After seeing my work performed at dress rehearsal, I was so giddy, I was on the brink of exploding, or at the very least skipping. It was my first piece to be actually performed in front of a live audience. After getting hired and telling people you have the job, that's the next genuine thrill to be had at SNL. With the exception of the Saturday-morning omelet station.
As was standard, after dress rehearsal we poured into Lorne's office for notes. I sat on the floor and pretended to listen, but really just daydreamed about the storm of postshow accolades I'd be happily braving in just two short hours. John Malkovich, sitting in a chair next to me, leaned down to say, "I'm so sorry I fucked up that one line!"
Aw! How sweet is that? Adorable. I reassured him, "Oh my god, don't worry about it, you were great! It's going to be GREAT!"
I couldn't stop smiling. Then Mike Myers turned to me and snapped,
"The sketch is cut, Sarah--look--the card is on the left side of the line," referring to the 5-x-7 card representing my sketch, and how it was on the "nope" half of Lorne's bulletin board.
That wiped the smile off my face good. I had to use all my strength not to crash through the floor.
Maybe it's obvious to most people that a ninety-minute weekly comedy show for live television on a major network is not--and cannot be--an especially nurturing environment. But somehow, that came as a surprise to me. I'm not sure what I expected. Maybe because SNL is an old, grand institution, I thought it would be like college, where they show you around, give you a formal orientation, and alert you to all the resources available for guidance and support. But at SNL, nobody puts a hand on your shoulder and says, "This was a good effort, it's just missing X or Y." There's no time for that. Still, I was all of twenty-two, and I'd been fully toilet trained for only six years. I really could have used a little mentoring. I bet even the Harvard boys could have, too.
* * *
Not Fearing Cliche, I Fall in Love with a Man Twice My Age During a Vulnerable Period in My Life
* * *
I was painfully in love with the head writer, Jim Downey. He told the best stories and was very calm and soft-spoken. If you made Jim Downey laugh, it was the biggest score. And, of course, he was an amazing--the best--writer.
One night, I handed in a script for Martin Lawrence, who was hosting that week. I gave it directly to Jim to read and waited on the couch outside his office for him to finish talking to John Bowman (the creator and executive producer of Martin's sitcom). Waiting on the couch turned into sleeping on the couch until 6:00 in the morning, when he and John finally walked out of his office. I popped up and asked, "Did you read it?"
"Read what?"
Jim had somehow lost the pages, and he laughed at my exhausted and frustrated tears. Still, I loved him.
* * *
Bittersweet News: It Takes Longer Than You'd Think to Make Me Look Like an Ape
* * *
At the beginning of December that year, Charlton Heston hosted, so of course the opening was a Planet of the Apes sketch. We actually got all the original costumes to use. I was going to play an ape in the audience, and, because I was a peon, I was put into all the prosthetics at noon on Saturday, so that the makeup people were not rushed for the important stuff later in the day. This sucked for obvious reasons--walking around with an ape face (more than my usual simian mug) for thirteen hours is uncomfortable to say the very least, but what made it so very much worse was that homegirl had the flu. My nose was running like crazy. Running, mind you, underneath a fake face. It was so uncomfortable that I actually started weeping. As it turns out, tears and snot do not mix well with glue and skin. My face was simultaneously cold, wet, and on fire, which I concede, in retrospect, is hilarious.
Dave Attell and me twelve hours into having faces glued onto our faces
I wore this used winter coat I got at Andy's Chee-Pee's, which had a fake fur collar, and someone took the greatest Polaroid of me bundled in it with my hood on and an ape's face sleeping in the fetal position on the couch in the writers' room.
* * *
Al Franken and Me: A Friendship Is Born
* * *
I always sat next to Al Franken on rewrite Thursdays. I don't even know if he liked or had any interest in me personally or professionally, but some part of me decided he was home base. Maybe because he was a father, and for all intents and purposes, I was a kid. And he seemed nice under his tough exterior.
Al and Rob Schneider would have screaming fights--it was nuts--but often Al would come in the next day and say, "Hey, Rob, you know I thought about what I said to you yesterday and I'm really sorry." Or, "You know what? I think you were right after all." I found his self-reflection endearing. It was kind of lovely.
A couple months into my time there, Al came to me and apologized, though I could not imagine what for. He explained, "I thought your 'nice person' thing was an act, but then I saw you downstairs in the subway station and strangers asked you for directions, and I watched you show them where to go and you were so pleasant, and I know you couldn't see me, so I knew it was real."
"Oh. Thank you--er--I'm glad." I was grateful, but wow--what kind of world are you living in when you are so totally moved by common courtesy?
From then on, my usual spot in the writers' room was next to sweet Al Franken.
* * *
Al Franken and Me, Part Two: The Violent End
* * *
One day, a day like any other, I sat on the back legs of my chair, my feet hooked under the big writers' table. I was daydreaming, which I tended to do in between medium-sized stretches of focus.
I chewed the metal part of my pencil, the part that holds the eraser, pinching it down, then twisting it twenty-five degrees to bite down and right it back to its circular demeanor. As I noticed the uber-sharpened tip of my pencil, my eyes wandered to Al's giant full-out Jew 'fro (they grow them big in the winter for warmth), and I thought to myself, "I'm gonna spear this pencil right through Al's big afro."
I don't think I thought that with actual words. It's weird now to try to articulate it that way. However the mind works when it's not forming sentences--with pictures maybe? I guess yes, perhaps maybe I pictured it--I envisioned myself playfully poking my pencil through his thick, curly, Jewy, wiry locks. Yes.
My body set itself in motion in a knee-jerk attempt to reenact what my brain had mapped out less than a second previously. I followed said map exactly. Unfortunately, due to what I realize now must have been a gross miscalculation of where his hair started and his head ended, what I meant to do and what everyone saw with their eyeballs were two very different things.
From thought to action, what happened was that, seemingly out of nowhere, I just turned and, boom, stabbed Al Franken square in the temple. He responded with a horrifying scream--his eyes wide in angry, mystified shock (like, say, a man who'd just been stabbed in the head by the person sitting next to him). I wanted so much to account for my actions but I couldn't. Besides it being a sort of challenging scenario to explain, I also couldn't explain, as I was literally breathless from laughing--like, hysterically laughing. I was a mad-woman crazy-person with tears pouring down my face. I can imagine how it must have looked. Even the explanation, had I had the breath to clarify, let's face it, was weirdo weird.
I'll never know for sure the exact reason, but that August my agent got a fax asking me not to return for a second season. I can't actually say which I'd rather believe--that I was fired for stabbing Al Franken in the head, or because in twenty-five weeks, I'd gotten exactly no sketches on the air. I guess I'd prefer the former, since, like any comedian, I'd rather have my sanity questioned than my skill.
In November of 2008, I saw Al at a pre-inaugural party in Washington, D.C. He was in the midst of recount torture after his senatorial election. I was so happy to see him--I ran over, "Al!" I could feel his whole body tense amid my big bear hug so I released him.
"Hello, Sarah," he said, equal parts polite, appropriate, cold, and...almos
t...frightened? You know when you totally overestimate a friendship? Where a big hello hug meets a rigid rape-victimish stance? It was like that. I said, "Did you hear I talked about you on Letterman?" I had told the stabbing-Al-in-the-head story earlier that year.
He said, "Yes, I heard about it, though I can't say I remember that."
"You don't remember me stabbing you in the fucking HEAD??"
"Well, I hope I wasn't too angry with you." He said it like the Stepford wife I knew he wasn't.
I said, "No, not at all--only appropriately so."
I looked to his right and left and saw he was with a couple of big faceless men. We talked for a bit longer and he softened. He mentioned that he liked The Great Schlep (a video I did telling Jewish kids to make their Floridian grandparents vote Obama), which was nice. It's amazing to think that the shocking, irreverent hero I once knew was now traveling with bodyguards and an entourage. It was probably a good thing I stabbed him in the head back then, and not now.
Photographic Insert
Finally, Laura, the middle child, gets a picture taken just of her when this asshole (me) sneaks in like, "Look at me! I have a red ball!"
All four sisters, 1979: Jodyne, Susie, Laura, me, and our baby cousin, Abby.
This is a game I like to call "Find the Jew."
All four sisters, 1992: Me, Rabbi Susie, Jodyne, and Laura lying across us.
My NYC apartment, 1994. Mark Cohen plays guitar--notice the colored tampons decorating the wall in the background.
New York magazine did a story in 1995 on NY comics that featured Marc Maron, Louis C.K., Dave Attell, and me. They put us in these fancy outfits, which may or may not be the reason we all look miserable.
My roommates for the first three years of living in L.A.: Mary Lynn Rajskub (now Chloe O'Brian on 24) and Tracy Katsky.
Mary Lynn and I play dead.
Rabbi Susie is the only sister who's married with children. From left to right: Aliza, Hallell, Adar, Zamir, and Ashira.
My nephew Zamir shortly after he was adopted from Ethiopia. He didn't know any English yet, but the bit Jimmy and I were doing still KILLED.
My nephews, Zamir and Adar, demanded to be buried in the sand, though it came out looking a tad race crime-y.
An appearance on the cable access show Colin's Sleazy Friends. I wrote a song (facing page) for this porn actress, Tiffany Millions (pictured to the right of me), and later performed it in Jesus Is Magic.
A benefit held at the Playboy mansion. I did stand-up after an auction in which they sold everything from a five-day, all-expenses-paid golf vacation to this woman who offered to "go down on your wife while you watch." She asked to have her picture taken with me. I like that she's naked but with a purse.
My dog, Duck. (His name is Doug on the show--it was a stoned whim and now I'm stuck with it.) He's almost sixteen years old and nearly died last year. It was so scary but now he's GREAT, though he needs at least twenty-two hours of sleep or he's not himself.
The cast of TSSP: Jay Johnston, Brian Posehn, guest star Patton Oswalt, Steve Agee, Laura Silverman, and me, on a break while shooting on the street.
The one time I get to meet a president and my hair looks like THIS.
The day after Jimmy and I broke up, my dad e-mailed this picture to me saying that he loved me and asking if I was okay. It actually really cheered me up, if only for the fact that I know he had to go to the "Effects" panel to make it this very sympathetic sepia tone.
I went to the Democratic National Convention in Denver and forgot I still had a pot cookie in my backpack. Just as it hit me, I was introduced to Al Gore. I'm not sure what I'm saying to him here but I think it's something to the effect of, "ARRRGGHH! I'm a monster!! I'm gonna eat you!"
This is a still from my video Sell the Vatican, Feed the World. Notice the advertisement attached to this YouTube viewing.
A monkey dressed as a bellhop. Classic...
* * *
Chris Farley Unwittingly Changes My Life Forever
* * *
My stint at SNL was quick and painful. One might even compare it metaphorically to being stabbed in the head with a pencil. But it was a singular experience that I wouldn't trade. And there was at least one moment that continues to have a positive effect on my mental health on a daily basis.
Chris Farley and I had gotten to rehearsal early. We sat side by side, legs dangling off the edge of the main stage of the studio. "Can you believe this?" he asked. "Can you believe we're sitting on the same stage that John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd were on? Performing on the same stage they performed on?" He teemed with all the excitement and thrill and wonder that I should have had as a first-year SNL-er. So far from jaded--something he never seemed to become--Chris was downright awestruck, even three years into his tenure at SNL, in the thick of becoming a comedy legend.
I was taken aback by Chris's ability to be so earnest and joyful. Me, I'd been too gripped by fear to feel anything else. This quiet, coincidental moment with Chris made me realize, "I'd better feel this, now," and it remains a kind of mantra for me. This was surely not a defining moment for Chris--he was most likely passing the time, filling in an awkward encounter with a newbie with some friendly words, but it meant the world to me and has made the rest of my life a better place. And it's because of him that I now sit on the set of my own TV show between takes and yell, "You guys!! Can you believe this?? We're making a real TV show!! This is going to be on motherfucking TELEVISION!" They laugh at me, but I mean it. It's a joy.
FEAR AND CLOTHING
I have a little problem.
It's one I've had for quite a while, and it is not mellowing with age. In fact, by all accounts it's getting worse.
I don't know how to dress myself.
That's not my opinion, it's the opinion of those who matter most in America: the editors of Us Weekly magazine. Someday after I die, my fashion style will be reevaluated, and I will be seen as a genius like all dead people. But from the day God gave me my own self-generating fur coat, I have pretty much been a perpetual fashion "don't."
To make sure that I would not be exaggerating my claims of persecution here, I did what any diligent person who does not wish to get out of her chair would do: I Googled myself using my name plus "worst dressed" as search terms, and got over 18,000 hits. As a control, I then Googled my name with "best dressed" and still wound up with about 18,000 hits, so I figured it was a wash. But then I looked closer at the "Best Dressed" results and saw such entries as "Best Cinderella's Ugly Step Sister: Sarah Silverman." Once you start getting sarcastic Google search results, you know irony has truly bled into all areas of modern American life.
* * *
Suspenders of Disbelief
* * *
I'm pretty much fine with the way I dress, so I don't see my style as a personal flaw. But if you do, and are looking for someone to blame, try my parents. My father to this day refuses to wear anything with a label other than "Target" (he has three collared shirts in rotation, which he ordered online from the Target employees' Web site), and my mother, for example, might don overalls with two different color socks--the latter being pure artistic choice, not slapdashery. I pretty much followed suit. Though once I entered my teen years, I started wanting the latest in New Hampshire trendiness; until then, clothing was to me a way to keep warm and express my interests and passions.
One of my biggest interests and passions, at age ten, was Mork. From Ork. So when I went to Camp Forevergreen that summer, I brought my favorite (and only) fashion accessory: my rainbow Mork-from-Ork suspenders. It was my firm understanding that these were the coolest things a kid could own. But as it turns out, they were not cool in the least. What they were, in actuality, was an invitation to torment me. Abby Rothschild, a tough, towheaded bunkmate twice my size, was the first to accept.
One morning as we prepared to go on a hike, she cooed, "Sarah, you should wear your rainbow suspenders. They're soooo coool." To my gullible ears, Abby sounded sincere, and generall
y speaking, it did not take much coaxing for me to break out the Morkwear. When we left the bunk, I was proudly sporting the suspenders over a yellow collared Forevergreen shirt.
Not long into the hike I noticed that no matter how slowly I paced myself, Abby and her friends remained a few feet behind me, cackling with delight. Eventually I stopped and turned around to find out what was so funny, at which point the girls stifled their giggles. That was my answer.
"Did you tell me to wear these because they're gay?!" I asked Abby. At first she and her pals just looked at me, startled. Then they cracked up again, and I did too. Genuinely.
The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee Page 9