Clay vs. Buck: Hamilton, the Musical

CLAY: There’s no director of common sense anymore in American politics because if there were, Buck, what would you have said if the Democrats had come to you and they had said, “Hey, for part of our January 6th memorial we’re thinking about having Lin-Manuel Miranda write a special song, and also we’re gonna have a candlelight vigil”? Wouldn’t you say, regardless of what your politics are, you’re gonna look like complete imbecilic losers if do you that and you’re gonna be ridiculed to high heaven. Common sense is so uncommon in Washington that no one has that lightbulb go off and thinks, “Are we gonna look incredibly stupid when we do this?”

BUCK: They’re utterly shameless. And I would just say as well I refused to go — ’cause it was so expensive and I didn’t want to support it — to the Lin-Manuel Miranda Hamilton. So I watched it on, I think it was on Netflix or on YouTube. I can’t remember.

CLAY: Disney+ put it on I think, right?

BUCK: And it’s terrible. I’m here to say — and I know you’re not allowed to say this — it is not good, and everybody can get mad at me or whatever, I’m allowed to have whatever opinions I want about art, and Hamilton, the Broadway play is not good, and want to talk about a mass hysteria with covid? There was like a mass hysteria about how everyone has to like Hamilton. Everybody, a lot of conservatives were saying how good it was. Hamilton was trash. Not worth seeing.

CLAY: All right. So, I didn’t dislike Hamilton.

BUCK: Oh, my gosh! Travis!

CLAY: No. The line that you’re sharing, did you watch Succession, did you see like they had a scene in Succession in season 3 where the guy was like, “What kind of crew is this?” “This is the room where you can admit you don’t actually like Hamilton,” which was like a drop-dead funny line from season 3 of Succession. So, I went and saw the Broadway play, but I will say this.

BUCK: You actually paid to do so the Broadway play!

CLAY: I went solo. I went solo and sat in the Abraham Lincoln box. I wanted to see it. I hadn’t seen it before. I was in New York. I was by myself doing something for work.

BUCK: Are there pro-Hamilton tweets, Travis, if we go back?

CLAY: I don’t think. No. The tweet that I sent afterwards which immediately struck me was, I thought to myself, “What if they did a musical version of Barack Obama’s presidency and they had white people playing the role of Michelle or Barack Obama?” What would the reaction be?

BUCK: Obviously that would never happen in a million years.

CLAY: They would burn down the Broadway stage, right? I’m fine, whatever race people want to play. But that was the funniest thing to me. I was watching it, my first thought was, “What if they did a country and western version of the Barack Obama presidency and Faith Hill played Michelle Obama and Barack Obama was played by, oh, Blake Shelton?” People would…? Can you just imagine?

BUCK: Yeah, of course.

CLAY: The idea is so funny. I did not hate it.

BUCK: I’m still stuck on the Hamilton propaganda.

CLAY: I liked the King George III character. I thought he was pretty funny.

BUCK: I don’t know. It’s just a lot of bad rapping going on, and I actually grew up listening to a fair amount of hip-hop as a New Yorker, a lot of bad rapping. I thought Hamilton was honestly one of the most trash things I’ve ever seen on Broadway.

CLAY: Here’s what I would say: I am almost 100% anti-musical. I hate musicals. I have been… My wife has taken me to musicals for years. Every time they sing, I say, “Nobody actually sings” in my head. I don’t say it actually out loud. I like stories. I love movies. I obviously love to read, but as soon as people start to sing, first of all, you can’t pay attention. Maybe I’ve got some sort of brain issues.

BUCK: You liked Hamilton, but you don’t like the great classics of Broadway musical theater?

CLAY: I hate in general all musicals.

BUCK: Ugh.

CLAY: Among the musical categories, Hamilton was one of the better musicals that I had seen.

BUCK: Ugh. This is —

CLAY: What do you love? Do you love musicals?

BUCK: I don’t love musicals. I just know that Hamilton is among the worst musicals! (laughing)

CLAY: What is your favorite musical?

BUCK: My favorite musical? Let me think what I’ve seen. I think I saw 42nd Street a long time ago. It’s one of the classics, Guys and Dolls. I went to Cats.

CLAY: I saw Phantom of the Opera. I saw Les Miserables, all those.

BUCK: You don’t like Les Mis! Les Mis isn’t better than Hamilton?

CLAY: I’m anti-singing in plays. I just want the straight acting, baby. Don’t fake me out with the songs. I just want to hear it.

BUCK: A Greek tragedy, Greek comedy like Euripides, Eumenides?

CLAY: Death of a Salesman I thought was fantastic. Was really good. I just don’t like people moving around dancing and singing. I want a real story.

BUCK: Clay’s a Sophocles guy. He doesn’t like all that singing and hooting and hollering.

CLAY: In my entire life, nobody’s ever sang me a story before in the middle of a conversation.

BUCK: If we don’t get to break soon, I’m gonna start singing a story.