Hello to my new subscribers! Thank you for helping me keep this thing afloat.
Here’s another little podcast I recorded while limping around my cage. I mean condo. My new audio recorder was in my shirt pocket, so there are some shirt-pocket sounds.
After the transcript, I’ve got a few more items of interest.
<Transcript>
🎶 He’s the enemy of bigots and late-night midgets / Now it’s time for Cue the Crickets 🎶
“Ehhh, that guy’s just a crippled shut-in. What’s he gonna do?”
Does that answer your question, Rumpelstiltskin?
I’m not a serf. I’m not a vassal. I don’t till the land for a wealthy patron.
The things I write [and say] on this Substack are under my own name. Or… well, my pen name. But it’s mine. It’s mine. It’s my intellectual property.
The things I write — excuse me, past tense, wrote — for television were the property of the people who used it. And the jokes that they didn’t use, they allowed me to publish myself.
Which, it seems to me, only further solidifies my position. They recognized that that was my work. They recognized that the stuff I wrote for them was my work, and they allowed me to publish it myself [if they didn’t use it].
Now. You saw that exchange, and it…
Look, I was scared I was gonna get fired.
And I was so sleep-deprived [a week after Charlie Kirk’s assassination], I guess I thought I had done something wrong. Based on his reaction, I was like, “Oh, crap.” And I went back and read it. I was like, “Okay, maybe it did come off like I was accusing him of something.”
I wasn’t. I did not accuse him of anything on September 18, the day in question.
So I begged for forgiveness, as you saw.
He said, “Ehh, don’t worry about it. Thumbs-up emoji.”
And then, after a month of not using my work…
“Meh. Bye.”
And again, as I said: They have the right to hire and fire whoever they want, for any reason. And I have the right to point out what I saw with my own eyes. And now you’ve seen it too.
If you disagree with me, okay. If you want to rebut me, please do. If you can’t connect those dots, okay.
My words are not a public utility. Well, okay, people actually pay for public utilities.
That’s the thing that really rankles me. He was getting [my paid] newsletter for free. A millionaire was getting my work for free [because I gave it away to him]. Which, at the time, I thought was a good investment. It got me that job.
For…
Am I going to get in trouble if I tell you how much they paid me?
It wasn’t as much as you’re thinking. Probably. Unless you really hate me, and you think it was like $15 an hour. It wasn’t that, but it wasn’t a lot more than that.
And somehow, that was a license to just use any work I published anywhere, including on my own Substack.
I’m sorry, that’s just not how it works. You don’t get to do that.
And if you want to fire me for noticing, and politely [noting it to you]... I thought it was polite. It was pretty polite. Okay, it could be interpreted as passive-aggressive by a passive-aggressive person. And we both are, let’s face it.
But it honestly wasn’t. I just wanted credit for my work. That’s all I wanted. That’s all I want now.
I don’t want that job back. I don’t want to work for that guy.
And again, there’s only one person in that entire building, or any of the other buildings that company owns, or any of the other remote workers that they employ… I don’t have a problem with anybody — anybody — in that company except one guy.
My beef isn’t with you. My beef is with him.
Now, if you want to protect him, if you want to protect him after he’s behaved like this…
Well.
What am I supposed to do here?
Get run over again?
I’m just a guy. This is a David vs. Goliath story. Except in this case, Goliath comes up to about… oh, about here.
You can’t see it. I’m doing a sight gag on radio. My hand is parallel with the floor at about nipple height. That’s about how tall this guy is.
5’6”, right. [LAUGHS]
But he’s a Goliath in terms of wealth, fame, influence. Everybody knows who he is.
Even the people who don’t like to talk about him because he beats all the other late-night shows. I don’t take anything away from him on that account. I was glad to help with that for a while.
That’s the other thing: Just because this guy has made me his enemy doesn’t mean I’m their friend.
That’s not how that works. His enemy is not my friend. I don’t like them either. I don’t like any of these late-night guys.
As far as I’m concerned, late-night TV died when Conan went away. And if I want to be really honest, when he left NBC.
Arguably, when he went to The Tonight Show. That was the beginning of the end.
The last time Norm Macdonald appeared on Conan O’Brien… whatever year that was.
March 4, 2010. Okay, well, that was… almost exactly a month after I got hit. [It was actually January 19, because Grok is dumb.] So that was when late-night TV died for me. I wasn’t watching a lot of late-night TV back then anyway, because I was in excruciating pain.
So yeah, late-night TV has not been part of my life. Sorry to say: Including when I wrote for it. I would watch [the first few minutes] to see if my jokes made it on, but that was about it.
I don’t want my job back. I just want him to apologize for firing me because I noticed that he used a line of mine without attributing it to me.
That’s it. That’s all I want.
And all his money, all his fame does not protect him from the ethical problems he’s created for himself.
In closing: Bragging about being the top late-night show in 2025 is like bragging about being the world’s tallest midget.
Just to name two of this man’s achievements.
</Transcript>
By the way, this is not true:
No, I said I did not accuse him of that on September 18, a month before he fired me. I said that in retrospect, based on his overreaction, my opinion has changed. But at the time, I didn’t accuse him of anything.
Which would be an obvious distinction if “journalist” Will Sommer had read what I wrote. I didn’t use that many big words.
Someone please explain to him how linear time works. Six weeks ago is not today. If necessary, use hand puppets.
Like this one!
I guess this is a good sign: Earlier this week, I was #30 Rising in News on Substack. I’m not sure exactly what that means, but it’s nice to know somebody’s paying attention.
Once again, my bitter rivalry with Katie Couric has been reignited.
Happy Halloween! I’ll talk at you on Monday.
