Name: Norm Macdonald - The Devil and Billy Markham by Shel Silverstein
Uploaded: 2019-03-22T22:46:03.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Norm Macdonald - The Devil and Billy Markham by Shel Silverstein' from Happy the Dog on Comedy Buff. Published 2019-03-22. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Norm Macdonald - The Devil and Billy Markham by Shel Silverstein' from Happy the Dog on Comedy Buff. Published 2019-03-22. Transcript available.

Yeah, I saw your hand up there.
Okay, excuse me here.
What's your name, sir?
And stand up and introduce yourself tomorrow.
My name's Mike.
Hey, I saw you in St. Louis, Missouri, about a year or so.
Oh, really?
And you quoted some crazy long limerick of a country line or something that a
man had
told you the night before.
You know what I'm talking about?
You ended the show with it and nobody laughed, but it was really long-winded.
Oh, was it Shel Silverstein's The Ballad of Billy Markham?
It could have been.
Oh, you want me to do that?
Yeah.
Oh.
How did that go?
How did that go?
Go for another question.
Another question.
Another question.
Strange things done in the midnight sun, but they're not anymore.
Are you from St. Louis?
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, you just stumped the band there.
That's pretty good.
Okay, another question.
Oh, I got it.
Oh.
The devil walked into Linnabah's on a rainy Nashville night.
His lost soul sat and sipped their soup in the yellow neon light.
The devil, he looked around the room, then he got down on his knees and said,
is there anyone among you scum who will roll these dice with me?
And I read he just looked away and took another sip of beer.
Eddie, he just strummed his guitar and pretended not to hear.
Vince, he said, not me.
I'll pass.
He said, I've had my share of hell and kept scribbling on a napkin with some
song he was sure
he'd sell.
Ronnie kept whispering low to the snuff queen clutching at his sleeve.
Somebody coughed and the devil scoffed and he turned on his heel to leave.
Hold on, said the voice in the back of the room before you walk out of that
door.
If it's some action you're looking for, a friend, we'll have rolled some dice
before.
And there stood Billy Markham.
He'd been on the scene for years, singing all them raunchy songs of the town we
want to hear.
He'd been cut and bled one thousand times and his eyes were wise and sad.
All his songs were songs to the street.
All his luck was bad.
I know he uses Billy Markham from any dark and funky place, but he always spoke
in a different
voice and he wore a different face.
While me, I've gambled here, a music roll with hustlers and with whores.
And hell, I ain't afraid to roll them devilish dice of yours.
Oh, I can get down, says the devil, just as if he was going to pray.
Take these dice in your luckless hands and they'll tell you how the game is
played.
You get one roll and you bet your soul.
And if you roll thirteen, you win.
And all the joys of flesh and gold are yours to touch and spin.
If that thirteen don't come up, you better kiss your ass goodbye and will your
useless bones
to God, because your goddamn soul is mine.
Thirteen, says Billy Markham.
Well, I've played in tougher games.
I've loved ambitious women and I've rode on wheelless trains.
So give me room, you stinking fiend, and let it all unwind.
Ain't nobody rode a thirteen yet, but this just might be the time.
Billy Markham, he takes the dice.
The dice are as heavy as stones.
They should, they should.
The devil cries, because they're carved from Jesus' bones.
Billy Markham, he turns the dice and the dice, they have no spots.
Sorry, says the devil, but they're the only dice I got.
Well, shit, says Billy Markham.
You know, I really don't mean to bitch, but I never thought I'd just take my
soul on a sucker's
game like this.
Well, then walk away, says the devil.
Ain't nobody tying you down.
Walk away where, says Billy Markham.
This is the only game in town.
But I really should say before I make my play, that if I should chance to lose,
I will this
guitar to some would-be star who ain't afraid to sing the honest blues, who ain't
afraid to
say the words like damn or shit or fuck, who ain't afraid to bear his ass on
the stage
where he makes his bucks.
But if he should play this guitar safe, sing some sugary lies, I'll haunt him
till we meet
in hell.
Now give me that fucking dice.
And Billy Markham, he takes the dice and he yells, come on, 13.
And the dice, they roll, and they come up blank.
You lose, the devil screams.
But I really should say before we go on our way, I sure do like your style.
Of all the fools I played and beat, you're the first that's lost with a smile.
Well, shit, says Billy Markham, you know, these odds were too damn bad.
13 years of music role, that's the best damn chance I've had.
So Billy Markham and the devil, they walk out of Linnaboz's door, leaving Billy's
beat-up
guitar lying there on the floor.
And if you go into Linnaboz now, you can see it there today, hanging from a
nail on a wall
of peeling gray, Billy Markham's old guitar that nobody dares to play.
That one?
Yeah.
Norm MacDonald, everybody.
Norm MacDonald, any last questions?
How do you know this poem?
Some guy told me it in St. Louis the night before.
I have a good memory.
And you remember the whole thing from the night before?
Yeah, I have a good memory, Tom.
Do you have a photographic memory, is that what it's called?
My dad had a photographic memory, I'm not sure I have one.
Wow.
I think you probably do.
Well, this has been a lot of fun.