Gasping for Airtime (2 page)

I
WAS
sitting on a couch all alone in the writers’ room feeling like an idiot.

It was my first day at work on
Saturday Night Live
and I was told to arrive at 11:00
A.M
. for a meeting with Marci Klein and Michael Shoemaker. Marci was the show’s talent booker who functioned like a producer at large, and she had basically hired me. “Shoe” was a longtime producer of the show. The previous night I had gone to bed early in mortal terror of being late. Imagine, here is the greatest job you will
ever
have, and you’re the asshole who shows up late. Not me, baby.

My alarm was set for six in the morning. The plan was to get up early, take a steambath, work out, rough out some sketches for the show, and then head uptown to the office. I had a dream that night that all my sketches sucked and I got fired. When my alarm went off at the crack of dawn, I was so grateful to still have the job that I hadn’t started that I kneeled next to my bed and thanked God. I spent the rest of my morning racking my brain for better ideas. I went back over my sketches and reassured myself they were fine. Needless to say, the gym and the steam were out. It’s probably a bad idea to take a steam while you’re hyperventilating anyway.

From the time I left my St. Mark’s Place apartment in the East Village, I never touched the ground. Didn’t these people on the street know where I was going? If they knew, they would all be looking at me differently. Buying coffee on the way to the subway, I had to fight the urge to blurt out, “I’m on my way to
Saturday Night Live
! I’m the new guy!” I swear I came really close. I figured there would be some jerk who wouldn’t believe me. I would have to stand there and explain everything to him and convince him that I wasn’t lying, I really was the luckiest guy on earth. After all that, I would be running a little behind, so I kept my mouth shut.

I bought a newspaper to read on the train but I couldn’t even see straight, let alone read the
New York Post
. I kept checking my watch to make sure I wasn’t running late. With each stop along the way, my breath grew a little shorter. This is a joke, right? Who am I kidding? There is absolutely no conceivable way I belong on
SNL
. They are all going to find me out. I’m a fraud. Someone made a mistake here. Me? “Forty-ninth Street!” Uh-oh. Here we go. I walked up the stairs from the train, and when I reached the top, I first saw it.

Rockefeller Plaza is an impressive piece of architecture. It almost looks like a missile the way it juts defiantly into a menacing skyline. The ice skating rink is directly in front of the main entrance of the building, but it’s a story below street level so you can lean over the railing and watch couples skate, which is a nice touch. When you enter the building, the paint on the wall is covered with beautiful yet imposing drawings of Greek gods. These gigantic, muscular men holding entire planets are staring down at you. For some reason, I noticed that they all looked sort of bummed out.

I had arrived at the security desk just before 10:30
A.M
. Plenty of time to spare. I gave the security guard my name and told him that I was a new cast member on
Saturday Night Live
. The guard had a thick Caribbean accent, and it was obvious that he didn’t really give a shit who I was. He asked me who my contact was. I had never heard that expression before. I had heard, “Who are you going to see?”—but never “Who’s your contact?” I muttered the unthinkable: “I don’t know.” That’s one way to get yourself to the back of the line. Tell the guard that you don’t even know who your contact is. He told me, the dummy with the backpack and no contact, to wait, and he began chatting up a young lady.

Three minutes later, the guard asked me again who my contact was. I told him Lorne Michaels. Why fuck around, right? The guard called the receptionist on the seventeenth floor to tell her that I had arrived. She wasn’t there.

The guard cradled the phone against his ear for about ten minutes while he checked in about fifty more people. He put the phone down and walked away to help someone else. He didn’t say anything to me. At this point, I was becoming panic-stricken. I couldn’t remember a single name to give this guy and it was clear I was going nowhere until this guy connected with somebody upstairs. I looked at my watch: 11:05. Later, pal.

I slinked through “Checkpoint Charlie” with the next group of suits. Damn, why didn’t I wear a suit? I tried to blend in as best I could, walk-strolling onto the elevator. My backpack was sticking out about a foot behind me, so I leaned up against the railing. I was still about two feet from the door. I was officially in everyone’s way. I prayed for the doors to close before the guard arrested me.

The elevator doors whooshed closed, and we began our ascent—the eight suits and the jackass in the back with a two-foot backpack taking up all the room. All the suits were blue. They would stay blue the remainder of my stay on the show. I felt really cool pushing the elevator button for seventeen. I figured they all knew what floor that was and would wonder why I was going there. No one even flinched. I stepped off the elevator at 11:07
A.M
. The carpet on the seventeenth floor was also blue. This was where the writers’ offices, the writers’ room, reception, and executive producer Lorne Michaels’s office were located.

After getting my bearings, I noticed what looked like a reception desk to my right. I walked over to introduce myself to everyone, but found that everyone was no one. I was hit with the funny feeling that I was the only person on the floor. To the best of my knowledge, I was right. So I took a seat on a flower-print couch that looked like it had been flown in from Miami and waited.

At one o’clock, the receptionist arrived. She began setting up her desk and checking her voice mails. I had to pee. I asked her where the bathrooms were and prayed she didn’t ask me who my contact was.

Walking down the hallways of the seventeenth floor is impressive and intimidating. The walls are lined with photos from past episodes of the show. Every photo, no matter how tall you are, is at eye level. As I walked toward the bathroom I passed Eddie Murphy, Dan Aykroyd, Mick Jagger, Bill Murray, Martin Short, Adam Sandler, Chris Farley, Dennis Miller—everyone. They were all frozen in time, each a piece of history, a part of the heritage of the show. I walked too far and found myself in an office covered in Christmas decorations—in August. Very decorated and very empty. Good God, I had to pee!

On my way back from the toilet, I backtracked through John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Paul McCartney, and Madonna. I reached the reception area and sat alone on the flowery couch for another half hour. When the receptionist returned, I told her who I was and that I was supposed to meet with Marci Klein and Michael Shoemaker. She told me that neither one of them would be in until at least three o’clock.

Three?! It’s one-thirty, for Christ’s sake! I was told that if I liked, I could wait for them on the couch. So I waited.

At around two-thirty, people started trickling in. I recognized a few. Adam Sandler came over and said hi and then went somewhere. Marci Klein never came in that day. Michael Shoemaker came in around four.

Shoemaker introduced himself to me. An Ivy League–looking guy in his forties, he was very pleasant, but as he spoke, I couldn’t help but notice that he had a nervous tic. It was really distracting. This guy is giving me the rundown, and I’m staring at his face like an idiot.

As I was talking to Mike Shoemaker, Jim Downey, the show’s head writer, walked out of his office. Downey, who had a cherubic Irish look about him, was wearing khakis and a polo shirt, and his toothbrush was in his mouth. Shoemaker attempted to introduce me, but Downey stopped him in midsentence by holding up his index finger and pointing to the toothbrush. He went into the bathroom to brush his teeth. When Downey returned, he said nothing and proceeded to walk back into his office and close the door.

Shoemaker then led me into the writers’ room. All the lights were out and there were six cafeteria tables pushed together in a haphazard rectangle to form one big table. Every newspaper in print was lying on this table. That was something I always loved about working at
SNL.
On any given morning I could walk in and pick up the
Dallas Morning News
or the
Washington Post.
I sat on one of the couches at the far end of the writers’ room for about twenty minutes, alone with the newspapers.

Dave Attell and Sarah Silverman, two comics I knew from the clubs who were also new to the show, had arrived and taken a seat next to me on the couch. Sarah is from New Hampshire, and she is so “one of the guys” that you forget sometimes how beautiful she is. But when you first meet her, wow, you notice! Sarah and I were both hired as featured performers and writers, but Attell was hired as a writer only. Attell not being hired as a cast member, let alone a featured performer, was a crime.

I had always looked up to Dave as a stand-up, so I was glad that we would being sharing an office. But I also felt a little uncomfortable. I thought Attell was fifty times the comic I was and that he deserved to be on camera, too. He might be the funniest living stand-up comic, and he will perform anytime in front of any mike. Sometimes he’ll perform at the Comedy Cellar in Greenwich Village in front of nine people at two-thirty in the morning (his preferred time slot, by the way). Whenever he’s onstage, you’ll also see other comics, me included, huddled in the back of the room to watch Dave spinning out zingers like “I have this blow-up doll that I fuck all the time, but I fill her up only halfway and I make believe she’s a model.” Attell was also a chain smoker. He smoked anytime, anyplace. Since I was an utter slob, our office looked like it was under construction in about a week.

We shared the small office meant for one person with Lew Morton and Steve Lookner, two Harvard guys. Whatever the rhythm was on the seventeenth floor, Lookner and Morton picked up on it pretty quickly. They always seemed to know what time to come in, what time to go home, where to hand in sketches, and most important, who to ask for help. All that separated the nonsmoking side from the smoking side was a couch in the middle of the room. Within a couple of weeks, we had smoked them out. I have no idea where they went. One day they were there, the next they were gone. I can’t say that I blamed them, but Dave and I were happy for the additional space. Besides, those two Harvard guys were bringing us down with all that goddamn
work
they were doing.

To complicate matters, Dave and Sarah had dated each other and had only just recently broken up. Regardless, the three of us had a strange bond now. We were new. We were ready. We were clueless. And we were all waiting for Jim Downey.

Farley was coming!

When I say I felt a rumbling, it’s in no way a reference to Chris’s weight. Rather, it’s a compliment to his presence. Chris Farley was the most beautiful human being I ever met. When you met Chris, you smiled. You had to. For God’s sake, it was involuntary.

From the minute Farley walked into the room, the mood changed. “Ahhh, now we’re cookin’,” Sandler announced.

I stared at Chris and thought about what a dork I would look like if I jumped up from the couch and introduced myself to him. He might have just become my colleague, but I was still a fan. As far as I was concerned, he had reset the bar for funny with the first Motivational Speaker sketch that he and David Spade had done with Christina Applegate, where he hitched up his pants, crossed his eyes, and made her laugh so hard that she had to cover her face with her hair like Cousin It.

Farley and Downey exchanged hugs and then Downey fondly needled Chris. “What have you been doing, Chris? Where have you been? You were supposed to be here.” A serious look came across Farley’s face and all he could muster was a “huh.” “Look at us,” Downey prodded. “We’re all here. Even the new guy Jay Mohr is here.” Downey then pointed at me and said, “Chris, that’s Jay Mohr. He’s a new writer and featured performer.”

Farley looked over at me through a pair of blue-tinted prescription sunglasses. His hair was slicked back and he was wearing a black suit jacket over a starched white shirt. His enormous stomach stretched against an old black belt that held up a pair of blue jeans that hung over a pair of old black combat boots. My first thought was that he looked a little like Jack Nicholson.

He started walking toward me and shouted, “How are ya, young fella?” Then he fake-tripped and landed about a foot in front of me facedown on the floor. Slowly he pulled himself up onto his knees and then buried his face in my crotch and pretended to puke in my lap six or seven times. He sold the puke so hard that even I had to peek to make sure he was just fooling around. Chris looked up at me. His glasses were in my lap. “Oh, man, sorry,” he said, wiping his mouth. Not exactly hello.