One of the greatest things I ever saw was [Bill Clinton] at Coretta Scott King's funeral. Jimmy Carter, George Bush Senior, Hillary — all these people making speeches, and then Bill Clinton goes on and he says, "Let's all remember that that is a woman lying right there." And he points at her.
It was audacious. "That is a woman who had her dreams and her pain and her passions," and I think he said "lust." He said really personal shit about her and you immediately heard the black people go, "Yes!"
He says, "There's her family — think about what they're going through today, and everything that's happened to them since their daddy got shot. The burden that must have been hers."
Holy shit. I hope to have any of that skill as a comic. He just found this short circuit. You try to have this nature the way water does — finds the lowest place and spreads the fuck out. That's what he did.
Here's the part of that speech he's referring to...
There's also a story he tells about going to a Knicks game with Chris Rock a few months ago:
Carmelo's first game. We went up to that fucking suite where all these people were eating — politicians and mobsters and Chloë Sevigny. There's this spread of food, and I'm like, "Let's fucking eat." Chris goes, "Nah, let's get down to the floor." I'm like, "You're taking this shit for granted, Chris. There's roast beef and a guy with a hat serving it." I wanted it so bad. I was starving and he's like, "Who needs it?" And I'm like, "Are you kidding me? I'll probably never get here again."
So we go down, and I'm watching Carmelo, and I hear the song "Louie Louie" and I look up and I see my own face on the Jumbotron. And Chris says, "You know what, man, you've got your own show, and I'm on Broadway, and we're on the floor at Madison Square Garden. How fucking great is this?" And we high-fived and we just felt so good. Both of us, we're in our 40s — this shit could disappear instantly, never to return. And it will.
And one other interesting part: CK says that although Letterman is his favorite, he's been told he's "not okay there anymore" and no one will tell him why. He hasn't done the show in 15 years. Weird.
1 comment:
One possible explanation for the LCK not being right with Letterman is that he wrote there for like three months in between Conan and The Dana Carvey Show in the mid-90's, didn't have a great experience, and didn't leave on the best of terms. I don't know if something else or something more specific than that happened to cause it, but it's certainly plausible that that might do it.
That was in a superlong interview that AST did with LCK in 2006. Here's the link.
Post a Comment