Norm Macdonald Forever

The Josh Wells Weekly, Episode 109

Sep 17, 2021

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Shh, Jinx is snoozing and it usually doesn’t last long.

Random Thought

Rest in peace, Norm Macdonald.

This was a sad one. It’s left me having a hard time to try to find the words on how I feel about this one. I’m probably not the world’s biggest Norm fan, bug I am a big Norm fan. But beyond just being a fan of Norm, there’s something bigger about Norm. His legacy in comedy is immense. I’ve thought about it for a few days and I’m weary to make this comparison, but it’s almost Dylan-esque to me. I think what Dylan is to music Norm in some ways is to comedy. You can tell when someone is inspired by one or the other. I can hear a person’s standup and probably guess whether they’re a Norm fan or not. It’s almost unmistakable to be a comic who likes Norm and not hear the influence somewhere much like Dylan with musicians. And maybe even more telling is you can hear it when someone isn’t a fan of Norm. Much like Dylan, everything that’s come after feels so much more obtuse if it doesn’t reflect their influence. I don’t know if that makes sense to anyone but me, but in my brain, that’s fucking huge.

Watching Norm felt like watchin a Zen monk. It looked effortless. I’m sure it wasn’t, but comedy and being funny and telling a true, solid joke just seemed to ooze out of Norm as if he had no other choice, this is what the universe destined for him. He was smart, odd, sarcastic, dry, and when necessary, crude. He never had to yell it out or beat you over the head with it. He’d present the joke and leave it hanging in the air and it was up to you to get it and when you did, it was gold. Norm would, at times, leave me in awe.

I’m also a 90’s kid and I feel like Norm made sense to us. We got Norm. That was our guy. He wasn’t grunge or alternative or guilty of any other 90’s stereotype… but there’s something about his presence in that decade. He was there being Norm everywhere we looked. Weekend Update had a lot to do with it. But he also showed up in bit parts (and maybe not-so-bit parts a couple of times) in movies. And he always crushed on talk shows. Is there a better talk show guest? Probably not.

I’m not sure what else to say except what a legend we lost. My social media has been filled with Norm jokes, bits, and videos and a part of me wonders why social media isn’t always filled with Norm material? Let’s never stop posting Norm Macdonald’s stuff. Norm’s gone but he should still live on forever. His name should pop up in every, ‘who’s the greatest/funniest/coolest comedian,’ conversation from here till eternity.

Norm Macdonald forever.

Fans and friends pay tribute to late Canadian comic Norm Macdonald | News

Movie I Watched Recently

Midnight Run

(Netflix)

This was a pretty good movie about an ex-cop turned bounty hunter who’s chasing down an accountant for a big crime boss. Robert De Niro is the bounty hunter and Charles Grodin is the accountant and I swear to you, Grodin may be the best actor in this movie. His character is kinda quirky and a bit misunderstood and Grodin’s acting makes him very likeable. De Niro’s bounty hunter is a bit misunderstood himself. Anyways, De Niro nabs the accountant but it turns out the FBI, the mafia, and a second bounty hunter all wanna get their hands on the accountant as well so De Niro is now on the run from them all because he needs that bounty money really bad.

This is a pretty enjoyable movie. The score is wacky though. The music at times felt way too silly for what was going on on screen.

Why Midnight Run Is Robert De Niro's Best Movie

Here they are on a bus reluctantly getting to know each other.

TV show I’m currently watching

Brand New Cherry Flavor

(Netflix)

I’ve had a few friends recommend this series and I can’t tell if it’s because there’s weird and creepy cat stuff or because it’s based in the 90’s? Maybe both? I’m only two episodes in and it’s been a heck of a week so I haven’t had a lot of time to dig into things but so far it’s pretty good. Lisa Nova is a young screenwriter/director who goes to Hollywood to meet up with a big time director who was impressed with her short film. He turns out to be a creep who is trying to exploit her and steal her movie. Lisa gets involved with a witch (well, I don’t know if she’s exactly a witch to tell you the truth, they don’t ever use that word, but she casts spells and exhibits other forms of witchy behavior) who offers her some form of revenge but it doesn’t come easy.

I hope I have a little time to dig into this over the weekend. I’ve enjoyed what I’ve seen so far. I just need to get a good binge on… a 3-4 episode streak to really get my binge motor going. I feel some major plot twists coming and have a few guesses where this might go but we’ll see…

CREEPY

Album of the Week

No Way Out But Through / Face To Face

So I don’t know if I should say this out loud, but I’ve never listened to a whole Face To Face albums before. I know they’re kinda legendary in punk circles and I probably lose points or credibility or whatever, but I felt like that needed to be said. Now that I got that off my not-so-punk-rock-after-all chest…

This album’s okay. I’ve heard a few Face To Face songs here and there and this sounds like them. It’s fun and consistent. Nothing sticks out. I don’t think it’s great but I don’t think it’s bad either. It’s solid, upbeat punk rock and it does the job. It’s good enough and there’s nothing wrong with that. It sure beats sucking.

Face To Face – No Way Out But Through (Album Review) – Wall Of Sound

Book I’m Currently Reading

Nöthin' But a Good Time / Tom Beaujour and Richard Bienstock

This book is an oral history of 80’s hair metal and so far it is so fucking good. Also, the oral history format is one of my faves. I’m having a lot of fun reading this book, although, much like everything else, this week has been dumb and hectic and I feel like I’d be farther along if this had been any other week.

But yea, so it starts with Van Halen. They really open shit up for hair metal. But then it starts to dig into other bands like Motley Crue, W.A.S.P., Poison, and Stryper (everyone’s favorite Christian-based hair metal band). There’s also a surprising amount of talk about New Wave and its immense popularity and how the hair metal bands were at one time the underdogs of rock/alternative music. I feel like when we look back on the 80’s as a whole, it’s hard to ignore hair metal. It’s loud, bright, and everywhere. It’s fun to envision some of these ragtag rock and rollers schlepping it up and down the streets of LA trying to make things happen with the odds stacked against them. There’s a lot of hard work but also a lot of hard partying. It’s a mostly fun scene although there are a few cautionary apologies upfront about how un-PC and misogynistic those times could be.

There’s also a fun preface written by Corey Taylor of Slipknot fame.

You already knew the cover was gonna have plenty of pink.

Random sports thought of the week

Football is back and what did we learn?

NY football sucks!

The Jets opened up against the Carolina Panthers and ex-Jets QB Sam Darnold is now the starter for the Panthers so of course he got his revenge with a week 1 victory over his former team.

Tom Brady still has it.

Maybe there’s something wrong with the Packers and Aaron Rodgers is wishing his name was more involved in the Jeopardy! host discussion?

The Chiefs are still gonna be great and Patrick Mahomes is the truth.

My man, Ryan Fitzpatrick, the QB with the raddest beard, will be out for like 8 weeks. Insert sad face here.

Miami Dolphins: NFL fans fell in love with Ryan Fitzpatrick's outfit

I actually didn’t watch a lot of football this week. I’m not in a fantasy team so I’m not as invested and unfortunately there won’t be weekly fantasy team updates like there were last year even though I’ve heard you, the loyal reader, clamoring for its return. Sorry.

I am in a suicide league (you pick one team to win each week, that’s it. But you can never pick that team again for the rest of the season. You stay in the league till you pick a loser. Last person standing wins).

I’m still alive in this league. I picked the Rams to beat the Bears and they did just that. Only one person was eliminated in week 1 (in an 11 person league). Also, I don’t think I have any idea who most of the people in this league are. Friends of friends.

Random pro wrestling thought of the week

This was a very good week for wrestling. We got new champs on Raw and NXT and I don’t wanna spoil either just in case anyone hasn’t seen them yet, but I’m a fan of both and stoked to see where they go from here, even if Raw is mostly unwatchable and NXT is now NXT 2.0 and who knows what that means for the future?

I’ll probably write more about new champs and NXT 2.0 next week but this week I wanna talk about how stoked I was to go to a live AEW event. I went to go see Dynamite at the Prudential Center in Newark. These were tickets I’ve had for like a year and a half. It was supposed to be March of 2020 but everyone knows what happened and the show got postponed so here we are all these months later. It’s bittersweet because Brodie Lee debuted on the date of the original show and now he’s gone.

However, this roster is deeper and they’ve signed some great talent in the past few weeks including CM Punk, Bryan Danielson, Adam Cole, Malakai Black, and Ruby Soho, all of whom I got to see on Wednesday night. Also, they filmed Elevation and Rampage on the same night so I got to see three shows technically.

There was something about going to see AEW live, it suddenly felt more real. Like, I know AEW exists, but sometimes it’s weird to think this young company came along and started providing a fun alternative to WWE and that they’re popular enough to fill arenas, an arena I’ve been to before for WWE events. Fans had to sit through months of AEW being held in Jacksonville week after week and sometimes I’d wonder if this whole thing was a fever dream and no one could ever provide a wrestling experience equal to, or in many ways, better than WWE. And suddenly here I was, surrounded by 15,000 other maniacs, screaming our heads off. What a great time to be a wrestling fan.

Waiting for the show to start rocking a Brodie Lee shirt. Yeah, yeah, yeah indeed.

Weekly Top 5 List: My Way Too Early Top 5 NFL Teams

1- Kansas City Chiefs

2- Tampa Bay Buccaneers

3- New Orleans Saints

4- Pittsburgh Steelers

5- Seattle Seahawks

Weekly Quote

Of all the Norm quotes I’ve seen going around the past few days, this tweet is my favorite of them all.

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