professionalism and a milieu there that he'd come out of. It seemed obvious to me that this guy didn't just suddenly quit his job teaching American literature at Marquette and step on stage and start doing this interpretation of the classics. He'd obviously evolved and gone into that. Some of this was evident from one of the routines he did on stage one night where he took one of my friends and put him in a chair where he did this "I'm hip, you're hip, I'm hip, you're hip, I'm hip, hip, hip, hip, hip, hooray!" He did this thing walking behind people touching them, and then vocalizing for them, moving them. And he did a thing with hats, and I forget who he used for that but he did a thing were they were exchanging hats, putting hats on each others heads. He did that whole thing. And those were old vaudeville things. Certainly pre-dated. And I understand he did a lot of Amos and Andy spin off stuff. That probably resulted because of his affection for that language, that dialect. That's all those two white guys that did Amos and Andy on the radio did: just try to imitate black dialect. And sometimes they did it fairly well and sometimes they did it and it was an absolute travesty.
MM
Was there anything in it that you felt was mocking the black dialect?
VM
In Buckley's stuff? No, and this is what bothers me. This is really what bothers me: that Lord Buckley is not, and would not today be politically correct. There was no mockery at all. Here is something that somebody might be interested in tracking down. There is today a white preacher, who travels around to black churches. He's got a couple of tapes out I've heard. And it's called, I think the tape is called "Stories of Old Men." And he's a southern white preacher who grew up around black people or with black people in, I think, somewhere like Louisiana or Mississippi. And he's collected all these stories that these old black men told. And they're jokes and he tells them and he goes to black churches. They are obviously clean. And he's a hit. They love him. He had people slapping their knees and rolling around laughing because these are, these are stories otherwise would be lost to us. But, he's a white man and he does this. He filled the biggest church in Detroit last year.
MM
And he does it in a black dialect?
VM
He does it in a black dialect, in black churches and it goes over great.
MM
Now, is it his natural dialect that he uses? I mean is that the one he grew up speaking?
VM
Who, you mean this preacher? Well, he grew up hearing it.
MM
He grew up hearing this?
VM
Or he grew up alongside of them. And he's apparently a hit. There was piece on him a couple of years ago in one of the major news magazines. And like a fool. I didn't write it down. And I didn't try to get the tapes but if you know what I'm talking about, or anybody else does, find out because I hear he's absolutely hilarious. And his greatest audience is black people. Now, Lord Buckley's records sold, I told you I got the record from a black man. His record "Euphoria" sold very well in black neighborhoods, in black record stores.
MM
And you said your friend thought he was black.
VM
Yes, yes. And another black friend of mine thought he was black. He said, "No white man could talk like that." that's what he told me, "No white man could talk like that." And we didn't know he was white. They didn't know he was white. I was, like I said, I was shocked [when I saw him] I was shocked because here was this white man standing there. I didn't know that. I had no hint of that. I thought he was a black man imitating an English nobleman, you know, in a couple of routines because he would fall into that phony British accent, pseudo accent. And I thought this was a black man imitating a white man. I didn't know you could do it the other way. That would be hard.
WS
Now, did he do a lot of moving around on the stage?
VM
Yeah, he did but it seemed like he did a lot more moving then he really did. I mean because his voice was moving around so much. But he was not frenetic, he didn't run around the stage. And then of course that stamp thing that he would do with his arms and that sort of thing and boom, you know. So, he was very physcial but the cat wasn't frantic, you know, in his movements because, hell, he was in his fifties by then. But, he was giving you his full professional level which was very professional indeed because when I watched him play to an empty house just as well as he had to a full house, I knew that this guy wasn't just a riffer. He wasn't. That's the sign of a pro.
MM
Now, you probably saw him repeat things. Did he do them verbatim each night or would he improvise around the story at all?
VM
Well, I remember the first time I saw him do "The Nazz", I realized it was different than the recording I had, slightly different. And then I, it was either the second or third time I was there I got the album. The World Pacfic album and realized it too was different, slightly different from the "Euphoria" album.
WS
Yeah, there are two different live versions of The Nazz. They are a little bit different.
VM
And when he says "And here come The Nazz, cool as anyone you ever see, right across the water, walking." And another one he says "stompin'." And I prefer "right across the water, walking" but his routines, when they did vary, varied only slightly with maybe a word or two or an emphasis on something changed slightly.
MM
You mean something as slight as "stompin'" versus "walking"? I mean you get the same sort of sense but -
VM
Yeah, they were set pieces. They were set pieces done at the same intensity, the same pitch almost, you know, you would think in a night club that he would stretch things out more, and maybe he did, I don't know. Surprising enough, his real shocking piece, the underground piece, was "Jonah and the Whale." Because it came as a surprise. Talking in pubic about marijuana on a stage it was an absolute no-no. You never heard anyone do that And, to realize that he had this whole story built around a guy smoking dope in the belly of a whale was funny, it was hilarious because it was forbidden. He couldn't have gotten an audience's attention any faster if he'd say "motherfucker", which of course was also an absolute no-no. Lenny Bruce did die for our sins. And one night he did say something that is on no record that you'll ever hear. It's in "Jonah and the Whale", Jonah's in the belly of the Whale, and the Whale says, "Jonah, what are you smokin' down there?" and "Jonah" he says "Jonah!!" And Jonah says [sound of joint being inhaled] "What [mumble] do you want, fish?" And it just slipped in, you could barely hear it, you could barely hear it, but it was, "What the fuck do you want, fish?" But it come out, [sound of inhaled joint] "What [mumble] do you want, fish?" And so, he was getting away with, he probably would not have done that in a crowded club in San Francisco if he thought there was cop present, because you could get busted in those days for that. I mean, Richard Pryor made the word acceptable on stage, and thousands of comedians since than, but they don't realize how impossible it was to do that sort of thing unless you were willing to die for it like Lenny Bruce did.
WS
Did he do any routines in Palo Alto that you'd never heard before or that are not on the record that you can recall?
VM
No, unh unh. None that I can recall. I used to tell people that there were these things out there that, a couple things that they hadn't heard. And then later I hear Dickens and I hear "The Raven" and other things and realized that somebody did record at least all of them that I heard. Even that one that I thought nobody had, "His Majesty, the Policeman." I didn't think anybody had that, but there it was. I think everything he did, whenever it was he entered into his hip stage, was recorded. Because if he'd had anything good he would have blown it. He'd have gone out on stage and blown it.
WS
No, there was stuff that didn't make it to record that was live that was good. It didn't make it to commerical.
MM
Now, I've heard a tape that somebody made in San Francisco, little Richard Jr's on it. It was a party tape and there were some variations on that, but I think it was all routines that I actually heard. I'm sure there must be -
WS
You're not talking about the Henry Miller tape are you?
MM
No, not the Henry Miller tape.
WS
One of Trager's tapes?
MM
This is a tape, somebody in San Francisco hired Buckley to come to a party.
WS
It was the party for Henry Miller.
MM
Is it? Oh, maybe that's it.
WS
And it's got "Hey, the Pied Piper" on it. It gets cut off at the end.
MM
Maybe.
VM
Well, just think of how many parties he must have gone to, [laughter] and how many riffs he must have blown.
MM
Somebody said, or I've read that they thought that Buckley was as conversant with hip language as say someone like Dizzy Gillespie was with his trumpet, that he could just, he could converse completely in hip without really having to think about it. Was that your impression?
VM
I'll bet he could. You've got to remember what people call his "hip" vocabulary was about eighty percent traditional Negro vocabulary. But of course the majority of hip expressions are black. And Buckley was a jazz music fan in the '20s, so he would have known several synonyms for almost every white word. There's a movie called "International Hotel" made in the late 1930's, one of these things were they have star turns, but these were mostly radio people and they made this movie called "International Hotel." Cab Calloway's band's in it, and the number he plays and sings in the movie is calledReefer Man", "Reefer Man" straight out, you know, and in the late '30s. And these old cats were smoking marijuana, this rabbit weed, you know, from day one.
MM
They called it "rabbit weed"?
VM
Yeah, or "rabbit grass", yeah. Louis Armstrong was a viper, he smoked all the time. And a great deal of Lord Buckley's syntax and rhythm was by way of Louis Armstrong, in fact he could do a helluva imitation of Louis Armstrong singing.
MM
You heard this?
VM
Yeah. He could imitate his singing, his voice, his riffs. So, instead of talking hip, let's say that he could converse as a black man, as easily as a black man could. Probably more so because his vocabulary was much larger, it was his working tool box, he collected this stuff. So, a lot of the hip expressions weren't particularly hip some of them. I can't go through the text right now, word for word, I don't have the text with me, but I would be able to pick out black expressions that pre-date the hipster. Words that became part of the hipster language, expressions that are now, through Lord Buckley, part of a hip vocabulary, but they're much older than the notion of the hipster.
MM
Were you a hipster too, did you make it to that shining orb?
VM
No, I don't know what the hell I was. I was a big band jitterbug from the age of twelve until I was about sixteen. And I went to a couple of concerts and heard jazz and then I started running with some kids who were very into Bebop. They were still in high school, seniors, they were in the band, and they were bringing all these ol' Bluebird labels and everything, and I was diggin' Charlie Parker and Charlie Ventura, Benny Carter and his band's playing Bebop. So I picked up a lot of those expressions, ah, Dizzy Gillespie. I guess I considered myself hip because of the affection I had for Bebop and for jazz. And you couldn't talk about Bebop unless you use certain hipsterisms, but mostly in the fifties I was just an ex-GI trying to get through college and go to California.
MM
When you watched Buckley on stage what would happen to you? Was it just laugh after laugh, or did he make you think?
VM
On stage?
MM
Yeah, what was his effect on you?
VM
Like I say, the only times I ever saw him were in front of a largely Stanford audience, a Palo Alto audience. I never saw him in San Francisco in front of a hip audience so it was mostly just awed or confused or respectful silence. Half the people didn't know what to make of him, they were brought there by somebody else who didn't know what to make of him but was awed by him. And he ran through his routines and did his favorites for the Stanford crowd. I think the owner of the place liked him a lot because unless it was a Saturday night he played to a pretty skinny crowd.
MM
When you met him, you are sitting there at this table between sets and here's this guy riffing and riffing and riffing. What did you think of his mind, did you get a sense of how his mind was working?
VM
No. No, I never did. I've told people that I always thought that Lord Buckley was on. I had no way of knowing him privately. I only talked to him a few times outside of the club, and then only briefly. And I had no insight into the "real Lord Buckley" I think the mask was the real Lord Buckley. That what you saw was what you got. And I have a sneaking suspicion that he was that way all the time. And he was, genuinely, a happy party cat. And, I know for sure, that you can't be that way actually all the time. I mean, he had to have his ups and his downs, especially his last days in New York, he was very down, but his communications from those last days are also very funny. And he's also riffing when he's doing it, he'd say, "The Bug Bird" is after him. He'd be dipping into his own routines to describe his impending death.
MM
Just from the little bit that you knew him, how do you think he would have faced his death?
VM
Well, I would have hoped like Gully Jimson. He use to tell this story about Gully Jimson, the hero of Joyce Carey's, The Horses Mouth. He would have said, when the nun asks Gully Jimson [as he lay dying], "At a very serious time like this, Mr. Jimson, don't you think you should laugh a little less and pray a little more?" Gully said, "Well, it's the same thing, Sister." And I think facing his death, unless it was at the point of a gun or something like that, that Lord Buckley would have been going out [snaps fingers] he was going out crazy. I think he probably, it was a stroke apparently that killed him, but I think he was probably shucking and jiving right up to the end. He really did believe that laughter was a curative. He really did believe that laughter was a great rejuvenating force. In fact, he, one of his greatest lines is something like, I don't know whether I heard him say this or whether it's on a record. One of his greatest lines went something like this, "If laughter in fact is religious, then welcome to high mass because this place is a church." On stage in a nightclub he's making people laugh, "This place is a church. Welcome to high mass." I don't know whether that appears on a record or not. But it's very appropriate, and I think he believed that, I think he believed that laughter was that one human thing that we all share.
MM
Do you remember hearing about when he died?
VM
Yeah, a friend of mine called me in L.A. What a wild message to get: "The Lord is dead! The Lord is dead!"
MM
Did you know what he meant?
VM
I knew right away what he meant.
MM
Do you remember your emotions?
VM
Oh, yeah, I thought it was terrible because I wanted him to return to California, I wanted to see him again, you know. I wanted to continue to pick up on what I thought were his swinging words of wisdom. I was convinced that he was profoundly spiritual, that underneath this jive there was this consistent humanism, this message of love and beauty and pity running through his work and I wanted to know more about it, this wild mixture of the sacred and the profane, because I had not yet heard him do some of his finest work. I'd heard "The Gasser de Gama" and "Gandhi" and "The Nazz" and "Nero", which are profoundly spiritual, and I was convinced that here was a spiritual teacher with the wildest delivery imaginable who deserved more study and attention. And I would have been really willing to have followed him around and caught his show whenever I could and keep up with whatever he was putting down. I thought then he was about to catch on, I had a feeling that this cat's about to really catch on. I was surprised that he was as old as he was when I saw him. He looked older than he was, but nonetheless I thought he was about to catch on, and I got to thinking a few years later, you know with the hippie phenomenon, I thought God Almighty, Buckley would have made some interesting transitions and far-out changes.
MM
If you could fantasize about what would have happened to him what do you think would have happened?
VM
I think he would have been a raunchy old swinging guru, and I think he would have gotten out of his tuxedo, and he'd of come on more relaxed, he might even have gone into the toga scene or something. But he would have played on this tie-dyed generation and he could have spoken to them. He could have elaborated more fully on the spirituality of his perception of people in the world. And he probably would have, could have entered a very productive period because he would have had great encouragement, he would have had fans, he would have had young people around him. I get the idea he was a, ah, freaky isn't the right word, and leacherous is not the right word I'm after either, but I got the idea that being around and among young naked bodies would be very pleasant to Lord Buckley.
MM
Hedonistic?
VM
Yeah, hedonistic. Right on target with the right word, Prince Michael. He would have loved the Haight-Ashbury scene. I was there and I loved it and I was nowhere near as far out or hip as he was. He would have been a virtuous Nero, you know, he would have said [imitating Buckley] "Let the party go, let the cats blow, and lean on me, I'm wild fire, I'm a swanging happy party cat!" And he would have really fit into the hippy thing.
WS
You know there is the Anita O'Day story where she was greeted at his door, he was in the nude, his girlfriend was in the nude, he walked around in the nude while she was there, pissing into the cup, and she'd empty it into the toilet for him. Remember that story?
VM
Yes, I do. That's what I mean, he'd of fit in, he'd have fit in really well. He could have occupied a rather prominent position in fact. I mean, he had more -
WS
Oh, yeah, he would have been ripe for the '60s.
VM
He had more cool shit to say than Timothy Leary for Christ's sake.
WS
Well, you know that Goldman piece in Life, it was on the Manson cover issue which was what, '60?
VM
Yeah.
WS
He talked about a little resurgence in Buckley. He would have been there, you know, I think if he was going to make it big it would have been in the '60s. He would have fit right in.
VM
I think he would have changed his image, and his attire. He would have gotten out of the Cadillac and the tuxedo and gotten more into the flowers painted on the side of the van and a robe, but it still would have been "M'Lords and M'Ladies"
WS
Yes.
VM
'"The flowers." you know, "it's been a most something pleasure to stroll among your garden, you know? His metaphors were really anticipating all the hippie phenomena. He had flowers in there and colors and the message of love, he would have really taken off. But, I thought he was going to take off in '60s because of the beatnik thing, that more and more people are going to pick up on Buckley because of that, because of the jazz licks he was attuned to.
WS
Was that the hey day of the Beats, 1960?
VM
Oh, the high water point of popularity, I would imagine. At the same time, there was another scene going that people forget about that was really popular: the Folkniks. There were coffee houses all over America that had folksingers appearing every night. So the folksingers were running the jazzmen a real race and we all know how that resolved itself. Folk went into rock and jazz took the backseat, and then you had folk rock and then you had -
MM
Rock Jazz even.
VM
Buckley would have done very well with that.
MM
Do you think that Lenny Bruce, he certainly didn't have the same kind of routines, but do you think he was influenced at all by Buckley?
VM
Absolutely.
MM
In what way?
VM
He was a lot looser, I think he learned that what appears on the surface to be irreligious can be profoundly religious, that the routine that you can deliver in irreligious language, can have, underneath it, a message, and you're dealing there in irony which of course is a central source of much humor in America. And when Bruce started talking more in a hip way about real life, I'm sure that he'd seen Buckley working out his classical stuff and doing more of it, that he'd learned that the range for humor is far greater than the stand up toilet stuff that he did, you know, in these strip joints.
MM
So, Buckley brought him into, opened his [Lenny Bruce's] mind up?
VM
I suspect he did, very much so. I don't know where else he could have found a teacher. I mean here's a guy who wants to be Morey Amsterdam and five years later he's doing these off the wall things on racial prejudice and hypocritical religion and the whole gallery of American ills. And nothing comes full-blown, there are always influences. And I can't think of another comic influence that could have affected Lenny Bruce, other than Buckley.
MM
Well, there wasn't anybody was there?
VM
There was Mort Sahl, a contemporary, who commented on the local scene, who'd walk out on stage with a newspaper and start working out of it. There were Moms Mabley and Red Foxx, both Negroes, but their humor was mostly scatological, something Buckley almost seemed to be prudishly set against. But, there wasn't anybody who had an imaginative range like Buckley, I can't think of one. And since Lenny Bruce worked with him and knew him, and had to listen to him, I'm sure a lot rubbed off, a whole lot of it. Although Bruce brought it out his own way, but I think he learned. I think he learned a flexibility and a kind of a responsibility to seriousness. You see these happy party cats are often severely serious people about the things that really matter. And Buckley's message about the things that really matter is, "We love one another and die." Or, "Before we die, lets love one another." And, I think the tackling of the Nazarene as "The Nazz" is one of the greatest achievements in Western literature. Maybe you shouldn't pay too much attention to that opinion, because I also think that Linda Barry, an underground "cartoonist", is maybe America's finest writer.
MM
Is that your favorite Buckley piece?
VM
Yes it is. I once played The Nazz for a Jesuit priest and he flipped. He thought it was the most profoundly Christian thing he'd ever heard. Of course, he was a very hip priest, he was in the Civil Rights Movement at the time.
MM
He wasn't offended?
VM
Not at all. He saw it as being a valid intepretation. Let's say a street corner hipster encountered some people that had never heard of Jesus, so he tells them about Jesus [Lord Buckley imitation] "This is a cat with la da da" and he's telling all this stuff. He [the Jesuit priest] was quite taken with Lord Buckley's sermon.
MM
You know, it just occurs to me that one of the things that is so appealing, particularly about The Nazz, is like what you say, when it's at the street level, the venacular of the street, it has a varacity that it might lack if it was very formal, like the way the Bible is. Like if one cat's telling another cat the story, it has a ring of truth more than if you're sitting with a teacher or a priest that's telling you that -
VM
Sure, and look what he did with the story of Nero. These two cats won a bunch of money at the horse races . . .
WS
Quo Vadis.
VM
Quo Vadis is what it's based on. It either comes from the movie or the book, I'm sure Buckley saw the movie and there's more of the movie in it than there is of the book. At the heart of this story about Nero is the forgiveness that this Christian convert lays on the guy who's betrayed and condemned him. That's what really's at the heart of the story: forgiveness and "don't worry about this transitory stuff, the real stuff is not here." You know, "Eternity is elsewhere. We'll catch it all later down the line."
WS
"In Christ's name forgive me."
VM
He was a powerful influence, his spirit more than anything else I think, which I have been at odds to define ever since. I don't know exactly what it was, it wasn't just this big man up on stage with a red face whippin' and wailin' and running through his routines. It was, I think the message that he was trying to get at was kind of a profound humanism. As he said about the American Beauty Negro dialect, he had a kind of a zig zag way of talking, a different way of getting at things. I remember The Nazz, which was my favorite piece, influenced me greatly because I found it profoundly Christian in a way that Christianity was not profoundly Christian. It seemed to be more Christian than Christian.
MM
How so?
VM
Because the message, his Christian message, when it does appear, is based on forgiveness, on acceptance, on love. And it's told in this off-the-wall way of telling but it's real and it's deep and it's basically humanistic, even though Christian. But it has this acceptance that the highest priority in a universe is other human beings. And that's where we should place our priority, on other people. And certainly the message of Christianity that's often garbled is "your beholding to your neighbor." In one of his routines he has a character say, Hezekiah Jones [in "Black Cross"] says, "I believe that a man should be beholding to his neighbor without the reward of heaven or the threat of hellfire." You should do it simply because that should be your highest goal: to be beholding to your neighbor. Otherwise none of us are going to make it. I think that's what Lord Buckley was saying. He was a voice for conciliation and peace and understanding and tolerance and love, all wrapped up in this persona of this jive nightclub performer and very few people bring anything like that off.
MM
So, it was really this combination of the sacred and the profane.
VM
Oh, yes, yes, there is no sacred without the profane. It's that mixture that makes it.
MM
What do you think motivated him? What do think was the motivation for Lord Buckley?
VM
I think he was like Lenny Bruce. I think their lives are quite similar. He started out wanting to be a performing comedian. And he worked out some very funny routines, routines we'll never know about because they were physical routines. There's that physical routine he did on an Ed Sullivan Show, very physical. He's running around like a madman.
WS
The Steve Allen Show.
MM
Oh, with the tumblers.
WS
He pulls people from the audience and has them running around.
VM
Putting them through physical exercises. And the business about the hats. The old Portland musician Monty Blue talked about him doing an Amos and Andy routine. You know, changing them, but using Amos and Andy as a source of material. And then he suddenly got on these classics things, where he started adapting the classics. He started doing that, and brought messages that don't appear on vaudeville stages. And Lenny Bruce, when he began as a toilet comic introducing strippers, started telling stories that went beyond the usual role of a smut comic. And he became serious while funny, the way Buckley was serious while funny, so I think their motives really were quite similar.
MM
Do you think his genius is the "Hip Classics"? I mean, was he just like another vaudevillian until that point?
VM
I have no way of knowing what -
MM
Maybe another question: Why do you think it was Richard Buckley? I mean there were probably 500 people that had the same experience he did in the '20s and '30s. What happened? Why was it him? Why was it Richard Buckley that became Lord Buckley?
VM
Well, more talent and more imagination then the other 499. [laughter] Lightning doesn't strike all of us, only a few. I understand from other sources that he received encouragement along the way to continue with these classics things that he was interpreting, that he was interpreting into black dialect. I believe his late wife, who just died unfortunately, she encouraged him. [lifts a glass of ale] The prince drinks only the finest champagne.
WS
Talk about how you saw Buckley sort of start to violate some of the stage taboos that were later really tested by Bruce.
VM
Well, the one thing, he could never have done Jonah and the Whale on the Ed Sullivan Show. You couldn't have talked about marijuana. But he was talking about marijuana on-stage in nightclubs and coffee houses with his Jonah and the Whale routine. And that was a no-no. Even talking about religion was a no-no. I would say that nine out of ten white people, hearing The Nazz, would say it was sacrilegious. Nine of ten people hearing Nero would say it was sacrilegious. I mean, there's a line in there that I still have difficulty with. When the slaves come in with the torches and knock the fire on the five thousand bundles of faggots. And he said, "And the five thousand Christians started to wail up the biggest breeze you ever heard." I still have trouble with that, that's kind of, it's almost cold. And today, what do you think Pat Robertson would make of The Nazz? What would he do with that on the 700 Club? With that captive Uncle Tom they've got sitting there? What in the world would he make of a story of Jesus told in black dialect that is told in less than banal language?
MM
The point you bring up about the line where you know "Wailin' up such a breeze." that kind of points out to me, there was in him some duality, I think, yeah? There was the duality of -
VM
The sacred and the profane again.
MM
Yeah.
VM
Sure, that's what we're back to. That's what makes his work so appealing.
MM
And how do you feel about "The Bad-Rapping of the Marquis d'Sade"?
VM
Ah, I've never fallen for the d'Sade revisionism anyway. I think it's very clever but I'm not a Sadian regardless of how enlightened the revision, the revisionists approach is. It's a character and a subject that I'd rather not think about, but I think it's a brilliant piece.
MM
Now do you think that was reflective of part of his personality as well?
VM
No, I don't think it was, I think he was just humorously pointing out certain things like, "take some switches and warm up the blood circulation and get this party moving" No, I think he, that was no more a part of his personality than delighting in five hundred Christians from two to toothless.
WS
You don't think he was trying to show, to say that there is a dark side to everyone at times?
VM
Oh, he always said that. He always said that.
WS
That's why, that's one of the reasons for the Marquis d' Sade.
VM
Well, he always said that, "Mr. Bear, we are all beasts when it comes right down to it." [from "God's Own Drunk"]Of course, he acknowledged the dark side. But that's part of his humanism, to acknowledge that.
MM
Can you imagine Lord Buckley, his talent, his genius, finding an avenue in say, Europe.
VM
No, it's as untranslatable as Mark Twain. It would loose something in translation because, at least half of the humor of Lord Buckley's routines is in the dialect, in the unspoken associations and relationship that we as Americans have with the All American Beauty Negro dialect. That does not translate.
MM
It's particularly American?
VM
Yes, absolutely, when he does the dialect stuff. As far as the other stuff translating, he could get away with the Marquis d' Sade and some other things. But, his great things I don't think would translate at all. Because they couldn't hear it. They'd never heard, they've never heard an English accent like that, and they'd miss all the connections, all the associations, no I don't think that would work at all. I think Lord Buckley is as American as apple pie.
MM
Why do you think he was an entertainer, why do you think, I mean what is underneath the persona of Lord Buckley?
VM
Well, I think that would be a question that could be asked of any entertainer: What is it that makes a person comfortable performing? What makes actors do what they do? What makes a great performer? I'm not talking about a performing musician, although there is great risk there too. I'm talking about someone who uses only his or her wits. There are theories and there are books about that. There are testimonials by the ton of people saying, "I said so-and-so and everybody laughed and, man, I was hooked. I knew what I was going to do." Every successful comedian you read about, at one point when they were quite young, very young in fact, they got the laugh that hooked them for life and that was it. I think Lord Buckley's original inspiration was no more than that, he got a laugh. But the interesting question is: What made him change? What made him change from mere comic to comic philosopher. Some would say that his message was basically simple, but my God, what spiritual message isn't basically simple?
WS
I wonder how much Lady Buckley had to do with all this? Because it's mentioned that she's who encouraged him to deemphasis the Amos and Andy [routine] and move onto the classics.
VM
Lady Buckley might have been the most important influence in his development as the cult figure he is today. I mean, there's not going to be a Morey Amsterdam cult. There's no Jack Carter cult. We're talking about a whole different breed of cat here. But he started from the same place as those guys did.
MM
You said your impression of him was that he looked much older than he was?
VM
Yes, he did. Well, of course I was only 29, so everybody over 40 looked older to me than they probably were. But what was left of his hair was white, and as I was telling Walt last week, I don't remember him having a moustache then. If he did it was flat and it wasn't large. He didn't have that twisted thing. Because I remember thinking when I got the album from him, it, Well, at least he got rid of the pith helmet and the moustache But he still had the Mother Tuxedo.
MM
And he was tall, yeah?
VM
Big man.
MM
They say he was about 6'4".
VM
I remember him being about my size and I'm 6'2". He was not a small man. And he stood erect, he was a man who wanted to look tall. He had a very erect bearing, he did that Lord Buckley "Here I am!" thing very well.
MM
Yeah. And your impression of him when you heard him speak. I mean if you closed your eyes, he sounded like a black man?
VM
Only when he wanted to. When he was just talking he didn't. That [the black dialect] was for on-stage, but if he was riffing or using an expression or a phrase he wanted to drop, then immediately he could cut to the American Beauty Negro dialect. The same way he could switch into that British thing instantly. But he articulated his words very well, he had a firm, commanding voice. And when talked to you, you didn't worry about him muttering or not being able to hear what he said. As I say, it was "Hail, Fellow, well met! "How are you this evening, Prince?"
MM
Yes. Did you have the feeling that you were with an extraordinary person?
VM
Oh, yes indeed. Of course, as I say, I was influenced by knowing some of his routines. I was well prepped. I never got to know him well enough, or didn't have enough time with him, to ask him certain questions or to explore his extraordinary nature, which is a further reason I was so saddened when he died. I was a student of literature and I wanted to, pardon my ego, to suggest certain pieces for him to consider.
MM
Well, like what?
VM
I forget exactly which ones I had in mind at the time, but there are certain things I would like to have seen him interpret. For instance, more Shakespeare. I would have loved to have him tell the story of foolish King Lear who gives his kingdom away to his daughters. It was amazing how accessible he could make classics. Someone traced the origin of his Vaca de Gama the Gasser to a short book or essay.
WS
"The Power Within"
VM
"The Power Within", right. And Buckley picked up on that. And there were other power cats that he could have tackled. He could have done Kubla Khan. Imagine this: Imagine him telling the cats on the corner about the movie "Citizen Kane." Wow. I saw him as having two more life times of material, you know, to work from. I don't know how flexible he was, but I know that Gandhi is so different from the others that there was enough flexibility that he could have easily mined another dozen or two classics.
MM
I often thought that Richard the Third would have made a good -
VM
Ummm, ohhh! You're right. I probably had that in mind 35 years ago among the Shakespeare things I wanted him to consider. Beautiful, yeah. [laughter] Well, then there's that, there's that goofy psuedo Buckley thing in that "High School Confidential" movie.
WS
Well, that's the story of Columbus.
VM
I know, and I think it was written by that guy who worked on some other stuff with him.
WS
I think it was written by Buckley, it sounds just like him.
VM
I do not think so. No. It's too . . . pretentious.
WS
Well, I'll tell you, there's a way to prove it I think. There's a mention of, you know, those copies of "Dig" magazine that I showed you? There's a mention of Buckley writing a Columbus thing for "Dig." And that would prove it one way or the other.
VM
For who?
WS
For "Dig" magazine. There's a mention of, you know, he wrote that story of the jet ride, that story for "Dig" magazine.
VM
All right, okay.
WS
And he also mentions somewhere in one of them , in the copies that I have on the pages, that he did a thing on Columbus for "Dig" magazine. If I could dig up that magazine, finally we would know whether it was the one that was from "High School Confidential"
VM
Well, I was willing to attribute that to the guy who had worked with Buckley on a couple of things.
WS
Yeah, it could very well be. It sounded a lot like Buckley to me.
VM
Well, you notice the echoes to that in Bob Dylan's song, you know, "On the Mayflower" or "Columbus" or whatever it is..
MM
He says something about Buckley in there doesn't he?
VM
Yeah, and he's got a splice, well, I think there's a splice of Buckley's laughter. I'm convinced it is, absolutely convinced. I've heard it before, I've heard that laugh before. There's another line from one of his songs, "the world's not round it's something" and in the Columbus thing is, "The world's not round it's square." And I think it is psuedo Buckley, but we'll find out whether it's a genuine Buckley or not somehow. But it's John Barrymore, Jr. who does it in the movie.
WS
Right, in "High School Confidential"
VM
He's one of the students in the high school, in his late twenties, and he sits on the desk and does the story of Columbus.
MM
I wonder if it would say in the credits of the movie?
WS
Yeah, we should get it, I wonder if it's on video?
VM
Of course it is. I watched it. I couldn't find any credit for it.
WS
That's on that "Beat Generation" box.
VM
Barrymore's acting like the school hipster and he does this psuedo Buckley routine on Columbus. So, ok, Buckley's writing something on Columbus and they might have taken it out of the magazine and got permission to use it or something, I don't know.
WS
I still would like find the "Dig" magazine thing and see what it said.
VM
His name would appear somewhere.
WS
Well, in that, you know, there's a quote, Trager's article about the Buckley Celebration has a quote from this guy.
VM
I'd like to ask you how you first became aquainted with Buckley?
MM
Well, I was telling Walt last night that the first time I remember Lord Buckley I was 17 years old. It was 1967. I remember I was at a friend of mine's art studio, painter friend of mine. And he was the only guy I ever, it's the only time I've ever seen this. He had a drawing, I think it was a reprint from a magazine of, it's the only drawing of Jesus Christ where Jesus is laughing, like, it's obviously Jesus, but he's almost belly laughing.
VM
Cracking up, yeah.
MM
You know, he's having a really great time. And I remember being in the studio and he put this record on and he says "Now, listen to this." and he played The Nazz. And I remember seeing the photo of Jesus laughing and hearing this record and going "Wow, that is incredible!"
VM
Is that your favorite Buckley routine?
MM
I think my personal favorite is "The Hip Einie."
VM
I was just wondering whether our first one doesn't remain our favorite.
MM
The first one, like you imprint on it? Like baby ducks when they see the first -
VM
Right. Mine was "The Nazz" and his Walt's was "The Gettysburg Address"? No?
WS
Well, it's not my favorite, but it hooked me when I first heard it.
MM
But, you know, in some ways it's a hard question because there are so many of those routines that are, like "The Nazz" means alot to me because it does have that beautiful message about -
VM
It's emotionally my favorite.
MM
Yeah, emotionally it's really good. I like "The Bad-Rapping of the Marquis de Sade" too because it's a little creepy, you know, but it's so powerful that, you know, it's like he's-
VM
Well, so was de Sade, it matches the creepiness that's there.
MM
And then, you know, the other ones that are even more vaudevillian, like "Governor Slugwell" the politician, I mean that's a tour d'force. I was telling Walt last night, we were listening to some of this stuff and he's [Buckley's] so good at making you think 30 things are happening at once. You know, the trumpets and the cop telling the lady to move aside and Governor Slugwell up there waving, and you can hear things and smell things, really exquisite illusionist that way.
VM
Oh yeah, his mind moved around real fast.
MM
"Subconcious Mind", do you know that routine?
VM
Yeah.
MM
The routine where he's driving, you know, oh that's a beautiful routine too.
VM
Oh yeah.
MM
The idea of "Well, who was driving?" you know. "Who do you think was driving"
WS
"While you were gone"
MM
Right, yeah.
VM
A lot of things have crept into our vocabularies that came out of Buckley routines. I was talking on the telephone to a friend in California the other day and he said - he was talking about being suddenly embarrassed - and he said, "Man, I dropped my drum!" It's an old Buckleyism, you know. "Boom, the cat dropped his drum." [laughter] That was from "My Own Railroad" I think.
MM
How about the message? I mean if you were to distill down to a Buckley cognac, what is his message?
VM
His message? We must love one another and die. Let's find some way to laugh along the way.
MM
And how do you think this sits with Americans?
VM
How do you think that what?
MM
How do you think this goes down with Americans?
VM
It'd better go down well. It's a great message and I've always thought the he was going to make it big. If he hadn't died I thought he would have made it very big in the '50s.
MM
In the '60s you mean?
VM
I mean in the '60s. There were some master works that never got written.
MM
What would you have like to have seen him do?
VM
Oh, I would have liked to have seen him do more Shakespeare and not in hip but in dialect. I would have liked to have seen him do, oh, dabble in the classics a lot more. He could have really torn the roof off. It would have been wonderful if he'd lived another 10,15 years.
MM
Now why do you think he did not make it in the time allotted him?
VM
It was very far out. He was coming through the '50s. Let's say he didn't survive the '50s. It was so square, it was so Einsenhowerese, that people barely understood the techniques he was using, they barely understood the language he was using. He wouldn't have made it at all, if the '50s had stayed the '50s. But he would have grooved in the '60s, things would have opened up for him. He was a cult in the '60s and '70s and '80s. And it may be getting ready to take off now. It may be now the beginning of a great appreciation of the Lord Buckley material and his work. I see very positive and healthful signs of that.
MM
Why do you think that is?
VM
It's simply discovery of genius. It can't hide forever. I mean you can keep it down, you can't keep it hidden forever. I mean, a William Blake or a Lord Buckley is going to show through sooner or later.
MM
Maybe the last question, or the end of the question series here is: What do you think his legacy is?
VM
His legacy? I don't know. You mean how does he live today?
MM
No, I mean, what did he leave people?
VM
Laughter and great lines and great metaphors and great images. He contributed a lot to the language. His legacy, in fact, may end up being literary.
MM
What did he bequeath to comics that came after him.
VM
Oh, Lenny Bruce, his partner in crime in a number of clubs in California and probably elsewhere, certainly learned a lot from Buckley. Lenny Bruce took it all away and every comedian who works today on-stage, who isn't one of the old, old Borsch Belt comedians just still barely tottering about, should wear a button saying, "Lenny Bruce died for my sins." And I think Lord Buckley taught Lenny Bruce to lighten up. Not lighten up, I mean to expand his repertoire, to move, to try other things, because Lenny Bruce was just a would-be Borsch Belt comedian, until after the California experience. And that's where he worked with Buckley. You can imagine being around Buckley, that would have been a hell of an influence on a young comic, a young hip comic. And I'm sure that Buckley helped Bruce become more hip, more hip than he was. We all know the price Bruce paid for it. One can't imagine Lord Buckley paying that kind of price, although in a sense he may have. He would find a way to get a laugh out of it. I saw Bruce in his last days, the laughs were few and far between. What you were getting a lecture in from Bruce then was the, you were getting essays on the First Amendment, on free speech. I found him fascinating and I wasn't there to laugh, I was there to hear Lenny Bruce riff. Because I think he was probably a leading scholar on the First Amendment by the time he died. He'd done his homework. I knew one of his secretaries and he had rooms full of papers and documents piled. But, he became a fighter for the First Amendment at the end. That wasn't Buckley's fate.
MM
How about with Robin Williams?
VM
Oh, Robin Williams is just a Jonathan Winters with his brains knocked out. We all know who his hero was.
MM
Do you see any of Buckley in Robin Williams?
VM
No, except that he can do dialect once in a while. But he's out of the Jonathan Williams tradition I think. You know, very quick. And when he's cutting somebody, or slamming somebody, he's very funny. But otherwise he's a non-entity.
MM
Let's see if we've covered it all. Well, let's see, maybe this can be the very end of it. What do you think that somebody growing up now, what do think they missed by not seeing Lord Buckley?
VM
They just missed seeing Lord Buckley that's all. The records are there. I never saw Shakespeare perform but I, Shakespeare has not gone unappreciated in my life. So there'd be no benefit in seeing Lord Buckley except just to have seen him. My reaction to him is no more valuable because I saw him then it would be if I just heard him.
WS
You don't think he brought his message to another level maybe, when it was live rather than opposed to listening to a record?
VM
No, I don't think so. No, I think it's all there. Like I say, he was consistent, it was consistent performance. If you're hearing him on tape you're hearing him as good as he got. He was just a big fellow on-stage saying what you're hearing off a tape or a record.
MM
Yeah, there is an aliveness to the recordings. Anything come up in our conversation here that you want to say?
VM
Well -
MM
I mean a point we're not getting or a -
VM
Among these simply messages of his was "Count your blessings." Which is the simplest, you know, your mother told you that. Lord Buckley was always telling people that one way or another. He was always saying, "Look at it, look at how beautiful it is. Look how big it is, look how great it is!. Look how fine it is. Look how everything swings with beauty, look at this, look at this, dig it! Can't you dig it!" That was the thing that he really was really bringing, "Man, you're alive, live it!"
MM
Alright, well, Vaughn Marlowe thank you very much for speaking with us.
VM
My privilege, Prince Michael.
MM
Thank you, Prince Marlowe. |
