Name: Norm Macdonald Book Tour USA TODAY Facebook Live Chat (2016) Based on a True Story A Memoir
Uploaded: 2019-03-19T20:18:11.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Norm Macdonald Book Tour USA TODAY Facebook Live Chat (2016) Based on a True Story A Memoir' from Happy the Dog on Comedy Buff. Published 2019-03-19. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Norm Macdonald Book Tour USA TODAY Facebook Live Chat (2016) Based on a True Story A Memoir' from Happy the Dog on Comedy Buff. Published 2019-03-19. Transcript available.

Norm Macdonald Book Tour USA TODAY Facebook Live Chat (2016) Based on a True Story A Memoir

Hello everyone! It's me, Norm MacDonald, and I'm delighted to be on the
computer, inside the computer, and talking to you at USA Today Facebook Chat.
Alright, so they have asked me to read a passage from my new book, Norm MacDonald,
based on a true story, a memoir.
So I have chosen, when you are a celebrity, you are asked to do many things,
one of which is to meet terminally ill children.
And I went and met one that had to make a wish, and his wish was to kill a baby
seal.
So I took him to Labrador, and we found a baby seal, and by God, we killed it.
I mean, he killed it.
And the boy was pretty amazing. He made an incredible recovery that startled
all his doctors.
Unfortunately, a year later, he was struck and killed while he tried to cross
the street on Fifth Avenue in New York City, by a bus, by a municipal bus, by a
city bus, by a bus of New York City, by a bus of one of the boroughs of New
York City.
Specifically, the borough of Manhattan.
So, anyways, this is a chapter called "A Tiny White Coffin."
I named it that because I remember seeing an image of a tiny white coffin once,
and it struck me as the saddest image I had ever seen.
So, this is called "A Tiny White Coffin," when I went to the boy's funeral.
The boy had turned ten years old only a few days before the accident, and now
he lay in Strickland's funeral home in a tiny white coffin.
When all the strangers had finished looking at him and sadly shaking their
heads so they were all present and knew their feelings on the matter, his
mother was left alone in the room with the tiny white coffin.
Alone but for me.
I lingered behind, unseen, while the funeral director shooed the others into
the room with a sad-faced pastor who was preparing to speak.
The mother stood and looked into the tiny white coffin.
Her posture, which had been rigid all morning, went slack at the shoulders and
neck.
Her hands remained clasped tightly in front of her.
The boy was wearing a navy blue suit with a white shirt and a tie, but he still
did not look like a man.
I stayed quiet in the shadows so as not to disturb the moment.
After a time had passed, the funeral director opened the door and quietly let
the mother know that her time was up.
As she turned to leave, she looked, one last time, into the tiny white coffin.
And then she did a strange thing, a thing I shall never forget.
She straightened the knot on the boy's tie and looked to make sure it was just
right.
I took in a fast, jagged gulp of air and slunk into the next room before she
noticed me.
There were cookies and an urn of coffee on a table in the other room.
The cookies were awful.
None of the cookies contained jelly in the middle, which are widely considered
to be the best funeral home cookies.
There were only dry shortbreads.
The coffee was black and there was no cream or milk, just packets of white,
yellow powder.
When I poured the powder into the Styrofoam cup of black bitter coffee, it just
sat in a pile on top.
When I mixed the powder in with a black plastic stick, the coffee turned gray
like dishwater.
It got me pretty steamed.
I'm pretty sure the rest of the people who gathered there felt the same way as
me.
We all went into the adjoining room and took our seats.
The tiny white coffin had been placed in the front of the room and the sad-faced
pastor was standing beside it.
The sad-faced pastor told us how the boy had not been an ordinary boy.
He had been very special.
He had been a brother and a son and a grandson and even a great-grandson.
I looked over and saw them sitting there, the young and the old and the older
and the oldest.
The sad-faced pastor told us that some things were very mysterious but that
there was a meaning behind everything, even something as tragic as this.
He then asked if anyone had anything they would like to say.
People came up one at a time to speak about the boy.
I decided to go up and speak too since I had an appearance in public speaking.
Of course, I wasn't about to do my stand-up.
That would be ridiculous.
I pulled out the piece of paper with a speech I had prepared.
And then, when I was about to read it, I suddenly changed my mind.
Folks, I said, I have in my hand here a speech.
I wrote it and it's full of big fancy words.
But I'm not going to read it.
And I crumpled up my speech and threw it to the floor with contempt.
I said, you don't want to hear a bunch of fancy words, many of them so fancy
you won't even know what they mean.
Instead, I will speak from the heart.
I have never done such a thing before, but I hear it can be quite effective.
So, ladies and gentlemen, bereaved relatives, youngsters who have lost a
brother or sister or a friend much too soon.
The guy in the sad-faced pasture costume.
The lady sitting beside him.
I figure it's his wife.
And finally, of course, the guy hanging around at the door wearing a Carolina
Panthers jacket,
who is clearly in the wrong room, but has the grace to hang in there until the
end.
I thank you all for coming.
I was proud to have known this boy.
And I was proud that his last wish in life was to see me do a sketch on a
Saturday Night Live TV program.
Although I cannot say I was all that surprised I'm a very good sketch player.
But this is not about me.
I really shouldn't be making it about me.
But this is the first time I have ever spoken from the heart.
So I beg your indulgence.
I feel this speech will really start to get good very soon.
But it didn't.
And I realized something during the next 20 minutes as my speech moved from one
inane anecdote to another.
None of them having anything to do with the boy.
What I realized then was that some guys are very good at speaking from the
heart.
And some guys aren't.
It doesn't mean one guy is better than the other.
Just different.
So I was honest with the people.
Ladies and gentlemen, I said, I apologize for this speech.
For the last five or six minutes, I've been telling you about Gordie Howe.
And I think we realize what an awful, awful mistake me speaking from the heart
was.
So, if I may ask your help, let's try to find that speech with the big fancy
words in it that I threw away some minutes ago.
It's got to be around here somewhere.
"Here it is," a sweet old lady near the front said.
"I read it and thought it was very good," she said.
"Especially the part about how we can learn more from the children than they
can learn from us."
"Oh, excellent," I said.
"I'm glad you like that part because it's the surprise ending."
"So that's shot."
Well, I guess I'll have to read it without the surprise ending.
"And also there appears to be coffee spilled all over it."
"Oh, yes," the sweet old lady said.
"I spilled coffee all over the darn thing."
Okay.
Well, I can't make out any of the big fancy words now at all, but it's nobody's
fault.
I mean, in all fairness, I suppose part of it is my fault for crumpling it up
and tossing it away so cavalierly.
You know, I think cavalierly may have been one of those big fancy words.
Also, it's partly the sweet old lady's fault for spilling so much coffee on the
paper that not a single word can be made out.
But we're not here to place blame.
I will say this about the young boy in the tiny white coffin.
Despite the doctor's dire predictions, the boy was too tough, too resolute, too
courageous to let something as small as a deadly disease defeat him.
No, the boy was made of stronger stuff than that.
And it took much more than that to defeat him.
It took a three-ton municipal bus moving at 40 miles per hour and driven by one
Cecil Richard Anderson to defeat this boy.
I heard the deepest of sobs and looked down to see a man wearing some sort of
bus driver's uniform being held up by two women.
"If you cry, sir," I said, "then cry with envy and not pity, for the boy is in
the clouds and he is one with the clouds."
The clouds were a big thing with me and the boy because when we had been in the
Arctic, I had looked with the boy at the clouds and we had found in the clouds
different things.
One time I found a pickle, I said, "Look, that cloud looks like a pickle."
And then he said, "Look, that cloud looks like an old man."
And I said, "Why?"
And he said, "Look, can't you see his chin?"
And I said, "Yes, I can see his chin."
And he said, "Look, there's his nose."
And then I saw it.
There was his nose.
And then for hours and hours when we were on the boat in the Arctic, we looked
up at the white clouds in the white limitless sky.
And we saw all sorts of things from peanut butter cups to pickles to rodents.
Anyways, it is we, I said, who are left, who are reminded on this unacceptable
day that life is swift.
And yet we are blind to its mighty splendor, which can be found in the simplest
of things.
Things like a walk in the park.
Things like a conversation with a good friend.
Things like a deep, rich coffee, leavened with half cream and half milk, and
served in a sturdy mug.
One with some heft.
And with it, a delicious cookie that's white and has red jelly in the middle.
Thank you for listening.
And due to the solemnity of this occasion, I would ask you to hold your
applause.
From there, we all went to the graveyard.
The day was bright and clean and cool and filled my lungs and made me feel
healthy.
A time passed and then the hearse showed up.
The pallbearers were all big men and they carried the tiny white coffin as if
it were very heavy,
although it could not have weighed more than 80 or 90 pounds.
There was a small hole in the ground and some dirt beside it.
You could tell that the gravediggers had not broken a sweat.
We stood in a circle and the sad-faced pastor said some things in Latin.
And then we formed a line.
The sun was directly overhead and made the tiny white coffin ever so bright.
And I took a handful of dirt and flung it down on top.
And then it was the next guy's turn.
Afterward, I walked back alone down a long black top road.
And it was cold.
And in the sky there were white clouds.
And all of them looked like white clouds and nothing else.
And that is my chapter called The Tiny White Coffin.
Part of my book based on a true story.
A memoir.
And now we will be taking some questions.
The girl that will be giving me the questions is named Lauren, isn't it?
Andrea.
Very close.
Yes, exactly.
Andrea.
So Andrea will be taking your questions, passing them on to me.
She's not on the computer.
She's just behind the computer and to the right.
And then you will be asking the question.
You just ask the questions to me on the computer.
Andrea will be passing them on to me.
So, first question.
First question.
First question.
First question.
Norm MacDonald, how did you decide what to reveal and what to fictionalize in
your new memoir?
And why not go the route of pure confessional?
Oh, that's a very excellent question.
Who asked it, Andrea?
USA Today asked that question.
USA Today asked the question.
So, no one is on this except you.
Is that what you're saying?
No, we've got many questions coming up.
We just wanted to launch with the number one question about the book.
Well, USA Today, that's an excellent question.
Why did I make it half fiction and half truth?
Well, first of all, I feel that there is no such thing as an actual true story.
Because of memory, it's no good.
It's faulty.
It's broken.
And so, it's like when someone tells a story about you.
And they go, and you're in the story, you know.
And they go, oh, remember that time you caught that big fish?
And then you're like, wait, I've never fished in my life.
And they're like, yeah, no, it's a big fish and we ate it.
And you go, wait a minute, I've never been even on a boat.
And so, and then you go, wait a minute, maybe I did fish.
Maybe my memory is no good.
So, I realized that memory was no good.
Then the other thing was, I wanted to tell actual true stories, but I was
afraid of being sued.
And so, I thought if I said actual true things, but I surrounded them by fantasizing,
you know, fantasist ramblings,
then I could not be sued because if somebody said, wait a minute, I ne