Yes Please

  We were never fed and were left to our own devices when it came to meals. Interns would go on McDonald’s runs and buy a shitload of horrible candy. A lot of time was spent ordering food and waiting for it to be delivered. The traffic around 30 Rock often meant that we were constantly starving and complaining. One time, Slovin was bitching about his food taking forever, and once it arrived, Forte grabbed it and threw it out the window.

  I cried a lot in Mike Shoemaker’s office. Once, a few years after 9/11, I did a 9/11-based joke on “Weekend Update” during rehearsal. It didn’t go well and I came offstage and cried to producer Mike Shoemaker about how I was bad at telling jokes and how I wanted to quit.

  I also cried a lot in Maya Rudolph’s office and Spivey’s office. And in elevators. Some of the crying was from exhaustion or stress, and some of it was just the bitter burn of rejection. A teeny tiny cleaning lady named Rosa had worked at SNL for over thirty years. She barely spoke English and we all loved her. Maya and I were both crying about something and Rosa came in to empty the wastebasket. She put her hand on Maya’s shoulder and in a thick Spanish accent said, “Don’t cry, sexy.”

  Tina wrote a sketch where Chris Kattan and I played a white trash couple. It was very physical and I blacked out during a show when I was flipped upside down into a Dumpster. I woke up to Kattan standing over me and yelling. John Goodman was the host that week and is probably still my favorite, because he was nice to me when no one knew my name.

  Once, after a long after-party, I was outside smoking with “Weekend Update” writer and future Parks and Recreation creator Mike Schur. Seth Meyers was also there, as well as many other men whose opinion I cared about. Host Ashton Kutcher walked out of the party and headed to his limousine. He casually said good-bye to me and I loudly and sincerely shouted like a crazy fan, “Love you, Ashton. You’re the best!!” It was very uncool. I was much too loud.

  When Sir Ian McKellen hosted, he greeted us every day by booming out in his perfect voice, “Good morning, actors!” Colin Farrell was super hungover and super nice. Hugh Jackman was incredibly kind and sent everyone a case of Foster’s beer. Jessica Simpson was the prettiest host I had ever seen without makeup. Bernie Mac was the sweetest and kindest.

  Matthew McConaughey wore a sarong in Lorne’s office, I danced at a club with Christina Aguilera, and Antonio Banderas smelled the best of any host.

  I made a drink for James Gandolfini to settle his nerves before an “Update” piece he was doing. Once I asked Paul Giamatti during the show if he was having fun, and he smiled and said, “This is a fucking nightmare!”

  When Ashlee Simpson’s song screwed up, Dratch, Maya, and I were dressed in Halloween costumes for Parnell’s “Merv the Perv” sketch. We screamed and ran into Tom Broecker’s wardrobe department and hid under a table. Maya was dressed as a pregnant woman in a catsuit. I was Uma Thurman from Kill Bill. Dratch was Raggedy Ann. I remember us huddling together buzzing about the excitement of that weird live moment and then someone saying, “At least 60 Minutes is here.” For those who don’t remember, 60 Minutes was doing a profile on Lorne and happened to be there. Jackpot, Lesley Stahl!

  Maya, Queen Latifah, and I were in a sketch where we had to sing a few songs as backup singers. Five seconds before we went live our stage manager, Gena, told us there was a problem with the track and we had to sing without music. We looked at each other wide-eyed and excited. When that sketch was over Latifah said, “That was crazy!” and we high-fived.

  I sat in on Prince’s sound check. He was the musical guest and Steve Martin was the host. He walked over to me after he was done. My musician friend and lifelong Prince fan Amy Miles burst into tears. I turned to Prince and awkwardly asked him, “How was your summer?”

  When U2 performed, Bono came over to hug me. My whole body blushed and I almost died from excitement and fear. Years later I paid him back by making out with him during a bit at the Golden Globes, thus completing a circle and allowing myself to effectively time-travel.

  Speaking of time travel, I did a sketch with Jon Bon Jovi where I was a fourteen-year-old version of myself and he stepped out of a poster. The set was designed like my actual bedroom as a child, and Spivey and I had a long discussion about what brand of hair spray should be on the dresser. I think White Rain won. Jon Bon Jovi went into his own archives and got out the actual outfit he had worn twenty years before during the Slippery When Wet Tour. It still fit. Jon Bon keeps it tight.

  I wrote that scene and most of my favorite scenes with Emily Spivey. Spivey is an insanely talented writer and actor from the Groundlings via North Carolina. She has a sharp tongue and gifted sense of character, and we would huddle together on Tuesday writing nights and try to do a “jam out,” which basically meant write something fast and fun. Out of that came Kaitlin, the hyperactive girl with a heart of gold. Kaitlin had boundless optimism, and she was a tribute to all latchkey kids who had to amuse themselves. It was also an homage to a Gilda Radner sketch called “The Judy Miller Show.” Spivey and I would spend hours talking about the genius of Gilda, or Jan Hooks, or Phil Hartman. We were also obsessed with the song “I’m No Angel” by Gregg Allman for some reason. We spent our whole tenure at SNL trying to get that song into a sketch. It ended up being the soundtrack to a scene where the super-pregnant me hits on Josh Brolin in a honky-tonk bar. Spivey was also pregnant at the time. It might have been the only time two pregnant women wrote a scene about a pregnant woman on SNL.

  Courtesy of Broadway Video Enterprises and NBC Studios, LLC

  Spivey and I wrote a sketch based on a real moment we had with the handsome and talented Justin Timberlake. He was hosting and came into the office one writing night. We both got very flummoxed, and it caused us to write a scene where I was attempting to give him notes backstage during a show. I was dressed as a leprechaun with a giant orange wig. I ended up getting tongue-tied and eventually just started humping on him. Justin had a lovely Southern woman who was his ex-teacher and “handler” at the time. She did not think it was a good idea for him to be shirtless during this sketch. I point to these boundaries as one reason why Justin has kept his shit together.

  I once wrote a sketch where Steve Martin and I were two drunk people applying for a bank loan. It didn’t make air, but he still asks me about it sometimes, which is better.

  You could spend the whole night working on a sketch and arrive the next morning to see that it was not in the read-through packet. Spivey and I wrote a sketch once about two dumb girls in a car shouting out the window at an eighteen-wheeler semi. The girls kept telling the driver to “honk it!!” Shoemaker called us the next morning to tell us the sketch wasn’t going to be read because there was no way to get a semi into Studio 8H. I’m sure he pulled it because he was trying to save us from embarrassment.

  Read-through day was always exhausting and fun. I sat next to Seth and scribbled notes. Fred Armisen would write end-of-the-year diatribes where he pretended to be angry at everyone. They worked because we all loved Fred and we knew he loved us. One day before a Wednesday read-through, Rachel Dratch threw her back out and had to lie down on the floor. Host Johnny Knoxville offered to help and pulled ten loose pills out of his pocket before realizing none of them were painkillers. A hot NBC doctor came upstairs and all the single guys started hitting on her. Rachel did the entire first half of the read-through from the floor.

  We had a sexual harassment meeting once and I spent the whole time sitting next to Will Forte drawing penises. At the end of the meeting I was asked to hand in the sign-in sheet and I gave the guy the penis paper by accident. Tracy Morgan used to tell us, “Don’t peak at dress,” and “Don’t let the pages jinx your shit.” Paula Pell was usually the funniest person in the room. Or Fred Armisen. Unless Baldwin was there.

  “Debbie Downer” was one of the few sketches where I broke, and I remember watching Horatio Sanz laugh so hard that tears squirted out of his eyes. I still believe that sketch may be a cure for low-level depression if watched r
egularly.

  Jim Downey ignored the fact that I never did a good impression of Hillary Clinton and used to sit with me between dress and air going over his notes for the scenes he had written. It took me a while to find a real “take” on her. We used to use videotapes to help with impressions, and I would take my tapes into Darrell Hammond’s room where he would give me tips on how to sound like Hillary. I gave her a crazy laugh, which she didn’t have in real life. As the election year progressed I loved getting to play her as this highly focused and slightly angry woman who was tired of being the smartest person in the room. I secretly hoped she watched some of my sketches and could live vicariously through the things I got to say.

  The memories I have with Seth could fill a whole book. When I left SNL, I gave Seth a badge of courage, like Dorothy gives to the Cowardly Lion. The props department helped me make it. He kept it in his pocket during “Update” until he didn’t need it anymore. Now it sits in a box on his desk at Late Night.

  When Tina left, I gave her dog tags that read “Pleasant Tomorrow.” Recently she gave them back to me while I was going through a tough time. I like to think we will give them back and forth to each other whenever needed.

  “Bronx Beat” was a sketch that was a dream to write and perform. Maya and Spivey and I would just improvise for hours in their office. We named those characters after Jodi Mancuso and Betty Rogers in the SNL hair department. Jodi had that accent and attitude. Maya and I would sit on set a few minutes before our scene went on the air and just talk to each other in character.

  I spent many nights sitting in Spivey’s office, smoking out the window and staring at the Empire State Building.

  I spent many nights in Tina’s office, watching her write and pretending to help her.

  I spent many nights in Seth’s office, watching him write and adjusting his temperature and lighting.

  I watched the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree lighting from Lorne’s office and all I remember thinking is “I am so tired.” Most of the bigger moments in my career happened in that office. Steve Higgins brought me in there to tell me I was hired. Lorne called me in to tell me I was doing “Update.” He told me that once I said my name everything would change. He was right. Lorne once told me he was “never nervous when [I was] out there.” He never scared me and often made me laugh. He handed me a rope and it was up to me whether I would climb it or use it to hang myself. He gave kind advice and expected the best from me. He loves his kids and paid for me to fix my teeth. One Saturday morning I bit into a bagel and the veneer Lorne had bought me popped off my front tooth. I had an emergency appointment at the dentist and spent an entire “Weekend Update” living a real-life stress dream that my tooth was going to fall out. Lorne is my friend and I love him and will always be grateful for the huge opportunities he gave me and continues to give me. I hope one of his assistants will print this out for him because otherwise he will probably never read this.

  Every single time I heard Don Pardo announce my name I would bow my head in gratitude. Don kept his voice-over booth warm and stocked with goodies. He told me he used to drive to 30 Rock in the 1950s and park right out front. He would record for NBC and then use the two dollars he’d brought with him to buy a sandwich and a cup of coffee. He was one of many nonagenarians who still worked on the show. Another was lighting designer Phil Hymes. One time Kenan Thompson was testing with me as a possible “Weekend Update” replacement for Tina. Phil took a look at Kenan sitting next to me and said, “Kenan, I hope you don’t get this because there is no way I can light the two of you next to each other.”

  Once Dratch and I played Michael Jackson and Elizabeth Taylor, respectively, in a sketch where we sat in a tree twenty feet in the air. I looked out over Studio 8H and for the millionth time laughed at my crazy life. Tina and I used to look at each other before “Update” and also laugh at our crazy lives. We would whisper, “We fooled them!” Sometimes I would pat her knee. One time I ran into Mick Jagger, Tom Petty, and Eric Idle in the hallway and I was legitimately mad that they were in my way, but the gratitude never left me. Comedy had not died. Someone was still letting me do it.

  every mother needs a wife

  I HAVE ALWAYS HAD A JOB, SO WHEN I HAD MY TWO CHILDREN I DIDN’T ASSUME I WOULD STOP WORKING. I slowed down, which I was happy to do. I was grateful that I could. Most can’t. However, I had no plans of being a full-time stay-at-home mother. This is not to say I think being a stay-at-home mother is not a job. It certainly is. It’s just not for me. Remember my motto, “Good for you, not for me.”

  The whole business of working mothers and stay-at-home mothers is so touchy (or tetchy, if you’re a Brit). The subject inherently sucks. Not a week goes by without annoying and bullshit articles claiming “breast milk makes kids better liars” or “you should have only one child unless you live on a farm.” We torture ourselves and we torture each other, and all of it leads to a lot of women-on-women crime. Here are some examples:

  1.A stay-at-home mother is introduced to someone as “Aiden’s mom” rather than her own name, which apparently doesn’t matter.

  2.A working mother is out at a function and people say, “What are you doing out? Don’t you have little kids? Who’s watching them?”

  3.A new mother talks about how she is breast-feeding her baby because she “just wants [her] baby to be healthy.”

  4.A working mother sees a woman breast-feeding and asks her, “Are you still doing that?”

  5.A working mother acts like she is too busy to answer e-mails.

  6.A stay-at-home mother acts like she is too busy to answer e-mails.

  7.A stay-at-home mother talks about how she doesn’t work because “they are only young once” and she doesn’t “want to miss a thing.”

  8.A working mother talks about how “it’s not quantity, it’s quality.”

  9.A stay-at-home mother needs a nanny, can afford one, and refuses to hire one, and in doing so denies her kids another caring and nurturing adult and denies herself some much-needed personal time and self-care.

  10.A working mother relies too heavily on her nannies and feels defensive about it, so she overcompensates by talking nonstop about some weird music class she took her kid to once.

  11.A stay-at-home mother approaches a working mother and grills her about how many hours she works. She gets really interested in what time the working mother leaves in the morning and comes home at night. Then she comments, “I honestly don’t know how you do it.”

  I’ve gotten the last one a lot. The “I don’t know how you do it” statement used to get my blood boiling. When I heard those words I didn’t hear “I don’t know HOW you do it.” I just heard “I don’t know how you COULD do it.” I would be feeling overworked and guilty and overwhelmed and suddenly I would be struck over the head by what felt like someone else’s bullshit. It was an emotional drive-by. A random act of woman-on-woman violence. In my fantasy I would answer, “What do you mean how do I do it? Do you really want to know the ins and outs of my nanny schedule? Do you want to know how I balance child care with my husband and the different ways I manipulate and negotiate work to help me put my kids first when needed?” Sometimes I would fantasize about answering the question “How do you do it?” with quick one-word answers: “Ambivalence.” “Drugs.” “Robots.”

  Of course, the ultimate comeback would be “Obviously you don’t know how I do it. Because you don’t do it. You couldn’t. What do you do, again?”

  See what I did there? Crime!

  There is an unspoken pact that women are supposed to follow. I am supposed to act like I constantly feel guilty about being away from my kids. (I don’t. I love my job.) Mothers who stay at home are supposed to pretend they are bored and wish they were doing more corporate things. (They don’t. They love their job.) If we all stick to the plan there will be less blood in the streets.

  But let me try to answer the question for real.

  Do you want to know how I do it? I can do it because I hav
e a wife. Every mother needs a wife. My wife’s name is Dawa Chodon. Sometimes it is Mercy Caballero. It used to be Jackie Johnson. Dawa is from Tibet and Mercy is from the Philippines. Jackie is from Trinidad. Over the past five years they have helped me and Will take care of our children. We are lucky. Some people cannot afford this option and have little family support. Every mother needs a wife. Some mothers’ wives are their mothers. Some mothers’ wives are their husbands. Some mothers’ wives are their friends and neighbors. Every working person needs someone to come home to and someone to come get them out of the home. Someone who asks questions about their day and maybe fixes them something to eat. Every mother needs a wife who takes care of her and helps her become a better mother. The women who have helped me have stood in my kitchen and shared their lives. They have made me feel better about working so hard because they work hard too. They are wonderful teachers and caretakers and my children’s lives are richer because they are part of our family. The biggest lie and biggest crime is that we all do this alone and look down on people who don’t.

  Can’t we all agree that more eyes on a kid is ultimately better? Doesn’t that at least lower the chances of him running into the street?

  Now let me tell you about the music class I took my kid to once.

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