Minutiae, and Matters of Maximum Momentousness
Norm MacDonald's autobiography is insane. First, it's not an autobiography. It's a bunch of lies. Second, there's a bunch of true things in it. Third, it's written by Norm, but there's a subplot running through where Norm's non-existent ghost writer becomes a character in the story. One chapter is two words long and one of the funniest things I've ever heard. And on and on.
Sam Kinison gave Norm an early break. Norm has said that Sam was the only original stand up comedian since the mid-80's. If I had to go to a desert island and only pick one joke to take along, it would be Sam's homosexual necrophiliacs joke. You can't write about that joke, you just have to see him do it.
I love this story from the pseudo-autobiography, retold on the anniversary of Sam's death.
Ghost Writer- “I bet you have good stories about Sam, don’t you, Norm?”
Norm- “Oh, sure. I remember one time we were flying from Toronto to Winnipeg, Sam and I, and before we took off the captain came over the intercom, as is the custom on airplanes. ‘Good morning,’ the captain said. ‘This is your captain, Pat Johnson, and we will be flying—‘ and Sam gave out a wild scream: ‘NOOOOOOO!!!!! NOT CRASH JOHNSON! NOT CRASH JOHNSON!!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!’ Well, it was about the funniest thing I’d ever heard, the idea that this captain had been in so many accidents that his nickname was Crash. That just busted me up and I started laughing and couldn’t stop. Of course, nobody else found it funny at all—it caused quite an alarm—and Sam got himself a good talking-to by the girls that bring you the little drinks, but he didn’t care.”
Sam Kinison died in a head-on collision on this day in 1992. After it, a friend who was with him reported that Sam said to nobody in particular, “I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die.”
Then there was a pause as if he were listening to someone, and then he asked, “But why?”
Another pause and he said, “Okay, Okay, Okay.”
The friend said, “Whatever voice was talking to him gave him the right answer and he just relaxed with it.”
Incidentally, Larry King asked Norm Macdonald where you go after you die.
Norm- "Well first they put you in a big black car."
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Kinison at his finest.
https://youtu.be/tjZPzFSE5Ws
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Ali G- "Since God makes the rules couldn't he just forgive us? That whole Jesus situation seems excessive if you ask me."
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I asked ChatGPT to simulate a collaboration between Woody Allen and Quentin Tarantino. It called it Big Score In Manhattan. And I asked what a few of Woody Allen's lines would have been, these were two of the eight it gave me. Perfectly on the money!
"I love New York. It's the only place where you can make a fortune by stealing from the rich, and then spend it all on therapy."
"Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy you a private island where you can be miserable in peace."
Good news though, it can't recreate Tarantino dialogue.
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Some thought it was a waste of money to go to the Moon because there were problems here on Earth that we needed to fix. Some people think the same thing now about Mars. I agree somewhat, but I also believe that these are monumental achievements that prove that we actually know something about the world. You don't get to the moon, and you don't get to Mars, on opinions. The scientists who got us to the Moon didn't simply believe something, they knew something.
April 10, 2021
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We got a kitten, Peggy Two-Eyes. Our other new kitten is hiding, Mrs. "One-Eye" Meowzers.
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April 10, 2021
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Produce quality meeting today!
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April 10, 2019
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Our bodies are of nature, but our thoughts are not. Or are they? (That's an unnatural thought.)
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Robin Williams- "Never pick a fight with an ugly person, they've got nothing to lose."
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On this day in 1912, the Titanic set sail from Southampton, England on her only voyage. A third of the passengers would end up at the bottom of the ocean.
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The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald was first published on this day in 1925. It wasn't generally well-received. H.L. Menken said it was, "obviously unimportant." Haha.
Spoiler alert, the ending is a whopper that will stick with you.
"And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.
"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter—to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning——
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
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East of Eden was released on this date in 1955.
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Pete Rose's first plate appearance took place on this day in 1963, which was then followed by 15,889 more. That is about 2,000 more than anybody else.
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The Beatles broke up on this day in 1970. The Rolling Stones stuck together for 50 plus more years.
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Ping-pong diplomacy took place on this day in 1971. China hosted the U.S. ping pong team for a week-long visit in hopes of easing relations. Do we still do creative stuff like that?
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Madonna began her first tour on this day in 1985. Her opening act- somehow the Beastie Boys.
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On this day in 2017, my dentist reattached a crown that came off several days prior. He asked me if I'd been eating Sugar Babies. "Nope, I haven't had one in 20 years!" I didn't tell him it was a jelly bean!
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Max von Sydow began his game with death on this day in 1929. It lasted nearly 91 years.
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Journalist David Halberstam was born on this day in 1934.
"If you're a reporter, the easiest thing in the world is to get a story. The hardest thing is to verify. The old sins were about getting something wrong, that was a cardinal sin. The new sin is to be boring."
"Memory is often less about the truth than about what we want it to be."
"I have a great faith in the strength and the resilience in the American people."
Still? We are missing his voice.
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The writer Paul Theroux was born on this day in 1941.
"The wish to travel seems to me characteristically human: the desire to move, to satisfy your curiosity or ease your fears, to change the circumstances of your life, to be a stranger, to make a friend, to experience an exotic landscape, to risk the unknown."
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Lord Justice Charles Bowen died on this day in 1894. He wrote a famous little poem:
"The rain it raineth on the just,
And also on the unjust fella.
But chiefly on the just, because
The unjust hath the just's umbrella."
He also said:
When I hear of an 'equity' in a case like this, I am reminded of a blind man in a dark room - looking for a black hat - which isn't there.
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Linda Darnell left us on this day in 1965. I hate thinking about it, she died in a house fire.
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OJ Simpson died on this day in 2024
Wow, Norm Macdonald and OJ nearly went golfing once, and OJ texted Norm to thank him for toning things down after he did this joke on Dennis Miller's show:
“Now, in this cancel culture, I have to say I no longer take that position with O.J. Simpson. He was found not guilty by a jury of his peers. I accept that. I see him as the greatest rusher. That's all he's guilty of to me, being the greatest rusher in the history of the NFL. Maybe I was the greatest rusher … to judgment!”
I'd love to know what Norm responded to OJ's text!
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/2024/04/12/norm-macdonald-fired-oj-jokes/
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"Color is where the brain and the universe meet." -Cezanne
So strange to think that there's no color in the world. There are just wavelengths of different frequencies. The cones in our eyes can change three of those frequencies into colors, but not in real life, only in our brain. Isn't this bizarre?
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Danny DeVito used to be a hairdresser for corpses.
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Misattributed to John Steinbeck, great quote though.
“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”
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New York Times- Alien Life, Coming Slowly Into View
Will today's babies grow up with the commonly accepted knowledge of life on other planets? Another blow to the human-centered universe?
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/27/opinion/27jayawardhana.html
April 10, 2011
Postscript- My babies were born 2 years and 4 years later, and so far they don't know of life on other planets.
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Washington Post- How to halve the deficit by doing nothing
Elegant argument. Is there an equally elegant rebuttal?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/how-to-halve-the-deficit-by-doing-nothing/2011/03/25/AFXb0RoB_blog.html
Apr 10, 2011 12:13:16pm
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Robert Ebert- Quintessence of Dust
"Of all the things that exist, animate and inanimate, some will be more successful than others at continuing to exist. Of those, some will evolve into greater complexity. This isn't "progress," it is simply the way things work."
https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/a-quintessence-of-dust
April 10, 2011
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Funny that Congress still gets paid during a government shutdown, isn't it? Why do they get paid?
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/07/opinion/07kristof.html
April 10, 2011
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The Marginalian- The Yin-Yang of Fortune and Misfortune: Alan Watts on the Art of Learning Not to Think in Terms of Gain and Loss
Certainly nonsense at the extreme (Holocaust, for example) but helpful for day-to-day fortunes and misfortunes.
"Once upon a time there was a Chinese farmer whose horse ran away. That evening, all of his neighbors came around to commiserate. They said, “We are so sorry to hear your horse has run away. This is most unfortunate.” The farmer said, “Maybe.” The next day the horse came back bringing seven wild horses with it, and in the evening everybody came back and said, “Oh, isn’t that lucky. What a great turn of events. You now have eight horses!” The farmer again said, “Maybe.” The following day his son tried to break one of the horses, and while riding it, he was thrown and broke his leg. The neighbors then said, “Oh dear, that’s too bad,” and the farmer responded, “Maybe.” The next day the conscription officers came around to conscript people into the army, and they rejected his son because he had a broken leg. Again all the neighbors came around and said, “Isn’t that great!” Again, he said, “Maybe.”
The farmer steadfastly refrained from thinking of things in terms of gain or loss, advantage or disadvantage, because one never knows… In fact we never really know whether an event is fortune or misfortune, we only know our ever-changing reactions to ever-changing events."
https://www.themarginalian.org/2015/11/06/alan-watts-swimming-headless/
April 10, 2017
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Elvis thought his best song was It's Now or Never. Good judge.
https://youtu.be/l0-FBlfvgxo
April 10, 2020
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Washington Post- CDC ramps up scrutiny of rare post-vaccination ‘breakthrough infections’
Huh, which should a person opt for? This is a puzzler. Should one get a highly effective vaccine proven to all-but-eliminate hospitalizations, or should we opt to not get the vaccine and run the risk of dying or passing it to someone who will die. I just can't quite figure it out. But seriously, I will never understand people's demand for perfection-or-nothing.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/04/09/do-people-get-covid-after-being-vaccinated/
April 10, 2021
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Heraclitus of Ephesus- "If you do not expect the unexpected, you will not recognize it when it arrives."
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Virginia Woolf, The Waves- "One must learn to be silent just as one must learn to talk."
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Andy Warhol- "James Dean was the damaged but beautiful soul of our time."
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Epictecus- "You become what you give your attention to."
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Richard Dawkins- "There's real poetry in the real world. Science is the poetry of reality."
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Saul Bellow, Conversations with Saul Bellow- "In an age of madness, to expect to be untouched by madness is a form of madness. But the pursuit of sanity can be a form of madness, too."
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Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation- "In fact, "atheism" is a term that should not even exist. No one ever needs to identify himself as a "non-astrologer" or a "non-alchemist." We do not have words for people who doubt that Elvis is still alive or that aliens have traversed the galaxy only to molest ranchers and their cattle. Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs."
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Dumb Short Joke of the Day:
Before surgery the anesthesiologist offered to knock me out with gas or a boat paddle. It was an ether/oar situation.
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I'll end on this story from On This Day,
ESCAPE FROM AUSCHWITZ
After three days without food or water (or bathroom facilities), the two men emerged from the wood pile and began their journey to freedom. Rudolf Vrba (19 years old) and Alfred Wetzler (26 years old) were inmates in Auschwitz. Both men were obsessed with bringing the true story of the Holocaust to the outside world. They had compiled a wealth of information about what took place in the camp. They had contact with Sonderkommandos who described the extermination process. They memorized statistics about arrivals by train, specifically about the influx of Hungarian Jews. They found about the wood pile scheme from other Jews. Four had used it to escape, although they were subsequently recaptured. The pile was outside the perimeter, but you had to survive the three days of intense searching by the SS. Russian tobacco soaked in gasoline, spread around the hideout, kept the dogs from sniffing them out. The guards did not discover the pile, so on April 7, 1944, it was their turn. After three days, the dogs were called off, so to speak. On April 10, 1944, the duo headed for the hills, planning on crossing the mountains to their homeland of Slovakia. Chased by troops and dogs, they threw off the scent via an ice-cold stream. They were aided by Polish peasants along the way. One of whom acted as a guide after their ravenous eating of food proved to him that the two were not Gestapo agents trying to entrap him. Once safely in their homeland, they produced their detailed report which was smuggled to Switzerland where it was sent on to British intelligence and the media. Publicizing of the deportation of Hungarian Jews was credited with halting the deportations, saving about 200,000 lives. Unfortunately, the recommendation that camps like Auschwitz be bombed was turned down.
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It's critical to reflect on stories like this to keep everything in perspective.
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