Gasping for Airtime

Josh Young is the reason you are reading this book at all. He worked tirelessly to formulate my stream-of-consciousness writing/rambling into a suitable format for mass consumption.

My manager, Barry Katz, was always very encouraging and touching with his input. Thank you, Barry.

Without Lorne Michaels there would be no book. For that matter, there would be a very different me. Thank you, Lorne, for deciding to hire me for the show. When I was last on
The Tonight Show
, I was introduced as a “former cast member on
Saturday Night Live
.” I have done almost twenty movies and a dozen television projects, but S
aturday Night Live
, for better or for worse, is the stick by which I am measured. I have zero regrets whatsoever.

The biggest thank-you on earth wouldn’t be sufficient for my wife, Nicole. We dated throughout my
SNL
career, and Nicole, you stuck by me in my darkest, craziest times. I’m sorry I didn’t call after the earthquake. I was drowning and should have realized that you were land. Thank you for our son. Because of you, I live forever.

—JM

I
T WAS
glorious. I was sitting in the back of a restaurant at 2:00
A.M
. with Lorne Michaels on my left, Patti Reagan on my right, and the entire cast and crew of
Saturday Night Live
spread out before us. Patti’s tits were pushed up to her chin and she was dripping with diamonds. I couldn’t help noticing that she had a piece of spinach stuck to her two front teeth, making it appear as if they had been knocked out in a bar fight. She was really drunk and she wasn’t saying much, so she was easy to ignore. Lorne, however, was looking typically regal and totally relaxed, and he was treating me like I was his new neighbor in the Hamptons who dropped in for an afternoon cocktail. It was all very pleasant.

I had been off
Saturday Night Live
for nearly a year, and I certainly hadn’t expected to be in this place at this time. But because the show is always the best party in town, I had returned to watch a taping and then dropped by the traditional wrap party. From the moment I walked into 30 Rock earlier that evening, I felt like the prodigal featured player returning home. Access was easier than when I was on the show. Heads nodded, velvet ropes were unhinged, checkpoints were passed. No one had asked for my ID or my special night badge. The feeling was: He’s one of us. He’s with the show.

John Goodman was the host. Though he had cohosted with Dan Aykroyd during my second season, I had no idea that he knew me from the wallpaper until that night. As he barreled past me in full costume ninety seconds before one of his sketches aired, Goodman stopped in his tracks, did a 180, and faced me. “Jay, how you doing?” he asked. He offered me his giant hand for a quick handshake and then continued his dash to the stage. Man, did I feel like a big shot.

Even the wrap party felt familiar. There were the same three layers of defense. At the bar in the front of the room were the electricians, grips, cue card holders, and interns knocking back drinks. These were the people who worked the hardest during the week. They deserved the bar to themselves. Past the bar were the tables where the cast members sat eating dinner. And in the back of the room were the tables reserved for the producers, the musical guests, the host, and of course, Lorne. But as I drifted through the restaurant, a strange sensation came over me. I felt as if I didn’t know anyone, even though I recognized nearly everyone.

I did say hello to a few of the performers who had been on during my two years, like David Spade, Norm Macdonald, and Tim Meadows, but I wasn’t about to sit down with them and swap war stories. I wouldn’t have known what to say because nothing on the outside ever had any relevance to what happened inside
Saturday Night Live
. Norm was a guy who wouldn’t be able to talk his way out of a mental hospital. If most people were committed, they would eventually convince the doctor that a terrible mistake had been made. Not Norm. He would be there the rest of his life, saying things like “I notice I’m wearing a gown” and “So you really want me to pee in that bedpan.” Spade was only on the show so he could sleep with models, and what could I possibly say to Tim Meadows? The guy had been on the show so long that his nickname should’ve been “grandfather clause.”

Just as I was feeling as though it might be time to leave, I realized that I had somehow made my way through the restaurant to the producer’s corner and was standing directly in front of Lorne’s table. My initial thought was to shake his hand, say hello, and be done with the niceties, but Lorne gave me a disarmingly warm greeting and motioned for me to sit down next to him.

Usually Lorne’s table was like a receiving line, yet over the next hour almost no one interrupted because we were so obviously deep in conversation. When someone did stop by to offer the proverbial “great show,” Lorne would give them a politely dismissive handshake like Ray Liotta in
Goodfellas
. He made it clear that he was talking to me. And we were deep in conversation.

“How are you? How are things?” he was asking me. He seemed to mean it, because he waited to hear my answer and then pressed me for details. I filled him in on my life as Wayne Foxworthy on
The Jeff Foxworthy Show
and talked about auditioning for movies. “That’s great,” he affirmed. “Movies would be great for you.” At one point, he asked me if I was hungry. “You should eat,” he said paternally. “You know what’s really good here is the penne pasta with rock shrimp.”

At first I had felt like I had intruded on Lorne and Patti Reagan. But I soon realized that she was really hammered and Lorne was more interested in talking to me than President Reagan’s sloshed daughter. At some point she left.

My conversation with Lorne drifted into relationships and life lessons. “How’s Nicole?” Lorne asked, naming my girlfriend without prompting. He told me that every man should have three wives—“one in his twenties, one in his thirties and forties, and one in his fifties, when he knows what he really wants.” Lorne had followed that path, and had a son with his third wife.

We were talking as equals—equals of sorts, anyway—because I no longer worked for him. I liked the man more than I ever had—even more than when I was sitting in his office and he told me that I was the future of
Saturday Night Live
.

At 3:00
A.M
. we both picked up our coats and walked out together. Just before Lorne stepped into his limo, he turned to me. “It was really good to see you again, Jay,” he said. I assured him the feeling was mutual.

As Lorne’s car drove away, I began to hail a cab but was stopped by Max, the show’s transportation captain. Max had just witnessed Lorne and me parting company. He asked if I was going home, and I told him I was. He motioned for a black Lincoln Town Car to move forward and take me home.

It was the first time I truly felt like I belonged to one of the greatest traditions in television history.