Fri. Sept. 21 

“Every job I’ve had, I’ve been fired,” said comic Norm Macdonald.
     He was most notoriously sacked from his “Saturday Night Live” “Weekend Update” anchor role in 1997 for harsh jokes and non-sequitors that displeased the West Coast head of NBC. Recently, Comedy Central dropped the acerbic, hilarious “Sports Show with Norm Macdonald” after nine episodes. 
     “I had a lot of fun with it,” Macdonald said. “I guess it was bad timing. It was on a Tuesday and every Tuesday there was an important NBA playoff game, so anybody who was a sports fan would watch that over my show. It was depressing. Also I think no woman ever watches sports so we lost all the women. They’re talking about bringing it back somewhere else, but I don’t hold out much hope for that.”
    “Thankfully,” the 47-year-old Macdonald continued, “I always did stand-up. That’s all I ever wanted to do. Thank goodness, because other guys - ‘actors’ - have to be waiters or something.”
   Macdonald just released a DVD, “Me Doing Standup,” but he won’t be doing a minute of it when plays the Wilbur Theatre Friday Sept. 21 at 10. If it’s been recorded, it’s history. Macdonald said he has seven hours of material from which to pluck. We spoke with the Quebec City-born comic from his Los Angeles home on Tuesday.
    JSInk: You say some reasonable-sounding, but pretty outrageous stuff in concert. How do your on and off stage personas relate?
  Macdonald: I guess onstage is lots closer to me. I can say things onstage I wouldn’t’ say offstage because of the “politeness” of society. Not that I’m into being shocking. I can just be unfiltered on stage, which is fun.
   There’s the idea that you can communicate truth in comedy that you can’t otherwise.
    Yeah. First of all I don’t have a very good memory, so I accidentally developed a way of doing standup where I have a central theme or idea I want to get across. Once I know something’s funny I’ll drift around and talk between the jokes.
     How much is scripted? How much is improvised?
     Depending on the night, about 30-50 percent is improvised. I have punchlines that I know are strong enough to make up for all the yammering up to that point. Some guys are perfect word-for-word acts. But you feel like an idiot saying the same thing every single night. When I started, I’d memorize everything the same way, and you sort of go insane: What am I doing?
    You’ve done lots of OJ jokes. I’m guessing the Casey Anthony verdict might pop up Friday.
    I’m sure I’ll be talking about it, but I haven’t figured it out in my head because it came as such a stunner. I thought she was guilty, but now they switched it all and I just believe whatever they tell me on TV. This one’s not causing a big racial divide that I’ve noticed. I do remember when the OJ thing happened, friends of mine that were black would defend him. And I’d feel they knew he was guilty and I’d go, “Come on, really, you think he’s innocent?” And they’d go, “You never know.” I didn’t understand it until Baretta [Robert Blake] killed his wife and I just love Baretta so much. I know he’s probably guilty but I was so happy Baretta got off ‘cause I love that show.
   I saw a recent interview where you were talking about “Weekend Update” and you said, “I always told everybody the perfect joke would be where the setup and punch line were identical.” Is that were you’re at now?
   That was specific to “Update,” but my act did get less and less clever because I sort of realized what cleverness was, which was kind of a fraudulent idea.
  You’ve done a lot of bits on dying and death. Heck, you played the voice of Death on “Family Guy” once.
   When I hit 40 I got very into death, but I’ve kinda exhausted that now. But people watch “Family Guy” like crazy and I get recognized from that  half-hour show ten years ago. One time I was on an airplane and two kids sent me a note through the flight attendant. She came up very alarmed and concerned and said, “Do you know these two?” I said no. The note said something like “Hey, it’s great to have Death on the airplane.” We got off the airplane and these kids are taken away by security. I explained to the lady, but she didn’t care for that.
    You’ve cited your late friend, comic Sam Kinisoncq as a great influence.
    He was the last original voice in comedy. When I started he would walk [clear] every room. I realized how dangerous he was because other guys that are “shocking” are not really very daring at all – the Janeane Garofolo school where everybody’s on her side.
   What did Kinison do for you?
   When I was starting, my biggest influence was Bill Cosby. My act was perfectly clean and incredibly generic and then one night Sam was talking to me and he said, “Your act is real good and everything, but when you’re on stage you can talk about anything you want. That’s the beauty of it.” He said talk about what’s interesting in your life and it changed my whole view. Before I was aiming toward the audience, trying to figure out things that were “universal’ and then he taught me the personal is universal.
  Have you heard about Michael Todd, the Coheed & Cambria bassist?
   No.
   The other day, before a show at Comcast Center, he took a cab to Walgreens and held it up with a fake bomb note, trying to steal Oxycontin before a show. And he took the cab back to the venue and was busted.   
    Oh my god. That’s hilarious.
    Like rock stars can’t even get free drugs at shows anymore or don’t have roadies to procure them.
   Exactly. I will definitely use it. I thank you for that. Tickets: $32-$25.

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