Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me_ (And Other Concerns) - Mindy Kaling [19]
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