Though largely unknown today, nearly 100 years after his
birth, Lord Buckley has been cited as an influence by George Carlin,
Robin Williams, Bob Dylan, Jerry Garcia, and Frank Zappa, among others.
Born in April 5, 1906 in Tuolumne, California,
Richard Myrle Buckley began performing on the streets of Tuolumne as a
child, and honed his comedy act performing along with Red Skelton at
dance marathons in the 1920s, sometimes staying on stage for ten hours
at a time. He appeared on Ed Sullivan’s “Toast of the Town,” the Tonight Show with Steve Allen, and “You Bet Your Life” with Groucho
Marx. Lord Buckley hipped his audiences to the language of jazz in
courtly manner, referring to them as “M’Lords and M’Ladies.”
 In Buckley’s language of the hip, “Friends Romans
and Countrymen, lend me your ears” became “Hipsters, flipsters, and
fingerpoppin daddies, knock me your lobes!” In his Gettysburg Address
(by “Lanky Link”) Buckley envisions “a jumpin, swingin, stompin, wailin
new nation, hip to the cool sweet groove of liberty, and solid sent
upon the ace lick that all cats and kitties, red white or blue, are
created level in front.” He also translated bible stories for his
cabaret crowds, and his version of Jonah and the Whale has Jonah
smoking pot inside the whale.
Buckley provided the voice of Go Man Van Go in the
1960 Beanie and Cecil cartoon “The Wildman of Wildsville.” After
landing at Pismo Beachnick, Beanie’s crew travels through Green Witch
Village, past the Kingston Tree-O, and Cecil meets a clinging vine at
Hollow Wood and Vine who first coos “Groovy” and then “Doobie” at him.
“If you can’t beatnik ‘em, join ‘em,” Cecil concludes as the gang rocks
out in the end.
Some 50 people were busted for holding pot
at the first services of The Church of the Living Swing, which Buckley
founded in Topanga, California in 1954.
Buckley, who had been an alcoholic for 20 years, was
“like an evangelist where marijuana was concerned. He thought it was
the panacea for everything,” said Mel Welles, a writer, actor,
director, and Buckley collaborator in “Dig Infinity! The Life and Art
of Lord Buckley” by Oliver Trager (Welcome Rain Publications, 2001).
Welles said some 50 people were busted for holding pot at the first
services of The Church of the Living Swing, which Buckley founded in
Topanga, California in 1954. He also wrote a book titled, “Pot: How to
Plant-Cultivate-Harvest-Cure-Prepare…Enjoy.”
Orson Bean, the comedian and “To Tell the Truth”
panelist, recalled smoking with Buckley in the late 1940s at the
Touraine Hotel in Boston. “I had heard of marijuana but had never seen
it,” Bean said. “I smoked it and it remains in my experience the finest
pot I’ve ever smoked…I remember that night with fondness, walking down
the carpeted corridor of the Touraine Hotel and feeling I was about a
foot off the floor…it was quite wonderful.”
Eldon Setterholm, a young bohemian working in film
industry who knew Buckley in 1950s, wrote in a 1987 article in
“Irregular Quarterly” magazine, “He smoked Pall Malls while he did his
act…When O’Grady, the Hollywood Vice fuzz was trying to nail him when
he was playing at Jazz City on Hollywood Blvd., Buckley would put a
joint under his foreskin and smoke it in the head before he went
onstage, because he liked to be stoned when he worked. The Hollywood
vice were trying to get Buckley because he was so upfront about smoking
it.”
Every once in a while instead of giving his usual
jazz-oriented act, Buckley would give an AA sermon, telling the
audience that booze is the tool of the devil and the destroyer of life
and health. “Why are you people drinking that vile devil’s brew?” he’d
say. His audience would often get up and leave when they realized he
was serious. This must have popularized him no end with the club
owners.
In 1943 Buckley was arrested for cannabis possession
in Chicago, but charges were dismissed when Ed Sullivan intervened (he
toured with Sullivan on a USO tour from 1942-45, and the two became
good friends). In 1958-1959 Buckley took part in experiments with LSD
(then legal).
On October 19, 1960 Buckley’s “Cabaret Card”
enabling him to perform was revoked by New York City Police,
purportedly because of a 1941 arrest in Reno for public drunkenness
(while on tour with Gene Krupa). On November 12, Lord Buckley died
after suffering a stroke aggravated by malnutrition and a kidney
ailment (and most likely, police harassment). At a memorial for Lord
Buckley at The Village Gate in New York City, Dizzy Gillespie and
Ornette Coleman performed.
Jerry Garcia said Buckley was not just a stand-up
comedian, but “like a medicine man, a shaman.” “I feel that Lord
Buckley is an almost lost resource,” Garcia said. “He was on the
track.”
A centennial celebration of Buckley’s birth will be
held on April 5 at the Tuolumne City Memorial Museum, see
www.tuolumnemuseum.org/events.htm
* Komp keeps track of more celebrity tokers at www.veryimportantpotheads.com
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Lost Activists 
The Men's Wearhouse George Zimmer
