THE ADAM BUXTON PODCAST - EP.99 - FRANK SKINNER

Episode Date: July 7, 2019

Adam talks with British comedian Frank Skinner about his encounter with Mark E. Smith (frontman of legendary band The Fall), other favourite gits, challenging celebrity experiences, Charles Bukowski, arguing with the person you love, on line insults and Frank's evolution from Lad Mag hero to (according to Radio 4), public intellectual.Thanks to Séamus Murphy-Mitchell for production support.RELATED LINKSFRANK SKINNER 2019 TOUR DATEShttp://frankskinnerlive.com/DR BUCKLE'S FALL FAVOURITES (SPOTIFY PLAYLIST) https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3XUhn0WpfcnEwHwlvebWZJFRANK INTERVIEWS MARK.E.SMITH FOR THE CULTURE SHOW (RUSHES) (2007)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDwEkrSFsHcFRANK SKINNER COMEDY MASTERCLASS (JEALOUSY) (2019)https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=189&v=N7jGk0mJgp0ITV FRANK SKINNER DOCUMENTARY (2001)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgIcqvmJbzoBILLY BOB THORNTON Q TV BLOW UP (2009)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJWS6qyy7bwBILLY BOB THORNTON EXPLAINS Q TV BLOW UP (2016)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzJnveJvT_QCHARLES BUKOWSKI LAST POETRY READING (1980)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ef8n7HKg_HsBUKOWSKI: BORN INTO THIS DOCUMENTARY (2003)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h32g3g7r4Q8SHORT APPRECIATION OF 'BARFLY' (BY JOSH OLSEN)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6YCUjzYJsQ&list=PLIQbCAs_VL0wiJkvVBNhYIvxGT_S5EIpo&index=8BOB DYLAN - SUBTERRANEAN HOMESICK BLUES VIDEO (1965)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGxjIBEZvx0ADAM & JOE - THE FOOTIE SONG (1997)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45NOP1OA-EQ&t=3s Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I added one more podcast to the giant podcast bin Now you have plucked that podcast out and started listening I took my microphone and found some human folk Then I recorded all the noises while we spoke My name is Adam Buxton, I'm a man I want you to enjoy this, that's the plan. Hey, how are you doing, podcats? Adam Buxton here. I am reporting to you from a farm track running down the side of some wheat fields it's rather overcast it was raining earlier

on and that's the sound of a are they wood pigeons That's not a very good impression, is it? But I have it in my head that I tend to hear their call after it's been raining. Interesting. Thanks, buckles. Hey, plane! It's a small aircraft flying above there. And as it crossed my field of vision, so too did a bird flying the opposite way. A metal bird and a flesh bird crossed paths. Up ahead is my dog friend Rosie, a whippet poodle cross with beautiful orangey eyes. Not bright orange, you understand, that would be scary, but just nice.

There's Technobird there over the wheat fields. And even though I would prefer if it was as nice and sunny as it was yesterday, I really don't have anything to complain about. So let me tell you about podcast number 99, which features a conversation with British comedian Frank Skinner. Here's some Frank facts for you. He's currently aged 62. He grew up in the industrialised market town of Oldbury in the West Midlands of England. Frank got an English degree at Birmingham Poly and he got his master's degree in English literature from Warwick University. Frank turned his attention to stand-up comedy in 1987, and just four years later, he won the prestigious Perrier Award at the 1991 Edinburgh Festival. By the end of the 90s, Frank was a household name in this country, thanks not only to his stand-up, but several highly successful and influential TV shows, including Fantasy Football League, which he co-hosted with fellow comedian and football pal David Baddiel,

who, of course, was also one of the architects, along with Frank and Ian Broody from the Lightning Seeds, of one of the greatest football anthems of all time, Three Lions, which they recorded for Euro 96. Yeah, it's fine, but it's no... Ho, ho, ho, foochie, foochie, foochie. Ho, ho, ho, but it's no... Yeah, they don't generally sing that one in the football terraces because the rights are prohibitively expensive. Speaking of David Baddiel, in the first half of the 2000s, David and Frank struck gold once again with Baddiel and Skinner Unplanned, featuring improvised comedy and conversation

inspired by questions from the audience. Used to really enjoy that show. Meanwhile, from 1995 to 2005, Frank had his own chat show, first on the BBC and then on ITV. And for the last 10 years, he's hosted a Saturday morning programme on Absolute Radio, along with current co-hosts Emily Dean and Alan Cochran. Frank has also hosted the BBC TV show Room 101 since 2012. That's just a bit of what he's done. And now he's performing Showbiz, his new stand-up show at the Leicester Square Theatre, till the 27th of July 2019.

new stand-up show at the Leicester Square Theatre till the 27th of July 2019 and then he is going up to the Edinburgh Festival and doing some more shows there before beginning the showbiz tour of the UK and Ireland in September. You can find details of all Frank's upcoming dates in the description of this podcast. My conversation with Frank was recorded earlier this year, 2019, in a meeting room of the central London office of my agent, which, as you will be able to hear occasionally on the recording, is a busy place with exciting, talented people coming and going and chatting loudly in the reception area. And it's also got some exciting roadworks. in the reception area, and it's also got some exciting roadworks. Frank and I talked about painful celebrity encounters, arguing with the person you love, online insults, and Frank's evolution from lad mag hero to, according to certain people, public intellectual. But we began

our conversation talking about a band that continues to mean a great deal to both of us. I'm talking about The Fall, whose cantankerous, unpredictable and brilliant frontman Marky Smith died at the beginning of last year, 2018. In the description of this podcast, you'll also find a link to a Spotify playlist featuring the songs by The Fall that we mention, as well as some of my personal favorites by the band back at the end for a small helping of waffles but right now here we go ramble chat let's have a ramble chat we'll focus first on this then concentrate on that Bye. How did you get into the fall? Well, it's an odd story. I was driving late one night. John Peel was on.

I had John Peel on the radio. And he played a track called Spoilt Victorian Child. And it utterly, I mean, it blew me away. I thought, oh, my God, this, you know, this is brilliant. I've got to find out about this band. And for some reason, I just never did it was like now I would have just gone to Apple Music or YouTube or something but that those things didn't exist there and I just never got around to it and it wasn't until I mean probably well I'd been on the bill with them um in the interim and still hadn't really checked

them out because i was at a um a new year's eve or a christmas some sort of yuletide event at glasgow university and i think the bill was the four bad manners and i think blancmange oh right and so this is early 80s when i yeah when i well late 80s i would say and when i arrived the entz officer who was a lad who looked about 12 said to me oh there's been a bit of, it might be a bit delayed tonight because there was an argument between the four and Bad Manners during the soundcheck. And a member of Bad Manners pulled a knife on one of the four.

And now Marky Smith has said that he won't play with Bad Manners on the bill. He said, so I've got to go and tell them that they're not on after all I said where are they housed bad manners he said they're in that room down there and I had walked past this room and if you had to do you and I know had to sit with a special effects cassette or two and make a bad behavior soundtrack to play that was what i could hear when i went past this room bottles breaking and swearing and just thumps which unidentifiable loud thumps

and i said to this guy you can't go in there um i said get some of your security he said well the thing was once we'd bought you and the fallen bad manners, and I'm pretty sure it was Blumanty the one, he said, that was kind of my budget, so I didn't get any security. And I said, honestly, I'm not going to let you go in that room. And in the end, he had to get some people, there were Clydesdale police, and they had to go in and tell. So by the time I went on my last train was imminent

so I never stayed to watch the fall anyway about five years after that I was with my uh my partner Kath in in Brighton and I bought a CD 50,000 Ford fans can't be wrong. I finally acted on something I'd heard on Jompie or maybe 10 years earlier. And I played it and I turned to her four tracks in. I remember this very clearly. And I said, this is the music I've been searching for my whole life. And that was exactly how I felt. I felt that the fall had been playing in my head forever.

And that is what I'd been sort of reaching for. Yeah. You were in your 40s at that point. Yeah. So I was a late adopter, as it turned out. It saddens me that I could have gone into, if I'd have acted on that John Peel, I would have been into them.

You know, I saw them, I think it's, well, it's 44 times you know I saw them I think it's oh well it's 44 times I think I saw them live but that was over quite that was just over a few years really I would drive around you know I'd drive to Cambridge or Oxford or what and if they did like four or five London gigs I'd go every night and stuff like that. Because I was playing catch-up on all this fall time I'd missed out on. Yeah. And then you got to meet him. Had you met him before you did that culture show thing in 2007?

No, no, that was the first time I'd met him. So that was for a segment that would be on the culture show, and you were both 50 at that point. That's right, yeah. Was that song, 50- that song 50 year old man already out on one of their albums that was yeah that was currently in their set yeah yeah so they got you together they knew you were a fall fan yeah and they sat you down in a pub in redding that's right yeah because they were doing a gig in redding that night and he arrived an hour late and when

he arrived and said all right Stuart how are you that was that was how it started. Mark how you doing? I'm fine Stuart how's your baby? Good to meet you. But I was I was you know. As in Stuart Lee. Yeah well I'm guessing. Who who is also a massive Fall fan and and he had probably met Stuart by that point been interviewed by him I think. I think yeah Stuart had been there for for years was he winding you up or was it just a slip certainly no I doubt if it was a slip um how's the baby he says but we we did well we sat we sat I forgot that bit we sat down and I remember there's a bit where he's being quite off with me.

There's several bits. And I say to him, Mark, I really love you. Be nice. And I think eventually he kind of melts because at one point he says to me, you know, I'm like you, Frank, I'm a Fall fan as well, which is a very sort of intimate thing for him to say

and quite confessional for him because I think part of his thing was pretending that in a way he despised the fall as well as championed it so I think in the end I won him over and incidentally we sat talking after and he gave me a cigarette which I still keep the end of that i smoked because it was given to me by marky smith i really think that that that i watched it the other day i watched it at the time when it went out i watched the edited version of the interview you did with mark smith on the culture show but now on youtube there's a there's the whole thing uncut. The rushes someone's got hold of and stuck up. No, I gave it to a Fall fan. Ah, did you?

On the proviso that he would never let anyone else see. But Fall fans, I tell you one thing about Fall fans, a lot of them, they develop a sort of a spiky, difficult persona in Hamash to Marth. Yes. So people who I think would have been quite nice people feel that they have to be a bit a bit markish and that bloke fell into that category but i don't mind it being out there really it's certainly the best interview i've ever seen with him the most revealing and because you're obviously you're a seasoned interviewer yourself, but that bit you mentioned where you just refuse to let him bulldoze you. And he's just teasing you.

He's just saying, I've got I've got a few clips. Do you mind if I play? No, no, please. So he gets into this riff about you talking about writing memoirs. Yeah. And he starts talking about, well, maybe I could finish my memoir at the point where I meet Frank Skinner. And he says, it's always nice to meet famous comedians like Frank Skinner. There you go. There's your opening line.

I'm very excited about meeting you. Reflected on my life. Reflected on my life. I was quite worried about meeting you today. Now I will hang myself. I was quite worried about meeting you today. Now I will hang myself. I realised it was time. I will hang myself. And then he carries on with that joke

for a long time. Right. And hang on, this is towards the end of that riff. I'm sat with Frank Skinner. I knew it was the time to go. I went back to the time to go.

I went back to the hotel and tucked myself. So he's going on about that. And then you sort of step in, and it's really interesting because you disarm him and chasten him. And then he apologises, which I've never heard him do. He's not big on apologies. But it's there, and it's a sort of meek, sweet apology. Yeah, yeah. I love you, Mark.

You know that. I love you. Are you being horrible? I love you. You changed my life. Good, I don't know. I'm telling you. Well, good. I'm serious about that. I'm going to get this out of the way now. I'm you. You changed my life. Well, good. I don't know. I'm telling you. Well, good. I'm glad.

I'm serious about that. I'm going to get this out of the way now. I'm sorry. No, it's all right. I don't know that. I'm sorry. Yeah. And he's sort of humbled by the fact that you say, you changed my life. And he goes, I don't know.

Yeah. I don't know. It doesn't compute. He doesn't know what to do in that moment. It's great. It's weird. I haven't heard that, I think, since I did it. Yeah. How did you feel when you came out of the...

Because it couldn't have been a relaxing encounter. No. But like I say, we sat for quite a while afterwards and chatted. No, you are. He's always ticking mark i think at the end of it i felt some human warmth from him and also you know what i i think i wanted to tell him that anyway i think when you're with people who you really admire like that you want to tell them but you always think once i tell them that

there's nowhere to go in the conversation yeah because then the power dynamic is totally skewed and praise is such a it's such an awkward and i i in on one level i need it and on another level i hate it like on the radio show i do we have this phrase praise redacted so that I hate it when you hear DJs say we got a text from Steve here he says I absolutely love the show it's brilliant and could you play and I think you don't read that out about yourself that's so I just I think that's wrong so what yeah maybe it was a kind of a grenade uh he was getting a bit, you know, unkind. I don't know what my thinking was, but listening to that, it was like, I'm just going to tell him.

I'm going to tell him how much he means to me and how much the four mean to me. And if he's still horrible, at least I've done that. And interestingly, as you say, when you listen to that, he responds to it. Yeah yeah it's like he's yeah he's he's a tiny bit embarrassed for himself like he's a bit ashamed i'm sorry yeah i'm sorry fucking hell he was funny though i could forgive him so much did he know that you were a doctor who fan i don't know if he did. And he says, the subject comes up,

oh, yeah, because you say to him, is it true that you were offered the part of Doctor Who? OK. And he says, yeah. And then he carries on and says... One of the greatest achievements of world TV, Doctor Who. In this kind of withering way. Yeah.

And then he says, no what is that after they're 15 do they uh maybe he did now then it sounded like he did right and then the other thing that made me laugh was he goes off on one about actors in groups right actors who join bands and have musical ambitions. Yeah. He says. It irritates me, is all these actors, you know, in groups. I think that's really irritating. It really irritates me. Actors in groups? Like who?

You know, actors, you know, actors, they're actors. Right. And then they form their own groups, don't they? They do tours and all that. Oh, yeah, like Kevin Bacon and stuff. Yeah, yeah, so that's what they always really wanted to do. I think that should be banned.

That would mean interesting legislation to pass, wouldn't it? I think Kiefer Sutherland's doing it at the moment, isn't he? Isn't he in the band? Yes, yes, you're right. He played at Glastonbury a few years back. I mean, it's a phenomenon that few would identify, but I saw many years ago, I saw Billy Bob Thornton doing it in a playing live.

Have you seen that interview that he does with his band on a thing called Cue the music or something with a journalist who had a bit of a me too well quite a large me too moment who was supposedly mistreating girlfriends with rough sex play but that's by the by he's interviewing Billy Bob Thornton and years before this me too thing blew up about the presenter, this incredibly uncomfortable interview takes place where the presenter is trying to acknowledge that Billy Bob Thornton is an actor, well-known, Oscar winning even, or nominated for Sling Blade. It's not like he's trying to make the whole interview about Billy Bob Thornton and his career and ignore all

the music at all. He's just, he mentions some of the films that Billy Bob thornton and his career and ignore all the music at all he's just he mentions some of the films that billy bob thornton's been in and he refuses to answer any questions he sits there in silence staring at this guy and the the other two members of the band are all really uncomfortable don't really know where to look kind of mumble a few answers to some of these questions and then then eventually Billy Bob Thornton explains that he's upset because he's been asked about his acting career. Oh, OK, and that's not who he is then. No, this is about the band. Is Billy Bob Thornton called William Robert Thornton?

Or is Billy Bob a name? That's never occurred to me until you said it a couple of times. Because not many people abbreviate both first names. They're both Christian names, if you can still call them Christian names. Yeah. That, I would say, it's got to be Billy Bob, don't you reckon? I don't know. I'd like to discover that he was Billy Thornton.

And then he thought, you know what? Why don't I reduce the other name? Billy Bob has got a nice sound to it. I mean, it's a sort of joke redneck name, isn't it? Well, I mean, it's... No disrespect. No, there is a Southern American thing of putting those names together, like Jerry Lee Lewis, for example.

Yeah, and Billy Joe there is, as a woman's name. Jerry Lee Lewis, actually, is someone else who I love and I've seen several times. Yeah. And I was in Memphis for the Lennox Lewis Evander Holyfield fight. And the night before, Jerry Lee Lewis was doing a show. So we drove out to see him. He came on and did...

I have come to realise that a lot of people I really like are gits. And he came on and did quite a long monologue about how it was outrageous how much money boxers were paid compared to what he was paying and he talked about what he was getting paid that night and and stuff like that but there was an English guy there and he came over to me and said that I'm going backstage do you want to come and meet Jerry Lee and I said look I love Jerry Lee I listen to his stuff all the time and I'm going to be honest with you I I'm worried that if I meet Jerry Lee he might say if he shot me I not to kill but to maim I don't know if i could really embrace his music as i had

before so i i didn't go back and i've looked back on that and thought should i was that shouldn't i that was after you'd had your marky smith encounter um i don't i'm not sure it would be around the same time i think because you would think once you'd done markie smith and come out of it alive yeah that you could tackle anyone because that's the worry of course about meeting your heroes in that way is that yeah it will be painful for you to listen to their stuff thereafter if you don't get on if they clearly well i think it would like to you have you ever had that before with someone you admired and you had such an unpleasant encounter with them in real life

that it turned you off their stuff i interviewed um gene wilder and i'd really loved a lot of his films sure and he said to me before the interview or maybe during the interview you know i'm i'm an actor right you know i'm not a comic and i i did an interview with him in which he was i don't know he was i didn't i was i hadn't really learned the skill in those days so i probably didn't do a great job on him but he didn't help I'd been to visit him backstage at some Neil Simon play to meet him before to sort of break the ice and I remember his wife was there and she wore a surgical mask throughout and I wasn't sure whether she was worried giving something to me or getting something from me but anyway it was the norm on the chat show that I did I would then write to the guests and say you know thank you for it's very really enjoyable to meet you and all that which

wasn't strictly true and I had a letter that came back he replied which most of them didn't a letter saying I cannot believe that you describe this interview as enjoyable. It is without doubt the worst interview I've ever done in my entire career. And he went on, he riffed on that theme. So it wasn't just like a two line letter? No, no. He went on. I mean, one thing that he pointed out, which I think was a fair cop,

was I showed three clips from various films that he'd been in and he wasn't in any of the clips. Which was reasonable. But I had made that point during the interview. I'm sure. But so when I see him in things now, it's not the same. I mean, he's, you know, he's no longer with us. But when he died and there was all these warm tributes about what a lovely bloke he was.

Yeah, you weren't. I did think back to that. You weren't tweeting. No. I should have just put the letter option now on twitter i swear i've never heard of that before someone replying to a courtesy letter yeah with a with a take down yeah that's sort of impressive what's going on in his mind then that he is, he just can't let you get away with it? Does he feel obliged to let you know for, you know,

going forward in your career, by the way, you may want to consider that when you do an absolutely terrible interview, you shouldn't write a courtesy letter. Well, I think his basic advice was don't do a terrible interview. Don't do a terrible interview. But if you have done it, don't compound it by sending a letter saying how much you enjoyed it. I mean, I suppose he was being more honest than me.

Right. I suppose maybe that gives him the moral high ground because I I it wasn't an incredibly enjoyable interview but you know politeness and all that it's just I was impressed that a Hollywood star who was still very active at that time had got had just taken the time yeah to write that letter yeah it's hard enough writing sincere thank you letters like pleasant thank you letters yeah i think that um you've got it what you really need to get around to writing that letter is motivation and i think you really wanted to make that point of how little he'd enjoyed it maybe people had built it up for him like like, oh, Frank Skinner's a big show, you're really going to like it, he's the king of it.

Maybe. Something like that. And he just thought, no, I'm not having it. So do you think his little armchair psychology for you, that the reason you're into these gits is that they somehow manifest some sort of freedom and authenticity that you crave and and you can't enact in your own life well i think i have um probably more than my fair share of of gittishness as well this is something that's often pointed out on the radio show that i do by the others yeah i i have i have also you don't say i mean you don't really censor yourself very much. It's not as if you're tiptoeing around most of the time. No, but I've tried to temper the levels of it so that it, you know,

because I think it does alienate and offend. But there was a speech I used to do on television productions, if somebody wasn't really pulling their weight, about how I had intelligent articulate and imaginative friends back in the west midlands who were working on the bins because they hadn't been born in the right place to the right kind of family with the right contacts and I would say that I don't resent that you were, but I think if you're given that opportunity, you should pick it up and really run with it,

not disregard it and take it for granted. And it was a speech which never went that well. But I'd like to think they learnt from it, but it probably went the same way as June Wilder's letter. Right, let's go again. What don't you fucking understand? Kick your fucking ass! Let's go again!

What the fuck is it with you? I want you off the fucking set, you prick! No! You're a nice guy! The fuck are you doing? No! Don't shut me up! No? No! You're a nice guy. The fuck are you doing? No! Don't shut me up.

No! No! Ah, da-da-da-da, like this. No! No! Don't shut me up. Ah, da-da-da-da, like this. Fuck's sake, man, you're amateur.

Seriously, man, you and me, we're fucking done professionally. By the way, sorry, I'm mentioning Gene Wilder's letter. Can we just segue back? Are you familiar with the fall song dr box letter yeah it's one of my favorites is a work of art it really is what is it have you ever tried to find out what he's reading out it's an article about pete tong yes he suggests that the title of it is the essence of tong yes and then at And then at one point, he reads quotes from... It's great, because he starts laughing as he reads them out. Yeah.

He says things like, things I always have with me, my Amex card, they made such a fuss about giving me one. And then he starts laughing about it. But in the midst of it, he stops as a reminder of what's going on. And he says, we are in the realm of the essence of tongue.

Then he goes back into it. Oh, it's brilliant. The first part of the song, which has nothing to do with the beat tongue section, is a fantastic dirty riff i've never looked at the lyrics from that section dr bach's letter i've always thought there was a a murderer called dr bach roxton uh-huh and i've always imagined because it sounds like a very foreboding section of that it's very close to my name that it was about i suppose it is dr bot roxton and you can probably work this out for yourself

was a surgeon and was also known as the jigsaw murderer oh yeah you can yeah you can guess the rest easy jigsaw though um i believe i i think i read somewhere that dr buck was uh charles bakowski oh okay because i think he was a fan i mean there's another old git yeah exactly and yet when i was i remember seeing that film barfly yes mickey rourke and fay donnaway and it completely blew me away it's one of my favorite films of all time i was drinking a lot at the time and one thing i think that heavy drinkers love is a romanticized view of heavy drinking and so i really bought into that it oh man it's brilliant i think i watched barfly at the cinema and i've never watched it again. I should check it out.

It's got a good soundtrack. There's a lot of Booker T and the MGs on there and that's what got me into them. Okay. Years later, I sort of investigated Bukowski and Barbet Schroeder, who directed Barfly, conducted a series of interviews with Bukowski around the same time, maybe before or after the production of Barfly. They're available on a DVD somewhere, and there's a couple of hours of them.

OK. They're really good and odd. Although I've only seen that film once, there's a line that has lived with me and I've quoted many times, and I think it was because at that stage in my life, any sort of romantic as in relationship things I'd tried had all failed horribly. And often there were men who were more obvious men,

if you know what I mean, who had more testosterone involved. Manly men. And there's a bit where he finds out that she's seeing another guy and he's called something like Bobby and he says, oh, not Bobby, he said, with his obviousness and his unoriginal macho energy. And I really love that. It seemed to be a justification for all the blokes like me.

Yeah. And I think that line, that one line, has had quite a big influence on me. Yeah, yeah. I've not really seen him reassessed in the modern post-MeToo climate, Bukowski, but presumably that will come. He's a strange figure.

Why? Would he be a difficult case? Well, he certainly i mean there's an interview where he is sat on the sofa with his then wife slash girlfriend and they have a row and he sort of drunkenly reaches over and and sort of kicks her off the sofa in a really scary unpleasant way he was just obviously fucked up on booze most of the time and had a a very strange relationship with women in all sorts of ways that comes out in his writing and uh there's all sorts i mean you have to assume with a figure like that that he's He's fundamentally wounded and sensitive and not just a straight-ahead yob or bad guy. But I feel the thin ice cracking beneath us as you speak. But yes, I would hesitate to direct people

to his stuff completely cold because it's pretty extreme, I would say, a lot of it. There's a video of Bukowski at his last live poetry reading, I think, in California around 1980. And so that gives you a good idea of where he's at. But it's quite weird because he's got a new audience that it's like a second wave or even a third wave of slightly ironic youngsters

who've just discovered this strange old guy. Like William S. Burroughs went through the same process. He's quite complicated, post-Me Too, as well as he shot his wife through the forehead whilst playing William Tell. Yeah. It was an accident. Yes.

But it's a weird thing to watch these young people hanging on every word that Bukowski says and just laughing at everything. Everything is funny to them, you know. So Bukowski reads quite an uncomfortable poem with what sounds like fairly weird, misogynistic language in it. And everyone laughs everyone assumes that it's just a joke right and it probably is but it's not maybe laugh out loud funny

it's difficult that younger disciples thing i'm somewhat obsessed with jack kerouac and when fame kind of destroyed him and turned him into a lonely angry drunkard these young students would turn up at his house every now and again not a particular group but all sorts of young students to whom he'd become this heroic figure because of on the road and um would take him out and buy him booze and when you read accounts of that he looks like someone who doesn't quite know where he is and who doesn't want to be the messiah they want him to be but he wants the free drink and he wants a bit of adulation and it's a really awful juxtaposition just a sort of freak show very weird well here's a great segue then have you noticed your audience is changing over the years well i did uh i got interviewed at latitude i had a book out And at the end of it, they went for audience questions. And a woman raised her hand, some, you know, middle aged woman who looked like she might have had a job

with the word community. And she said to me, I used to hate you. And now I really like you. Who's changed? Me or you? Yeah, that's an interesting question i thought it was a very interesting question yeah and uh i don't know because um people have i was introduced on the show recently as a public intellectual whoa what show was that that was um what had a letter this morning from radio three a woman saying i heard frank skinner um discussing one of william wordsworth's lucy poems on the program this morning i've taught that poem for years and um i found his interpretations very new very moving and interesting i actually cried as he read it. Wow. And I thought times have changed, haven't they,

from being on the cover of Loaded. So I suppose the audience have changed, but only because virtually all my stuff, like, you know, I'm doing a lot of stand-up at the moment, and it's autobiographical as it always has been so the actual container is not any different I still write the same way I still write freehand like when I first started writing stand-up because I didn't have anything I could type on so I still write freehand but the thing is that because it's

autobiographical as your life changes the stand-up changes or your comedy changes and so it's not a plan to be 0.2 it's just the sausage meat is different and so thus so are the sausages yes because you have a partner that you've been with for several years. You have a young son. 19 years, yeah. Yeah. With breaks. How old is your son?

Seven. So it's, yes, it's a different landscape to the one that you described in your early routines. Yeah, and I'm older. I don't go out so much. And I don't have this terrible craving that there is a party going on at the end of the road that I should be at. Now, if there's a party at the end of the road, my only hesitation is whether or not I should call the police about the noise. And did you struggle? How did you make that transition then? What was the thing that stopped you? Was it just meeting Kath? No, I had a very, very awful relationship with a woman.

And when I managed to extract myself, I remember that when I used to get home at night, I remember that when I used to get home at night I would have terrible stomach cramps of anticipated unpleasantness and friction and the first night I got back to an empty flat after the relationship had ended I remember the joy and relief of going into an empty place and I think ever since that day the joy and relief of going into an empty place. And I think ever since that day, I have been very at ease alone in a room.

And I don't want to be at the party and I don't want to be at the film premiere and all those things that I used to go to. There was a time when a magazine, a fairly low-rent magazine, admittedly, named me as Party Animal of the Year. That now seems unbelievable to me that that happened. What had you done to qualify as a party animal? Does that mean that you are just at every single event?

Yeah, they had a picture. They had like about 10 pictures of me with my arms around different women. Some who I had been involved with, some who were just friends, and some I'd never seen before in my life who assumed said, can I have my photo? Or a photographer had said, do you want to have your photo taken together? But it was, I say this as if I'm a, when I saw it at the time, you know, I was glad to be portrayed as someone who's that popular.

Uh-huh. Parties are bad. Don't you think? I've been to about four that I enjoyed. Right. I think that's pretty good. Yeah. Dinner parties can be good.

My problem. Yeah, that's a different thing. One of my worst things is when you're at a dinner party and we're sitting at a table now that seats, what would you say, 12 people? Something like that. Say if we were at this table at the dinner party, I hate it when they start to split into groups.

I like it so that when you speak, you are addressing the whole table. I agree with you. The idea that I'm going to say something really funny that's only heard by three people, when there is a potential audience of 12, breaks my heart. No, you've made it about being self-absorbed. I wouldn't see it necessarily in those terms. I think that it's more of an enjoyable experience when the table is united, when one person is speaking and everyone listens. So I think that when you go over about 10 people,

that starts becoming difficult. And what you're describing happens that people pair off or split off. My beautiful great wife, who is the best in the world, if you're listening, you know that, right? I love you so much. She doesn't agree with that. She sees that desire for me to just have one person speaking, whoever. It doesn't have to be me. It could be anyone. But let's all just listen to the one person. She's not having it. She's like, no, I don't want someone just monologuing. I want to talk to who I want. So she will do a thing where I'm chatting to someone across the table. She'll start another conversation with someone. So we are crossing streams.

There's something rude, I think, about that moment when the whole table becomes a series of splinter groups. The people who begin that, I think, are being quite ill-mannered. Yes. It's as if a teacher were talking in class and then some of the kids started talking amongst themselves not that i see myself as a teacher in the social setting or sometimes public intellectual yeah i actually said we had a magnum pi that's what the pi stands for what if we found out that it was magnum public intellectual he played it down very softly to his credit tc i want to read you some yates that i think will make you feel differently about this but i had a discussion about exactly this with my wife and at

one point i did actually say what you just said about like, I think it's a bit rude. I just think it's a bit rude to start a conversation across someone else. It's distracting from a practical point of view. I'm suddenly, I can't concentrate on what the other person is. I just think it's a bit rude. And she said, a bit rude. Don't be so ridiculous. I'm married to you.

As if like within a marriage, there can no longer be any rudeness no that can't be i mean it's true that rudeness diminishes quickly in a marriage but um no i think that's um i just don't agree with that i think it's i know where she's coming from she's because she abhors sort of showy offy look at me type behavior so i think she's basically sort of showy offy look at me type behavior so I think she's basically thinking about times when I have been showing off and I have been trying to grandstand or monologue you know I think the worst one of the worst falling out that me and Kat had we were in an apartment in France not very far from the Shakespeare bookshop that was where James Joyce's Ulysses was first published. Uh-huh. And we were in this apartment, and she said to me, out of the blue,

what colour was your hair originally? And I said, well, you can see what it was originally. I mean, it's greyer now than it was then. And she said, well, no, it's just grey now. And I said, well, no, it isn't. It isn't just grey. I said, I know it's a grayer now than it was then and she said uh well no it's just gray now and I said well no it isn't it isn't just gray I said I know it's gray now the problem with this argument it sounds like I was touchy about it being gray or not being gray but I just couldn't understand why she couldn't still see the original color and I said the original color is very apparent I don't know what what you're talking about.

And she said, no, it's just grey. And I started to get not only angry, but quite anxious. And I said, I am becoming alarmed that you have lost touch with reality. And she said, OK, well, text three friends and ask them what colour your hair is. She said, but we have to agree on the text. So there's no leading question or any kind of sleight of hand going on. Wow, she's so together in this argument. So I sent a text which said quite simply, sorry to bother you, what colour is my hair to three friends that we chose together yeah and

they all said about the same basically the same thing was well it's a sort of mousy blonde dirty blonde color mixed with a quite a lot of gray yeah i said well they there you have it that's true by then she'd become so furious that she'd ended the relationship but we were in France so she started to say phone your PA this is where the story gets less um accessible phone your PA and say we're flying back tomorrow I've had you know I can't cope with this anymore and I said well I'm glad because I'm so convinced that you've lost touch with reality I'm now it's really got into my head that you are going to stab me in the night and this was how far it went from an argument which started off with her saying what was the original color of your hair

and that is um it's scary I think you'd agree. But the thing is that there's always a subtext, isn't there? That you either get to or you don't. I mean, usually you don't. Usually the argument just goes its own way and the whole thing blows up and it's, you lose control of your emotions and your ability to think coherently. And there's absolutely no way that you're going to sit down and go, hang on, hang on. What is this really about? Yeah. But if only you could do that, it would be great. Because there always is.

It's never about like. It's very hard, though, to hit the brake like that in an argument. It is. And have a sidebar. I do the exit in high dudgeon or low or medium dudgeon. Okay. Any of the dudgeons. Yeah.

At a certain point where I just think, this is bullshit, we're going round and round. And I'm probably at the point where I'm going to say something I'd regret. Then I do the exit. And she doesn't like it at all. Because it's like, that's not fair. You can't do that. Yeah. Exit.

Fuck you. Do the exit. She doesn't say that, but that's how she feels. Yeah. And she goes, all right, off you go. Oh, doesn't say that but that's how she feels yeah and she goes all right off you go although that's yeah i don't like that one in the olden days when i was less mature because i'm great now if i'd got a okay off you go then i would have done big slam all right slam house shaking and then I would have stomped off and probably cried I had an argument with a woman and she I said I'm just going to go it was my flat but I said I'm just going to go away and walk and just have some normal that's the best thing I think and I remember

as I walked out she stood at the doorway this was in a flat remember which I lived in and so there was um this is my current girlfriend by the way and she shouted fuck off fuck off fuck off really loudly three times and it reminded me that I'd read in an essay by Milton that at the time it was legally binding. If you said, I divorce thee, I divorce thee, I divorce thee, that you were divorced. And I really wanted to make that point. It's like Candyman. But I couldn't walk back into that storm, so I just walked away

with that Milton reference burning a hole in my pocket. As we would expect from Skinner. A public intellectual. Skinner P.I. Skinner P.I., yeah. Frank Skinner P.I. I must tell you one other thing that happened. We were having an argument.

We argue less now, I should say. Yes. This is a woman I love very much, but we had a volatile relationship indeed for a long time. We argued very loudly on the strand one day, and it got so heated that people were um taking taking photographs and so we stepped down the side sort of behind the savoy to argue in privacy and we went into this alley and we stood there and the argument was really getting you know when they you know i felt i want to get out of this

argument and i can't there's and I can see no way out. I hear me shouting and I don't want to be in it. I want to just say, please, can we start back up? Anyway, we argued horribly and it suddenly dawned on me that the alleyway we were standing in was the alleyway where Bob Dylan filmed the subterranean homesick blues video. With D.A. Pennebaker, wow.

Yeah, with Alan Ginsberg there and stuff, when he's throwing the boards with the words on. We were in that alleyway. And it was really because the argument was carrying on, but I was also standing back and thinking, oh, wow, this was where the video was. And I really wanted to share my joy with her. She hates Bob Dylan.

But I had to carry on arguing, so I wasn't allowed to enjoy what would have been a brilliant moment. But you must have been arguing just with the soundtrack of Bob's in a basement, it's not the medicine. Exactly. I'm on a payment, screaming at my girlfriend. Wow. I know that exact tally.ally hey everybody in the modern time

they got to get themselves a podcast i will do yours and you'll do mine we're sorting out the problems of the world so fast your son is called Buzz. And is that after Buzz Aldrin? It is, yeah. Right. So you love space. I'm a child of the space race. And that was when I was growing up. That was the big thing.

I was born a month before the moon landings. I stayed up to watch the moon landings. Did you? Yeah. And I watched the lunar module land. I was lying on the sofa with my whippy we were both he was like coddling him we were lying flat out he'd got interested after the leica experiment um leica i should say to your listeners was the dog who uh the russian sent up

and who perished in space did he i forgot he died yeah i think they forgot to leave the window slightly ajar anyway um i so i stayed up to watch the moon landing and fell asleep and when i woke up uh they had walked and returned to the lunar module so i missed the whole damn thing which is a cause of great regret to me so yeah i did name him after boss and also i thought there was something i found satisfying about naming him after the second man on the moon so as not to set the bar yeah too high for life although that that was post-Toy Story, so that name has that resonance now as well. Yeah, but of course he...

Buzz Lightyear was named after Buzz Aldrin, so it's all part of the same genealogy, really. In fact, Buzz Aldrin has since... Because Buzz is not... Buzz was his nickname. He's Edwin Aldrin has since, because Buzz is not, Buzz was his nickname. He's Edwin Aldrin, but he adopted Buzz as a name by deed poll. So Buzz Aldrin is now officially Buzz Aldrin. And he told me that he was thinking of adopting Lightyear by deed poll as well. I don't know if he was serious.

He seems serious. Did he really say that? Yeah, but he'd had such an enormous facelift, I couldn't really if he was serious. He seemed serious. Did he really say that? Yeah, but he'd had such an enormous facelift, I couldn't really tell his intentions visually. That doesn't seem right, an astronaut getting a facelift. He said it was the G-force. That was his joke about it. Right.

There is a picture of me and him together at a post-facelift, of me and him together at a post facelift and it honestly looks like i am doing a show a ventriloquist show with a buzz aldrin ventriloquist dummy i mean it really looks like that yeah you would have thought he'd come to terms with gravity yeah all its forms. Unacceptable, incompetent and amateurish. Buckles, why are you still in your post? Pool pants, I say to you, pool pants, pool pants. I say again, pool pants. Buckles tried to clarify that the language was a requirement, though he didn't sound sure.

Pool pants, it's got to be pool pants, pool pants. I don't know. Maybe not. I was listening to some people talking about the whole concept of cucks, cuckolds. Oh, yeah. You know how you... I've never heard it abbreviated. I think it was kind of the alt-right, younger troll people who started getting a hold on the internet about five or six years ago,

I don't know, pre-Trump. But they started calling liberals cucks. So if you were in the run-up to Trump being elected, if you were pro-Clinton, then you were a cuck. Because, I don't know, the implication was that you were a sort of weak man you were the kind of if you were someone that thought feminism was a good idea you were probably also the kind of person that would be happy to see your wife sodomized by someone else and watch videos of it that's not necessarily the definition of a cuckold no i think a cuckold is a little less aware normally yeah right so originally a cuckold would that's a cuckold is a little less aware normally yeah right so originally a cuckold would that's sort of chaucerian isn't it or shakespearean i mean i'm

sure it is i think of it it came its golden age was restoration comedy i would say when every there was a cuckold in every thing but yeah it gets mentioned in ben johnson and stuff yeah everyone was laughing at them because they didn't know that their wife was sleeping with someone else yeah yeah they were the last person to know but now in in sort of porno terms and insult terms on the internet it's the sort of person who gets a kick out of that kind of thing i find it it interesting. I don't do social media, but I find it interesting. I'm always interested in any developments in language. And I find it interesting the way the art of insult

is something that's really been ever more refined and made sophisticated. I'm always hearing like angry white men on the internet are dismissed as gamins because they're like pink pieces of gamin as they get redder through rage. And there's that one, is it a TERF, which is a trans... Trans Excluding Radical Feminist. Yeah.

And it's almost like if you can make an acronym out of it or some sort of good nickname you've won the argument and i sort of like the idea of of puns and that being such a dominant and potent force in society yeah cock is not i mean it's such an ugly word really i tell you what i don't like about in the way i i like the sound of gammon and turf. They seem quite specific, whereas cock, to me, it's just a little... It doesn't quite fit with what I would think of as what a cock-hold is and what their experience is.

With someone who's a sort of liberal, reconstructed man, there's a difference between those two. Usually the cock-holded figure in restoration comedy sort of liberal reconstructed man there's a difference between those two usually the cock-holded figure in restoration comedy was a sort of a boris johnson type lord so-and-so type thing so he was the opposite of one of those liberal men so i think it's a bit messy that one yeah could do better you're all right are you uh are you a sort of grammar pedant and phraseology fascist um how are you with your um with your son for example when he comes back with weird bits of school slang my son said to me um it seems wrong that the word small is bigger than the word big and I like the way that I like that he was thinking in those terms it made me think that he'd probably be a stand-up comedian yeah

definitely how do you like your tour this tour that you're about to do has it got like jokes and shit or is it just you riffing and doing crowd work oh no it's got uh lots of jokes i think i'm one of the few comics now who's still doing jokes in a celebratory i do jokes kind of way because when i get interviewed people keep saying to me what's the theme of this show i'm not anti-theme i've seen theme shows are really good but i think there's a feeling that if it isn't themed then it's not theatrical right it's somehow more superficial or something well i think drama has become the thing the cool thing i don't hear that many people now i mean i don't hang around water coolers but when i hear people

talking they're often talking other than fleabag and even fleabag is it's not drama but it's it has drama in the family it's in the same postcode as drama even though it's very funny i think people aspire now to drama i think most comics i've spoken to who are under 30 want to be actors, probably more than they want to be comics. I would say my show was pure stand-up. There's no theatrical element to it. A lot of people do shows now about their wife's colonoscopy, and there's jokes around it, their wife's colonoscopy.

Yeah. And there's jokes around it, but that's the basic theme. And I haven't done one of those. I'm not saying I never will, but I'm not sure I will. Yeah. Have you done one of those? Yeah, no, no. No, never say never. But, you know, I guess the most likely thing that I would do one about is the old dead dad thing.

But everyone's done all, you know, it's so hard to put a new stamp on those things. But no, I haven't is the short answer. Also, you know, I would much prefer to do a show with lots of jokes in. But if I'm lucky, we'll write two jokes that are in any way funny a year or something i admire your uh the last thing i saw as i was looking at your comedy masterclass spoof on youtube oh yeah which looks fairly recent did you do that it is fairly recent it's sort of you it's looking back on a piece of material i did a few years ago. It's you deconstructing your jealousy routine in the style of those ludicrous masterclass things you get online now.

And you've got a line about referring to a joke about punctuation in the original routine. Oh, yeah. And you say, oh, there's not many punctuation jokes around these days. I blame the parentheses. Yes. You have to be happy with that how do you arrive at those uh at the risk of being very literal and asking a boring technical

question but are those things that generally pop up in conversation and then you make a note of yes right so you don't sit at your desk going, funny things, funny things. I occasionally do that. Like when I did Room 101, people would choose a topic and then I would sit and chew that topic over and see what I could find funny. But usually, either in conversation or actually on stage, someone will say something and I'll respond and it'll get a big laugh. And I tend to tape every show nowadays

because my memory isn't what it was so I will go back and and and think oh that that could become material because it's already got a laugh in its you know unadulterated form obviously there are some jokes you do which you can only do that night and they won't like I had two nights ago i had an anesthetist i said to this bloke what do you do so i'm an anesthetist and i said uh brilliant i said it's not often i get a chance to talk to an anesthetist well not for very long anyway they got a big laugh and i thought i'll never be able to use that again because it's just you know it's just not going to crop up but i also like that i also like it when you

know you've done a joke that is that it's a unique you know one-off response thing there's something exciting about them wait this is an advert for Squarespace. videos and pics and I don't want to stop. And I'd like to access your members area and spend in your shop. These are the kinds of comments people will say about your website if you build it with Squarespace. Just visit squarespace.com slash buxton for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, because you will want to launch, use the offer code BUXTON to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

So put the smile of success on your face with Squarespace. Squarespace. Yes. Continue. Voila! Hey, welcome back, podcats. That was Frank Skinner. As I said in my intro, I've posted links to various things we talked about in the description of this podcast. You will find there the website that has all his upcoming tour dates, if you want to go and see him.

What else have I got links to there? Oh, well, there's the whole of the interview with Marky Smith I've put a link to. There is the Comedy Masterclass I mentioned. There's a good documentary that was made about Frank in 2001. I think to coincide with the publication of his first autobiography. He's published two in his time. The second one was really more about him sort of resuming stand-up a few years after the first one, which was much more about his early years. It's really good. I recommend them both, but that first one is particularly good. There's link to that uncomfortable billy bob thornton interview from 2009 but there's also a link to a thing i hadn't seen before from 2016 where he explains on another radio show the background to his strop on the queue interview

and the way he tells it it it sounds a little more understandable. You decide. Also got a link to that last poetry reading by Charles Bukowski that we were talking about. I don't know if it would be a good place to start with Charles Bukowski.

Probably not. There's quite good documentaries. Rosie, is that you? It's either Rosie or a very big rabbit over there in the field. I can't see. Rosie, come here. There you are. Oh, mate, you're all sodden. She looks completely different when she comes out from the wet field she just looks like a big old weird rat spider anyway she's having fun that's the main thing um so yeah maybe i'll post a link to a charles bakowski documentary that's a better introduction to him although the poetry reading is good because it just gets you right in there to some of his mad stuff.

Oh, now look where I am. My route today leads me past a magnificent wise old tree. Tell me, wise old tree, what kind of a tree are you? Er, don't know. I mean, quite outgoing. I'm up for a laugh, you know. Yes, but what is the name of your type of tree? Don't be racist. No, no, I'm not. I'm just, I'm aware that I don't know the names of many of the beautiful trees and plants around this part of the world. So I just, you know, I thought it would be respectful to ask.

Well, it would be respectful to know and not have to ask me. Yes, I'm sorry, wise old tree, you're right. I mean, you look like an oak to me. Would that be right? Fuck off, oak. Oh, my God, that is racist. What, like every big tree's an oak? No, no, I wasn't.

I was just saying that, sorry, I saw you had some acorns and I thought... Yes, I'm wearing acorns. So what? They were a gift, if you had to know. Well, they're really nice. So... How's things been? Have you...

Any festivals or anything like that? Yeah, we had a festival last weekend, actually. Oh, really? Cool. Who was on the bill? Er, the Roots. Of course. FKA Twigs.

Yep. Bark Psychosis. Sure. Er, the Birds. Mha. Bush. The... Screaming Trees. TheKA Twigs. Yep. Bark Psychosis. Sure. The Birds. Mha. Bush. The. Screaming Trees.

The. Robert Plant. Boodle. Kate Bush. Yeah. Amazing line-up. Yeah, yeah, it's organised by Mike Leaves. Mike Leaves.

Mike Leaves. Mike Leaves. Mike Leaves. Mike Leaves. Leaves. Mike Leaves. Leaves. Mike Leaves.

Leaves. Yeah. And his daughter, Mandy Branches. Leaves. Leaves. Make leaves. Leaves. Make leaves. Leaves. Yeah. And his daughter, Mandy Branches. That sounds great. Is it fun? Yeah, it's amazing. And on the first night, we had Stormzy.

Wow, that's incredible. Must have been exciting. Yeah, it was brilliant. And on the second night, we had Cloudzies. Okay. Bye, wise old tree. Yeah, all right, bye. Ah, wise old tree yeah all right bye ah wise old tree hey rose how you doing you lying there while i was talking to the wise old tree thinking what the shit are you doing you are stupid and entirely unnecessary. I love you, did you know?

Oh, man. All right, we better go home. Well, that's it for this week. Back with another rambly and I think pretty stupid conversation for episode number 100, which should be plopping out in a week or so. Thanks very much to Seamus Murphy Mitchell for his invaluable production support. Thank you so much, Seamus. Really appreciate it. Thanks very much to ACAST. Without their support, I wouldn't be able to make this podcast or at least I would make it even less regularly than I do

so cheers thanks to you very much for listening and until next time we share the same outer space stay fresh with the beat watch what you eat keep your room nice and neat

that's the word on the street I love you bye beat, watch what you eat, keep your room nice and neat. That's the word on the street. I love you. Bye! Bye. Give me a little smile and a thumbs up. Nice, like a black weather, but it's not too late. Subscribe, subscribe, like and subscribe. Subscribe, subscribe, like and subscribe. Give me a little smile and a thumbs up. Give me a little smile and a thumbs up. Give me a little smile and a thumbs up. Give me a little smile and a thumbs up. Thank you.