I always told everybody the perfect joke would be where the setup and punch line were identical.
Sometimes a writer’s strike is good. Maybe if we had a writer’s strike now, people would have to read Shakespeare instead of James Patterson.
Now that all hope is gone, a deep relief has taken its place, and I allow myself to enjoy it before the despair sets in.
Well, the results are in, and once again Microsoft CEO Bill Gates is the richest man in America. Gates says he is grateful for his huge financial success, but it still makes him sad when he looks around and sees other people with any money whatsoever.
I remember a psychiatrist once telling me that I gamble in order to escape the reality of life, and I told him that’s why everyone does everything.
And you’d correct him, but the thing is, you’re not sure you remember it a hundred percent accurately yourself. It turns out your memory isn’t the precise court stenographer you think it is, getting every word down just so. It’s more like the sketch artist way at the back of the courtroom who is doing his level best to capture images that no longer are.
It was like a broken calculator... It just didn’t add up.
The only time having a cult following is a great thing is when you are actually in a cult.
And he was standing there, reading one of those big books. You know the kind. Usually you can’t even understand their stupid titles, and when you try to read them you get one word in and get really sleepy. And it’s so stupid to try anyway, because if the stupid book is any good they’ll make a TV movie out of it and then you can watch that instead.
When it’s unexpected, death comes fast like a ravenous wolf and tears open your throat with a merciful fury. But when it’s expected, it comes slow and patient like a snake, and the doctor tells you how far away it is and when, exactly it will be at your door. And when it will be at the foot of your bed. And when it will be on your flesh. It’s all right there on the clipboards.
As Adolf Hitler once said, all publicity is good publicity.
Long after I left the segment, the term “fake news” became the ordinary way to describe what was done on SNL as well as The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. So who’s the idiot now?
How did I suddenly get so goddamn funny?
It’s funny how something as small as the news of a teenager being slaughtered and tossed in a ravine can be enough to lift the spirits of an entire set full of important Hollywood people.
Then he unsmiled his lips and got real plural on me. “We’ll let you know.
On the final night, Adam Sandler told me the following season would be a rough, divisive one, and he wanted to know which side I’d take. I told him I wanted to be on the side of the guy who had shoved the baby tomatoes up his ass. Adam smiled.
And suddenly I found myself an old man standing in a doorway as Mr. Macdonald spoke of how he didn’t trust Eskimos and never would. I had never felt such instant animus toward anyone.
Norm, I’m gonna be straight with you, because I’ve been in this business a long time. If the star of a movie has a personal assistant who, during the production of that movie, butchers over a dozen teenagers, that’s gonna hurt at the box office.
Well, the thing is, Norm, you are absolutely correct,” said Lorne. “Jim is nonpareil.” Then he just looked at me. A long time passed – maybe forty-five minutes – until I finally said, “All right, all right. What’s that word mean?
Oh, I thought everybody knew you jerked off punks underneath the Queensboro Bridge for fifteen dollars a man.” “Don’t say that anymore.” “Okay, sorry. I didn’t know you told me in confidence.” “Don’t you remember I was crying when I told you?
I understood then that it takes a powerful imagination to see a thing for what it really is.