Gasping for Airtime - Jay Mohr [5]
To complicate matters, Dave and Sarah had dated each other and had only just recently broken up. Regardless, the three of us had a strange bond now. We were new. We were ready. We were clueless. And we were all waiting for Jim Downey.
Another hour passed and it was early evening. Finally, Downey arrived. “Downer,” as Adam Sandler affectionately called him, was actually a great guy. He had a bit of a belly, and he always seemed to have a smile on his face. Downey had written for David Letterman, where, I was told, he had created the Top Ten list, and he had also written for SNL in the 1970s. He was harassing some of the guys as they arrived when suddenly I felt a rumbling in the hallway.
Farley was coming!
When I say I felt a rumbling, it’s in no way a reference to Chris’s weight. Rather, it’s a compliment to his presence. Chris Farley was the most beautiful human being I ever met. When you met Chris, you smiled. You had to. For God’s sake, it was involuntary.
From the minute Farley walked into the room, the mood changed. “Ahhh, now we’re cookin’,” Sandler announced.
I stared at Chris and thought about what a dork I would look like if I jumped up from the couch and introduced myself to him. He might have just become my colleague, but I was still a fan. As far as I was concerned, he had reset the bar for funny with the first Motivational Speaker sketch that he and David Spade had done with Christina Applegate, where he hitched up his pants, crossed his eyes, and made her laugh so hard that she had to cover her face with her hair like Cousin It.
Farley and Downey exchanged hugs and then Downey fondly needled Chris. “What have you been doing, Chris? Where have you been? You were supposed to be here.” A serious look came across Farley’s face and all he could muster was a “huh.” “Look at us,” Downey prodded. “We’re all here. Even the new guy Jay Mohr is here.” Downey then pointed at me and said, “Chris, that’s Jay Mohr. He’s a new writer and featured performer.”
Farley looked over at me through a pair of blue-tinted prescription sunglasses. His hair was slicked back and he was wearing a black suit jacket over a starched white shirt. His enormous stomach stretched against an old black belt that held up a pair of blue jeans that hung over a pair of old black combat boots. My first thought was that he looked a little like Jack Nicholson.
He started walking toward me and shouted, “How are ya, young fella?” Then he fake-tripped and landed about a foot in front of me facedown on the floor. Slowly he pulled himself up onto his knees and then buried his face in my crotch and pretended to puke in my lap six or seven times. He sold the puke so hard that even I had to peek to make sure he was just fooling around. Chris looked up at me. His glasses were in my lap. “Oh, man, sorry,” he said, wiping his mouth. Not exactly hello.
I looked around and noticed the number of people in the room had doubled. They were all staring at me. No one except for Steve Lookner was laughing. It was very odd. I wasn’t sure if they were waiting to see how I would react, or if they were wondering if Chris had actually puked in my lap. I emitted a meek “how ya’ doin’,” and everyone went back to what they were doing. There was no acknowledgment that a 300-pound guy had just simulated fellatio and vomiting in my lap. Chris rose to his feet and walked away.
Welcome to the big leagues.
A few days after I arrived at 30 Rock, the SNL cast and writers went on a three-day retreat together. This is something of a tradition, where everyone circles the wagons a week or two before the show starts and heads up into the mountains for some R&R. In the mornings we would play some golf, swim, and shoot some hoops, and in the afternoon we would all meet for writing sessions. The retreat was in upstate New York at a place called Mohonk Mountain House. I had never heard of Mohonk, and I kept thinking everybody was saying Mohawk or My Hunk.
Very early on I noticed