Two, things were getting tense. McCain-Palin supporters were yelling racist invective at rallies, and the campaign wasn't exactly shutting that behavior down. I didn't want to joke around and hug her on camera and be perceived as endorsing their campaign.
Three, I had seen footage of Governor Palin and her sweet littlest daughter, Piper, getting booed at a Flyers game. (Classy, hometown, real classy.) I was sure that the liberal NYC studio audience for SNLwould boo the shit out of her. I didn't want that to happen and I definitely didn't want to stand next to her while that happened and have it seem like we had laid a trap for her. I didn't want to be complicit in an ugly live-TV moment during what was becoming an increasingly ugly campaign.
Lorne didn't think it would be a problem. However, Lorne was also riding three weeks of 7+ratings, and the real Mrs. Palin would surely exceed that. She was ratings gold-pure nuggets of "ratings gold" just waiting to be extracted from the teeth of a corpse. (In this metaphor I'm not sure if the corpse represents my career, the McCain campaign, or broadcast television.) I told Lorne that if the real governor did the show, I would sit this one out. Lorne suggested I not decide so quickly. He and I both knew that things had gotten so weird in the cable news cycle that if I didn't show up, it would be just as much of a fake news story. The CNN crawl would have read, "MEANGIRL: Fey refuses to appear with Palin. Palin supporters call the move 'un-American' and 'vaguely Jewish.' Tonight at 9 EST Rick Sanchez uncovers the Corn Syrup Myth..."
It really was a catch-22 for me, unless Lorne would just decline to have her on. And that wasn't going to happen. See above re: ratings gold.
I was hurt that Lorne would put me in this position. At the same time, it is never lost on me that he also "put me in the position" of being on TV in the first place, which no one else in the world would have done. Trust me, I used to audition for things.
I called Lorne and said I would do the show but that it was very important to me that we protect Governor Palin from being booed. I suggested that he start with her backstage in the 8H hallway. The live audience would only see her on the monitors and, not knowing if what they were seeing was live or pretaped, they would be less likely to boo.
My only other request was this: I never wanted to appear in a "two shot" with Mrs. Palin. I mean, she really is taller and better looking than I am, and we would literally be wearing the same outfit.I'd already been made to stand next to Jennifer Aniston and Salma Hayek on camera in my life; a gal can
only take so much. And honestly, I knew that if that picture existed, it would be what they show on the Emmys someday when I die, and I'd really rather they show this picture.
Lorne called back the next day to say he had an idea and Seth was working on a draft. We'd start with me in a fake press conference, then cut to Lorne and Governor Palin backstage. It was Lorne's idea to have Alec Baldwin there, too.
As a beloved SNL host and a known liberal crusader, Alec standing next to Sarah would send out an "everybody be cool" message to the audience.
We rehearsed on Saturday afternoon as usual, but this time there was massive security in the building for the vice presidential nominee. I met Mrs. Palin on the studio floor when we came out to rehearse. She was in full hair and makeup because she'd come straight from a campaign stop. I had my hair in a ponytail and looked my trademark exhausted. We shook hands and I blurted out, "Don't worry, they'll put makeup on me." As we took our places to rehearse, my daughter pointed animatedly at Governor Palin on the monitor. "She's confused," Mrs. Palin laughed.
We didn't hang out much, but we chatted a little about children. She offered her daughter Bristol to babysit Alice during the show if need be. I thanked her, saying Alice was too little to stay for the show. She always went home with her dad after the dinner break. I can't imagine Bristol would have been too psyched to do that anyway; it was her eighteenth birthday, she was in New York City, and I had made a vicious joke about her a week earlier. But I appreciated the mom-ness of Mrs. Palin's offer. She might as well have said, "You guys need to take these sets down tonight? Cuz I can get Todd down here with a Makita."
Mrs. Palin's whole camp was helpful. Her hairstylist made adjustments to my wig to make it even more like the governor's hair. Her makeup artist identified the lip color that we'd been trying to figure out for four weeks: It was just lip liner, under Chapstick.
And then it was 11:30.
Seth wrote an admirable Sneaker Upper. Some solid jokes at the top, and Alec was funny with her backstage. There was the requisite amount of sweaty feigned surprise.
Governor Palin and I crossed paths for just an instant, and when she took center stage she was greeted with a long round of applause. I'd like to think that my suggestion of starting her backstage paid off, but more likely I had underestimated what a giant media star Sarah Palin was; even the New Yorkiest audience was giddy to see her in person.
After the show I felt compelled to find Mrs. Palin in her dressing room and say good-bye. "Good job. You should come back and host sometime," I said. She certainly could handle it. And then, "Now, you're gonna tell everyone you had a good time in New York City, right? And that everyone was really nice to you?" Mrs. Palin smiled and nodded. "Yep. Nobody was scary or anything." I couldn't believe the condescension that was coming out of my mouth. I was talking to this woman like I was reminding a child to say "please." I guess I was just hoping that wherever the campaign took her the next day, she would include New York City as one of the "pro-America" parts of her country.
In my opinion, the most meaningful moment for women in the 2008 campaign was not Governor Palin's convention speech or Hillary Clinton conceding her 1,896 delegates. The moment most emblematic of how things have changed for women in America was nine-months-pregnant Amy Poehler rapping as Sarah Palin and tearing the roof off the place.
Watching Amy rap made me so happy that she had found a way to make real comedy out of a Sneaker Upper. The virtuosity and joyfulness of her performance made me feel like it was time for me to hand this job back to the professionals. I felt like that character in Flowers for Algernon. Not Charlie, the lady teacher from the college who realizes, "I've got to stop dry-humping this mentally challenged guy!"
The rating was a 10.7/14 million people.One More Weird Time, and That's It?
The week before the election, John McCain wanted to come on the show. I had met Senator McCain when he hosted SNL in 2002, and we all liked him very much. (He was not one of the unnamed d-bags.) I had even spent a day with him in DC. He gave my husband and me a tour of the Senate before we posed together for this "get out the vote" cover of Life magazine.
(The magazine went under immediately after this, by the way.) Did it seem insane that a presidential candidate would want to appear in a sketch parodying his running mate just days before the election? Sure, but what didn't seem insane then? A Kenyan Communist Muslim was about to be elected president. Seth wrote a sketch about McCain-Palin buying time on QVC as a last-ditch effort to reach voters.
For the last time* Jane the makeup artist overdrew my lips to make my mouth look wider. Louis glued my ears down (my ears stick out and Sarah's don't) and Betty popped on my long brown wig. I went to Senator McCain's dressing room to read through the cue cards with him, and he started laughing uncomfortably when he saw me. "It's just weird," he said.
And that was it. We had gone through the entire life cycle of an SNL character-from first-time jitters to Sneaker Upper to "This again?"-in six weeks.
One of the best parts of all this is that my daughter may actually have childhood memories of going to SNL. I left so soon after she was born, I didn't think she would know that place or those people, but now she will, which means a lot to me because that was my home for a long time.
One of the worst parts of all of this was that I learned what it felt like to be a lightning rod. I got some hate mail, and there are definitely people out there who will dislike me for the rest of my life because of "what I did" to Sarah Palin. On an intellectual level, this doesn't bother me at all. On a human level, I would prefer to be liked. There was an assumption that I was personally attacking Sarah Palin by impersonating her on TV. No one ever said it was "mean" when Chevy Chase played Gerald Ford falling down all the time. No one ever accused Dana Carvey or Darrell Hammond or Dan Aykroyd of "going too far" in their political impressions. You see what I'm getting at here. I am not mean and Mrs. Palin is not fragile. To imply otherwise is a disservice to us both.
A few months after our friendly chat about kids (and my condescending remarks about New York), Mrs. Palin told conservative filmmaker John Ziegler that Katie Couric and I had exploited and profited by her family. But I know better than to respond to attacks in the media. Although if I were to respond, I would probably just say, "Nice reality show." Or maybe I'd point out that when those sketches were watched 58 million times on the Internet around the world, I was paid nothing because actors don't get any money for Internet reuse. (Get ready for an actors' strike in 2012.) But I'd probably just know better than to respond.
Some may argue that exploiting Governor Palin and her family helped bring attention to my low-rated TV show. I am proud to say you are wrong. My TV show still enjoys very low ratings. In fact, I think the Palin stuff may have hurt the TV show. Let's face it, between Alec Baldwin and me there is a certain fifty percent of the population who think we are pinko Commie monsters.There's a Drunk Midget in My House
Ah, babies! They're more than just adorable little creatures on whom you can blame your farts.Like most people who have had one baby, I am an expert on everything and will tell you, unsolicited, how to raise your kid!Breast-feeding v. Formula
Invented in the mid-1800s as a last-ditch option for orphans and underweight babies, packaged infant formula has since been perfected to be a complete and reliable source of stress and shame for mothers. Anyone who reads a pregnancy book knows that breast milk provides nutrition, immunities, and invaluable bonding time. The breast is best. Unless you need to get back on your psych meds or something, in which case give your baby Crystal Light on the Go or whatever it takes for you to not go crazy.
But if you're healthy, you really should nurse. You owe it to your baby to breast-feed.
When I was pregnant (remember, I was pregnant once, and I'm on TV: Those two things combined make me an expert) I was confused as to why all the literature about breast-feeding was surrounded by ads for formula.
The free magazines in my doctor's office all said the same thing in their articles: "Breast-feeding is best for your baby." But overwhelming those articles were pages of heartwarming full-color ads saying things like:
"Your baby deserves the best. INFAMILK, now with more Crypthecodinium!"
"DOCTORS SAY breastfeed or if you're an adoptive mother TRY SIMIMIL."
"10 out of 100,000 doctors say Enfante probably doesn't cause blindness."
"No other formula gives your baby a better start in life except that stuff that comes out of you for free."
Should I breast-feed or not? I asked my mother for advice. "Don't even try it," she said. This is a generational difference. This is the same woman who told me to request "twilight sleep" during delivery. (Twilight sleep is the memory-erasing pain medication that doctors gave women in the 1950s whenever they had to take a baby out or put a body snatcher in.) I could never have chosen twilight sleep because I wanted to be present for my birth experience and also it is no longer offered. My mom is a Depression baby. As a member of Generation X, I was more informed, more empowered, and I knew that when it came to breast-feeding I had an obligation to my baby to pretend to try.
I chose to breast-feed, and it was an amazing time in my life. It really changed me as a woman, and it's the most gratifying thing I've ever done.*
There are a lot of different opinions as to how long one should breast-feed. The World Health Organization says six months. The American Association of Pediatrics says one year is ideal. Mothering magazine suggests you nurse the child until just before his rehearsal dinner. I say you must find what works for you. For my little angel and me the magic number was about seventy-two hours.
We began our breast-feeding journey in the hospital under the tutelage of an encouraging Irish night nurse named Mary. We tried the football hold, the cross-cradle hold, and one I like to call the Bret Michaels, where you kind of lie over the baby and stick your breast in its mouth to wake it up. We didn't succeed, so that first night the other nurses gave my little one some formula without asking. I tried to be appalled, but I was pretty tired. Once we got home, we tried again. I abandoned all vanity, as one must, and parked it shirtless on the couch. Here we experienced another generational difference. Gen Xwanted to succeed at this so she could tell people she did it, and little Gen Z wanted me to hand over that goddamn formula, and she was willing to scream until she got it.
One of my five hundred nicknames for my daughter is Midge, which is short for Midget, because she was a very small baby. She was born a week early and a little underweight at five pounds seven ounces. My obstetrician suggested the next day at her bedside visit that perhaps I hadn't rested enough during my pregnancy and that was why she was so small. "What a cunt," I thought to myself in what was either a flash of postpartum hormones or an accurate assessment of my doctor's personality.
So we started supplementing Midge regularly with formula. She was small and I didn't want her to get any smaller while I mastered the ancient art of breast-feeding to prove how incredible and impressive I am. Of course, I still provided her breast milk. You must, must, must provide them with breast milk. You owe it to your baby to get them that breast milk. Here's how it works.
If you choose to not love your baby enough to breast-feed, you can pump your milk using a breast pump. (This may be easier for the modern mom because it is an expensive appliance and we're more comfortable with those than with babies.) Set up a pumping ritual for yourself that is relaxing and consistent. I chose to pump every two hours while watching episodes of the HBO series Entourage On Demand. Over the whir of the milking machine, I could almost hear my baby being lovingly cared for in the other room while Turtle yelled across an SUV, "Yo E, you ever fuck a girl while she has her period?" I was able to do this for almost seven weeks before running out of Entourage episodes and sinking into a deep depression.
Shortly thereafter, we made the switch to an all-formula diet. If you've ever opened a can of infant formula mix, then you know it smells like someone soaked old vitamins in a bucket of wet leaves, then dried them in a hot car. Also, formula is like forty dollars a can. They keep it locked up behind the counter with the batteries and meth ingredients. That's how bad people want this stuff!
However, the baby was thriving. I was no longer feeling trapped, spending thirty out of every ninety minutes attached to a Williams-Sonoma Tit Juicer. But I still had an overwhelming feeling of disappointment. I had failed at something that was supposed to be natural.
I was defensive and grouchy whenever the topic came up. At a party with a friend who was successfully nursing her little boy, I watched her husband produce a bottle of pumped breast milk that was the size of a Big Gulp. It was more milk than I had produced in my whole seven weeks-I blame Entourage. As my friend's husband fed the baby, he said offhandedly, "This stuff is liquid gold. You know it actually makes them smarter?" "Let's set a date!" I screamed. "IQ test. Five years from today. My formula baby will crush your baby!" Thankfully, my mouth was so full of cake they could not understand me.
Once I let go of my guilt, which took a while, the only remaining obstacle was the Teat Nazis.These are the women who not only brag endlessly about how much their five year old still loves breast milk, but they also grill you about your choices. You can recognize the TNs by their hand-carved daggers:
"Are you breast-feeding? Isn't it amazing? I really think it's how I lost the weight so easily. Did you have a vaginal birth? I went natural and I didn't even tear. Are you back at work already? Do you feel weird about going back to work? I just love my baby so much I can't imagine going back to work yet.You're not nursing? She's only fifteen months; you should try again!"
Now, let me be clear; millions of women around the world nurse their children beautifully for years without giving anybody else a hard time about it. Teat Nazis are a solely western upper-middle-class phenomenon occurring when highly ambitious women experience deprivation from outside modes of achievement. Their highest infestation pockets are in Brooklyn and Hollywood.