There’s a Human Side to Buster Poindexter : Music: Once seen as the consummate lounge lizard, he says he now appeals to all ages, a point he’ll get to prove tonight at Hampton’s in Santa Ana.

When introduced to the world at large two years ago, Buster Poindexter--a.k.a. David Johansen, former cross-dressing front man of the legendary proto-punk New York Dolls--presented an alter-ego nearly as impenetrable as Paul Reubens’ Pee Wee Herman.

Talking with Johansen/Poindexter then, one would have thought him to be the complete lounge lizard, his barrage of mannered, gravel-voiced show-biz quips and hipster jargon suggesting that he subsisted on cocktail olives and spent 24 hours a day living in an Amaretto ad while awaiting induction into the Rat Pack.

The cover of the new Poindexter disc, “Buster Goes Berserk,” depicts the dapper, pompadoured singer being forcibly expelled from a strip joint, his face a rictus of untempered glee. The album’s generation-hopping, world-roaming music is no less pleasure-bent, following well in the tracks of his aptly titled 1987 dance hit, “Hot Hot Hot.”

The professional Poindexter, who performs at Hampton’s in Santa Ana tonight, may remain a one-man party. But, in speaking from New York earlier this week, his persona seemed much more reconciled with day-to-day life. With less of a full-time rasp to his voice now, Johansen explained that although there had been moments when his loungier-than-life personality caused him confusion, it confused others more.

“My favorites are the little kids. For some reason they, 3 to 5 years old, really love Buster Poindexter. I think they think of me as a cartoon character or something. Sometimes parents will introduce me to their kids, and they look at me like they’re in shock that I’m a human being. They probably see my videos and categorize me in their little filing system along with Bugs Bunny.”

That’s not bad company for a fellow who used to wear lipstick and spend 300 days a year on the road, as he put it, “sitting in a van with a bunch of head-bangers.” Today, Johansen says he appeals to audiences from tykes to grandparents, but says the heart of what he does remains unchanged from his rock days.

“I think it’s pretty much the same vibe. Basically I’m doing the same thing, I’m just doing it with music that really turns me on. The show I do now elicits the same response, but I can do it for more people now, because when I was doing the Johansen thing I was kind of playing to an audience of my peers, so to speak. Now, I’m playing to all ages.”

Johansen is pulling his broader audience by creating an amalgam from such diverse influences as Louis Prima, Louis Jordan, Caribbean soca music, South American dance musics, vocal jazz, rock and R&B.;

“I’m affected by everything,” he said, “and I like different people for different things: Bobby Darin for the way he tied his ties, Amos Milburn for the way he sang.”

He regards the expansion of influences to be a normal part of growth.

“When you’re a kid you want to have your own music. It’s part of coming out into the world. You don’t want to listen to your parents’ music, or even your older brothers and sisters’ music. But after a while you’ve heard it all, so you want to hear more stuff, and that’s when you start getting into everything else that’s going on.

“Now, that’s the thinking people; there are people who are 40 who are still banging their heads against the wall. But there’s so much music going around, and if you can appreciate it, it’s one of the nicer things about the planet.”

On a planet where so many un-nice things also occur, with daily news accounts of massacres, governments gone amok and environmental disasters, does he feel there’s a proper place for his brand of carefree, dance-happy music?

“What place is there for it? Well, between 9 and midnight--you know what I’m trying to say?

“It would be nice if everybody was hip and knew what was going on, and all the problems of the world could be solved. But they don’t, and we have to survive in the meantime. There’s a lot of people who are doing the good work as far as that stuff is concerned. As far as I’m concerned, musically speaking, I think it would mess up my whole scene to do that. If I came out like ‘Buster does his Phil Collins Guilt Album,’ I think that would be career-icide.

“It’s not that I don’t lend credence and support to all this kind of stuff. There are lots of things I do, and I’m not going to get on a jag about how altruistic I am. But as far as making a living is concerned, I’m an entertainer. I’m one of the guys that does pretty much the happy stuff. And I think there’s enough value in that, in helping to remind people how it feels to be alive. What I’m into is, ‘Lets get everybody into this room and dig each other and forget about the bull for a little while.’ ”

Johansen said he doesn’t know what the ‘90s will hold for him, or anyone.

“I was thinking about that the other day because some cable TV network called. They’re going to have all these artists on, saying what they think the next decade will be like. I asked, ‘What’s it pay?’ They said there was a $1,000 honorarium. I said, ‘For $1,000, I’ve got nothin’ to say. Give me $10,000 and I’ll invent a position.’ But I don’t even know what’s going to happen tomorrow.”

One project he would like to get off the ground is a Buster Poindexter film. He has had support roles in a number of movies, most notably “Scrooged” with Bill Murray, and will appear in the upcoming “Tales From the Dark Side--The Movie” in a comedy/horror segment with William Hickey.

But he envisions a star vehicle, ideally “a musical where, say, (reggae star) Eek-A-Mouse is my sidekick, and I get too big for my britches and he, through his wisdom, shows me the way, and I fall in love with Sandra Bernhard. I met Wayne Newton in Tahoe. I’d like to get him to play my father.” One thing Johansen said the ‘90s won’t hold is a New York Dolls reunion.

“I really don’t have any interest in that. People talk about it all the time: There’s always some sleazy promoter that’s saying ‘I could make you kids a million bucks.’ But to me that would be like going to Siberia. I want to do things that are musical. When I was in the Dolls I had a great time. I consider it my college days, we had a ball. But you have to carry on.

“A lot of people, they elude themselves. If that helps them get through the day that’s fine, but that’s not the way I can live. I just want to embrace the possibilities, and chew them up and spit them out.”

Buster Poindexter sings at 7:30 and 10:30 p.m. at Hampton’s, 3503 S. Harbor Blvd., Santa Ana. Admission: $27.50. Information: (714) 979-5511.