Anyway, I stumbled upon Lord Buckley when I was 16 years old. He has been a companion ever since.

He was the best, since the Nazz…..

There’s a great story about a gig he did at Al Capone’s club. During his act, he asked for the fur coats of the companions of Capone and his associates. Having got the furs on stage, he poured petrol over them, set them alight, ran backstage and got the next train out of Chicago.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over user guides and handbooks piled up on the desk and floor –
As I nodded, after nine or ten straight hours of design,
I finely drew the final line, then pulled a floppy out to store –
Locked and loaded, then, I saved, and waited for the disc to store;
Only this and nothing more.

Ah, distinctly I kept hearing such a sound it set me fearing,
Fearing as I sat there peering at the Saved Percentage score,
Fearing, as the disc kept turning, turning with a grinding, churning
Sound while I was yearning — yearning as I’d never yearned before,
“Save!” I yearned again, but hopeless, read the words I’d feared before:
Read: “Abort, Retry, Ignore.”

“What is this?” I barely muttered, “What’s this message you have uttered,
Uttered as my floppy fluttered, fluttered locked inside your door?”
But there came no soothing voices helping me among these choices,
With these unfamiliar choices, just the cursor’s either/or –
Just the cursor blinking, blinking for my choice of either/or
From “Abort, Retry, Ignore.”

Much I marveled: this repeating cursor like a heartbeat beating
Answered nothing, thus defeating all attempts to re-explore
Whether I’d done something sloppy — what had happened to that floppy
I’d inserted there to copy all the work I’d done before –
What had happened to the art, the artwork I had done before,
Before “Abort, Retry, Ignore.”?
Art, not software, is my calling; it’s particularly galling
To be hesitating, stalling, stalling over one key more
When, instead of starkly staring, stunned, at high-tech so uncaring,
High-tech blindly overbearing, I could open up my drawer,
Get my low-tech colored pencils from their matching low-tech drawer
Beneath “Abort, Retry, Ignore.”

But no, I had to get ambitious, buy some modern meretricious
Merchandise that leaves me vicious messages that seem to roar,
Well, not really roar, but tease, as, fingers trembling over keys,
I finally choose from one of these atrocious choices I abhor
A choice I know will be atrocious, one I finally must abhor
Among “Abort, Retry, Ignore.”

No result! So twice as hard, to try and catch the thing off-guard,
I pressed, but still the same canard appeared until I nearly swore.
Frantically in desperation, pushing keys in combination,
Getting tintinabulation: “Beep beep beep”, and nothing more,
Cacaphonous concatenation, “Beep beep beep”, and nothing more;
Except “Abort, Retry, Ignore.”

Then I thought I heard the thunder, felt the thunder rumble under,
Through, the floorboards, and no wonder! Lightning split the dark night’s core!
Lightning piercing lightning slashing through the night like sword- wounds gashing
Darkness deeply, when my flashing cursor flashed! — then flashed no more;
Flashed a final time and then — erased itself to flash no more;
Erased “Abort, Retry, Ignore.”

The lights went out, then came back on, and in the cold grey light of dawn
Profit and design were gone; gone, returning: nevermore –.
Gone my imitation Titian, like a ghost or apparition,
But gone as well the admonition I must choose and choose once more
Gone: the price of manumission from demands to choose once more
Among “Abort, Retry, Ignore.”

Now my cursor still is blinking; is it winking? Yes! It’s winking! –
Winking at me from the screen beside the disc that wouldn’t store;
Winking at me from the black, though nothing else comes blinking back
Along the phosphorescent track that throws a shadow on the floor;
And my art, from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be found now — nevermore!

having said that, my surname is Allan, and brifly flirted with naming our unborn child Edgar for similar reasons.

It’s a dead cert she will be Poo or Po, meaning chamber pot or toilet, before her first day is out.

(Despite being both a Poe and Lou Reed enthusiast, I wouldn’t say this was one of his better works).

http://poesybeat.org

Your name could be “Bumblefuck Shitheel” and if you were confident, smart and good-looking, the kids would call you “Big B!” You could be called “Rob Jones” and if you were weird-looking, socially awkward, or otherwise uncharismatic, the kids would call you “Asshole Rob.”

The idea that funny names are the source of real teasing (as opposed to a little wordplay) comes from John Hughes movies, not reality. Real teasing — the teasing that hurts — reflects social divisions that are not based on names, but rather on awkwardnesses in personality or appearance.

And while Lord Buckley is funny, he’s not ‘funny’ — you might laugh at individual lines, but the overall reaction I usually see is awe — people listen silently because they don’t want to miss a word.

His ‘hipsomatic’ dialect sounded like beatnik jive, but few people besides Shakespeare could turn a phrase as taut, inventive, and rhythmic. Like ‘the petticoats of Paris’ for ‘outskirts’ — it has rhythm, wit, and a linguistic truth. Or when someone explodes, ‘like Ve-SU-vius reaching for Pom-PEI!”

Lots of stuff about him (and by him) on Lord Buckley.com

I first heard that story in a Radio 4 documentary about Buckley. Oliver Trager, who wrote the ‘Dig Infinity’ biography of Buckley, tells it thus:

“Tell me about Capone and Lord Buckley,” I urged, and he laid down a tale too gone to be fiction. “Capone set Buckley up in his own club, Chez Buckley, in Chicago,” Trager explained. “Buckley put everything together — found the place, the furnishings, ordered the liquor. Problem was he got so involved in launching the club that he didn’t really prepare his act for opening night. Everybody was there — the gangsters, their molls, even the Boss showed up, a doll on each arm.

“Some horn player was on the stage wailing. Suddenly Buckley comes out, but he’s unprepared, see, so he goes through this whole Svengali-like double-talk routine, ‘When is a flame not a flame?’ and ‘What you see is not what you really see.’ He’s vamping. Then he coaxes the gangsters’ babes to pile their fur coats on the stage. He sprinkles lighter fluid on the coats and sets them on fire. At which point Buckley jumps onto the bar and does a tap-dance. And the bartender says to him, ‘You know, when Capone stops laughing, I wouldn’t want to be around here exactly.’ Buckley says, ‘You know, you’re right.’ So he dances to the end of the bar, jumps off, runs out the door and never returns.

If you’ve got a subcription, it’s only 5 downloads.

Also, eMusic is not Amazon.

offBeatniX wordz of Dovin Melhee
http://www.amazon.com/nSpace-Dovin-Melhee/dp/0557221889/

“Jonah And The Whale” is about Jonah smoking weed in the whale’s belly and getting it high.

“Nero” is a send-up of the movie “Quo Vadis,” with a freaky, kicks-seeking Nero persecuting Xians.

“The Naz” is a hip telling of the Jesus miracles with a laid-back super cool Nazarene.

“The All-Hip Mahatma” is a paean to Gandhi.

There are many, many more gems of humor, compassion, and love in this man’s truly unique repertoire.

All of his recorded works are available in one form or another. The problem was that most of his stuff was too controversial at the time to be televised, and he died at the beginning of the 60′s before a more “open” format became available.

Google this astonishing and overlooked genius.

@#1 BEANOLINI: The Al Capone story is wrong. Capone actually liked Lord Buckley.

All are welcome……..