"Oh no, you just did this and you didn’t think about it. It was just the voice that came into your head. And so it bugged me.... I've got to be honest, and I just spoke from my place... I wasn’t here when it all happened. I was in a hotel. And I cringed a little bit. It bothered me.... [Stewart] got incredibly defensive. I remember he was like, What are you trying to say? There’s a tone in your voice. I was like, 'There’s no tone. It bothered me. It sounded like Kingfish.'"That is, Kingfish, the old Amos 'n' Andy character.
According to Cenac, Stewart "got upset... stood up and he was just like, 'Fuck off. I’m done with you.' And he just started screaming that to me. And he screamed it a few times. 'Fuck off! I’m done with you.' And he stormed out. And I didn’t know if I had been fired." Cenac went outside and "I was shaking, and I just sat there by myself on the bleachers and fucking cried. And it’s a sad thing. That’s how I feel. That’s how I feel in this job. I feel alone."
ADDED: I hadn't finished listening to the podcast when I wrote this post, but now I have. It's important to recognize that Wyatt Cenac came across over the course of an hour-plus interview as a very unhappy man. When he was a kid, his father was murdered. He is estranged from his mother, who, based on his description, seems mentally ill. He avoids any contact with her and feels that she's been like a "stalker" in his life. Marc Maron told him that he has "a chip on your shoulder."
The material about Jon Stewart must be understood in this context. Look at what Cenac said in the interview. It does not reveal how Cenac expressed himself, other than that he used the "Kingfish" comparison. We can gather that Cenac perseverated on the subject and felt that, as the only black person on the writing staff, he had to represent black people and not let them down. That is, he seemed powered by righteous energy, and it sounds as though, after he was listened to, he just kept going, insisting that a bit they wanted to do should be dropped.
How long did that go on? Stewart did listen and was respectful up to a point, a point at which he snapped. I wish I could see a full transcript. I suspect, based on listening to over an hour of a very revealing interview, that Cenac tried everyone's patience, had some heavy psychological issues, and that he had to be squelched as they worked on the material for their daily show. I think they did have some empathy for Cenac and they respected his voice. That comes across in even in Cenac's subjective version of the story. But they could not give him the power to veto sketches and to drag down all the energy as they faced a deadline.
Here's the segment that Cenac wanted to stop them from airing. In it, you hear the original mocking of Cain, Fox News's use of it to portray Stewart as racist (and Fox News said "Amos and Andy" before Cenac arrived at his opinion), and Stewart's response, which was a whole big jumble of old clips of him doing various voices (including Jewish, Italian, Mexican, German, Donald Trump, and gay):
ALSO: Based on the interview, it's hard to believe that Cenac has a career in comedy. He wasn't funny and didn't try to be funny. Recently, I listened to the Marc Maron's interview with Robin Williams, which was recorded less than 4 months before Williams killed himself. Williams was far more upbeat than Cenac and made many funny observations. I don't remember Cenac saying anything even faintly amusing.
Posts
