Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)

by Mindy Kaling

  Until we tried to pursue our dreams.

  Jocelyn accompanies me on the subway to my first-ever open mike gig.

  I AM TERRIBLE AT EVERYTHING

  Everything I learned about trying to get hired as a comedy writer came from the Film and Television section of the Lincoln Center Barnes and Noble. I didn’t have the money to buy many of the books there, so I spent hours sitting in the aisle, copying down sections in a loose-leaf notebook. I was not the worst offender. There were aspiring screenwriters sprawled all over the place there. They’d nurse a single coffee for hours. One kid I saw there all the time frequently brought a large pizza with him and ate the entire thing slowly while handwriting inquiry letters to literary agencies.* The only really valuable thing I learned from the Lincoln Center Barnes and Noble was that the only way I could get hired by a TV show was to write a “spec,” or sample script, of a popular current show. That’s when I started working on my first spec, a Will & Grace sample, having seen the show only a handful of times.

  I went on one audition when I was in New York. I wasn’t actively pursuing acting jobs, but this one was tailor-made for me. It was an open casting call for Bombay Dreams, an Andrew Lloyd Webber–produced musical extravaganza that was transferring from London to Broadway. I was encouraged by the relative lack of actresses, aged eighteen to thirty, who sang, lived in the tristate area, and also looked Indian. Nothing gives you confidence like being a member of a small, weirdly specific, hard-to-find demographic.

  The first Bombay Dreams audition was a singing audition. I auditioned with “Somewhere Out There” from An American Tail. In the audition room I saw some Indian girls, but mostly Latina girls trying to pass for Indian. The audition sign-in sheet read like it was for a production of West Side Story.

  My singing audition went really well, mostly because they were relieved an actual Indian person was auditioning. On the way out, the casting assistant walked me all the way to the street, saying, “We were really so happy you made it out here.” I nodded demurely, like I had a million other auditions that week that were more exciting than this one, and left. They were so happy I made it out there? Why not just hand me my start paperwork? On the subway I started planning what I would do when I got the job. First I would go to Dean & Deluca and buy some tiny marzipan candies in the shape of fruit, an expensive treat I noticed a lot of fancy-looking older white women buying. Next I would pay for an exterminator to come to our apartment to kill the cockroaches. After that I’d take Bren and Joce out to dinner at Le Cirque, like I was a creepy Wall Street sugar daddy and they were my pretty arm candy.

  I got a callback for a dance audition. I had never danced in my life and did not know what to wear. I went to a dance clothing surplus outlet in Chelsea I’d seen ads for in the PennySaver. Their stuff was discounted because it was irregular, which means the colors were weird or some buttons were off. I bought brown tights, a sleeveless pink leotard, and a white iridescent skirt that wrapped around my waist and was fastened with Velcro. I capped off the entire look with some traditional pink ballet slippers. In the communal mirror of the dressing room of that surplus store, a young Asian girl trying on ballet clothes with her mom said, “Mommy, you should dress like that,” referring to me. The mom hushed her in an Asian language. This sealed the deal. I had never felt more graceful in my life.

  At the audition I looked like a fucking idiot. The other girls were all dressed in versions of what actual dancers wear: low-key black leggings, a tank top, and sneakers. I looked like the children’s birthday party performer playing Angelina Ballerina, the ballet-dancing mouse. A Kevin Federline–looking choreographer taught us an incredibly complicated Bollywood dance routine, which we then had to perform on tape. I stumbled through it like a groggy teamster who had wandered into the wrong room backstage, breathing heavily and vaguely hitting my marks. KFed stopped me before the song was done and kindly asked if I needed some water. I laughed because, as everyone knows, laughing is a great way to disguise heavy breathing. I then exited on the pretense of getting a drink, and quickly left the building. It remains the single most embarrassing performance of my life, and it’s on tape somewhere. I like to think Andrew Lloyd Webber watches it whenever he’s feeling down.

  My Will & Grace spec was a disaster. In an attempt to achieve the cheeky, gay-centric tone of the show, I had written a sample so over-the-top offensively gay that it actually reads like a propaganda sketch to incite antigay sentiment.

  So things were coming together nicely for me to embark on a full-fledged depression. One good thing about New York is that most people function daily while in a low-grade depression. It’s not like if you’re in Los Angeles, where everyone’s so actively working on cheerfulness and mental and physical health that if they sense you’re down, they shun you. Also, all that sunshine is a cruel joke when you’re depressed. In New York, even in your misery, you feel like you belong. But it was still hard to fail, so consistently, at everything I had once been Camilla Parker Bowles–level good at.

  Brenda and I would fix that, but we didn’t know it yet.

  *It is interesting to note that this Barnes and Noble no longer exists—perhaps no one was buying books there?

  The Exact Level of Fame I Want

  I OBVIOUSLY WANT to be super famous and for everyone to love me. That’s why I got into this racket. It helps that I love writing jokes, but let’s face it, that was just the means to an end.

  Oftentimes when I’m in the writers’ room at The Office, and it’s 11:00 p.m., the script we’re rewriting is halted because we’re all waiting for our boss to approve an outfit for the character Pam that shoots the following day, and my mind wanders. First I wonder if I will ever get the opportunity to live in a tree house like the one in the Swiss Family Robinson house at Disneyland, where we’d have a giant seashell for a sink. After I realize that, no, that will never happen, I think about the exact amount of fame I want.

  To me, the person with the best fame is Conan O’Brien. When I interned at Late Night, I thought, Wow, this is the guy who has totally nailed being famous. Nobody cared what he wore (some kind of dark-colored suit), his hair was famously always the same, and he got to sit at the same desk every episode. Clearly he was a hardworking genius, but he was the only famous person I saw who was always being himself. Everyone else had to be someone else. Conan did strange little comedy bits that were completely his style, interviewed celebrities who were much more dressed up than he was, and even got to do cooking demonstrations. (When I interned there, I noticed he never ate the food during commercial breaks. I don’t understand that level of discipline.)

  I didn’t want to be Regis or Kathie Lee, because their chairs were too high. I’m sorry, I’m supposed to sit like that for an hour? Too much blood rushing to my ankles. No, thanks.

  Once I saw Paris Hilton leaving a restaurant in Hollywood and the paparazzi cameras were all over her. It looked so unpleasant. It wasn’t because she didn’t look sensational—she was that perfect combination of fashionable and slutty—it was because the paparazzi guys were shouting these insanely rude and intrusive questions at her. Like, asking her who she was sleeping with and stuff. I was kind of interested in the answer, so I was glad they asked, but it was still gross.

  But then, behind Paris, I saw Sacha Baron Cohen quietly exit the restaurant completely unnoticed, walk up to the valet, get in his car, and drive away. Can you believe that? I mean, it’s Sacha Baron Fuckin’ Cohen! (Wasn’t sure where to put the fuckin’ in there, but I think I chose right.) None of the paparazzi had any idea who he was, but he was also, like Conan, one of the most respected living comedy icons in the world. And I thought, Man, I want to be that famous.

  Here are some more ways I’d love to be famous (I am required to declare that these ideas are technically owned by NBC-Universal, because I imagined them while on their payroll).

  I NEVER HAVE TO WAIT IN LINE FOR BRUNCH

  Like everyone normal, I would never have a bumper sticker, ever. How
ever, if I saw one that read, “Hell Is Waiting in Line for Brunch,” I might buy a thousand and plaster my car with them. I’d like to be so famous that if I want to lazily eat out on a Sunday afternoon, someone whisks me past a long line of poor slobs waiting in the sun and to a private table.

  I GET TO SEE THE LAKERS ALL THE TIME

  Look, I don’t need to have Jack Nicholson seats or whatever—honestly, who needs to live in constant peril of a sweaty 7-foot-tall, 240-pound guy falling on you?—but I’d love to be so famous that people who do have amazing tickets would be psyched to have me come with them. I just want to sit close enough so that I can ask the Laker Girls questions about their makeup regimens.

  TEENAGERS IDOLIZE MY “LOOK”

  I was at Benefit Cosmetics picking up some lip glosses and trying to scam some free samples one Saturday a few months ago. While I was there, I saw two adorable ninth-grade girls getting makeovers for their semiformal, which was that night. They both had torn-out reference pictures of Emma Watson. When I was their age, I had done the same with pictures of Meg Ryan. I was obsessed with her edgy shag from the otherwise forgettable movie Addicted to Love. The edgy shag did not suit my face. If you must know, it made me look like a touring 1980’s road comic. A male one.

  Copying a celebrity’s hairstyle is some enviable adoration right there. Since I don’t think anyone will ever want my haircut, it’d have to be something else. Maybe kids would want my perfectly hairless forearms.

  IF I SUPPORT A CAUSE, I CAN ACTUALLY HELP IT

  Sean Penn, like, lives in Haiti, right? That’s too much. I can’t do that. That’s some hard-core goodness right there. But I’d love to make an enormous impact by being the vocal spokesperson for a cause, somewhere on the level of Mary Tyler Moore ending horse carriage rides in Central Park.

  THE FASHION POLICE SLAUGHTER ME, CONSTANTLY, AND I DON’T CARE

  There’s a certain badass-ness to someone like Helena Bonham Carter, who just doesn’t give a crap about what the Fashion Police say. And when I say the Fashion Police, of course I’m speaking of the small group of screeching gay guys and fashion “experts” on that E! show led by the reanimated corpse of Joan Rivers. Joan, actually, is still pretty great. One Emmy Awards show a few years ago, she said my dress made me look like I was going to the prom from hell. It traumatized my entire week, but even I had to admit that it was a funny thing to say. The point is, it only traumatized me because I had the time to be traumatized. I want to be so famous and busy that I only ever find these insults amusing, and chuckle at them good-naturedly before I get on my private jet to be a UN ambassador to Cameroon, or wherever.

  BATSHIT STUFF I WEAR IS IMMEDIATELY CONSIDERED FASHIONABLE

  Kind of related to what I’ve just said. I want to rock harem pants or black lipstick like Gwen Stefani does and have people be like, “That’s just Mindy,” and then everyone starts doing it.

  WHEN I GET OLD, I’M A SIGHT GAG FOR TV SHOWS

  I want to be so famous that people put me in their TV shows as the desiccated old broad who gets big laughs simply because no one has ever seen such an old bag of bones recite memorized lines, and because the sight of me brings up warm, nostalgic memories of their youth. Future hipsters will love me ironically.

  I CAN NEVER GO TO JAIL

  It’d be great to be so famous that if I murder someone, I will never, ever, ever serve any jail time, even if it’s totally obvious to everyone that I did it.

  I HAVE TO HAVE A PSEUDONYM

  I read that Michael Jackson used to have prescriptions for Demerol under the alias Jack London. So much about Michael Jackson’s life was tragic and strange, but that detail is just so cool. I like thinking that Michael Jackson was like, “Let’s see, let’s see. Who do I want to commemorate in my request for drugs? You know what? I always did love White Fang. Jack London it is.” My alias for hotels and stuff would be Gwendolyn Trundlebed, a nonsense name I’ve always loved that my friend Mike Schur came up with during the third season of The Office.

  MY STAND-IN GETS PLASTIC SURGERY TO LOOK MORE LIKE ME

  In movies, actors will sometimes have a stand-in. The stand-in is an actor who is hired to stand in the place of another actor for lighting purposes, so the first actor can take a nap or go do drugs in his trailer. I worked on a movie once where the lead actor (a very famous actor whom I’ll call Tony Dash) traveled with his personal stand-in. They were best friends. It is already weird to be best friends with someone who looks like you, but the absolute weirdest part was that the stand-in had gotten extensive facial plastic surgery to look more like Tony. I think he did it so that Tony would never, ever think of hiring anyone else to be his stand-in, and he’d have job security for the rest of his life. He looked like the half-melted version of this famous actor. It was horrifying and titillating at the same time. It just showed so much power. I want there to be some slightly grotesque version of me following me around on sets all over the world, and we hang out and vacation together.

  KENAN THOMPSON PLAYS ME ON SNL

  I can’t tell whether I would hate this or love this so much. There are arguments for both. I’ll say love it, for now.

  Karaoke Etiquette

  WITH THE EXCEPTION of Japanese businessmen, no one likes karaoke more than I do. When I graduated from college, my aunt Sreela and uncle Keith gave me the single best present I’ve ever received: a professional-level karaoke machine. I don’t know if they were aiming to become my favorite aunt and uncle for all eternity, but that was the result. When I arrived in Brooklyn with Bren and Jocelyn, we set that machine up to our TV before we had a bed or couch. We’d just take turns belting Whitney Houston in an empty room, while the others sat Indian-style, impatiently waiting their turn.

  Because we were unemployed for so much of those first months, and also because we are cheesy crooning hambones, we did a lot of karaoke. Now, in L.A., all the best birthday parties I go to take place in a karaoke bar or, for the true karaoke experience, a dark windowless box in Koreatown that smells faintly of Korean-style chicken wings. What follows are some things I think really maximize the karaoke experience.

  When I pick songs for karaoke, I have three concerns: (1) What will this song say about me? (2) How will I sound singing it? and (3) How will it make people feel?

  The key is that the third one matters the most, by a factor of a hundred. When most people sing karaoke, they think of themselves as contestants on American Idol, and they sing and perform their hearts out. But I really think people should be thinking of themselves more as temporary DJs for the party. It’s kind of a responsibility. It’s up to you to sing a kick-ass upbeat song that sets the mood for your friends to have fun, drink, and pick up girls and guys.

  And it kind of behooves you to pick a short song. I don’t care if Don freakin’ McLean shows up in a red-white-and-blue tuxedo, no one is allowed to sing “American Pie.” It’s actually kind of hostile to a group of partiers to pick a song longer than three minutes.

  Stray observations I would like to add: I like when small people sing big brassy songs, like, say, if my friend Ellie Kemper sings “Big Spender” in a booming voice. I also like when guys sing girls’ songs, but not in a campy way. Like a guy earnestly singing “Something to Talk About” is wonderful. Guys sometimes do this thing where they sing a Britney or Rihanna song and do a campy impression of the singer, to be funny, and it’s painful. An amazing thing to do is to pick a song that has lyrics in another language. That’s why I tend to always sing Madonna’s “La Isla Bonita” for karaoke. I would die if a guy sang a Gipsy Kings song. Die in a good way, obviously.

  Day Jobs

  IN OTHER PLACES in this book, you’ve seen the fruitless attempts I made while living in New York to pursue my goal of show business employment. This section is about my attempts to get day jobs. At first I called this chapter “Mama’s Gots to Pay da Bills,” but I thought that title made it sound like maybe I had been a stripper or had a brood of illegitimate children.

  It was Oc
tober 2001 and I lived in New York City. I was twenty-two. I, like many of my female friends, suffered from a strange combination of post-9/11 anxiety and height-of-Sex-and-the-City anxiety. They are distinct and unnerving anxieties. The questions that ran through my mind went something like this:

  Should I keep a gas mask in my kitchen? Am I supposed to be able to afford Manolo Blahnik shoes? What is Barneys New York? You’re trying to tell me a place called “Barneys” is fancy? Where are the fabulous gay friends I was promised? Gay guys hate me! Is this anthrax or powdered sugar? Help! Help!

  The greatest source of stress was that it had been three months since I’d moved to New York and I still didn’t have a job. You know those books called From Homeless to Harvard or From Jail to Yale or From Skid Row to Skidmore? They’re these inspirational memoirs about young people overcoming the bleakest of circumstances and going on to succeed in college. I was worried I would be the subject of a reverse kind of book: a pathetic tale of a girl with a great education who frittered it away watching syndicated Law & Order episodes on a sofa in Brooklyn. From Dartmouth to Dickhead it would be called. I needed a job.