On death, frogs, family, gambling, moths, and Norm Macdonald
- Sean Marus
- Nov 24, 2024
- 8 min read
Editor's note before we dive in: this became unwieldy and I decided to just post as-is. Much like "Grief" I am probably going to revisit this.
For my money, Norm Macdonald was the funniest man who has ever lived. In the famous quote attributed to E.B. White, Mark Twain, André Maurois, E.B. White’s wife Katharine, and probably Albert Einstein, “analyzing a frog is like joking about dissection” or however it goes. It’s hard to explain why something is funny or brilliant or good or bad or whatever else. Digital ink has been spilled ad nauseum, mostly now postmortem, about how Norm Macdonald was brilliantly and subversively the funniest fella ever - since the last funniest fella ever and until the next funniest fella ever comes along.
I want to talk about two things specifically about why Norm was the funniest fella ever: perception and voice. It is so easy to be derivative. Many creatives, myself included if i can be so bold as to consider myself creative, wear their influences so prominently that you only see them as ripples in the great lake of influence. They/we are a tiny pebble breaking the surface tension of all that came before, and quietly and imminently the pond returns to a still. The water level having risen by an imperceptible amount.
Norm Macdonald was a boulder careening down a mountainside heading towards that stillness. He was a force beyond comprehension for some rube like me. He proceeded with such force and momentum that he razed the mundane and static in his path.
I think the true mark of greatness is not fearlessness, but unflinchingly walking forward through fear powered by conviction and unwavering belief in self and purpose. It’s relatively easy to stand on a stage in front of an audience who shares your sociopolitical/religious/existential beliefs and act as sermon leader to a rapt congregation of affirmers*. Norm Macdonald paid no heed to how he would be perceived; he only cared about his own creative and personal philosophical conviction.
*A brief aside here. The state of comedy is really bleak. Right wing grifters and lefty panderers have sapped the lifeblood from comedy - the funny parts. Everyone gets on stage and pontificates and proselytizes and the congregation throws their hands up with applause and cries of hallelujah. The focus of these hacks has become so much on what you can/can’t say or identity politics that they don’t care whatsoever about the point of the medium. There is obviously merit to discussing ideas like this, but i would argue that comedy without humor is not the medium by which to convey said ideas.
Jim Downey is a painfully funny writer/comedian on SNL who formed what was essentially a two-man team with Norm Macdonald on Weekend Update. On a recent podcast episode of Conan O’Brien’s show, Conan shares an old quote wherein Jim explains how he and Norm went about crafting their approach to Weekend Update.
“What I did like about the way we approached (Weekend) Update was that it was akin to the punk movement, what the punk movement was for music. Just stripped down. We did what we wanted. There was nothing there that was considered to be a form of cheating. We weren't cuddly. We weren't adorable. We weren't warm. We weren't going to do easy political jokes that played for ‘clapter’ and let the audience know we were all on the same side. We were going to be mean, and to an extent, anarchists.”
Not to undermine Downey’s invaluable contributions to the material Norm delivered, but it was ultimately Norm that had to deliver it. There was no co-host to mitigate mixed responses nor to quickly cut to the next joke for a tonal/stylistic shift. If the audience didn’t appreciate the most recent joke, then the bad news for them was they were going to get the same type of joke from the same guy for the next several minutes without reprieve - and he’d deliver it more deliberately, and with borderline contempt.
As of my time writing this, i am the oldest i’ve ever been. (editor’s note: i am now older.) It wasn’t until i got older that perception and voice really resonated with me. It’s easy to say ‘i don’t care what people think of me’ but battle the reality of the Gaze of the Other. When you condense yourself to optimal palatability and turn yourself into an idol, the kinetics and dimensionality of who and what you are are obliterated. You subjugate yourself to conform to the expectations and perceptions that precipitated whatever success or admiration you’ve earned.
Norm and Jim never met eyes with the Gaze. They never subjugated their voice to appease the Other. In fact, this resolve led Jim and Norm to their termination from SNL. A key NBC executive was friends with OJ Simpson, but they refused to dilute their creative voice and they refused to put themselves into existential Hell. They were martyrs for their artistic integrity, and history will always shine brightly upon them for that.
I’m not a betting man (more on that later), but i’d wager that history won’t remember the shilling grifter podcast ‘comedians’ jokes or pontifications in any positive light. We won’t remember what was said to appeal to and strengthen the carefully cultivated and maintained audiences. Because there is no artistry there. It is an appeal to base level commonalities between speaker and listener. What it isn’t is brave. What it isn’t is art.
There is a linguistic concept known as familects, which is essentially the equivalent to insider jargon in jobs, industries, cults, religions, etc. By creating insider language, you strengthen bonds with those who also share these. Think about the jokes and terms and quotes and stories your family references at get-togethers or via text. It’s human shorthand for “we are on the same team, and I know that - even if i don’t know you - by this little secret handshake.” It’s a way to quell the Other in spite of itself.
Norm Macdonald fans are a family - at least if the definition of family is tied to familect. On social media or in real life, certain phrases act as triggers for the winking acknowledgement of ‘i get it.’
“I didn’t even know he was sick.” “(insert thing here) was a national tragedy.” “That guy was a real jerk.”
Creating a family out of strangers separated by continents, age, and time itself is not born from clapter. You create a familect, or a legacy, by steadfast conviction to one's own distinct voice, honed and crafted and reiterated and fortified. It’s born from the respect and admiration that you earn when you tell a 4-minute shaggy dog story/joke about a frog getting a bank loan.
“The only thing an old man can tell a young man is that it goes fast, real fast, and if you’re not careful it’s too late. Of course, the young man will never understand this truth.”
It seems odd that the same man who told a nauseatingly funny ‘joke’ about a moth and a podiatrist would coin something so nuanced and moving. But Norm contained multitudes, and he never once cared to show them. To reveal too much about himself was to diminish the power of his artistry. It didn’t matter who was saying the jokes or what informed them; his approach was impersonal in a way. Let the comedy speak for itself.
I’m not proud to say that i don’t feel a great deal of emotion these days. Not out of suppression, but probably out of malaise and fatigue. I don’t cry a lot, but I sobbed when Norm died on September 14, 2021. And I wept about 12 months later when i finally mustered the courage to read his semi-factual autobiography. If nothing else, I want to recommend this to any- and everyone who is receptive to recommendations. It is gut-bustingly funny, and yet dark and harrowing. (Personally speaking - In many ways, the creative derivation I strived (and still strive) to limit is more prominent than ever as I try to navigate similar tonal waters in my newest writing endeavors. Norm continues to inspire even 3 years on.)
(Editor’s note: While writing this in October/November 2024, I wanted to recommend buying his book by visiting his website. So I bookmarked it. A garish, late-1990s eyesore that made me laugh just looking at it. There appeared to be the lack of even a single thought given to the visual layout or user journey. It felt so ‘Norm’ somehow.
I went back to the site as I reluctantly looked to finish this piece. One URL didn’t work. So I thought maybe I copied it wrong. The other URL I bookmarked didn’t work. It appears that sometime in the last 4-6 weeks, Norm’s website expired. This, too, made me cry. I was writing about someone who has been gone for 3 years, and yet something as silly as a web domain expiring felt like a paring knife to the gut.
In real time, while writing about Norm, I saw another piece of his legacy quietly slip away. No one on Reddit or Tumblr nor any other site/publication seemed to notice. And maybe this is each of our destinies. Slowly fading as the Gaze turns its head away.
Anyway, here is the last archived version of Norm's site before it went offline.)
I wept, with inconsolable heaves and gasps, when I read one of the final passages from the book. I think about the passage weekly. Maybe even more often than that. (More on that passage in a moment.) And in a sudden, I see myself pass a billboard driving in downtown Milwaukee. It was sometime in 2015. Norm would be dead in 6 years, but for now he’d be alive, and he’d be in Milwaukee, and he’d be playing some side stage at a casino. Norm was a notorious gambling addict who lost all his money at least twice to his vice. I didn’t appreciate the irony at the time.
“Oh, Norm’s coming!” I thought to myself excitedly. But life happens, and excuses are often far too easy to make. So something came up or I was too tired from work. Or maybe nothing happened at all. Maybe it was just malaise and fatigue. But I promised myself I’d see him the next time he came back around to Milwaukee. He never did, and now he never will.
Norm battled cancer for decades, on and off, though little was ever written about it. Youtube sleuths had to find archived newspaper clippings of second- and third-party quotes about Norm’s battle with stomach cancer in the early 1990s. Though Norm waged a courageous battle against cancer, he either lost or tied. The last thing Norm ever did was either lose, or die.
The side stage Norm played all those years ago closed permanently in early 2023. In its stead now stands Potawatomi Sportsbook, a sports gambling venue. Where Norm once stood, after having lost it all and won it back several times over, is now a gambling room inside of a much larger gambling building. That stage, which in its 22-year history played host to legends like Willie Nelson and Aretha Franklin, had a 4.6/5 rating on Google reviews. In its first 6ish months of operation, Potawatomi Sportsbook stands at 2.9/5.
My cynicism aside, I think Norm would find that mildly amusing - if he even gave it a passing thought at all. But for me, the state-of-the-art sports gambling space is now an idol of loss. As I mentioned earlier, I’m not a gambling man. But if I was, I wouldn’t bet a dime there. Mostly because i don’t want it said by some of me that it is my ruination, but also because I would feel surrounded by the ghosts of regret.
One of the last things Norm penned in his stunning semi-autobiography is on his gambling. And on loss and regret. And as for that passage, it means more to me with each passing day and the hardships and absurdity of Being.
“And as for my gambling, it's true I lost it all a few times. But that's because I always took the long shot and it never came in. But I still have some time before I cross that river. And if you're at the table and you're rolling them bones, then there's no money in playing it safe. You have to take all your chips and put them on double six 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.”
Because we had Norm, we’ve all been lucky.
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