Is My Bow Too Big? How I Went From Saturday Night Live to the Tea Party (9 page)

Friday at SNL: “More Blocking”

“Hello. Oh, hi, Marci. What? Oh, they wrote
me
into
The Penis Sketch
? Oh. Do I have a line? Oh. Okay. 2 p.m. Okay, bye.” Good, I don’t have to say the P-word. I jump out of bed and get Scarlet ready for pre-school. I take a scissors and cut a huge knot out of her hair. It looks like the culprit is gum. A.F.K.A.S. is sipping coffee in front of the Home Shopping Network. They’re advertising machines that take negative energy out of the air for $14.99. I shake my head.

I drop Scarlet off at school, slurping up
every
nuance: her outfit, her cuteness, her interaction with other little people, her cubby hole with her lovely name over it, and her braids. I recognize Keith Richard’s wife doting over her two blonde girls. She and I exchange smiles. I rush to the train, skip the Bar Car, drink a large coffee, and read
Rolling Stone
magazine. I don’t get it. Too hip for me, I guess.

I’m staring at my stomach reflected in Lorne’s office window. I’m getting paid a billion dollars this week. I still don’t know exactly what my job is. I know I’m not supposed to be fat. What did I eat today that’s keeping me so thin? Let’s see: peanut butter crackers on the train, and Diet Coke, and coffee, no wonder, oh, and husband stress. A bad marriage is the best diet. The tension in the air at home is so thick, I swallow it. It fills me up and it’s zero calories. Too bad I didn’t have a miserable marriage when I was a gymnast. I could have skipped the whole bulimia thing. I glance around the room. It’s Friday night run-through. Everyone is intense. I’m wondering if my Willie Nelson duet will make the show.

Comedy is war. Who I thought were my allies may become the enemies. I know what they’re all thinking: how much air time do I have this week? Whoever has the most air time minutes has the best chance of a movie career after this. If America doesn’t see you, they can’t fall in love with you. If I get my Willie Nelson duet in, I don’t care about the penis sketch. I only have one line in it: “Testicles.”

Jokes are ammunition. As soon as someone gives me a golden bullet, the b’s find a way to steal it. Their covert operations astound me. They’re always one step ahead of me. My naivete has served me well, but has become my Achilles’ heel in this aggressive battle-zone. My training at Bible College is worthless here. I can’t compete with these battle-hardened veterans. So I don’t. I just hope my Willie Nelson duet makes the show.

There are people everywhere, and I don’t know which side they’re on. Spies and counter-spies: a stranger who pretends she’s my friend—the powerful TV producer Gail Berman—comes to my dressing room and says she wants to produce me my own sit-com. All of a sudden, people from my past that I haven’t seen for years show up and ask me for tickets. My
William Morris
New York division agent, whom I have never met, shows up with some friends and smiles a lot like we’re old pals. Managers hover around me like buzzards over a dead antelope.

I notice in the corner of Lorne’s office one of the cast members on the ground, with his pants pulled down dry-humping another clothed cast member who’s laughing hysterically. He’s rehearsing his new character, “F***ie!” he shouts.
Sigh.
For a moment, I can’t figure out if he’s the odd one, or I am for not laughing. Alice (the classiest Lornette that Lorne eventually marries) walks in with Lorne’s overstuffed bowl of unsalted popcorn, and sets it on his desk without one pop falling off. Above the desk is a bulletin board with celebrities’ pictures. We are so cavalier here about celebs. In a different circumstance, we’d all be so awkward and shy. But here, we’re allowed to be big and proud and brave. It is said that imitation is the greatest form of flattery. Lorne enters. We assemble at his feet. If he takes the 3x5 card with our sketch’s name on it out of the bulletin board, our sketch is cut from the show. If he rearranges the order of the cards, our sketch gets a different time slot. The time slots nearer to twelve midnight have the most viewers. Each minute after midnight loses millions of viewers. If your sketch airs near 1 am, your Grandma will probably miss it, along with some high-powered movie producers who could make you a movie star. We watch the bulletin board as he maneuvers the 3x5 cards in and out, enjoying the power he has over each of our destinies with just the poke of a pin.

Saturday at SNL: “Show Day!”

The cast strolls in at 1 p.m. and goes to hair and make-up for an hour or two. We get script changes and do a run-through of the entire show, including sketches that will eventually be cut because of time constraints. We look pretty cool flipping through papers, memorizing our lines while we sit in front of a fancy catered meal which no one is eating. I have so many butterflies jammed into my stomach, they can’t even flutter. I hope my Willie Nelson sketch gets in. My dresser (that is, the person who dresses me), asks me to sneak her a meal again. I know everyone sees me getting two dinners and probably thinks I’m bulimic. Lorne has put both my musical number and the Sweeney Sisters’ musical number in the show. We all know that he would never have two female-led musical sketches in the same show.

It’s a wrestling match between The Sweeney girls and me. We are professionals. We all get into our respective costumes. We assume the position. Do our task. Go back to our corners.

After dress rehearsal in front of a live audience, we are still head to head. We sit in Lorne’s office on the floor. The brave cast members eat some of his popcorn. I don’t. We all stare at the bulletin board. It’s 11:15 p.m. The live show starts in fifteen minutes. Some cast members are dejected. Their skits, I mean,
sketches
were cut. Other cast members are happy. The rest are confused. The Sweeneys and I are still head to head. We ask Marci and Alice, but no one has inside info on who is leading. After Lorne’s semi-pep-talk, we’re dismissed. He looks excited, like he’s going to say, “Go Team. I love you. You’re the best. You can do it,” but instead he says something random and unrelated: “Okay, we have a show tonight. Let’s see if we can husk the papoose.” We all look around trying to decipher the code. We assume that’s the end of the meeting and we stand up tentatively and disperse.

As I walk to my private dressing room, with the pictures of Madonna on the walls to inspire boldness, I always wonder why Lorne never says, “You folks who’s sketches were cut, I’m sorry, but don’t worry, I’m sure next show you’ll have something great.” He never does. I suspect he’s based his life on the dark but effective book,
The Prince
, by Machiavelli. He’s got it down pat: “It’s better to be feared than loved.” I look in my mirror and check my stomach. It looks flat. Fear does that. I rush to the hallway nearest the stage where The Sweeney’s and I pace and sweat. We still don’t know who will be picked. Is he doing this for fun? At 11:35, Jan has one line in an Ivana Trump/Donald Trump sketch. At 11:55, all three of us have one line in the penis sketch. Each line includes the word penis except mine. None of us feel like stars yet.

At 12:30, someone in hair and make-up whispers that I’m on next with Willie Nelson. The Sweeney’s disappear, and I jump into my costume. I walk briskly to center stage. I hope he can do it. I heard he loves pot. Someone in passing said, “We made a fat doobie out of the roaches Willie left in his limo.”

Willie is guided to his stool. He sits. Well, it’s live. Whatever happens will be interesting. My cue card lines are in blue and Willie’s are in red. I start singing with my ukulele:

But, woe is me,

the joys of the single life!

I’d give up in a minute

if I could be the wife

of Mr. Right.

…I concluded my search,

on the way to the church,

to enlist in the nunnery,

when I ran into a man

who began to tell to me

that he had…

Willie is strumming his guitar and playing the correct chords, but when it comes time for him to sing, our eyes meet and he just smiles at me. I smile and point to his cue card. He chuckles a little and, oozing with charm, glances at his cue card and stumbles through:

One girlfriend I thought was real pretty,

One slick chick I met in the city,

One girlfriend who was kind of witty,

One who was sort of wise,

One girlfriend with thick, red curly hair

One girlfriend who didn’t wear underwear

One girlfriend who was shaped just like a pear

with Bette Davis’ eyes.

But, woe is me,

the joys of the single life!

I’d give up in a minute

if I could find a wife,

who’s Mrs. Right!

Willie, the audience, and I, became one in the magic of a timeless minute. It’s dangerous. Live. Electric. Sexy. It’s better that he doesn’t know the words. It’s sweet that he is singing my song. He really comes through on the chorus;

We both entered the church doors

together that day,

sincere in our motives

and in our hearts.

But we left one hour later,

hand in hand,

for better or worse, in sickness and health

’til death do us part.

Willie adds an impromptu guitar riff of
The Wedding March
to thunderous applause. He pulled it off. He’s a star. I float into the after-party. The tables are all arranged into a medieval English castle caste system, or maybe like the rings of hell in Dante’s
Inferno
. Lorne, the host, and the big movie stars sit at a table in the very back. The cast sits nearby in case he calls on us. His favorites, like Dana, sit closer to him than the rest of us. You’d think after my big moment with Willie, I’d be brave enough to creep up. But I wasn’t. There are unspoken rules. Our writers and friends are next to us. Then you have the hair and make-up department, then the others, then the riff-raff who are corded off with a velvet rope. They are gawking at us and pointing. Get a life. It’s 3 a.m. I don’t even want to be here. No one is slapping me on the back like after a football game in the locker room. No one says “Good job.” It’s more like we ignore each other’s successes so that our jealousy doesn’t show. There are no conversations. It’s loud. It’s dark. Eyes dart around to see if they are missing something. But actually, nothing is happening here. The only conversation we all want to be in is at Lorne’s table. Madonna and Elvis Costello are there chatting brilliantly. Willie Nelson must be in his bus “on the road again.” I’m bored, but my boss—who pays me—is two tables away. After three glasses of chardonnay, bursting from the clatter into the cold air feels like freedom. The public is staring, so I can’t burp or adjust my underwear. I haven’t relaxed now for over fifteen hours. All the spies and counter-spies disperse as I walk alone to the street curb to hail a taxi. After twenty minutes with my arm in the air, I realize I have no ride home. Who should I call? I was just a big star on TV, and yet I can’t get home, and I am probably about to get mugged. So I run in the dark to the next big intersection (the train station is closed), figuring that if I’m running the criminals might think I’m already involved in a crime.

After our cast became a hit around the second season, we were all given private limos. So I’d leave the party and run through the gawkers to my stretch. I’d slide into the black leather seat, shut the window-tinted door, and ride one and a half hours to Connecticut. I’d glance out the dark window, completely oblivious to the criminals.

I just had to tinkle so badly.