Legendary writer, comedian and actor Norm Macdonald died yesterday at the age of 61.
He leaves behind a legacy of hilarious stand-up sets, TV show episodes, movies and interviews.
In 2014, he talked about doing stand-up in Florida on “The Howard Stern Show” and being offered sex and drugs by people — though he didn’t want it. During the radio interview, Stern asked Macdonald what happened in Florida.
Macdonald replied, “In Florida where I just was, they have people that, I don’t know what the fuck they do, but everybody got money,” he said. “I guess they had coke for years, like, thousands of pounds of coke and I don’t know if those guys still do it, I don’t know what the fuck.”
He went on to claim that a limo driver picked him up and told him, “I can take you anyplace, man, anything you want.”
Macdonald asked, “What?” To which the limo driver responded, “Anything you want, I got my wife.”
“Here I am thinking he’s talking about drugs or something,” Macdonald said, “but he starts with his wife!”
Stern asked him, “Was he offering you his wife?” To which Macdonald replied, “I don’t fuckin’ know. But it was all weekend long, I’d meet four or five guys and they’d go, ‘Hey so huh, this is the wife and this is the other wife and uh, how about the eight of us?” Macdonald finished the sentence with a wide-eyed stare, mimicking the husband he claimed was offering an orgy.
Macdonald said the pitches for the orgies were vague, “but you kinda go, what are you talking about? They don’t come right out and say they want to fuck ya.”
They dissected the culture of Florida and why the orgies happen — as Stern co-host and comedian Artie Lange said, “There’s always a hot tub and ecstasy and pills, and they go ‘come back and we’ll all fuck’.”
Macdonald started his stand-up career in small comedy clubs around Canada. He began his career as a writer for The Dennis Miller Show and then Roseanne before moving on to work at Saturday Night Live. He became widely popular in his role as the Weekend Update anchor. After SNL, Norm went on to act in several successful movies, ran a TV show and podcast, and never stopped pursuing his lifelong love of stand-up comedy.
Because of him, I’ll never be able to look at a moth the same again.
Go to the light, Norm.
A version of this post originally appeared at Creative Loafing Tampa Bay.
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This article appears in Sep 15-21, 2021.