Gasping for Airtime - Jay Mohr [79]
These breaks were either one or two weeks long, and I commuted with no fear of having a panic attack on the plane. When the breaks rolled around, I was too tired to panic. All I could do was sleep. Having my legs broken week after week consumed every ounce of energy that I had. Whenever it was time for me to go back to New York, Nicole and I would get into huge arguments. They were usually over nothing, and were fueled more by booze than any animosity.
Long after my career at Saturday Night Live was over, I realized why we were arguing so much then. It was because in my demented head, the arguments made her easier to leave behind. When I was in New York, I dreamed of being with her. I dreamed of being in Los Angeles with her and the sunshine. The women I saw in New York disgusted me. The same social chip that I could cash with my friends was the only thing I had to offer them. I hated them for that. I hated myself, too.
U2 has a song on their album Achtung Baby! called “Light My Way” that talks about a woman’s love being a lightbulb hanging over your bed. My wife-to-be was my lightbulb. She lit my way. I believe that all human beings have a light inside of them. The light in me was getting very dim. I felt like a complete failure. Batting two for eleven in my second season was a disgrace.
By that point, when people asked me what I did for a living, I stopped telling them that I was on Saturday Night Live because I really wasn’t. I would simply tell them that I was a comic. If I told someone I was on the show, they would always look excited at first and then eventually they would turn skeptical. They would ask me what characters I did, and if they hadn’t seen the Christopher Walken sketch, I would have to name other sketches where I had stood in the background mimicking a prop. As far as being a celebrity goes, I didn’t have anything to offer except stories about the people I worked with who were actually famous.
At least there were plenty of those.
When Roseanne hosted the show, she was famous. She was also out of her fucking mind.
I have always been a fan of the television show Roseanne, and I respected Roseanne as a comedian. Roseanne was pleasant to me and never did anything to me to distort my perception of her. I’d read the tabloid journalism about her, but I’d never paid any attention to it. When Roseanne arrived on the Monday of the week she was to be host, it was like meeting a bossy, wry old housewife. By Saturday, she was like a six-year-old.
The cast had filed into Lorne’s office between dress rehearsal and air and taken up their positions. Some muttered to themselves about their sketches being dropped from the rundown. Lorne waited for everyone to settle and began to give notes. The moment he started to speak, Roseanne belched.
At first we thought it was by accident. Roseanne excused herself and motioned for Lorne to continue. As Lorne detailed the changes being made to the show, Roseanne continued to belch. She wasn’t doing it by accident, either. She would belch to punctuate a particular note of Lorne’s. She would belch during people’s questions to Lorne. After each burp, she would look around the room and smile as if we were all in a grade school classroom. Her burps weren’t exactly ladylike, either. She was letting out some real whoppers. Halfway through the meeting Roseanne literally ran out of gas.
Refusing to stop a good party, Roseanne started to make herself burp. If she opened her mouth to burp and nothing came out, she would hold up her hand and say, “Wait! Wait!”
Lorne wasn’t waiting. During the entire meeting, he acted as if her antics weren’t happening. There were a few scattered giggles at first when the belching began, but they quickly dissipated. Farley thought it was funny,