Norm Macdonald Returns to Television!

Yeah she’s great

All the guests on this were interesting to watch, Keaton seemed to find his footing well (he’s a total oddball but it worked perfectly here)

how could expressing one isolated opinion make this kid a genius?

People are declared geniuses based on a single idea all the time. Someone has a problem / someone provides a solution / “OMG you’re a genius!”

if Bukowski thought it was pretty before, why does this bald, simple, and unfounded denial by an anonymous kid instantly change his perception?

We don’t know that he thought it was pretty. He likely knows that the conventional wisdom is that it’s pretty, but maybe has never taken the time to really look at it and examine his own reaction to it.

and why should we trust this whimsical and apparently baseless new perception any more than his old one?

Because this new perception is based on his actually looking closely at the scene before him for the first time and making his own judgement. His previous perception wasn’t really a perception at all, just an idea of what people say his perception should be.

and why would this sudden 'realization' matter to anyone but him?

Maybe he’s making a larger observation re: the tendency towards uncritical acceptance of the popular opinion?


nb This is the first time I’ve read this poem and am mostly posting to be contrary.

if had never taken the time to really look at it and examine his own reaction to it, he seems to me to be a fairly unobservant observer and unthinking thinker. if he’s making a larger observation re: the tendency towards uncritical acceptance of the popular opinion, it is equally true that his observation is jejune and hackneyed.

aimless DESTROYS charles bukowski with LOGIC and REASON! (1,355,348 views)

hahahaha

i know zip abt bukowski except that barfly is funnier if you pretend it's an adverb, but this seems quite a slight poem making a nice little point really -- which isn't especially contrary to popular opinion, it's a p standard romantic trope -- that sometimes even the writerly need a spur to think abt how a particular word works and gets casually thrown around, and sometimes that spur comes from the unencumbered of mind still feeling their way round language. the idea that a six-year-old boy is a "genius" for this is obviously a (again slight) joke about the idea of genius in poetry, and how we chuck it around quite almost as easily and carelessly as the word "pretty". poets are greatly feted for this -- capturing a moment or an idea or a realisation or a compacted set of all these as you hadn't understood it before -- but having someone wake you up to some small realisation is actually a fairly routine occurrence, and not given only to poets, or to those people we are routinely and unthinkingly socialised to consider are poets.

bards say the darndest things

this still doesnt explain to me why we can treat norm reasonably after a clumsy gaffe which under 2014-onwards rules should see him afaict an ilx pariah

taste's strange

aimless DESTROYS charles bukowski with LOGIC and REASON!

Not bukowski. just that poem. He wrote much better poems than that one, but it's often one of a poet's least interesting poems that are embraced by the public, because they most approach the standard of a Hallmark greeting card and the public likes that.

xp "Norm's a gentle sweetheart" was the given explanation. Every time he walks in a guest, he is so damn excited that "Ted" gave him a refrigerator full of drinks. I imagine Norm interrupting a pay negotiation between Netflix and his agent to ask for it and promptly accepting their low offer after "Ted" agrees to a refrigerator full of drinks on set.

the formal introduction of Ted's refrigerator to the guest and Norm's goofy dance at the end are great bookends for this show

quite a slight poem making a nice little point really

That's Bukowski much of the time. I liked reading one of his books where the poems felt chronological, almost like tweets: this one he wrote over breakfast, this one he wrote on the way to the track, this one he wrote leaving the track...

the outro song n dance is v charming

maybe the child was double-checking the footnotes for his doctoral thesis in astrophysics before he looked up and made a throwaway remark about the view

I met a genius on the train
today
about 6 years old,
he sat beside me
and as the train
ran down along the coast
we came to the ocean
and then he looked at me
and said,
Good morning everyone and welcome to "Science and Society". I'm Dr. Sheldon Cooper, BS, MS, MA, PhD and ScD. OMG, right?

it was the first time I'd
realized
that.

a few minutes into the judge judy episode and it's not funny -- skip?

Nah don’t skip man

Judge judy episode js the worst one

Drew bmore epi the best out of the first 3

this still doesnt explain to me why we can treat norm reasonably after a clumsy gaffe which under 2014-onwards rules should see him afaict an ilx pariah

taste's strange

― Dmac TT (darraghmac), Wednesday, 19 September 2018 15:20 (eight hours ago) Permalink

Do you actually want us to make him a pariah or is this about someone else who got paraiah’d you’d rather defend?

I love how terrible his trusty sidekick Adam is

They made more of a joke out of this on the YouTube show

Also the difference between this and Eric Andre is Eric Andre seems like the kind of guy who is funny but norm is funny

its curiosity about it tbh

dont want him to be a pariah at all but without going back over case files im still p sure that ilx has been happy to hang others for no worse slipups?

Yre first mistake is thinking theres any type of framework ilx operates under

also don't like the way the netflix series conveniently erases adam egets holocaust denial.

Haha. Felt like the Adam stuff on his YouTube show could occasionally veer into cruel, but it’s a little lighter here. I’m glad he’s part of the show, it’s an endearing dynamic.

U can argue it was a bad joke but not that hes an irl holo den

norm's bafflement and wonder when he's telling the sinbad story to fred stoller on his youtube show is the hardest i've laughed at anything in about 10 years. really enjoyed the netflix series, but would have liked a few more dumb sketches to open the show. it was a good mix of guests though.

Drew Barrymore's little girl really does look like ET, that's weird.

Jane Fonda's sweater kinda reminds me of what the Vancouver Canucks of the NHL wore in the 1980s. Just with some pink added.

Adam Eget still makes me uncomfortable. I don't like the icky Dom/sub relationship between Norm and him.

“British presenters, especially in the 90s, especially children’s presenters, turned out to be a cult of much evil”

Norm otm

Could probably throw in the irish in there too

Jesus janey’s doggie is the cutest little thing I’ve ever set eyes on

Adam Eget still makes me uncomfortable.

thank you

I mean yeah, it’s uncomfortable. Intentionally.

“Dom/Sub” maybe a little much. Jesus, that might ruin it for me.

Dom sub is great

More pls

Get that fella on a choke collar

Fa otm

Adam is a lucky sob but not funny at all.

God bless Chevy chase for shutting the sucker down

Judge judy episode js the worst one

Spade's was worst one (I've seen up to Fonda) for me. Almost didn't watch another one after seeing it.
I don't get the point of sidekick guy. Fonda's matter-of-fact "oh there always has to be a sidekick huh" was lol.

Side kicks make the host better, in theory. Proven false by John Baptiste from colbert who is a ducking moron. Norm doesn’t need Adam tho it’s a pity play

It’s cheap is what I mean. Fodder to riff off

right. I meant I don't get the point of this particular one. Agree w you.

jesus i never liked this shyamalan character and i sure as fuck don't like his interview

ha dom/sub captures why I find the relationship hard to watch but end up liking adam anyway

jus gonna skip the end of the judge judy ep, she seems like she has a little too much self-regard for this show

Norm doesn’t need Adam tho it’s a pity play

Eget absolutely doesn’t need to take time off from his day job as one of the most important ppl in American comedy to play dumb as Norm’s sidekick on a youtube show.

ha man keaton episode is another good one

gay and irish jokes to boot

8/10

adam eget is a treasure and the show would be nothing without his presence

i like the spade ep a lot

fav is probably jane fonda

worst is prob m night, not wild about judge judy but she's kind of interesting

adam is obviously 'bad' but he's bad in a funny way

Billy joe shaver ep was cool, not great and not the worst

The last episode is some real boring shit, which makes sense because it’s two canadians talking

It's undeniable he has always appealed to a frat-boy kind of crowd, the types who are extremely put-out that it's now considered unacceptable to use 'gay' and 'retarded' to mean 'bad/stupid' (terms Norm himself threw around frequently on his Youtube show). Jokes about Eget 'sucking guys off', hookers, women not being funny, etc. He's often tongue-in-cheek-but-not-really. I never quite liked that side to him; he's very intelligent and it often comes through but he falls back on the bro stuff constantly. In college (early 2000s) I remember his bit about 'are you really proud of your gay son?' -- morning jock types would laff and laff. Your Adam Corollas and Joe Rogans love him. And he has no qualms about cultivating that type of fanbase. It's very clear that he's coming from an anti-PC/conservative point of view. It's not like he's trying hard to hide it.

Personally, I don't like that side to his stuff. But I find myself wading through the crap to hear his funny bits about the Beverly Hillbillies and Kojak...

I always took the gay son bit to be a joke about well meaning parents overcompensating for their discomfort or trying extra hard to project that they are good parents. The joke being that sexuality isn’t an achievement, it’s just sexuality.