Transcription
You've been thinking about your mortality a lot lately. Or, well, yeah. I mean, you turned 70 and it's, you can't run from it. Ah, [ __ ] I was hoping it could. Right there, having nothing and having something are exactly the same thing. And in spite of that, please welcome Noah McDonald. You're Canadian? Yes, I am. So, what do you think of this whole presidential mess? I think we should get the homicide out of the White House and get like a, a, a fresh start because we don't want any more murderers. Murderers? Yeah. Oh, Clinton, he murdered a guy. Yeah. No, we don't need no one to get. And I don't want to hear it. And this is not the place to make those accusations. And you're supposed to be funny. I thought it was a matter of recording. Let me do this. Okay, Norm is the reason that I ever wanted to do Weekend Update. And so tonight, we thought we'd turn the last few jokes of Update over to Norm. Thanks. I'm Norm McDonald. And now, the fake news. Well, it is finally official. Murder is legal in the state of California. Norm is a stand-up comedian, perhaps best known nationally for his four-year stint as Weekend Update anchor, which ended when he was fired for refusing to adapt his comedic style and ease up the jokes on certain topics. But doing things his way is really the story of his life. I only know of Norm from the last few years after seeing several YouTube clips and then reading articles and becoming more and more mesmerized the more I dig into the guy. And I'm not telling any tales out of school when I say Norm is the most refreshing Hollywood persona I've yet to come across. Because it's funny with Saturday Night Live, isn't it? The people that either they go on a huge fame or they fizzle into oblivion. Generally, yeah. Yeah. And it's, uh, and there's me. And then there's you. No, but it won't go away. You know where I differ from a lot of people? When I really, insanely different from everyone else. Andy, you said something once. You said to me, that guy doesn't care in a way that frightens me. You just throw up, you throw stuff out there, then you get everyone worked up, and then you go, nah, nah. And then you give. I'm a provocateur. The originals stand out the most, and they stay with us long after they're gone. And there was no one more original than Norm McDonald. He had this seeming like indifference about whether the crowd liked it or not. He was going to do what he was going to do. He became the first defensive player to win the Heisman Trophy. And congratulations, Charles. That is something that no one can ever take away from you unless you kill your wife and a waiter. In which case, I have always said to people, if you want to really see me laugh, and this is long before Norm passed, if you really want to see what it looks like, yeah, when I am laughing, watching your McDonald's segment. What are you doing now? I just saw on the TV. My hair. Okay. All right. What we're gonna do is, uh, we're gonna take a little commercial break. Okay, great. I'm gonna get security in here. And then we're gonna come back. We're gonna talk to you some more because you're gonna have some fluids during the break and stuff. Fluids? Yeah, you'll see. We'll get that Tanya girl to get him for you. I thought when you said that, I thought you meant fluids out of my ass. Play the dumb guy, you know? Play the, play the, play the everyman. Nobody likes a guy smarter than them. That's the worst sin. The worst guy you can be is a guy smarter than the audience. They're gonna hate you. And so I can, I meet celebrities and I know as soon as I shake their hand, I know, hey, there's a dumb guy. You know, because I'm a dumb guy myself. And I got that, you know how gay guys have the gaydar? I'm like that with dumb people. I'm like, hey, how's it going? Hey, I can have a conversation with you. This act coming from a guy who graduated high school at 14, enrolled in college to study math, and by all accounts was extremely well-versed in Russian literature. He would pretend like you're like, I'm reading that Dostoevsky. Dusky? Yes. What is it? That's yes. Pretend he didn't know who it is. He also broke character once and won the million-dollar prize on Celebrity Millionaire, but Regis basically talked him out of the final question. Tell me what you want to do. I think Pinehurst is too obvious, so I guess I will say Green. What's the matter? Greenbrier. What do you make in that? Facebook. Did you say Greenbrier? Yeah. You would have won a million, but not five hundred thousand. Come on, be happy. Uh, Norm is, first and foremost, uh, smart. Next, funny. And thirdly, most importantly, perhaps endlessly appealing. What, what's, why doesn't a guy like that get to have an hour every night? My sister texted me the day after he died. I was at the show and I was in your office. You weren't there. Norm McDonald walked in and I introduced myself and he sat down and talked to me for an hour and asked me questions about myself and made me laugh a lot. And she said, nobody in your business has done that before or since. Right? Like he was like deeply, deeply polite. Deeply, deeply concerned with the person that he's talking to. An audience, not so much. Now, I was there for one of the greatest Norm moments in comedy history. Versus Norm McDonald was kicked out of the state by the governor. Many were disgusted. Some were delighted. I heard you had to write a new act for the Midwest. Oh, yeah. Yeah, no, I did. I did this gig in Iowa and it was too dirty. People are grabbing their kids, running up the aisle. They're, I mean, I never saw a place clear out like a fire alarm was going up. But the college students were staying and they were howling with laughter. I'm told that 80% of the audience walked out. What could you possibly have said to them? What, it was, it was moms and dads and little kids in the audience, right? That's what they didn't tell me. I would never do anything dirty in front of children. And there's thousands of people there and it's billed as family night. Family night. And they give us a big speech and they're like, no cursing and no sexual agenda jokes. Okay. Then Daryl Hammond goes up and does impressions. He's completely, it's going great. I go up, do my 20, feel great. Norm goes up and the place goes nuts. Little kids. And I'm not exaggerating. Yeah. Well, what did you say to them? I was just talking like, I don't have a, my, uh, standing back. I just talk about whatever I'm thinking about. All right. At the time, it was about, uh, having sex with, uh, animals. But it wasn't like weird. It was like, I'm not embarrassed. I'm not in favor. This is what he starts off with. So I go, I go, Daryl, you gotta come see this. And he's going, and he won't stop. People start like looking around like, what's going on? Old people, little kids lining up. Okay. So everyone got up and left. Now, did they pull the plug on you? I mean, or was some people left sitting in the chairs? No, there was like, I think there's like two thousand people and eighteen hundred of them left. And then the other two hundred, like, they thought it was cool. Like, I didn't even know anything was wrong. Because then this guy goes, do you think your act is obscene? You know? So then I said, I said, no, I think what's obscene is this. There's like kids dying in Vietnam, you know? And he goes, there's no war. Maybe the funniest thing about this story is that there's a 1997 Rolling Stone article where the writer, he's doing like an SNL article or something. So he's in Norm's office. He notes that on Norm's bulletin board, there's only three things. One of which is a letter from the assistant athletic director at Iowa. And it's basically a disinvitation from a charity golf event which Norm was supposed to play in the next day. But his stand-up was so offensive that they uninvited him. And then Norm put this on his bulletin board like a trophy because he literally, like, he just didn't care. He really didn't care. People say that and they're lying. No, he really genuinely didn't. Doesn't care. When we watch his roast, watch his talk show appearances, he doesn't give up. At my roast, he, he says, sagging, I can't, I can't roast you, you're my friend. And I go, Norm, just do it. And curse a little bit. He's, I don't wanna curse. I'm gonna read jokes from a 40s, uh, joke book. There was silence in the room. No, I think that that Bob should join the Ku Klux Klan. And that's not because he's racist. He's not racist. It's just that he'd look a lot better with a hood over his head on account of his face. And then he got emotional because we're friends and he started saying, I love you. I don't like to make fun of me, my friends. And I just think the world, here Bob, honestly, has never had an unkind word for anybody. And I love him. And I hope everybody else does. So I just want to say that with all your wealth and your success, this is serious, from the heart, you know, you got to remember this is a saying I made up. There are a lot of ships that are very valuable, right? Well, you probably think a golden ship was valuable. Yes. Okay. There's a lot of ships out there. You would think a solid gold ship would be very valuable, or a solid platinum ship. Yes. A ship made only of diamonds. I don't know if it would float. I don't know. But, you know, that would, you would think that would be your most valuable ship. But you know what? It's not. You know, your most valuable ship is what is that friendship? The biggest laughs you'll ever hear in life are like at a Thanksgiving dinner with a bunch of loved ones and nothing funny has said, and it just comes from love. I find that to be a taboo subject, and yet it's central to everything there is. My mother's so happy. She lives beside me. 86 years old. She's so happy. Oh, trick. And, you know, I've never seen anything shine from her eyes, just love. I don't think she's ever let an ironic phrase, you know, passing time, you know, she's just a great person and she's so happy. She'll come back. She'll go to the grocery store. At the back of Norm. But the most amazing story. How I said, what happened? She was a woman was buying a pine. And I was dollar 49. Last week it was a dollar 19. That's not a story. That's too dirty. Let's do a nice joke to clean it up. Opinions are like [ __ ]. Neil Patrick Harris wants to stop. I said, should easily. Let me read this ahead. Opinions are like [ __ ]. Neil Patrick Harris wants to stuff his [ __ ] in them. Oh, wait, that's just [ __ ]. I guess my overall feeling is life is sort of absurd. It's absurd where I am. Don't you ever wake up, Larry, and feel it's absurd? The whole thing is weird. The whole thing. I think that has a great deal to do with his success. That he actually didn't really care on some level. Like, obviously he wanted to be successful and wanted to be and do well. But at some point, I think he sort of knew what was important and what wasn't. Life is fantastic. Yeah. I like life, man. You do, really? I'm like, man, it's the greatest gig in the world, being alive. You get to, you get to eat at Denny's, wear a hat, whatever you want. Yeah. Yeah. Get haircuts. It is. Are you a happy person? Like, in general? No. I mean, I think things are funny. I laugh a lot. But that doesn't necessarily translate into like happiness. If I'm laughing, I'm happy, I guess. Do you have a nice house? No, I live in a very small apartment. You have an apartment? Yes. Oh, I'm surprised that you don't have like a big, you know, you're no McDonald's. Well, I don't like things. Oh, no. I've always felt very burdened down by them. I bought a house for the first time ever. Yeah. And it was like I was walling myself into a [ __ ] mausoleum or something. Yeah. All of a sudden, when you had money, [ __ ]. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I don't want to be here. Yeah. I don't want to, I don't want a bunch of stuff. When you're really poor, you don't expect anything of yourself. And you're, you're happy with any measure of success. And it's only as you get more successful that you start to envy. And you know what I mean? Especially in this town. What turns you off in general? What turns me off? Yeah. Yeah. Um, smugness. Like, I always ask people, uh, I go, what do you know for sure? Because of course, the answer is nothing. Like, I remember when I realized I didn't like sunsets. At one point in my life, I was like, what the [ __ ] am I looking at this [ __ ]? I don't even like it. And I realized that I just thought I liked it because I almost [ __ ] was told it was supposed to be beautiful or something. But you just have certain moments in your life where you come to for a second with some acidity. I stumped a [ __ ] psychiatrist once. I said to the guy, because I was [ __ ] gambling all the time. [ __ ]. Right? I had a gambling addiction. He said, you're using gambling in order to escape your real thoughts. And I said to him, isn't that why you do everything in life? And literally, I stumped him. He had no answer. He was like, and then he recovered and tried to make it. But isn't that why you do everything? Yes. So you're not sitting at home thinking about what was your really going to happen to us? Where it all ends? What was your gambling poison there? What did, what did you? Sports. Worst. But like when I watch a game and I have a bunch of money on it, then I can understand what's going on. Nothing's ambivalent or anything about it, you know? And if, and there's stakes. There's stakes. Like I went broke like a few times when I actually had lots of money. Gambling. Three times. Gambling with gambling. Yeah. And I mean broke, dead broke. Have you ever texted with Norm? No, I haven't. No. He just goes, he waits days and then at three in the morning, David, hello, it's me, Norm. I go, Norm, what are you? Are you answering me from four days ago? Is that what you're doing? Dave, it's Norm. You like money? Yes, Norm. I like money. Why would you like to have more money than all your wildest dreams? Yes, I would. And then an hour later, would you like to walk into a dealership and point to a car and then just buy it? I go, of course. How? And then three hours later, bet the over in the Blackhawks game. I did a stupid thing. Okay. Atlantic City on the boardwalk. I threw $60,000 into the ocean. No way. Yeah. To quit. That was my thing. I'm gonna quit. Why did you just quit and keep the six? To do it. It was, it was like, it was supposed to be like, uh, I felt like I was in a movie. Wow. How do you do that? Well, you know, you kind of, at the end of it, you know, uh, it's happening. Yeah. Because it does get, it's exhausting. Yeah. To be obsessed with something, right? So, um, you are, I guess, um, trying to do it, trying to finish it off, right? Finally, because if you're, if you have $450,000 in the bank and then you lose $400,000, you'll [ __ ] it. I don't want to [ __ ] have $50,000. You did that three times. Three times in my life. Yeah. When I was very young, I was very, very, very shy and very afraid of everything. Aren't you still afraid of everything? I am. No, I'm not afraid of everything. I'm afraid of very few things. Like what? Uh, illness. Yes. And he won't be fully appreciated until he's dead. Ladies and gentlemen, the great Norm McDonald. Who knows, you know what I mean? Who knows how you're gonna die? I mean, we all know now. But think back a week ago. Think back a week ago. It really sticks out. But again, people don't identify it as great at the beginning, I guess. Like your parents. Yeah. But the other comics did. Yeah. Other comics knew it was different. And that I didn't waste any time, you know? When you tell a story, there's, you could have five minutes without a laugh and people are still interested in the story. But when you're telling little one-liners, you're kidding me. Somebody in the control. What did he pass from? It was cancer. He has been sick. Cancer nine years. He's had nine years of cancer. He kept it a secret from his family and friends. When people confess things and they're, they're told how brave they are, you know, because they have cancer or something and they talk about it. Well, everyone has cancer. I mean, it's not rare at all. And then if I had a specific ailment and possibly I do, you don't know. I don't. I don't know. But I would not talk about it. I would not, uh, I hope that I would not discuss it and just try to benefit monetarily from the, from that. When Norm passed, it was widely reported that he had been diagnosed with cancer nine years prior in 2012. And when making this video, I came across a little more info. A few people who knew him at a much younger age say he battled cancer his entire life. The only thing I could find strong evidence of is his stomach cancer he had in 1986 that actually kept him from doing comedy for over a year. This is a recount from Lara Ray, a comedian who was friends with Norm back in 1986. And then, uh, lo and behold, then he came in. I remember late one day and he goes, hey, hey, sorry I'm late. I was, uh, throwing up blood. Right? And we're like, Norm, that's not good. Uh, go to the hospital. And so Norm went to the hospital and it turned out he had stomach cancer and they took out, I think, almost half to three-quarters of a stomach. And so during that time, it was, it was very difficult and we thought that Norm was going to die. And I think he did come close to dying. And part of the checking of the abdomen and the rubbing of the belly, um, was, was from that initial bout of cancer. I think partially its comfort and partially it's just, you know, there's, there's still a bit of residual kind of pain and tightening. But Norm never lost to cancer. He beat it. At least once. In the last instance, ended in a draw. Because in the old days, they go, hey, that old man died. Now they go, hey, he lost his battle. That's no way to end your life. You know what a loser that guy was. Last thing he did was lose. And I'm pretty sure, I'm not a doctor, but I'm pretty sure if the cancer dies, I mean, if you die, the cancer also dies at exactly the same time. So that to me is not a loss. That's a draw. That's it. Norm beating cancer once at a young age seemingly sheds a lot of light on his unique fearlessness, courage, self-destructive tendencies, and of course, his career-long infatuation discussing illness and death. It's all coming down. Yeah. Well, I have a fear of not existing. Yes. But, you know, the writer Nabokov said that he saw a picture one time, and it was a picture of before he was born. It was a picture of his mother with his brother and sister that were older than him, but he had not been born yet. He said when he saw that picture, there was no terror in him, even though he was looking at a picture where he didn't exist. But he didn't know anything. So, right. He didn't. But looking at that picture didn't terrify him that he didn't exist. When I was a boy, I was sure I'd never make it past Moose Creek, Ontario, Canada. But I've been all over this world except for Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa, and South America. The only thing an old man can tell a young man is that it goes fast. Real fast. If you're not careful, it's too late. Of course, the young man will never understand this truth. And as for my gambling, it is true. I lost it all a few times. But that's because I always took the long shot and never came in. Now, if you're at the table and you're rolling them bones, there's no money in playing it safe. You have to take all your chips and put them on double sticks and watch as every eye goes to you and then to those red dice doing their wild dance and freezing time before finding the cruel green felt. I've been lucky, but I'm going to be a diamond someday. When I have my funeral, you know, and you know, most of his funerals are crying and sad and everything like that. And that's what I'd like. You know, I don't want. I've heard of other ones. Let's have a party. No party. There'll be a lot of party days later. But right now, this is, I'm dead. I mean, you know.