Gasping for Airtime

by Mohr, Jay

  After throwing up everything that wasn’t a permanent part of my insides, I felt better—except for the fact that I had no idea what had just happened to me.

  Saturday Night Live is written on Tuesday night. For the most part, every sketch that you’ve ever seen on the air was written just four days earlier. There’s some sketch writing done on Monday after the pitch meeting, but the bulk of the show is Tuesdays, baby. Tuesday is actually the only scheduled day for writing—the only day and all fucking night.

  The sketches are read at a roundtable on Wednesday. The ones selected for air are rewritten on Thursday. If the sketch is still alive at that point, it’s rehearsed on Friday or Saturday (and then it moves to a Saturday live rehearsal before a studio audience and finally to the live show). That’s a whole lot of water for a little bit of boat. In short, there is a day and a half of rehearsal for eight to twelve sketches being readied for live television. With this relatively minuscule amount of time allotted for the writing, rewriting, and rehearsal of sketches, it’s a miracle that there’s a show at all.

  Whenever I would ask Jim Downey when I was supposed to come in on Tuesday, he would respond, “You’re paid to be here.” Me: “But what time should I come in?” Him: “You’re paid to be here.” That was it. No more. No less. Of course he was technically right, but it’s hard to set your alarm clock to “You’re paid to be here.” Not wanting to be the one to misinterpret “You’re paid to be here,” I began waking up earlier and earlier.

  At first I showed up for work at 11:00 A.M. Problem was, I was the only one there, and I didn’t know what I was doing. What should I write? When I’m done writing it, where do I put the finished product? Where’s the dictionary? The earlier I arrived, the more deserted it would be. I would lie on the couch in my office and fume. “Isn’t everyone else paid to be here!” I would shout to no one.

  Each Tuesday I boarded the subway, terrified that I was running late. I just knew that one day I would arrive at noon and everyone else would be waiting for me—along with a pink slip. Before getting SNL I looked at a subway ride as theater of the absurd. But now I would constantly monitor my pulse. How could it register 140 when all I was doing was sitting down on the train? I would take it again and it would be higher. The closer it crept toward 200, the more certain I was that death was imminent.

  Soon I began taking my pulse everywhere. Regardless of where I was—in restaurants, in record stores, or even in bed at night, I noticed my pulse would regularly race past 200 and I would feel an odd hitch in my chest. A feeling like I was in trouble. Big trouble. I would lie in my bed at night and imagine it looked like a big asterisk inside my chest, spinning and hot, always trying to push its way out of my body. I didn’t wake up with the asterisk every day, but soon enough it reappeared, and I would spend the rest of my waking hours feeling like I had to run out of a burning building.

  For months, Tuesdays brought two scenarios of doom: I was either pissed off in my office or panic-stricken that I was still on the train. In an attempt to alleviate the situation, I ignored “You’re paid to be here” and began showing up at the same time as everyone else, which believe it or not, was 8:00 P.M. At this point, I realized that the show wasn’t really being written on Tuesday, it was beginning to be written three hours before Wednesday. This left little time for any extensive creative thought, because the sketches had to be ready for read-through on Wednesdays at 5:00 P.M.

  Read-throughs were held in the writers’ room. All of the writers and production people who had met in Lorne’s office on Monday attended, as well as a dozen or so technical people and other producers, bringing the crowd to around fifty people. Basically, anyone who needed to know what might be on Saturday’s show attended so they could plan accordingly. For instance, if every sketch read aloud at read-through had all the characters wearing prosthetics, the makeup department would take note of what they needed.

  There was something of a hierarchy to everyone’s position in the room. Sitting at the six cafeteria tables pushed together in the center of the room were Lorne, director Dave Wilson, head writer Jim Downey, the cast members, and a few of the tenured writers. The other writers and nonreading participants sat in a circle around the table. Whoever was left over would form a circle around that circle, and so on. Prior to read-through, every sketch had been printed in the same font and format, spell-checked, and distributed to everyone who would be in the meeting.

  Typically, there were about forty sketches. Starting at the top of the distributed stack of sketches, each one would be read aloud with the cast and that week’s host reading their assigned parts. Lorne was the narrator. Due to the sheer volume of the material, read-through lasted around three and a half hours, with a short break in the middle.

  During my first few weeks on the show, whenever I had an actual idea, I would explain it beat by beat in Lorne’s office in front of the entire cast and writers on Monday, but I soon noticed that the ideas I pitched in Lorne’s office weren’t getting any laughs at read-throughs on Wednesdays. I quickly discovered the simple answer: Everyone had already heard it, so even if the sketch was fall-down funny, when it was read at read-through, people wouldn’t laugh; they would simply nod their heads as the memory of the pitch came back to them. Feeling like I was catching on, for the third show, which was hosted by Jeff Goldblum, I wrote and turned in three sketches on Wednesday that I didn’t pitch on Monday. Unfortunately, things still didn’t go my way.

  One of the sketches involved Goldblum playing a father who is a dog. The man has a wife and kids and looks like a dad, but he’s really a dog. He walks like a human and talks like one, but he speaks lines of dialogue a dog would say. He would say things like “I know better. I shouldn’t have eaten that,” and his kids would respond, “That’s okay, we still love you, Daddy.” Whenever he sat on the couch, his wife would whack him with a newspaper. The idea was that the viewers don’t know he’s a dog in the beginning, but about a fourth of the way through, it hits them. Kids: “Why did you bring fleas into the house?” Dad: “I didn’t mean to. I’m wearing my collar.” But about two pages into the read-through, I realized that there weren’t two funny lines in the whole thing and it might have been better had I discovered that at the pitch meeting on Monday so I could have avoided embarrassment at read-through.

  When read-through was over, the host, Jim Downey, and two or three of the producers would meet with Lorne in his office and begin assembling that week’s show. This process was behind closed doors and not to be interrupted. After a couple of hours, the cast and writers would be allowed into Lorne’s office to see which sketches had been chosen. There was no announcement, you simply looked at the corkboard on Lorne’s wall.

  On that corkboard was your future. The board had three columns running down it; within those columns was that week’s show. Pinned to the top of the first column was a colored index card that read “Cold Open.” A few inches under it was a white index card reading “Commercial One.” In the middle of the second column was another index card reading “Weekend Update.” At the end of the last column was an orange card that read “Good-nights,” the ritual of the host, cast, and musical guest standing onstage together bidding the world adieu. The only thing missing from the corkboard were the index cards with the sketches that would be on that week’s show.

  When the doors to Lorne’s office opened, you walked in, hoping that there would be a colored index card on the corkboard with the name of your sketch on it. If your sketch wasn’t on the board, it wasn’t on the air. Period. If you felt like bitching, there was no one to bitch at except whoever else was in the room with you. And quite frankly, if your sketch was on the board, what did you care if someone else’s wasn’t?

  The times I walked into Lorne’s office and spotted an index card with my sketch on it, I experienced a feeling nothing short of euphoria, knowing that what I wrote was going to be on television with me in it! The hallways got a little wider. The show once again became my life’s work. Ev
erything was fine.

  But as the weeks went by, I began to imagine that the orange card with “Good-nights” on it was my sketch. Every week it would be there, like a franchise. Most shows, Good-nights was the only time I was on camera—until I stopped showing up for Good-nights.

  Things got started on Tuesday nights around 9:00 P.M. With Wednesday’s read-through looming, each tick of the clock represented time wasted to me. Instead of writing the show Tuesday mornings and into the evening, everyone was running around panicked that they wouldn’t meet this self-imposed deadline. Many of us slept in our offices, if at all. You were always at the mercy of whomever you were writing the sketch with.

  After hearing me quote the Christopher Walken/Dennis Hopper scene from the movie True Romance, Rob Schneider approached me on my second Monday evening and suggested that we write up a Christopher Walken sketch. I was excited about the collaboration, mostly because Rob knew what the hell he was doing and I didn’t. He told me he had three other sketches he was working on, but he definitely wanted to write up a Walken piece on Tuesday once he cleared himself some time.

  On Tuesday, Rob showed up for work around midnight. He quickly prioritized the sketches he was writing, and due to the fact that I didn’t spot him the minute he arrived and couldn’t find him for several more hours, mine was last. At around 3:00 A.M. on Wednesday morning, we began to write. At 5:00 A.M. Rob said he was fighting a cold and needed to go home.

  “When will we finish the sketch?” I asked.

  “In the morning,” he said over his shoulder as he walked to the elevators.

  At noon the next day, there was no sign of Rob. I couldn’t take it anymore, so I called him at his apartment. He was sleeping—and very pissed that I woke him up. “When are we going to finish the sketch?” I asked. This elicted a long pause, followed by “When I get there.” And then he hung up.

  I expected him to arrive momentarily. Apparently, however, my wake-up call was successful because Rob returned at three in the afternoon, carrying a large Starbucks coffee. With read-through just two hours away, I was a madman. I ranted and raved. How fucking dare he? Rob seemed rather nonplussed. Before he had finished his coffee, the sketch was finished. Rob then quietly walked me through the hallways to the then mysterious drop-off place for sketches. It was a half hour to read-through and we were in the game.

  The sketch was entitled “Psychic Friends Network.” Though it didn’t generate many laughs at read-through, I wasn’t concerned. I knew we had something. I don’t think anyone at the table had ever heard a Christopher Walken impression before. After read-through was over, Rob kept assuring me the sketch would get on. I’m sure I annoyed the hell out of him—but I figured the time I had spent watching the sun come up while waiting for him made us even.

  After an eternity, Lorne’s door swung open. The moment of truth had come. I walked into the office and looked up at the corkboard and there it was. Directly above “Good-nights” was “Psychic Friends Network.” Hallelujah!

  I rushed to my office to call my parents. With each step, my shoes squeaked “kiss…my…ass.” As quickly as I could, I spread the word to every person I knew: Don’t miss this week’s show! I told everyone every joke in the sketch. I even read the sketch aloud over the phone to some very patient friends.

  That week’s host was Shannen Doherty, who played Sean Young in the sketch. The basic premise was that a lot of crazy celebrities you wouldn’t want in your head were offering psychic advice. At the time, there were reports of Sean Young doing nutty things, like showing up at Batman movie director Joel Schumacher’s office dressed in a catsuit in hopes of winning the role. Though Ms. Doherty wasn’t crazy about mocking Sean Young, the sketch was rewritten—i.e., shortened—and rehearsed, and the host’s hesitancy was pretty much ignored.

  As the week progressed from Wednesday’s read-through, I started getting uneasy vibes that things weren’t going to roll my way—even though no one was verbalizing any warning signs. Nevertheless, the sketch was still in the lineup on Saturday. David Spade was to play Crispin Glover, Tim Meadows was to play Todd Bridges, and wardrobe had made a slinky, sexy catsuit for Miss Doherty. We all performed the sketch at dress rehearsal, which occurs at 8:00 P.M. in front of a live audience. (The audience is then switched before the live show begins at 11:30 P.M.) Upon seeing the catsuit, the crowd whooped it up.

  After dress rehearsal, Lorne’s office door would be sealed shut again and some sketches would be removed from the corkboard to make sure the show timed out at exactly an hour and a half. When the door to Lorne’s office reopened that Saturday night, “Psychic Friends Network” was no longer on the show. I don’t know where it went, but it was not on the fucking corkboard.

  I found the veteran producer Mike Shoemaker and asked what had happened. Shoe told me that Shannen Doherty was uncomfortable making fun of Sean Young. “Are they friends?” I asked. He told me he didn’t think so, and walked away. With only an hour to go before air, there wasn’t time for a debate. I couldn’t believe it. All Shannen Doherty had to do was say two lines, which she didn’t want to do because she was afraid of offending Sean Young. Maybe she was afraid that Sean Young would show up at her house wearing a catsuit.

  Not only was my sketch not on the air, I was no longer on the air. I had already asked to be taken out of a courtroom sketch where I played a bailiff with no lines. I would rather not be on camera at all than be on camera doing nothing except standing there like the spear-carrier in the school play. I had called hundreds of people and told them to watch my sketch. Now it was vaporized. I couldn’t possibly call them all back at eleven at night and say, “Oops.” I certainly wasn’t going to beg to be reinstated as a mute bailiff and then call my friends and tell them to tape the show and use their slow-motion VCR replay to see me on it.

  To put it mildly, I sulked that entire evening. Every time I made eye contact with Shannen Doherty, I looked at her like I was going to kill her. But it didn’t matter. I didn’t exist. I sat in my dressing room and watched the show from an armchair.

  I decided to make a statement and not go onstage for Good-nights. Not exactly Gandhi’s hunger strike, but I somehow had to protest. On my first show, I hadn’t been sure whether or not to go onstage for Good-nights. I had written the opening monologue sketch for Charles Barkley, but I wasn’t ever on camera. I was standing off to the side while the cast filed onstage during the final commercial. Mike Shoemaker nudged me and said, “Go on!” If he hadn’t, I’d probably still be standing there.

  The only person who even noticed when I skipped the Good-nights was Shoemaker. When Shoe passed me in the hallway after the show and asked me why I wasn’t at Good-nights, I told him I was boycotting. “You should really be there,” he said. “It doesn’t look good.” I basically told him that the fact that I wasn’t on the show didn’t look too good either. I figured I didn’t have enough time to tell him about how humiliating it would have been to stand onstage with everyone in the studio audience—not to mention the friends I had called—staring at me, wondering who I was and what the hell I was doing up there with everyone else who had performed on the show.

  That night I went to the wrap party with one mission: to get loaded. I hoped that getting incredibly drunk would alleviate the flow of panic that was constantly and erratically rushing into my body. I would self-medicate! It had to work. If I could just get myself to pass out, I would no longer have to deal with wanting to kill someone until I woke up. The more I drank, the more numb I became.

  Amazingly, with next to no motor skills at my disposal, the volcanic churning inside my stomach persisted. Barely able to keep my eyes open, I was acutely aware of the fact that my plan was not working. I was alarmed at my own self-awareness. As I reached new lows of numbness, my self-consciousness was at its peak. My insides felt like I had put a blanket over a kicking horse. This anxiety could be cured only by drinking more. So drink I did. I drank until the sun came up—ironic, considering that the whole point of sel
f-medicating was to pass out.

  I don’t remember going to sleep that night, but I do remember waking up. It was six o’clock at night the following day when I got out of bed. More significant, it was dark outside. I met some friends for “lunch” that Sunday evening at a restaurant called Coffee Shop. The entire time I sat in the restaurant, I fought the urge to run. From or to what, I didn’t know. When our meals arrived, I went into the bathroom and puked. This certainly would be a normal reaction for someone who spent six hours drinking beer and scotch, but I wasn’t feeling hungover.

  Shortly before throwing up, I became morose over the fact that that day, for the first time in my life, I had not seen daylight. This bothered me greatly. Every day starts with the sun coming up, and I had deprived myself of even that. It didn’t feel right. Nothing felt right. You’re not supposed to wake up at night. I came out of the restroom and told my friends that I thought I had the flu and needed to go home.

  I didn’t tell them that I was going to run the entire way.

  Five

  Swimming with Sharks

  KELSEY GRAMMER has two half brothers who were eaten by sharks. I know this because it was in Kelsey’s bio when he hosted the show.