Brother Schenker
Founding member
Thanks to our Buk researcher in Spain I finally got to see Buk on that infamous Apostrophes show.
What follows are just some scattered impressions. It is not meant as a review.
First off, as most of you know, it's from the French dvd extras, and unfortunately (although not surprisingly) there are no English subtitles. What's worse is that when Buk is talking we hear a French translator talking over him. Hopefully I 'll get to see this show someday without the French translation and WITH English subtitles.
Buk is as red as a lobster...looks quite uncomfortable and speaks defensively right from the start. The panel is a farce---I mean, you couldn't find a more pretentious looking group of people if you tried (Sean Penn and Bono and Tom Waits would've felt at home). Their heads are so far up their own asses that their eyes are runny with tears of diarrhea.
Buk, no doubt feeling out of place amongst a bunch of university whores, plays up the "bum" aspect of his life history. At one point he says something disingenuous like, "I went from sleeping on a park bench to suddenly having money".
I think he expected to be percieved and treated as a clown on that show and was at the same time resentful of it. Wanted to give them what they wanted but also hated doing so.
I cringed alot while watching this show. Alot of knuckle biting. At first it's funny because here we have a clown on a very ultra-serious show...and for the most part he attempts to answer the questions seriously during his segment, but after the discussion moves from him to the other panelists, he basically interrupts their segments like an obnoxious drunken bastard. It's about as cool and funny as your best friend or wife making a total drunken ass of themselves at a restaurant.
Based on reviews of the show, I had expected Buk's sudden departure to be met with surprise or even an attitude of "No, please don't go" or "How dare you!" but instead the host quickly says "Au revoir" and tries to keep the show running without missing a beat.
In summary: His drunken behavior was low class and pathetic. A perfect recording of how he no doubt behaved sometimes at parties or other congregations when feeling drunk & surly. And to his credit, he had written about behaving that way sometimes...and you wondered if he had been exaggerating....but no. He really did act sometimes like a horrible beast. And I can now truly sympathize with Jon Webb and others who had said Buk sometimes deserved being kicked out of the house. I mean, I'm extrapolating a bit here (sort of based on that infamous scene in the Buk Tapes where he calls Linda a cunt and kicks her off the sofa), because Buk is not necessarily behaving like an UGLY drunk on this show, more of a drunken clown, but you can see how he could at times behave as such that he was truly his own worst enemy.
Just my impressions. Not meant to be flame bait. You know damn well I love our man's books unconditionally.
(By the way: Did anyone else have trouble with viewing chapter one of this Apostrophes episode? It kept freezing up. I attempted to view it on 4 different computer programs (RealVideo, Intervideo, WinMedia...and one other whose name escapes me) but couldn't get it to play smoothly. I will eventually try viewing it on a proper dvd-for-tv player).
What follows are just some scattered impressions. It is not meant as a review.
First off, as most of you know, it's from the French dvd extras, and unfortunately (although not surprisingly) there are no English subtitles. What's worse is that when Buk is talking we hear a French translator talking over him. Hopefully I 'll get to see this show someday without the French translation and WITH English subtitles.
Buk is as red as a lobster...looks quite uncomfortable and speaks defensively right from the start. The panel is a farce---I mean, you couldn't find a more pretentious looking group of people if you tried (Sean Penn and Bono and Tom Waits would've felt at home). Their heads are so far up their own asses that their eyes are runny with tears of diarrhea.
Buk, no doubt feeling out of place amongst a bunch of university whores, plays up the "bum" aspect of his life history. At one point he says something disingenuous like, "I went from sleeping on a park bench to suddenly having money".
I think he expected to be percieved and treated as a clown on that show and was at the same time resentful of it. Wanted to give them what they wanted but also hated doing so.
I cringed alot while watching this show. Alot of knuckle biting. At first it's funny because here we have a clown on a very ultra-serious show...and for the most part he attempts to answer the questions seriously during his segment, but after the discussion moves from him to the other panelists, he basically interrupts their segments like an obnoxious drunken bastard. It's about as cool and funny as your best friend or wife making a total drunken ass of themselves at a restaurant.
Based on reviews of the show, I had expected Buk's sudden departure to be met with surprise or even an attitude of "No, please don't go" or "How dare you!" but instead the host quickly says "Au revoir" and tries to keep the show running without missing a beat.
In summary: His drunken behavior was low class and pathetic. A perfect recording of how he no doubt behaved sometimes at parties or other congregations when feeling drunk & surly. And to his credit, he had written about behaving that way sometimes...and you wondered if he had been exaggerating....but no. He really did act sometimes like a horrible beast. And I can now truly sympathize with Jon Webb and others who had said Buk sometimes deserved being kicked out of the house. I mean, I'm extrapolating a bit here (sort of based on that infamous scene in the Buk Tapes where he calls Linda a cunt and kicks her off the sofa), because Buk is not necessarily behaving like an UGLY drunk on this show, more of a drunken clown, but you can see how he could at times behave as such that he was truly his own worst enemy.
Just my impressions. Not meant to be flame bait. You know damn well I love our man's books unconditionally.
(By the way: Did anyone else have trouble with viewing chapter one of this Apostrophes episode? It kept freezing up. I attempted to view it on 4 different computer programs (RealVideo, Intervideo, WinMedia...and one other whose name escapes me) but couldn't get it to play smoothly. I will eventually try viewing it on a proper dvd-for-tv player).
