Requiem for Norm -- Shooting Straight

‘Don’t be fooled by typists.'
- Bob Dylan in conversation with Norm MacDonald

I miss Norm MacDonald. I miss Norm MacDonald in the same way I miss the old friends. The old friends that exist as a memory alone, either dead or dead to you. Not killed by any argument, but by a long slow fade in to the cracks in the dirt of the Earth. Perhaps there living happy lives. Perhaps there not. Perhaps there not living at all. If you had there phone number, may be you'd call them. You wouldnt, but maybe you would. But the point is moot be cause you dont have the phone number. And you dont have the number be cause you havent seen them in 50 years.

It's been five years since Norm passed and every year that fallows has left me more solemn. More aged. Its strange, parasociality. Being a "big fan" of another person is all most embarassing, especially if its a big part of your identity (or the basis of your attire online persona...). It belies some lack of self. To love another that doesnt know you exist. I've never met Bob Dylan, or Dino Martin, or John Lennon, or Jimmy Carter. Or any of the hundreds of people I claim to love. Many of them are dead or dying now. Opportunity's missed. So it gos. If I could have met anybody in my life, I dont know who I would choose. And when I say meet I mean like a real quick 30 seconds bump into on the street. Its all most an inconvenience at that point, your taking up there time, they have importent places to be, things to do, people to see. And your a road block. If you asked me who I'd like to grab a beer with, I bobably would say Dylan, but only if he really wanted to be there. He seems kind of like a cat. Sometimes cats like me, sometimes they dont. I wouldn't know about Bobby, as I said, I've never met him.

But I did meet Norm.

“It's true what they say. Never meet your heroes. It turns out they're all a bunch of fucking assholes. They're probably the reason you turned into such a fucking asshole - because they were your heroes and you spent all your time trying to be like them.”
― Norm Macdonald, Based on a True Story: A Memoir

This would of been mid to late 90s. Lets see,, I moved the family to Paris for a little while in 97 and OJ was aquitted in 95 and that had all ready hapened so I'm pretty sure this was summer 96. Me and my childhood best friend Howie used to go to this casino in Atlantic City called the Claridge. Howie settled in Jersey a long time ago and I was in the city (thats NYC), so in the summers or on weekends or honestly all the time throughout the 80s and 90s we would go down to AC (thats atlantic city, keep up), and gamble away are earnings. This was a relatively dark time in my life, but thats mostly in retrosepect. In the moment it was amazing. I was jumping all over the world, living debaucherously, destroying my body, meltin gmy brain. But I made a lot of friends. One such friend was an English chap who worked in the music industry a cross the pond, he gave me a tip a bout this up and coming Iraqi artist, and I ended up betting on the right horse. (Look up "The Caesar".) So I was kind of flush with cash for a little while, Howie had fuck all going on. It was gonna be a great night.

The Claridge was a funny place. We started going there in the late 80s because it was all old people. We were the only "kids" there. At some point it had shifted from all old people and us, to all black people and us, and this demographic shift brought with it a number of great characters. We had CB. CB aka Cool Breeze was in his 40s? Maybe? Tough to tell. Very stylish. Gold and black sunglasses, inside at night of coarse. He was bedecked in gold head to toe, velvety sweatsuits. All purple or all blue. Always had honeys with him. He sounds like a characteure I am realising now but he was a real person and he was actally a nice guy if you got to know him. There was another guy we called Pol Pot be cause he looked just like cambodian dictator Pol Pot and he never spoke but he made this low kind of breathy chuckling sound. And last but by no possible metric least, was Mass. Have you ever seen breaking bad? You know Huel? This guy made Huel look like Twiggy DBE. He would lumber over to the table, and collapse onto it, resting his ammense colossus onto the table. And he would breath like tony soprano., And he would never role the dice be cause it was so laborious so he would just pass his roll every time and wave it off. Mass struggled to speak but he made for a good time. Good ambience. The dealers were great too. Guy named Han liek Han Solo but Chinese. he looked kind of like my buddy Ross Devito if he was Chinese. Me and Howie hung out with these guys and myriad other degernerates, criminals, hobos, vagabonds, and neer-do-wells, all the time. These were are people. I wandered what they thought of us. Bobably exactly the same. We would play craps for 12 hours straight without moving are feet. It has a beter return then black jack I'd herd, and I'd read a bout some beting startegies in a magazine. So after a looooong day into night that all most all wasy ended with us sleeping in Howie's car, I would bobbaly only be down $100 or $200. A fine price to pay for a good time.

"All my life's about is cracking up people and them cracking me up and trying not to think about dying. That doesn't cost very much money."

Well this one particular weakened me and Howie go down and we drive past the Claridge, leaving all are favorite characters behind. We wanted to be high rollers that night . As I said, I'd just come in to some money. So we opt for this nice place Harrah's a cross the water. The Claridge had a $5 minimum at the table, so we'd burn nickels for hours. Laughing it up. But Harrah's did'nt have $5 minimum. Not $10, not $15. Harrah's had a $25 minimum. That's 5x what we were use to. No mater. We wanted to be high rollers we said.

During the day it was a really nice spot, had a nice day club pool party thing going. But its night time now, and we hit the casino. We're walking a round. The place is pretty popping, and we pass a table that I thought was empty, so I assumed for a moment it was not in operation, but the crew was there. If you do'nt know craps theres a crew of guys working the table: The Box Man sits in the middle and he never leaves. He's the commander. Then there's two dealers and a stick man. The stick man moves the dice a round. But there's all wasy a forth dealer/stick man on brake. So every 15 minutes the stick men/dealers rotate, with someone coming off brake and someone going on. Its a well oiled machine. These delaers haev to calculate ridicilous amounts of ridiculous calculations, at levels I dont even think einstein or steven hawken could do, so I guess keeping them fresh with cosntant brakes is a good idea.

Anyway yeah the crew is maning this table, and as I glide threw the room, I see this very tall man siting there all alone. So tall by the way. I looked it up and on google it says hes 6'2' I call buillshit I think he was like 6'4' or may be I was just drunken. The light kinda hits his face like it does a statue, with his dark shadows black as coal and his highlights bright white. But inmistakably, its Norm. I think he had all ready been fired...? at this point? But that would put this story at 1998. Which I guess is possible but it doesnt align with the time line of events I have in my head. Any way... he... was... defeated...

He had this complretely resigned look about him. His face, his shoulders, his hands. He was just rolling in himself. He had sunken into the chair like Mass. Usually they dont let you sit in a chair but I guess if your a celebrity you get a chair. I wander what level of celebrity you would have to be where theres a chair discussion. Michael Jackson comes in you just give him a chair. Norm I guess is above chair threshold. But surely some small time standup or a local raper is geting his chair request denyed.

"Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley have announced that they are planning to divorce. According to friends, the two were never a good match. She's more of a stay-at-home type, and he's more of a homosexual pedophile."

Well I mosey over to the Pit Boss I says to the guy I says why is the table empty can we go there and he says "Mr McDonald requested is own table" and I say "well... he's on the floor..." for context if he wanted a private table they would of arranged that in two seconds, he chose to play on the floor. Me and the PB exchange words for a few moments and he says "allll right" and Howie and I approach the table and sit on the opposite end.

I'm a fan of Norm's but I all so see him as sort of contemporary. We are pretty much teh same age and he was from, I think, Quebec City, a place that is warm in my heart and full of spirit and adventure. I traveled threw there recently to visit the christmas village for the holidays which was adorable (I recommend it!) I ended up getting shanghaied on this bananas quest to fined treasure in Alaska (do not reccomend!) and I sadly watched a man die, malled by a polar bear. My buddy Steve had to come and rescue me it was a whole thing. I've kind of pigeonholed that hole ordeal in my mined but that really was insane. My knee still hurts all the time. Anyway, I mention are contemporaneousness be cause I have to say that I wasn't star struck or intimidated. At first its a little awkward. He just looks at us, but he doesnt say any thing. Again, he might as well be the walking dead. It looks like he's been here for hours, and he's not going anywhere any time soon.

Dice come to me. Not a word was spoke between us, there was to much risk involved. Howie is keeping his mouth shut which Im grateful for be cause he was a little challenged mentally at this time in his life especially and he'd all ways be telling me that you gotta hold the dice this certain way and you'll get a five every time and if you release it like this, it'll do that and I'm just like shut the fuck up you moron. But I love the guy. Anyway, Howie's being cool, dice come to me, I started rolling okay. Set a point, hit a point. Set a point. Hit a second point. Two points is a sick start if you don’t know craps.

side bar: best roll of my life, typical length of a roll is about 3 minutes – thats my mode role; best roll of life was an hour 45 minutes. Been chasing it for decades. I hit 15 or 16 points. Made everybody at the table multiple thousands of dollars. Guys were tipping ME black chips. Grate time. I bought a beater jallopy off that. A honda. So sad I was so young. I’ve been chasing it for years but I've since quit gambling.

“As long as the red dice are in the air, the gambler has hope. And hope is a wonderful thing to be addicted to.”

Back to the story: We’re breaking even MAYBE but a little under. I make a point. Make a second point. Then a third. 4th. 5th. Here. we. go. He’s finally made some money. Theres a minutia of a rumbling of a chatter he says something like “good roll.” Like very very mellow. But the energy is noticably UP even if Norm is still silent. Me and Howie are laughing and drinks are coming a round. Its grate. In general when I played craps, When I needed a specific roll, I would say some stupid line, like a lucky charm kind of thing. I rememeber at one point I needed a 4 so I said some thing like come on 4 come on 4, 2+2, every body knows that! And he didnt laugh but it would kill Howie every time. Well, bobably not but whatver.

At one point I was on a bit of a heater and I needed a 5 so I said a line I used to say ALL the time, not just for Norm, but I said "Cooooooome ooooooooon thirty two (3+2) THIRTY TWO THIRTY TWO, GIVE ME THE JUICE, GIVE ME OJ!" And I sent the dice down the table and somehow I see a 3, and then a 2. Unbelievable. We are cackling as we fall to the ground. Norm is laughing out loud. One of my gratest accomplishments. He's laughing and he looks like he's awoken from the dead for a moment.

I says to him I says, "As a baker once told me (baker was another claridge character), You gotta roll your own dough!" he chuckled politely, I brick out, dice go to him.

Four minutes pass or so.

"Heh, ya know what else they say? Heh. You gotta... you gotta... heh... you gotta roll your own bread. Heh."

"Comedy is surprises, so if you're intending to make somebody laugh and they don't laugh, that's funny."

There was a moment of silence. And then me and Howie got sent to the ground, pulling down on each other. It was objectively not very funny, all most absurdist, but his dalivery just killed me man. I hope you can here it in your head. We hung a round for a little while logner and then me and Howie peaced out. When we left, Norm hadn't moved. I do'nt imagine he did for some time. They say do'nt meet your heros, but I'm really happy to have met Norm. Rest in peace mo, thanks for all the laughs.