* * *
First, I'll take advantage of this mass media format to address a small matter that needs clarification: Those who know of me know that I love doody jokes, but that is very different than loving doody. I make rape jokes, but I certainly don't approve of rape. These nuances might seem obvious to you, but there are people out there who think they are fans of mine, feel we are kindred spirits, and want very much to show me pictures of their poop and other extremely disgusting things. And it gets worse.
One night I was at the Hollywood Improv and a famous musician from the '80s approached me with a few of his friends. I was a big fan and very excited to meet him. He said, "You are my favorite comedian! I loved Jesus Is Magic!" I was so excited, I gushed,
"Thank you so much, I'm a big fan of yours--"
"You have the best nigger jokes!"
"Well, I don't...that's not how I--"
"She's got the best nigger jokes!" he repeated to his friends.
It was pretty horrifying. It probably can best be described as what an old boyfriend would call a "mouth full of blood laughs," when a person in the audience is laughing at the wrong thing--the ugly part of the joke--the part intended for irony or insidiousness. It would be uncouth to divulge this musician's identity, though the wide-eyed earnestness with which he employed the word "nigger" leads me to believe he sees no fault in his use of it, as he sees no fault (or difference) in the way I had used it. But I will tell you that after that incident I Stopped Believin'.
I know that all this crap is what I should expect when I choose to build a career on shock and profanity, but since I've got this book, I'm going to try to get the message out: I'm not interested in seeing pictures of anyone's bowel movements. The two exceptions would be (1) Clive Owen's, for obvious reasons; and (2) Nelson Mandela's, because his life has just been such an incredibly rich journey.
This all relates to the larger point of this chapter: That I am not an animal. Of course I am literally an animal, but I mean "I am not an animal" the way the Elephant Man meant it (though he was pretty gross). I feel I have life pretty much figured out, and I would now like to share this gift with you. I have a mantra, and that is: "Make It a Treat." Look, there's not much useful to take away from this book--it's largely stories of a woman who has spent her life peeing on herself. But there is one way I really believe I can help the world, and that is to encourage everyone, in all things, to "Make It a Treat."
This maxim was introduced to me by my friend Kerry (you know, the descendant of African royalty from a few brilliant chapters ago). It happened when we were freshmen in college. She came up from Howard University to visit me at NYU and found me smoking pot like a disgusting fiend all day. I offered her a hit of my joint and she waved me off. I didn't understand. I knew she smoked pot. "Just because I take a puff sometimes doesn't mean I'm gonna make a career of it," Kerry explained. "If you want to enjoy these things--things like weed--you have to make it a treat."
I've had very few epiphanies while being extremely stoned that have endured. Mostly they evaporate like mist at the moment I start munching pizza. (An exception that comes to mind is "2-3-1-7-8." I found it to be an extremely hilarious sequence of numbers when I was stoned, and as you can see in sobriety's harsh glare, it remains so.) But Kerry's tiny pearl of wisdom struck me, and stuck with me. For a four-word, off-the-cuff dictum, it has had a surprisingly large impact on my life.
"Make It a Treat" is similar in spirit to "everything in moderation," but still very distinct. "Moderation" suggests a regular, low-level intake of something. MIAT asks for more austerity; it encourages you to keep the special things in life special. I apply this rule in a variety of ways. For instance, I wear makeup and high heels on special occasions. But if I dressed up all the time, it would become ordinary, and I would receive fewer compliments. If makeup and heels was my everyday look, I would be met with disappointed reactions if, one day, I went out in a hoodie and sneakers. Instead, it's the opposite: A hoodie and sneakers are my everyday look, so on those rare occasions when I do dress up, or put any effort into my appearance at all, it's met with "Look at you!"
Nowhere do I find myself invoking MIAT more than in the writers' room of my television show. My writing staff is a bubbling cauldron of primordial id (more on this in another chapter), and I'm not far ahead of them on the evolution chart. There is a constant clamor to introduce farts, both into the scripts and our immediate atmosphere. I have--not just for a female, but any human being--an inordinate love of farts (jokes involving them, that is; though I don't personally emit them--ever). Fart jokes make me happier than just about anything in the universe. And for that reason I'm terrified by the idea that someday I might have had enough of them. If they are a genuine treat and a surprise, they are the surest way to send me into tear-soaked convulsions of laughter. (For any devoted fans of the show who happen to be reading this, I realize that in a particular episode of season two, there were roughly thirty-seven farts, but in that instance they were essential to the plot and emotional stakes, so we had no choice but to make an exception.)
Another treat in my show's comedy cookie jar is Steve Agee's gagging and dry heaving. If you're not familiar with it, a written description won't help. It's just hilarious. No other element of the show has forced me to shout, "MAKE IT A TREAT!!" like Steve's gagging has. To yank "STEVE GAGS" out of a script is easy. But I can't be on the set for every scene. So I'll be sitting in the editing room watching a cut, and goddamnit, there that motherfucker is, doing an unscripted dry heave. Sometimes he'll do a very subtle one, like he thinks if I'm not watching carefully, he can slip it past me. But since I watch each episode literally dozens of times before they're finalized, I'll eventually catch it and, ignoring the editor's pleading expression, I order it cut. I do this because I love to watch Steve gag, and I never want to stop loving it. Being a standard-bearer can be lonely, but I know I'm doing it for the greater good. You're welcome on that.
And then, of course, there is pot. Since that moment with Kerry, I treat pot with the sacredness it deserves. I smoke it the way one might have a glass of wine with dinner. On certain days of the week, when my work is done, and I am sure that I have no intellectual responsibilities left, I take one puff, maybe two, and relax. On special occasions, I literally make it a treat, and eat a pot brownie.
I'll be honest; I have contempt for pretty much every drug other than pot. I find drunk people gross. Most people with more than one drink in them aren't giggly, goofy, and happy the way people are with a puff of pot smoke in them. In the best case, a drunk person rambles, shares way too much uncomfortable information, and embarrasses himself instead of amusing others. Just as often, drunks are sullen, hostile, wobbly, slurry, and smelly. They talk way too close to my face, and their self-consciousness level rises to such a degree that if you blink at them wrong, they wanna know what your problem is. At a party, I have so much fun stoned, flitting about--but once I sniff that first wave of drunkenness on someone, I'm out of there. To me, it's a signal that tells me it's time to head to a diner and finish the night right. With eggs.
I find that people are generally less able to make alcohol a treat than pot. Alcohol tends to be a regular habit, and lots of drinkers don't cut themselves off after a reasonable amount--they just keep drinking until there is none left.
Whoever designed cocaine intended it as an attack on "Make It a Treat." The only thing that snorting a line of coke leads to is snorting more lines of coke. Coke turns people into coke fiends. That fact wouldn't bother me necessarily, if they could ever just shut the fuck up. But that is exactly what coked-up people cannot do. And with the possible exception of Richard Pryor, cocaine leads to not-shutting-up about profoundly boring things. I was recently at a party, and got ear-raped by a guy too wired to see that I had no interest in his passionate lecture about Egyptian furniture. Coke and booze, to me, are just not chemically designed for self-control; they don't facilitate the mind-set of making things sacred. Coke makes everyone, withou
t exception, huge douchebags.
I turn now to sex, and the Internet video watching thereof. I think it's imperative that for the good of society, we should all strive to make porn a treat. That has been especially challenging for me as I write this book because, of course, I am at home, at my desk, on my laptop, at all times one click away from watching people fuck--and in the most fascinating, shocking ways. The reasons for making porn a treat are fairly obvious: Like any image you spend lots of time looking at, it shapes your brain. If I'm watching porn every day, I'm allowing my brain to be shaped by the people who work in porn. I may masturbate to them, but I certainly don't revere them. I'm compelled to point out that porn actors, more than anyone else on the planet, have no sense of "Make It a Treat." They spend their lives making unspecial the most special thing in the world. I wish they made porn starring people whom I do actually respect. It might be cool to have watched Eunice Kennedy, who started the Special Olympics, have sex with one of those Doctors Without Borders guys--they're so amazing.
I've been very prescriptive, and at moments just flat-out judgmental in this chapter, and it's about to get a little worse. I am going to recommend that you also make anal sex a treat. In my own life, it's nonexistent. I am one of those people who believe that anuses are filthy (except mine; you could eat off mine--it's been scientifically proven). Again, doody comes out of tushies--mine excepted--and that's gross.
(Time out for a second, and please note that I largely direct this advice to heterosexuals, as the issues for gay men are logistically different. Aaaaand time in.)
Regardless of nature's plans for my asshole, a large foreign object up there is, well, what's a stronger phrase meaning "not my cup of tea"? I understand and respect that you might be different. So, if you must, may I at least suggest that you apply ample lubrication and a generous dollop of MIAT? Presumably, at the deepest level, you enjoy anal sex because it's forbidden and dangerous and perverse. That allure and mystery will be more successfully preserved if you keep the lube in the attic instead of the bedside drawer.
I am a creature of habit, so to make anything that I really love a treat is often a challenge. One colleague cleverly told me that my insistence on making things a treat should, itself, be made a treat. I recall saying "touche" but also thinking that I wouldn't mind firing him. Actually, that's often how I feel when I'm saying "touche" to someone. I don't follow my own or anyone else's advice all the time. But that's why mantras need to be repeated--they're fucking hard to remember. So a heartfelt thanks to Kerry--the friend I deeply adore but get to enjoy only on special occasions.
LIVE FROM NEW YORK, YOU'RE FIRED
* * *
The Happiest I Have Ever Been in a Public Toilet
* * *
In 1993, when I was twenty-two, I flew to Los Angeles to meet with Jim Downey and Lorne Michaels (the executive producer and head writer nonrespectively, of Saturday Night Live). They were looking to hire new writer-performers for the upcoming season, and I was one candidate among many to be interviewed. To the meeting, I wore my hair mostly down, with two small ponytails pulled off my face, mimicking a picture of Gilda Radner that had always stuck in my mind. Later that night, I was invited to the Coneheads premiere at Grauman's Chinese Theatre, and that's where my manager informed me that I'd gotten the job.
If women could ejaculate, I would have exploded hot jizz all over my manager's face. Instead, I hugged him. The only thing that kept me from melting to the floor was the fact that I was bouncing up to the ceiling. I could not believe it. I wanted to tell everyone. Nothing in the world--at least for a comedian--could be better than telling your friends that you're going to be on Saturday Night Live. Telling those very people with whom you reenacted all the "Sweeney Sisters" musical numbers, telling your mother who never said "cheeseburger" or "Pepsi" the same way after 1975. I don't know what to compare it to. I guess if you fixed clocks for a living, it'd be like getting to fix Big Ben.
Learning you've been hired and telling everyone you know is one of the great joys of the SNL experience. And here it was happening to me. In the middle of a movie theater in L.A. where I didn't know anyone and at a time when only assholes owned cellphones. So I did the only thing I could do: I went to the bathroom, locked myself in a stall, and just...beamed.
* * *
I Am Awakened to the Existence of Harvard, and to My Not Having Gone There
* * *
The basic SNL workweek went like this: Monday, we would go to Lorne's office, meet the guest host, and take turns pitching our sketch ideas; the host would smile and nod and pretend to like all of them. Then we'd go off and start writing. You worked on the sketches you pitched, although if any other writers took an interest they might offer to collaborate and vice versa. On Tuesday, it was tradition to write all night long, all the way through to Wednesday's table read at 4:00 p.m.
My office was adjacent to another writer, named Ian Maxtone Graham. He was everything his three-name name suggests. Someone told me he never got his license because he grew up always having drivers.
Knowing that Ian Maxtone Graham grew up with drivers, it might shock you to learn that he wasn't the most hoity-toity of the writers there. The Harvard Lampoon has always been a breeding ground for SNL writers, and these guys were practically born with ascots. To give you an idea, they regularly teased Ian Maxtone Graham (you really have to say the whole name) for only having gone to Brown. It had never occurred to me before that there was such a strong connection between elite schools and funniness, although, to be honest, it still doesn't occur to me. That's a generalization, though. Some Harvard grads have been true comedy legends, like Al Franken, Conan O'Brien, and George Meyer.
The year I was at SNL the staff was a crazy combination of Harvard Lampooners (the old ones who had been there since the beginning, and the new ones who had graduated that May and had little to qualify them other than that) and stand-up comedians (myself, Dave Attell, Jay Mohr, and Norm MacDonald). There was a palpable class division.
There was also an age gap. Four of us were only twenty-two years old--me and the three most recent Harvard graduates. On our first day of work, we were introduced to each other and sent off to the NBC commissary for lunch. We talked and laughed all through lunch until one of the guys said to me, "So what do you do in the office? Type?"
* * *
Lacking Adult Coping Skills, I Steal Clean Underwear
* * *
By around 2:00 a.m. Wednesday mornings, I'd start to feel gamey and uncomfortable from being in the same clothes for so long. I'm not sure how I justified this in my head, but I would slip into Ian Maxton Graham's office, where he had one drawer of fresh boxers and one drawer of fresh socks, and, without his permission or knowledge, I would take one of each and put them on. Inevitably we'd cross paths during the night, and he'd discover me wearing his giant boxer shorts (which came down to my knees) and freshly laundered tube socks (which came up to my knees). I looked at him like, "Go ahead and say something." But he never did. I suppose my raids on Ian Maxtone Graham's underwear were not just an attempt to get comfortable and feel fresh, but also a sort of subconscious waging of micro-class warfare. All of this is really too much to expect from underwear, even if it belongs to someone named Ian Maxtone Graham.
* * *
By Some Fluke, My Genius Is Overlooked, Twenty-five Weeks in a Row
* * *
On Wednesdays at 4:00 p.m., the cast, crew, and host sat at an enormous table and read each script aloud. Afterward, the host would hole up in Lorne's office, and the two of them would decide which sketches would be produced. By around 8:00 p.m., Lorne opened his office door and the writers poured in to see if their sketches were on the 5-x-7 cards pinned up on his bulletin board.
One morning, Phil Hartman put his arm around me and said I should write something for us to do together. This moment of paternal encouragement randomly collided in my brain with an odd bit of trivia I'd recently picked up: That flies live for only twenty-four hou
rs. I wrote a sketch in which Phil and I were father-daughter flies on a wall. By the end, he's on his deathbed. It cut to a dog taking a shit. Phil's last words were: "Go get it. It's beautiful." But neither this nor any other sketch I wrote ever made it past dress rehearsal.
Thursdays were rewrite days. We would work on and off from noon to about 6:00 a.m. Friday, tweaking and punching up the sketches for that week's show. One thing I learned over the years since then is that the hours you work on a show are directly related to the happiness of the head writer's marriage. Jim Downey was in the marriage-not-so-good category, so we never really left work. Ever. This guy did not want to go home. Jim was another Harvard grad. He'd been at SNL since the beginning, and everyone, including me, worshipped him.
On Thursdays we would all sit around a gigantic table, each of us with our own copies of that week's chosen scripts. In the center of the table were piles of legal pads and cups filled with the sharpest, most perfect pencils.
The cast and crew rehearsed Thursday and Friday, with script changes coming to them throughout. Saturday, of course, was show day. The writers would come in late morning and write jokes with Kevin Nealon for "Weekend Update." (Kevin is the kindest and funniest man you will ever meet.)
John Malkovich hosted one of the first episodes of the season. I got my first sketch on that week--one that I wrote for him and Mike Myers. I was so excited, I called my whole family to tell them to watch. The sketch took place backstage in the SNL hallway. Mike is at the water fountain, and John comes over and makes Mike do all his famous characters for him. It's awkward, but Mike does it because he's such a huge fan of John's. Then Jay Mohr comes over and asks John for an autograph, and John is an asshole to him. You get the picture.