Name: I improved the audio for this Norm Macdonald Interview
Uploaded: 2022-03-21T05:00:10.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'I improved the audio for this Norm Macdonald Interview' from TickleMeNorm on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-03-21. Transcript available. Be Sad Now #normmacdonald #norm.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'I improved the audio for this Norm Macdonald Interview' from TickleMeNorm on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-03-21. Transcript available. Be Sad Now #normmacdonald #norm.

I improved the audio for this Norm Macdonald Interview

Yeah, that's a very, very sweet introduction.
That's almost, I almost feel like we can't match that, can we?
I can't.
So thank you for coming here.
You actually were scheduled to be in Washington, D.C. earlier in the year,
but you were unable to make it, right?
Oh, yes, that's correct.
But so you had to write a book to get here,
but we're obviously appreciative.
So just to start out, this book, based on a true story, a memoir,
how would you describe that to people?
Well, I don't know.
It's hard to describe things,
but that's what I learned when I tried to write a book.
But I would just, I don't know.
It's, you know, I decided to skip past facts
and go for truth.
That's helpful.
So it's not totally true.
That's what you're saying.
No, no.
I mean, when you look at your life,
which writing it out of whatever it forces you to do,
you start to understand that most of your life is,
well, I found anyway,
I wake up in the morning,
I eat my Count Chocula.
Then I say,
I got to get a ham and cheese sandwich for lunch.
I'm thinking all the time, right?
I say, I got to get groceries.
But this Count Chocula has not digested yet.
And then I go,
so anyways,
most of your life is finding and eating food.
Which doesn't make for a great read.
You didn't consider a cookbook.
I guess that's why I cook books.
So that's why cooking is so good.
But we would argue,
knowing what you've done in your life professionally,
the part we know about,
it's been very interesting.
You've mixed and worked with
some of the most fascinating people in entertainment, right?
Yeah?
Well,
here's the thing with backstage things.
They're not interesting at all.
Like,
on the stage
is what's the interesting part.
And then backstage,
it's just guys eating ham sandwiches.
It's all eating.
Yeah.
And they're trying to figure out
what to do on stage.
You know?
And they're saying,
is there any way we could
work some eating of food into this sketch?
No, but,
you know,
that's what show business is on stage.
And also,
most of the interesting things
that have ever happened to me
happened to me before
I had any measure of fame.
Because once you have fame,
you're in a bit of a cage
against which,
you know,
like one time I got,
I think I told you,
I got in a,
did I tell you about my fight
in New York City?
No, no.
I've not heard about your fight
in New York City.
I used to fight all the time
when I was in Canada
before I was famous.
Like a professional boxer?
No, no, no.
No, just fighting.
I was not a prize fighter.
I just wanted you to say prize fighter.
No, I used to do bars
and so forth.
And anyways,
I was in a bar
in New York City
and I hit a guy
and he went down
and there was some broken glass
and stuff.
And so,
I said,
I was like,
oh my God,
I'm on the TV.
I forgot.
Because I was on the TV.
Yeah.
So I ran out of the bar
and the guy said,
hey,
who are you anyway?
And I said,
Dana Carvey.
That's good.
Did I ever tell you
that was right?
No, no.
I thought you'd say
Vince Vaughn.
That would have worked.
So before I was famous,
those things,
those interesting things
happen to me all the time.
But once you're famous,
you know,
your life is pretty
uninteresting after that.
So before you were famous,
I spoke to your mother.
I called her on the phone.
She said you were
a very good student.
But also she said
you were sort of
an adventurer.
She talked about you
living on a boat
for a time
and working in...
Now, again,
some of this is
in your book, right?
No.
No.
No.
Because that's interesting.
Nothing interesting
should appear
in this book.
But yeah,
I was a bit of a...
I was a bit of a...
scape grace.
Scape what?
I'm sorry?
Scape grace.
Scape grace?
A troublemaker
I'd never do well.
You know,
so I'd travel
from place to place,
cause havoc
and move to the next town.
Like a traveling
sort of salesman
who, right?
More like a criminal drifter.
So you grew up
in Canada, right?
You started doing stand-up
in what the...
Ottawa, Canada.
Yeah?
Yeah.
And, uh...
Just by accident,
you know,
I never knew
there was such a thing
as a person
that could work
in comedy.
Like I thought,
you know,
I had seen
The Tonight Show
with Johnny Carson.
We got it rarely
in Canada,
but we got it.
And I thought
there was like
five comedians,
you know,
and they all
had nice sweaters.
Like, man...
It's a nice sweater.
Thanks, man.
And, uh,
that's what I thought.
And I didn't know
that there was
this subculture
of comedians
that traveled
all around
telling their,
you know,
rather unseemly jokes
to, you know,
drunk patrons
and tried to hit
on waitresses
and asked if all
the food was free.
So then when I found
that out,
I said,
that's great
because before that,
I only had jobs,
I only had manual labor jobs.
And, uh...
Like, what?
What's a real job
you did
that you would call
manual labor?
Well, the cooler ones
were like,
I was a chokerman
for a logging company.
A what?
It's a person
that puts the...
It doesn't matter.
Okay.
It's a thing
where a goddamn tree
can fall on you.
Okay, all right.
Fine.
Every week,
okay, hey,
where was Pete?
That tree fell on him.
And we all made
a lot of money.
We made $17 an hour.
And I remember,
at one point,
I was talking
to the dishwasher
that everybody
made fun of,
old Sam.
And I said,
Sam,
what do you make?
He's like,
$17 an hour.
I'm like,
what?
So everybody
made $17 an hour.
So then I was like,
I want to be
the dishwasher.
It turned out
there's a huge
waiting list
that included
almost everyone
in the logging can.
They wanted
to be a dishwasher
because when you
were washing dishes,
the likelihood
of a tree
falling on you
was highly
diminished.
So you,
you go to,
you start doing comedy
and, you know,
what is interesting
to me is we hear
about this.
This cocaine
is not working.
I just want to say,
I mean,
I don't really know
about your personal
life here,
but I've been with you
for hours and hours
and hours.
That's a, what?
We've been together,
yes.
And I've never
seen you take
a single sip
of alcohol, right?
No.
Yet, I read
the internets.
Do you,
do you go there?
What's that?
The internet.
Do you see?
The internet, sure, yeah.
And every time
you do anything,
people say,
oh, he's drinking,
the man's drinking again,
right?
Yes, sir.
And when I do
stand up there,
I go,
I don't drink.
Ah, ha, ha, ha.
I don't drink.
That's a laugh.
That's rich.
And I don't drink,
you know?
The only thing I do
is, uh,
before every show,
I eat a fistful
of acid at LSD.
And
my doctor,
who's a broken record,
he's like,
stop eating fistfuls
of acid before your show's...
I think it works.
What does he know?
The guy's a big purple dog.
Well, that's a stance
to that one.
That was good, yeah.
I didn't know
when to cut in,
but I think I stayed out
long enough.
So, um,
you talk about it
in the book,
how you're,
the key to how you
were able to get yourself
onto Saturday Night Live.
I hate to jump ahead,
but you're talking
about comedy,
and, um,
you know,
we have this sense
there's this huge
audition process,
and you have to
trot out all these
characters.
Maybe you could tell us
a little bit about
how you found yourself
on that show.
Well, there is
an audition process,
which I didn't know about.
I thought I had the job.
That's what I was told
by a fellow
that worked there.
So I quit the job
I had.
I worked for the
Roseanne program.
Yeah, you were
a writer on Roseanne first.
Yeah, yeah.
So, uh,
I, uh,
and I was contractually
obligated to her.
So I went to Roseanne
and Tom,
and Tom said,
how you doing, buddy?
And I was like,
pretty good.
He was like,
so what's going on?
A lot of that kind of stuff.
So, uh,
I always thought it would be
good to have him
and Tarantino.
Like, he's like,
Tarantino's like,
whee!
Yeah.
So, anyways,
they were kind enough
to allow me to,
uh, to, uh,
to go to Saturday Night Live,
you know,
which was very sweet
of both of them.
And so, uh,
I left.
I moved to New York City
and, uh,
then this girl,
Marcy Klein,
said, you know,
tomorrow you have to meet
with Lauren.
And I'm like,
what's that all about?
She goes,
well, that's the, uh,
you know,
the job interview.
And here I'd quit my job.
And a good one.
Yeah.
So I got really drunk
forgetting I had
to go the next morning
to do my job interview.
And I,
anyways,
I went in
and Lauren and I
had a fine talk,
you know,
he was, uh,
also from,
he's also from Canada.
Um,
but he's,
that's a cosmopolite,
you know,
very,
Cosmo,
Cosmopolite,
a worldly person.
Okay.
Aren't you a fucking writer?
No, no, no.
I don't know these words.
I write a lot of stuff.
Oxford English Dictionary
out there for Jeff.
I write a lot of things online.
He's a,
he's a,
he's a worldly man.
Okay, yeah.
And that we'd be comfortable
with the king of England himself.
Yeah.
I know that's a little sexist,
that comment,
but,
but here's the thing.
I am not.
I come from the barren soils
of the Ottawa Valley,
you know,
and that's where I was born.
That's where I was born a hick.
I'll die a hick.
And,
uh,
that's the way it is.
So,
uh,
I didn't have anything to say.
So I just laughed at everything he said,
like I always do,
when I'm trying to get a job.
And,
um,
and then,
at the,
and then all of a sudden,
out of the blue,
Lauren says to me,
he says to me,
he says,
he says to me,
he says,
that's the thing I wrote for Farley to do.
I said,
what if you did a thing where it was just a guy who says,
uh,
he says to me way too often.
So Farley would do it really funny.
He goes,
I met this guy and he says to me,
he says to me,
he looks me right in the eye and he says to me,
he says to me,
he says to me,
he says to me,
he says to me.
So anyways,
Lauren said,
you have to go to the studio now and do two,
uh,
impressions and two characters.
And at the time I had zero impressions and zero characters.
Like I could do impressions of like anybody rich little did,
but I couldn't do anyone like,
you know,
of the,
uh,
of the day.
Anyone know,
cut out.
So,
Oh,
cut out.
I know that word.
I'm a writer.
So,
uh,
anyways,
um,
I had no way to,
to,
but then I,
I thought when I was,
you know,
I,
he said,
you know,
he said,
we'll be in touch.
And I knew I was in trouble,
you know?
And so I,
I said,
well,
I do.
And then I remembered when I was in,
uh,
kindergarten,
uh,
and,
uh,
I,
I didn't get my homework done.
I would present the teacher with a shiny red apple.
Right?
Yeah.
Because what would a teacher like better?
The scribblings of a five year old?
Or eating a shiny red apple.
We've been over food,
the subject of food.
And,
uh,
teachers,
you know,
are highly underpaid,
which I think is a sin.
And a shiny red apple,
it costs,
uh,
it costs a pretty coin,
you know?
So then I says to myself,
I says,
I said,
I says,
is there a way
with Lorne Michaels,
is there a way I could red apple the old man?
Yeah,
I'll tell you,
Jeff,
there's always a way.
So in my back,
I had a red apple,
not an actual red apple,
metaphorically.
It would be perfect if I'd had an actual red apple.
It's not how things work.
But I had as close a thing to a red apple in my back pocket.
And I'm talking about my literal back pocket.
Literal.
Oh God,
I love when people say that all the time.
Don't you love that?
I do.
I put it in all my stories.
People say literally,
constantly.
Yeah.
I don't even care that they're saying it wrong.
No.
I just don't want to hear it every third word.
I like you regardless as well.
So I took my red apple,
which in this case was six grams
of government quality morphine.
And we know what happens next.
Yeah,
I was in.
Lorne Michaels,
luckily for me,
was a hopeless morphine addict.
Ah.
Norm,
so I think we're seeing,
it's in the book.
No,
I just thought.
When you talk about bombshells,
that's an example of what we'll find in this.
Oh yes,
I have bombshells.
There's,
you know,
it's a tell-all.
Well,
it's not all.
It's a tell-some.
So we're seeing it a little bit in process here,
but, you know,
obviously we watch you on late night shows.
We hear you.
I just heard you on Howard Stern.
We watch you on your podcast.
And what we find is suddenly we're sucked into the vortex
of a nearly nine minute j