Lord Buckley

[Richard Buckley - Lord Buckley (1906-1960) - Photograph by Charles Campbell]

M'lords, m'ladies of the Royal Court" - Fifty-five years since the passing of the great Lord Buckley.  Just re-released by City Lights this year - what Buckley scholar, Oliver Trager has called, "this sacred artifact, this holy talisman" - Hiporama of the Classics - "First published in 1960, this new expanded edition contains, in addition to Buckley's hip-semantic raps, a new foreward by Al Young and photographs by legendary music photographers, Jim Marshall, Jerry Stoll, and others"

Lord Buckley.com is a pretty good place to go for more. Not the least, for its transcriptions of the routines - 
Not the least for the immortal "Nazz" (Buckley's routine on Jesus of Nazareth)
- Ah! but there are so many!


["...And a great love came on his face and he noticed the power and beauty all of a sudden -"Oh great swingin' flowers of the fields!" - And they said "Oh great natural song of the stomp of beauty!". And he said, "Stomp upon the terra!" - They hit it. He said "Lift your hands from the body" -  The body went up - He said, "Straighten your arms!" - The arms went up. He said "Higher! - They went higher. He said "Dig Infinity" -  And they dug it!"]

Here's a few of our favorites

- The Nazz (complete) 
Hipsters Flipsters And Finger-Poppin' Daddies  (Mark Anthony's oration in hip-semantic)
Subconscious Mind
The Gettysburg Address  (likewise rendered in hip-semantic)
Cabenza De Gasca, The Gasser 
His version of  Edgar Allan Poe - The Raven  

"And now because I think rhythm is the key to everything, rhythm in attitude, rhythm in attention, rhythm in execution, rhythm in consummation, rhythm, rhythm, rhythm. Rhythm runs the whole swinging gate.."
Martin's Horse

Not so much extant footage of Buckley but here's two rare early treats.

First, from, circa 1949, an appearance on the tv show "Club 7" (he's seen doing an impression of "a great American and great artist, Mr Louis Armstrong", performing "When The Saints Go Marching In", followed by a Lord Buckley parable - "The Lord and the Sinner" ("The great master was sitting in his rosy rockin' chair one Hallelujah morning…")
 - "Take a little and leave a little", that's what the Lord said"


The second clip is an historic combination. "Mr R.M.Buckley" appears on Groucho Marx's tv show, You Bet Your Life  (Buckley comes on about two minutes in)



Here's the legendary interview with Studs Terkel

Here's an interview with Allen's cousin Oscar Janiger (remembering him and pioneering research)

Here's the notorious police transcript 
(censored, like Lenny Bruce, on account of draconian cabaret laws)  

Oliver Trager's Dig Infinity is an essential book (if you can find it). Here's him talking about the book and about Buckley -  here and here
He recently just brought it to the stage, performing this year at the New York International Fringe Festival. Here's Hilton Als preview of that.

Heathcote Williams spreads the word about His Lordship in the International Times  

"“Did I say all?”, said Lord Richard Buckley before he died”  (Jack Kerouac from Desolation Angels) 

[People, people are the true flowers of life, and it has been a most precious pleasure to have temporarily strolled in your garden"]

Expansive Poetics - 109 (Beauty, Humor (and no belly-laughter from television)

[A performing chimpanzee, "Zippy", watches tv in 1955]

Student:  Why do you find beauty in it (Benjamin Peret's poem, "Hymn of The Patriotic Old Soldier") if it's so crude ?


[Benjamin Peret]

AG: If it's crude? Well, there's a certain delicacy. In this sense, he's parodying an old soldier. He's like a tough, funny, French, old soldier who's very frank, who doesn't give a shit for the army and doesn't give a shit for patriotism but is an old soldier and won his Legion of Honor and he's actually exhibiting a certain humanity - "To remember my ribbon of hour/I've painted my nose red/and put parsley up my nostrils/for the Military Cross."

Student: Yeah, it's..

AG: That's real speech

Student: (Well, it's in a) humorous form.

AG: Yes.

Student: How about..

AG: I find beauty in it.

Student: Yeah, it's very good..

AG: Human beauty, human beauty. The best beauty is human beauty. Yeah

Student: It's very compassionate and humane...

AG: Compassion. Absolutely.

Student: If you balance (it) up against (Louis-Ferdinand) Celine's vision of that same war


[Louis-Ferdinand Celine]

AG: Oh, Celine is just as funny, actually, in a way.  The social function of… I said "irresponsibility", I don't  mean, really, "irresponsibility", I mean "liberty" - Liberty, liberty - not being intimidated by reality.




Student: How about the comedy (that) we see on television? Is that..

Student (2): What comedy?

Student:  …also a belly-laugh to break the Cold War?

AG: There are very few belly-laughs on television

Student: I think so too.

[Groucho Marx in "Duck Soup" (1933)]

AG: I haven't had a belly-laugh on television for years...I don't remember one single belly-laugh (except for the Marx Brothers) on television. I don't remember. Literally. I've never had a belly laugh off a television. Have you actually? Has anybody here actually had a literal belly-laugh, like a total.. 

Student: Yeah

AG: ..What was it?



















[Jane Curtain, Dan Ackroyd & Lorraine Newman as "Coneheads" on "Saturday Night Live" c. 1975]

Student: "Saturday Night Live" used to be really good.

AG: Well, that might be. And that was considered a bit progressive.

Student: I mean, I might cry too from television, like seeing a sad story..

AG: Uh-huh

Student: Tears...

AG: Well, tears are equally good. Tears will do to dissolve the fixation, as well (laughter).

Student: "The Three Stooges"?

["The Three Stooges" (Mo Howard, Curly Howard and Larry Fine) (c. 1938)]

AG:  "The Three Stooges" I'd buy. They're on television, yeah. But the regular program comedy of television hasn't been very…risible.. 

Student: I think it's evil. It makes people escape the whole creation.

AG: Agree. (I'll agree).

Student (CC): I… isn't this poem, though, when you say Celine's description of the same war, then aren't we ultimately connected to the reality of war and sadness?

Student: ..in that.. oh yes

AG: Well, there's a certain realism in that, too

Student: I was just thinking of...

Student (CC): Without much humor

AG: In Celine?

Student: No, I mean in war

Student (2): Journey to the End of the Night

AG: Well, people who have been to war say there's tremendous comedy in it actually because it's absurd, finally. Tragedy but also comedy. 

[Audio for the above may be heard here, beginning at approximately eighty-seven minutes in and concluding at approximately ninety minutes in]