Three Lists
People like to rank things. Who are the top ten basketball players who ever lived? Which rock group is the greatest? Or how about the greatest pitcher or the best soccer player? You get the picture. This post is about three of my personal lists: my favorite actor, comedian, and drummer.
I just finished watching HBO’s The Wire for the third time, and it still holds up; it did not fall from my number one all-time ranking for television dramas. Why number one? Excellent writing, stellar production, and the acting of the great Michael K. Williams. Not only is Williams my favorite actor, but he also made Omar Little into one of the greatest characters in the history of television dramas. With all due respect to Tony Soprano and Walter White, I would argue the Omar Little is number one on the most interesting and most nuanced list of fictional characters.
Every great show starts with excellent writing. Without that, it doesn’t matter how accomplished the cast is; the show is doomed. Conversely, a great actor can take the script and transcend the words on the page. That is what Micheal K. Williams did with Omar. He brought a sensibility to the character that elevated the written word to extraordinary levels. He was also brilliant as Albert “Chalky” White on Board Empire, another of my all-time favorite shows.
Now we move on to my next list, favorite comedian. This one is easy; Norm Macdonald always makes me laugh. He can tell the same joke over and over, and I will laugh. I can watch his appearance on Conan with Courtney Thorne-Smith five times a day and laugh so hard that I cry each time I click on the YouTube link. And don’t get me started on his “moth joke,” will the laughter never end?
Macdonald had a role in one of my favorite shows. He played Pigeon in Mike Tyson Mysteries, a hilarious show that ran from 2014-2020 on Adult Swim. In case you haven’t seen it (and I am nearly 100% sure you haven’t), the show consisted of Mike Tyson driving around in a van solving mysteries. His “mystery team” consisted of his adopted daughter (an Asian woman left on his doorstep), a ghost, and a drunken, lustful, depraved, and sarcastic pigeon played by Macdonald. I don’t recall them solving many mysteries; the show usually ended in chaos with unresolved cliffhangers. I laughed my way through 70 episodes. I am still sad that the show was canceled.
I recently wrote about the great Charlie Watts, my favorite drummer. There is nothing more I can say about him. He was as brilliant a musician as Williams was an actor or Macdonald a comedian.
It didn’t dawn on me until I sat down to write. I was working on separate posts about Williams and his role as Omar in The Wire and Macdonald’s appearance with Courtney Thorne-Smith, a short video I consider to be the funniest thing I have ever seen. It hit me when I cycled through a couple of my open Word documents. I mean, really? All three? All so close together?
I consider the early death of Mozart to be the greatest cosmic ripoff in history. He was only 35 when he was taken, and he was ready to fly. He would have moved music into untold magical and unexpected directions. Sure, Charlie Watts got to live a full life, but Wiliams and Macdonald were taken far too soon. Whenever an artist is taken prematurely, I think of Mozart. I think about how the world instantly became a lesser place when he passed. Today, I feel bad for all of us; the world is a little less fascinating, a little less brilliant, than it was a few short days ago. And that makes me more than a little sad.
