partner in crime
TINA FEY IS MY COMEDY WIFE. I have known her for almost a double decade. We met each other when we were poor and single. Now we are both rich as shit and have husbands all over the world. People think of us as a “comedy team” and I am not quick to correct them. Why wouldn’t I want to connect myself to the fiercest and most talented voice in the comedy world?
I am mistaken for Tina all the time. I recently renewed my license at the DMV and the African American woman asked me to do my Sarah Palin. She was confused and perhaps racist, but it only made me happy. I’m happy that people call me Tina because she is my friend and she happens to be crushing it.
Tina helped me get on Saturday Night Live and asked me to join her on “Update” as one of the first two women coanchors. It was as fun as it looked. We have performed in front of our parents and the whole world, and each time we’ve looked at each other and laughed at what we get to do. Tina reminds me of how far I have come. She knew me when. When we are together I feel strong and powerful. Maybe too powerful. (I tend to show off and run my mouth a little bit.)
We don’t compete against each other, we compete against ourselves.
Often there is only one other person in the world who understands the very specific thing I am dealing with, and it’s Tina. Well, Tina and Judge Judy, actually, but I only have Tina’s phone number. It is intense to have little kids and a television show and be a woman in general, and I am lucky to have someone to walk through this weird life with.
Tina shows her love for you by writing for you. I can’t tell you how many times she wrote something special and wonderful for me. Most of my memories of her at SNL involve Tina sitting at her computer, working on something for someone else. Tina wrote a lovely chapter about me in her book, and boy have I dined out on that for a while. In an attempt to return the favor, I will honor Tina with an acrostic poem, arguably the laziest form of writing.
i’m so proud of you
ONCE A WOMAN TURNS FORTY SHE HAS TO START DEALING WITH TWO THINGS: YOUNGER MEN TELLING HER THEY ARE PROUD OF HER AND OLDER MEN LETTING HER KNOW THEY WOULD HAVE SEX WITH HER. Both of these things are supposed to be compliments but can often end up making this particular woman angry. I don’t think a man who is fifteen years younger than me should tell me he is proud of me unless he is my sober coach or my time-travel dad. Older men can be sexy and powerful, but when a thrice-divorced entertainment attorney puts his bony hand on my knee, I want to whisper in his ear, “You’re crazy, old man.”
I’m not sure if you have heard about this new theory that men and women are different, but it’s really starting to catch on. Most of my life has been spent in a room full of men, and I have learned the different ways they communicate. I find that, in general, the amount of sharing men do with each other in one year is about the same as what I share with my female friends while we wait for our cars at the valet. I was once part of an Asssscat show that included a young comedian doing monologues. In one of his stories he briefly mentioned his failed marriage. After the show, the comedian, ten other guys, and I were all hanging out in the greenroom drinking beers. This ratio is not uncommon in comedy. If you’re a woman, you are often the only one, or one of two, in a room full of men. This is certainly the case in most writers’ rooms, except for SNL and Parks and Rec, which both had more women writers than many other shows because Seth Meyers and Mike Schur (the head writers on each of these shows, respectively) are real men who love women. Anyway, back to the greenroom. One guy said to the comedian, “Hey, I didn’t know you used to be married.” The comedian said, “Yeah.” Another guy said, “Huh.” The comedian said, “Yeah.” There was a moment of silence and then the comedian breathed deep and said, “Thanks for letting me talk about it, guys.” He actually felt like he had shared something. This is how men talk to each other. It’s amazing to see up close.
On the other hand, men are sometimes wildly inappropriate in the way they share with women. By a show of hands, how many of you have seen a strange penis on the street? On the subway? At a sleepover? I was once walking with my friend Keri in the middle of the day and some guy asked us for the time. When we looked down at our watches, his dick was in his hands. We giggled and screamed and ran away. We were probably ten. I have been really drunk in high school and had a guy try to fool around with me. I have been called a bitch and a lesbian when I rejected a guy in college. I have locked eyes with various subway masturbators. I have been mugged but not raped, pushed and spit on by someone I knew, and forced to pull over in a road-rage incident where a man stuck his head into my car and told me he was going to “cum in my face.” And I count myself very lucky. That is what “very lucky” feels like. Oof.
Many women, and even some men, have their own version of how they have been lucky or unlucky. It can make it hard not to be on high alert for people using power to manipulate you. Which leads me to this story. I share it because it’s an example of a shady use of power and how I attempted to push back. Also, it is a story that shows no matter where or who you are, it can sometimes be hard to get a creep to stop hugging you.
I was asked to perform at an event honoring someone. I had worked on my bit and was excited to be a part of a special night for this person whom I admire. Usually, leading up to an event you are asked to run your ideas past some producers. I have learned that with these events I need to conserve the amount of real estate I let people take up in my heart and brain. Most people like to talk about things too much and too often, especially producers. When you are dealing with nervous producers hoping for a great show, you can be asked to take on their energy and be responsible for their feelings. I try to combat this by ignoring e-mails and hoping the whole situation just goes away. When that doesn’t work I spend an hour or so getting angry at myself for saying yes to the thing in the first place when I am much too busy! I am so busy! Why won’t people understand that! After I have stomped around a bit more I usually call or e-mail the producer late in the game and speak as vaguely and as quickly as I can.
So I talked to the producers about my speech (briefly; see above) and prepared to head to the event. I was ushered in to do a little rehearsal. It all went well. We went over my bit, and it got a bunch of laughs. The producer was a pleasant older gentleman in his sixties who thanked me for joining and assured me I would be in great hands. I cursed myself for having been so grumpy with the production team.
Right before I walked out onstage for the actual performance, the sound guy made some last-minute adjustments to my microphone. Then I walked out and started my section. My bit went fine. I would give it a B-minus. I’m at the point in my life now where delivering a B-minus performance on a televised show with some of my comedy heroes doesn’t ruin my week. I don’t know if that is the most inspiring or most depressing sentence I have ever typed, but there you have it. But right as I was building to the climax, the lights went down too early and I was cut off from delivering the ending that I was excited about and that had gone so well in rehearsal. At SNL we always wished for bad rehearsals. There was nothing worse than performing live and waiting for the laugh that came in rehearsals, and never getting it. I coined it “phantom laugh syndrome.” A hot dress audience was met with some head shaking because usually there was nowhere to go but down. My hot dress had morphed into me not really delivering and being cut off too early. I semi-stormed offstage and headed right into the path of one of the producers.
“Great job,” he said.
“You guys missed my cue,” I said.
“No one noticed.”
“I did.”
“Relax, it was great.”
“Relax” is a real tough one for me. Another tough one is “smile.” “Smile” doesn’t really work either. Telling me to relax or smile when I’m angry is like bringing a birthday cake into an ape sanctuary. You’re just asking to get your nose and genitals bitten off.
“This is the part where you apologize to me,” I said, getting angry. “You guys screwed up and this is where you make me feel better about it.”
I like to use this tactic on people. It can work. When someone is being rude, abusing their power, or not respecting you, just call them out in a really obvious way. Say, “I can’t understand why you are being rude because you are the concierge and this is the part of the evening where the concierge helps me.” Act like they are an actor who has forgotten what part they are playing. It brings the attention back to them and gives you a minute to calm down so you don’t do something silly like burst into tears or break their stupid fucking glasses. Not that there is anything wrong with crying. It was Marlo Thomas and the Free to Be . . . You and Me gang who reminded us that “crying gets the sad out.” It’s just that sometimes anger should just stay anger and tears can change anger to something else. However, if you do start crying in an argument and someone asks why, you can always say, “I’m just crying because of how wrong you are.”
So, I tell this producer to apologize to me and he kind of slinks away like “Yeesh, she’s a handful.” Luckily, that doesn’t bother me the way it used to. That kind of feeling would have been hard to hold in my heart and stomach when I was in my twenties. It was hard to feel like somebody didn’t like me. It felt like such a failure. I don’t care as much now. It’s really great. It’s like I can finally eat spicy food without the gut ache later, or something similar. I have a stomach for other people not stomaching me. Or at least I am working on it.
I stomped upstairs and felt angry for about five minutes, and then I watched the anger travel through my body like a wave and leave. Emotions are like passing storms, and you have to remind yourself that it won’t rain forever. You just have to sit down and watch it pour outside and then peek your head out when it looks dry. I had all but gotten over the whole thing when I heard a gentle knocking on my dressing room door.
“Amy, can I talk to you?”
“He’s coming to apologize,” I thought. I instantly decided I was not upset. Not only that, I decided I was going to let him off the hook easy. I just wanted to go watch the rest of the show and have a drink and celebrate, so I opened the door with relaxed shoulders and a genuine smile of reconciliation. He came in and sat down without asking if that was okay with me. I noticed this.
“We have a problem.”
“Oh?”
“Your audio wasn’t good. Your mic wasn’t working correctly.”
“Oh.”
So now I realized not only was he not coming to apologize, he was there to deliver more bad news. I practiced a few things I have learned from my therapist and other badass business bitches. I sat back. Actually, I leaned back. I thought about my second book, which will be a bestseller coauthored with Sheryl Sandberg titled Lean Back. I uncrossed my legs and I made eye contact. I immediately decided this was not my problem, and the relief of that decision spread across my chest like hot cocoa. Too often we women try to tackle chaos that is not ours to fix.
“Well, that is disappointing,” I said.
“I don’t know what to do,” he said.
I practiced another new thing I’ve learned. I just sat there quietly. It was so hard. I once sat next to Christopher Walken as we were rehearsing a sketch for SNL. I had tried small talk with him a few times, and he was extremely pleasant, but I just felt like I was bothering him. So as an experiment I tried to just sit next to him and be quiet. It was excruciating. I think I lasted for three minutes and then I had to pretend to read a bag of chips. Not talking can be hard for me. But I tried it.
“Hmm,” I said. (I know, I know, I was technically talking.)
“Would you do it again? Without an audience? So we could make sure we have it for the broadcast?” he asked.
“I don’t think so,” I said, quietly but firmly.
“Well, I just don’t know what to do,” he said.
I sat in silence. I’m doing good so far, right?
“Maybe I can do ADR if you need it,” I said. ADR is recording audio over a taped piece. Notice what I am doing? I am starting to offer ways to fix it even though a minute ago I felt great reminding myself it wasn’t my problem to fix.
“That would be great,” he said. “Are you sure you don’t want to do it again, just so we can be sure we have it?”
So now he had heard my no and was still asking. Gavin de Becker talks about this in his wonderful book The Gift of Fear. He talks about how the word “no” should be the “end of the discussion, not the beginning of a negotiation.” I am obsessed with The Gift of Fear. I quote it too much. My friends roll their eyes when they hear my Gift of Fear train coming. But how can you deny such hilarious gems as “Most men fear getting laughed at or humiliated by a romantic prospect while most women fear rape and death”? I mean, who doesn’t want me spouting that kind of stuff at their Christmas party?
I said no again. I said that I didn’t want to go back out and do my speech again in front of an empty room.
So that should have been it, right?
No.
Instead, the producer stood up and said, “I’m sorry. This has been stressful. Can I give you a hug?”
Now, I wish that I could tell you I said no. When I retold the story that night to my friends, I lied and told them I didn’t let him hug me. I told them that I said something like “No. No, you can’t.” My friends all nodded their heads when I told them that. They all believed that I wouldn’t let this guy give me a hug. I was a successful and independent woman! I was strong! I secretly disliked most new people!
But I did let him hug me. I let that creepy guy hug me. I stayed seated and he came over and hugged my stiff body while my arms stayed at my sides. All I was thinking at that moment was that if I let him hug me he would feel better and this would all be over soon.
Do you think he would have hugged a male performer?
Me neither. Either way, it never ends.
A little space.
Yes Please.