re Dig Infinity

[Doug Millison]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20769-2002Jun20.html


Jive Talk
'Dig Infinity!: The Life and Art of Lord Buckley' by Oliver Trager
Reviewed by Peter Carlson
Sunday, June 23, 2002; Page BW15


DIG INFINITY!
The Life and Art of Lord Buckley
By Oliver Trager
Welcome Rain. 404 pp. $30

Hipsters, flipsters and finger-poppin' daddies, knock me your lobes! I come
to hip you to joyous tidings of good cheer: A cat named Trager has laid
down a righteous tome on the coolest, grooviest, grandest, wailin'-est
comedian who ever flapped his chops on this sweet swinging sphere -- His
Royal Highness, Lord Buckley, the Hip Messiah!!

[...]
Trager's book is an oral biography, a life narrated at length (perhaps too
much length) by Buckley's friends and fans -- a group that includes Kesey,
Steve Allen, Jerry Garcia, George Harrison and jazz chanteuse Anita O'Day.
At times, you get the impression that these folks might be exaggerating His
Lordship's adventures just a smidgen. Did he really entertain a speakeasy
audience by burning Al Capone's wife's mink stole? Did he really march 16
naked people through the lobby of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel? Did he really
react to his first dose of LSD by delivering an impromptu monologue that
lasted 24 hours? These kind of stories are, as we say in the news biz, "too
good to check." If even half of them are even half-true, His Lordship was
one wild, wacky dude. [...]


....continues at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A20769-2002Jun20.html