WHY ME, OH LORD? (Lord Buckley)

Subject: WHY ME, OH LORD?
From: mack/misophist
Date: 11 Jul 02 - 10:53 AM

I have been waiting patiently for some one better qualified than me to step foreward; some one hipper, some one smarter, some one prettier, some one who can write decent prose - It looks like it's going to have to be me. It took over a decade to get the book written and it's been out for a while now with no notice here. Tell me, people; Who was the most beloved psychopath in history? Who did more for the spoken word than anyone since Willie the Shake? Doesn't any one here know THE LORD? LORD RICHARD BUCKLEY? Given the ephemera it's composed of, it will probably not be superceded. It's here now. Read it.

Subject: RE: WHY ME, OH LORD?
From: Gervase
Date: 11 Jul 02 - 11:03 AM

You mean

Subject: RE: WHY ME, OH LORD?
From: Gervase
Date: 11 Jul 02 - 11:04 AM

this geezer?

Subject: RE: WHY ME, OH LORD?
From: mack/misophist
Date: 11 Jul 02 - 11:45 AM

Who else but His Most Immaculately Hip Lordship?

Subject: RE: WHY ME, OH LORD?
From: C-flat
Date: 11 Jul 02 - 12:20 PM

That must be where David Bowie took the lyric "He was the Nazz" from in Ziggy Stardust.
I've never heard of him before now but he must have been quite a character.

Subject: Lord Buckley/Lord Richard Buckley
From: Don Firth
Date: 11 Jul 02 - 03:23 PM

In 1959, Bob (Deckman) Nelson and I were in the San Francisico Bay Area, barnstorming and auditioning at various clubs (they didn't want folk singers, they wanted "acts"). When not auditioning—or getting hired to sing and then getting stiffed—we spent a lot of time in Sausalito, where the real people were. The following is an excerpt from the memoir I'm working on. For what it's worth:—

* * *

        One evening, a fellow named Coz tracked us down and told us, "You've gotta come down to the Anchor Steam Beer place and hear this guy! I can't figure out what he is. He's not exactly a comedian, and he's not exactly a preacher—but he's both! Come on. You've gotta hear him!"
        So we went.
        I think we were lucky to have had a chance to hear this person when we did. He was truly one of a kind. We saw him perform there a couple of times.
        Lord Buckley.
        Lord Richard Buckley was a tall, aristocratic looking man with a neat, elaborately trimmed mustache. When Bob and I saw him, he was nattily but informally well dressed, but I heard later that he often appeared wearing a tuxedo and pith helmet. His Lordship defies description in the usual terms. He has been described, though, as "His Hipness, His Flipness, the Guru of Gone, the Cardinal of Cool, the Bishop of Bebop, the Paganini of Prose, the Pope of Purple Poetry, and the Man with the Magical Mouth." (Whew!) And His Lordship could keep that sort of thing up all night.
        Years before linguists declared that African-American dialect is indeed a legitimate linguistic form and not just bad English, Lord Buckley's monologs consisted of Bible stories, Shakespeare's tales and soliloquies, and a variety if other stories and poems retold in the black idiom, occasionally switching abruptly to an English accent (a few writers and critics, who probably heard his records but never actually saw him, have identified him as black or as English, but he is neither). "Hip-semantics," is what he called it. I've also heard it called "word-jazz."
        What Bob and I heard on those two occasions were monologs that Lord Buckley aficionados consider classics: "The Nazz" (His Lordship's version of the story of Jesus of Nazareth), "Jonah and the Whale," "Willie the Shake" (Shakespeare, of course), "The Raven" (Edgar Allen Poe), "Black Cross" (a poem by Joseph S. Newman), and many others.
        Lord Buckley, the hippest of cats and the virtuoso of verbosity, was a nobleman in the best and truest sense. Sometimes he would stop in the middle of a monolog, spread his arms wide, as if to embrace the whole audience and say, "Milords and Ladies of the Court, would it embarrass you very much if I were to tell you that I love you?" Then he would smile sadly at the people sitting there feeling a bit uncomfortable and say, "Yes, I see. It does embarrass you, doesn't it?" Then he would go on to say, "People sometimes ask me why I address my audiences as 'Milords and Ladies of the Court.' I believe that there is a spark of nobility in everyone. In even the smallest, meanest person, somewhere down deep inside, no matter how faint, there exists a spark of true nobility. It is that spark that I am addressing."
        Not a bad thought. Not bad at all.
        A little over a year later, on October 12, 1960, Lord Buckley had an engagement at the Jazz Gallery in New York City. It seems that in the Big Apple, at least back then, entertainers had to be licensed by the police department. This was highly controversial, in that the authorities had used this police licensing of entertainers to harass Lenny Bruce and a number of other entertainers. Just as Lord Buckley was about to go on stage, the police confiscated his entertainer's license, preventing him from performing. They offered no explanation. Shortly after that, while still in New York City, Lord Buckley fell ill. On November 12th he was put in an ambulance and taken to Columbia Hospital. That night, His Lordship died.

* * *

Respectfully submitted,

Don Firth

Subject: RE: WHY ME, OH LORD? (Lord Buckley)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 11 Jul 02 - 06:51 PM

I'm not sure anybody will top Don's story, but it's a kick to take a look at www.lordbuckley.com. Are there recordings on Lord Buckley on the Web? The Lordbuckley Website has transcripts of many of his routines (see "wordland"), but I didn't find recordings.
Misophist, I hopy you don't mind that I added to your thread title. I passed it by at first because I thought it was a request for Kris Kristofferson lyrics.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: WHY ME, OH LORD? (Lord Buckley)
From: harvey andrews
Date: 11 Jul 02 - 07:31 PM

Mephisto. are you saying there's a biog of Buckley? If so where, how much and title please.

Subject: RE: WHY ME, OH LORD? (Lord Buckley)
From: mack/misophist
Date: 11 Jul 02 - 09:22 PM

It is DIG INFINITY by Oliver Trager at Black Market Books. But soft! Do I hear aright? Dost thou cavil at the price my Prince? This damned thing comes with a CD. What more can you ask for under a hundred dollars. Get it. Do it now, my Prince.

Subject: RE: WHY ME, OH LORD? (Lord Buckley)
From: Deckman
Date: 11 Jul 02 - 11:05 PM

THOSE WERE THE DAYS , MY FRIENDS
I THOUGHT THEY'D NEVER END
I THOUGHT THEY'D LAST FOREVER AND A DAY

And they certainly have lived forever and a day! Those were grand days and even today, I think of them often.

I still feel the excitment, just remebering Lord Buckley appearing on stage. And his APPERANCE was like an olde time magican's apperance ... smoke ... beautiful ladies ... flashy costumes ... glitz ... and above all, excitment as to what was going to happen!

The most mesmorizing thing to me was to watch his abilty to controll a tavern crowd. By this time in my life, I'd been on stage a bit, and I knew some of the ends and outs of performing. He was on stage in front of a very large crowd, at the ANCHOR STEAM HOUSE, in Sausilito, California. And the crowd was mostly rowdy, drinking a bunch, and ready for whatever.

I watched him come on stage, with his ladies, and by SILENCE ... bring the crowd to silence. Within moments, you could have heard a pin drop. And I was on the floor within a crowd of probably 200 people. In absolute silence, his cape was removed. by his ladies in waiting, he adjusted his mike, and began to speak ...!

THOSE WERE THE DAYS, MY FRIENDS

CHEERS, bob

Subject: RE: WHY ME, OH LORD? (Lord Buckley)
From: EBarnacle1
Date: 12 Jul 02 - 01:44 PM

For those with the desire, there was an excerpt on NPR's Morning Edition the other day. It's new enough that it should still be on archive.

Subject: RE: WHY ME, OH LORD? (Lord Buckley)
From: Deckman
Date: 12 Jul 02 - 03:40 PM

Can you tell me how to find that excerpt? Thanx, Bob

Subject: RE: WHY ME, OH LORD? (Lord Buckley)
From: harvey andrews
Date: 12 Jul 02 - 03:50 PM

My son's already ordered the book for me! On Amazon the reviews are mixed, it seems to be a bit of a paste job, but as it's the only book to learn from about the great man it's a must have. Sorry I got your name wrong Misophist...good answer though!

Subject: RE: WHY ME, OH LORD? (Lord Buckley)
From: EBarnacle1
Date: 12 Jul 02 - 04:01 PM

Go to NPR.org and follow the menu. The date is within the past week.

Subject: RE: WHY ME, OH LORD? (Lord Buckley)
From: Mark Clark
Date: 13 Jul 02 - 12:48 PM

Miso, thanks for the tip. I'll definately go find a copy. I never got to see His Hipness live but an LP of his work is still among my most treasured albums. I'm not sure I think it's right to put him on a CD though.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: WHY ME, OH LORD? (Lord Buckley)
From: Art Thieme
Date: 13 Jul 02 - 02:08 PM

Saw Lord Buckley at the old Gate Of Horn folkie club in Chicago. In the audience that night were Bob Gibson, Shel Silverstein, Lenny Bruce and Second City's Del Close. Nelson Algren wandered in too. He bought me the first beer I ever drank in a bar but not that night.-----But that's another story.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: WHY ME, OH LORD? (Lord Buckley)
From: Deckman
Date: 13 Jul 02 - 02:21 PM

Art ... What year was that? That must have been SOME COMPANY with which to watch LORD BUCKLEY! CHEERS, Bob

Subject: RE: WHY ME, OH LORD? (Lord Buckley)
From: Don Firth
Date: 13 Jul 02 - 03:20 PM

Yeah, I'd be curious about the date, too. According to information I gleaned on His Lordship, he had performed at the Gate of Horn just before going to New York for the fateful gig in October 1960.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: WHY ME, OH LORD? (Lord Buckley)
From: Art Thieme
Date: 13 Jul 02 - 07:11 PM

It was '59 I think------a few months after I graduated highschool in June of that year----although I'd seen Lord Buckley in late '58 too and I could be confusing those two shows. I was not old enough to drink but they'd put us in a sort of grandstand / peanut gallery on the far wall over to the right by the backstage curtain. We'd order cokes and listen, knowing somehow it was the right place and moment to be young and receptive in that city. A friend back then used to have to walk Lenny up and down Rush Street after he had taken too much of whatever. She probably kept him alive a few extra years. The original Mayor Daley (Richard J.) kept busting him at the Gate Of Horn for what was called "on-stage obscenity". The sister of the gal who walked with Lenny was a waitress at the club----a beautiful girl who was also underaged and ie. too young to work there legally where alcohol was served. That was a way they got/harrassed Lenny Bruce too. I think eventually it all got to be too much for him. And now I hear more explicit stuff than Lenny was saying then every time I turn on the radio or in current nightly news broadcasts.

It's fun (and sad too) to remember those days.

Art Thieme