Hilarious in the shadows
Somebody please give Norm Macdonald another TV show
LOS ANGELES Norm Macdonald has just unwrapped his first Klondike bar when he mentions the Chris Rock show. Turns out he has a chance to appear at a surprise gig at the nearby Comedy Store that also includes Louis C.K. and Dave Chappelle.
Wouldn’t performing in L.A. with the hottest comedians on Earth two nights before Rock’s much-anticipated #OscarsSoWhite hosting spot be good for his career?
Macdonald, 56, shakes his head. His mouth is full of chocolate crust and ice cream, and he chews as he talks.
“The only thing that would happen is I would destroy. Which leads to nothing.”
It is a strange mix of confidence and fatalism.
“I’m telling you, I know. As a matter of fact, if there was somebody writing a story about that night, I would not be mentioned.
“I could do better than all of them. Which is possible. I’m not saying I’m better than them. I’m saying that on any night, I could do material that’s super strong and I’d probably be better than Rock’s material for the Oscars. But it leads to nothing.”
Over the next four hours, Macdonald barely budges from his seat in the two-bedroom condo he recently bought in a planned community not far from the airport. But he does talk — about his first book, a kind of memoir that is overdue and torturing him, his various TV ideas, his various TV failures, his dashed dream of hosting a late-night talk show, Rodney Dangerfield, gambling, religion, Russian literature, his son, why he was Saturday Night Live’s best Weekend Update anchor ever, why he’s a terrible actor, his obsessive tweeting and his belief that nothing is more important professionally than being the greatest standup comic of his time.
If it isn’t obvious yet, Macdonald’s publicist isn’t here. He doesn’t have one. And that makes sense. This article isn’t being done because he has an entertainment product to plug — though, in the months after the Oscars, Macdonald will finish his book. Based on a True Story: A Memoir is now available.
This profile is actually a journalistic intervention. It is about trying to understand why a brilliant, original voice remains virtually invisible at a time when, as his admirer Conan O’Brien puts it, “every United States citizen who is registered to vote has a talk show.”
He makes a living off his standup gigs, generally favouring places like Calgary over New York or L.A. He has a steady stream of small parts on TV and movies. (Netflix recently announced Macdonald would do one of the voices in Skylanders Academy, an animated children’s series premièring later this year.)
Based on a True Story: A Memoir is a driving, wild and hilarious ramble of a book, what might have happened had Hunter S. Thompson embedded himself in a network studio.
It’s told by a Canadian-born comedian named Norm Macdonald who gets hired by Lorne Michaels to star on SNL with Adam Sandler and Chris Farley, makes movies, a couple of sitcoms and then flames out. That’s all true. The rest — you’ll have to decide.
Based on a True Story may not join Aziz Ansari or Tina Fey on the bestseller list. But it should. As funny and ridiculous as it is, the book is also quite moving in spots. At one point, Macdonald writes about the fleeting nature of fame.
“I think a lot of people feel sorry for you if you were on SNL and emerged from the show anything less than a superstar,” he writes in what is labelled The Final Chapter but, naturally, comes two chapters before the book ends. “They assume you must be bitter. But it is impossible for me to be bitter.
“I’ve been lucky. If I had to sum up my whole life, I guess those are the words I would choose, all right.”
If it sounds sentimental, just remember: It isn’t if it is true.