If you haven't watched the new Norm MacDonald documentary on Netflix, Norm: The Tale of Norm MacDonald, I recommend it. It doesn't sugar coat the dumb shit Norm did, nor do those things over shadow the great things he did or who he was. If you love Norm as much as I do (and Dave) you'll probably remember all of those incidents when they happened, and cry at that moment when you can see on Dave's face how fucking mad he was when Norm was fired, and then continued the vocal hate for Ohlmeyer from that point forward. Every bit as good as the Martin Short doc for comedy nerds, just different. It is hard to have to watch all of those people I've lost all respect for throughout, especially after learning they were/are giant shameful pussies waffling on genocide, or just outright denying it, but Apatow does a good job of making about Norm, and how much everyone loved and respected him as a comic, and not the blowhards/nazis themselves (including Apatow). The Roseanne bit did make me cry because I can't explain how much that woman meant to me growing up. I agree with her and Metcalf, that Jackie call when their dad died is one of the funniest things I've ever seen on a sitcom. I've seen it so many times I can almost recite the entire call (Metcalf was/is my hero). Roseanne was never quite right in the head, but that was part of her charm. The National Anthem bit was fucking hilarious to this 12 year old shithead. It's a very sad, dark rabbithole she got locked in. Wish she had gotten help from the appropriate people when it could have mattered. Don't judge me, the Conners were all I felt I had as a family at times those last few years in that isolated empty house. I was a tv kid and she was my tv mom.
There was about a 5-10 year period when brave people and the universe conspired to reveal that about 60-70% of the people many of us grew up loving and admiring were terrible people and proud cowards. Many of these same people were apparently too stupid to understand that genuine comeuppance, humility and contrition are a huge opportunity for collective social reckoning and growth. It won't erase what you did, and not everyone can forgive and forget, nor should they, but it's a first step to acknowledging your privilege in that moment. As Norm did, and it didn't kill his career, because he was authentic. In some circumstances it can eventually be turned into comedy gold when done with care, sincerity and honesty (see Maron and his honesty about being an impossible asshole in his early days in comedy). I unintentionally ended up disengaging from the comedy world because of how muddled it got. Well that and all of the fucking lib shit during and after Obama. I just can't with 10+ years of lazy orange guy bad and dumb, democrats=dumb and lazy but not bad bullshit, it's so Lorne Micheals coded. At best, that shit is so stale it's petrified, at worst it's intentionally counter-productive and helps keep accepted public discourse stagnant. During the mega corporate takeover of everything, the unfunny and their benefactors saw the opportunity to kill comedy as a tool of the proletariat, and they took it. Then they put their power behind blaming the victims of sexual abuse, assault and violence to make sure nothing like Me Too ever happens again. And they're still running shit, publishing unredacted photos of victims of sexual exploitation while hiding the identity of those involved in the exploitation, right out in the open on government websites. At a time when every single day, all day long, we should be lambasting, ripping to shreds the modern Hitlers, Oswald Mosleys, Henry Fords, or Prescott Bushs of today, instead those are the guys signing their checks.
And that bit about atheism and faith is 100% right. If you are truly an atheist or an agnostic, you should not give a shit about whether or not someone has faith. If you want to talk about dangerous organized religions, that is not a conversation about faith. That is conversation about spiritual manipulation and separation for political purposes. I know I've said this here many times, but no one should care what god(s) someone does or does not believe in, it's none of your business. It's how you live your life, and if you use your faith as a cudgel to beat people with, that's not about your relationship with a spiritual being, that's your lack of faith that needs to force other people to validate your beliefs. Still, not a conversation about converting the faithful. Don't try to convert me, as I will never try to convert you.
As a kid who loved people who didn't do what was expected of them, Norm made you squeal at the shit he would say in that delightfully devilish way he'd say it (that he was a nice looking man did not hurt). It was like someone accidentally let this genius maniac loose on the relatively mundane SNL news slot. It was the same way I felt watching Letterman or early Conan, somebody was letting these guys normalize adult comedy and absurdism for the general public and we were all the better for it. I don't know if that had really been done in so many different conventional settings so effortlessly before that era, as overt innuendo or the bonk on your head, over the top shit that was often just poorly disguised racism or misogyny was aging itself out of mainstream comedy unless it was drenched in irony or self-deprecation. At least as far as gen X was concerned, anyway. I don't know if that honest, deadpan style was so ever prevalent in the US as in the early 80s to mid 90s. We were so lucky to grow up in a very fruitful and varied age of comedy, with parents who at times shared it with us, other times looked the other way or were too tired/drunk to care if we stayed up until 4 in the morning watching it. We had no idea how fucking good we had it.
C'mon Canada, send us more of your best, our new faces of comedy are now old faces. The Boomers have boomed, many have already or are aging out of being relevant with the kids. Their legends are still our legends, they don't have many of their own. Most of what they've got are these youtube dipshits that, through no fault of their own, don't really understand what comedy is or what it's for. The circle jerk got too big, the money too good and easy, which allowed the unfunny, lazy chuds to sneak in the backdoor. Then they kicked out the weirdos, nerds, and smart people, and barred the doors. We only have the likes of Elephant Graveyard, Nathan Fielder, Conner O'Malley volunteering on the front lines, and we know it's only a matter of time before the chuds or their billionaire overlords try to shadow ban them from the physical realm, just disappearing them into the ether. Or they destroy themselves, as it seems to often go with comedy-types. We really, really need a comedy reset down here, Canada. I know with Trump being a cunt and all, probably no one wants to come down here to help, but please Canada, if you can spare them, send us your best and brightest... and most ruthless.
Dude. This was a 4 sentence post. What the fuck is wrong with me.
