It’s funny how if you say something true once or twice it sounds poignant—but if you say it repeatedly it starts to sound like a cliché.
I used to run into this as a new dad who also fancied himself a writer, when people would ask me how parenthood was going:
“Oh, it goes so fast!”
“It changes everything!”
“You can’t believe how much you love this little person!”
Finally I came up with shorthand: “All the clichés are true.”
Then I found I said that so often that even “All the clichés are true” became a bit of a cliché.
I bring all of this up today because of Norm MacDonald, the comedian, who in 2013, got some disquieting news: he’d been diagnosed with multiple myeloma.
It’s not the absolute worst possible diagnosis you can get, but it carries about a 50% five-year survival rate according to Dr. Wikipedia, and so I suspect it changes your outlook.
Norm didn’t tell anyone outside of a small group of family and his agent, not wanting the news to affect how people treated him.
Among the people he didn’t tell was David Letterman — whose Late Show he’d been on many times, and who was such a fan that he once remarked: “If we could have, we would have had Norm on every week.”
All good things come to an end, and in 2015, Letterman’s show was reaching its finale; each night was like one valedictory after another.
Norm was on the second-to-last night, after Oprah Winfrey. Tough act to follow. His routine stood out, however, and maybe it was because he knew the show wasn’t the only thing operating on borrowed time.
This was eleven years ago tomorrow. Here’s how it ended:
Listen folks — this will be my last time on the David Letterman Show. We all know that David Letterman was the greatest talk show host who ever lived.
But I remember Dave differently. Because the first time I saw him, I was 13 years old, living in Toronto, Canada. I went to a talk show they had there, and David Letterman was the stand-up comedian. He did this joke. I love this joke. It still stays with me as my favorite stand-up joke ever. So I’d like to do it for you:
I was on the street the other day and I saw a garbage truck, and on the back of the garbage truck there was a small sign that said: “Please do not follow too closely.”
Another of life’s simple pleasures ruined by meddling bureaucracy.
And then:
I know that Mr. Letterman is not for the maudlin, and he has no truck for the sentimental. But if something is true, it is not sentimental.
And I say, in truth — I love you.
Letterman was not in fact sentimental, and if you watch the video you can see him getting a bit uncomfortable even as he thanks Norm and says goodnight.
Sure enough, Norm did pass away in 2021.
I’ve been thinking about all of this because now Stephen Colbert’s version of the Late Show is ending.
Colbert lives just a few miles from me (bigger house, which suddenly seems like it relates almost too perfectly to Tuesday’s newsletter), and when I heard the news I thought, that’s too bad.
Then, I realized I hadn’t watched The Late Show in probably a year and a half.
It’s like when a restaurant you liked closes and you feel verklempt, and then you acknowledge you haven’t actually been there in 18 months, so maybe it’s kind of your fault.
Also, I think this is the beginning of the end of late night, which is OK, except to the point that it’s also a milestone on the way to people no longer having shared cultural touchstones.
Jimmy Kimmel is probably going to get axed, and while Jimmy Fallon doesn’t seem to pick as many fights as the others, his show has 1/3 the audience it did just a few years ago.
Once everyone became their own broadcaster, it was probably inevitable. Whether it’s something to cheer or mourn is probably a subject for another newsletter.
In the meantime: Say I love you. Be brave enough to be sentimental.
And remember: All the clichés are true.
Other things worth knowing …
Axios — President Trump flew to Beijing on Tuesday under some of the darkest economic clouds of his political career, leaving behind a country reeling from the cost of everyday life. For now, Trump appears unconcerned, convinced that renewed inflation is temporary and that gas prices will plummet once he ends the Iran war.
NYT — The race is on at the Justice Department, according to a report, to decide whether to settle Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS before May 20, when a judge wants arguments on whether he should dismiss the case. Besides a potential monetary payment, one option would reportedly require the IRS to drop any audits of Trump, his family members, or businesses.
America — 45 years ago today (well, yesterday): Attempted assassination of St. John Paul II recalled as turning point in history.
MSN — Members of President Donald Trump’s inner circle are secretly fed up with the aide who is enabling his unhinged late-night Truth Social rampages. Executive assistant Natalie Harp is reportedly the driving force behind some of his most incendiary content, including a racist video that depicted Barack and Michelle Obama as apes, and an AI-generated image of Trump as Jesus Christ, both of which Trump later took down.
Reddit, but Conan O’Brien — As long as I am writing about Norm MacDonald, here’s his famous “moth joke.”
Politico — Lawmakers on Capitol Hill were informed this week of a data breach involving the congressional medical office that may have compromised personal information — including their prescription history. It is not clear what foreign or domestic entity conducted the breach and where the sensitive data on lawmakers’ health could end up.
AFP — ‘I applied to be pope’: Losing grip on reality while using ChatGPT. Tom Millar is one of an unknown number of people who have lost their grip on reality while communicating with chatbots, an experience tentatively being called AI-induced delusion or psychosis.
Thanks for reading. See you in the comments.