I'm Not High (27 page)

Tracy and I learned on Thursday that our monologue wasn’t going. We weren’t happy, but that’s life. I still had a sketch involving my character the Shut-up Guy in the mix, so to me that was a decent consolation. Matthew and I rehearsed that later on Thursday, and during a break he asked, “Are we going to do your monologue, too?” He seemed pretty excited about it.

“It didn’t get picked,” I said, and shrugged. I let him know that this stuff always happens and didn’t bother me anymore. Later that night in the hallway, two of the show’s producers stopped me and wanted to get some answers about why the monologue wasn’t happening.

“Are we
really
not doing it?” one of them asked. “I know for a fact Matthew loved it. Does Lorne know about this?”

That was the first time I’d ever heard that question. I had always just assumed Lorne was present during the decision-making process, and offered his opinion one way or another. So I said to them, “Jeez, I really don’t know. I’m just a cast member.
You
guys are the producers! Don’t
you
know?”

They wandered off, presumably in search of the truth. I figured nothing would come of it. Friday night I was at home when my phone rang with a call from one of the producers.

“We need you to come in as fast as you can,” he said excitedly. The rehearsals for the monologue usually happened on Friday nights. “We’re now going to camera block your monologue. We called Tracy and he’s already on his way in.”

When I arrived, I saw that they were testing out camera angles for not only our monologue, but the head writer’s monologue, too. The head writer was in charge of the situation, and I could tell he was aggravated by even the sight of us.

“Let’s see your monologue,” he sighed, and very shortly after we started, he looked at us and the cameramen, and nodded. “Okay, we’re good! We got it!” And that was that.

Doing a camera block usually takes a good hour, but when it came to blocking Tracy and me, it only took five minutes. I looked at Tracy, and said, “You know they had us come in and do this just to shut someone up.”

“That was the shortest camera blocking in history,” Tracy agreed.

On Saturday afternoon, we found out
again
that, yes, our monologue had been cut. Tracy and I went down to eat dinner in the cafeteria. On show nights, everyone ate between five P.M. and seven P.M. I was just going to take a bite of my BLT when the head writer’s sidekick showed up and insisted that Tracy and I had to go back upstairs because Lorne wanted to see our monologue.

I put my sandwich down slowly, and he said, “Listen, if you’re not ready, that’s okay, but it’s now or never. Otherwise, we’ll just forget it.” I told him we’d be happy to come do it. Tracy and I left our dinners and went back upstairs, only to see the head writer in the middle of a tantrum. He was trying to explain to Matthew Broderick how to perform his monologue, and it wasn’t working at all. I looked up to see Lorne pacing back and forth, scratching his head as if to say, “Oh, Lord, I’ve got a problem child.”

Then the head writer started pacing behind Lorne, step by step. “It’s going to work!” he insisted. “I’m telling you.”

“Can we just see Jim and Tracy’s monologue?” Lorne finally replied, sounding fatigued. This was when I knew Lorne just wanted, ultimately, whatever was the funniest thing for the show. When we finished, Matthew said, “I love this sketch, why can’t we just do it?”

Satisfied, I went back to my dressing room and shortly thereafter the head writer’s sidekick wandered in and said no decisions had been made—which monologue they were going to choose was all still up in the air. And that’s when it really hit me that they didn’t care about the funny. All they cared about were their own egos.

“We’re going to do yours for dress rehearsal,” he said. “And we’ll film it in front of the crowd. And then we’ll see what happens.”

So Tracy and I went out to do the monologue with Matthew. It crushed. The audience loved it. We improv-ed most of it. Then it came time to do my Shut-up Guy sketch in dress rehearsal, Matthew started cracking up in the middle of the sketch. When the crowd started laughing, he had a hard time getting through the sketch. As I came off the stage, the head writer grabbed me and said, “It’s too bad that Matthew laughed so much during the sketch, because, honestly we don’t know if it works.”

I wanted to punch him. I went back to my dressing room, disillusioned. There was a knock and the head writer’s sidekick came in.

“Well,” he said. “We’ve got yours on tape, but for the live show we’re going to do the other monologue. But the good thing is we have yours filmed, so we can use it on reruns if we want to.”

“Why would you do that?” I asked.

“To be honest with you,” he fudged, “it’s because the second sketch is ‘The View’ and Tracy has to get through hair and makeup. Lorne’s worried there’s not going to be enough time between the monologue and that sketch.”

I ran to Tracy’s dressing room and said, “They’re all going to come around here and ask if you think you can get your makeup on in time to do the monologue and the sketch. Don’t cave in. Tell ’em you can do it.”

“Of course,” Tracy said. And his insistence helped pave the way. In the end, we got to do the monologue and it crushed. But things wouldn’t be the same anymore.

Another thing that might have set the stage earlier to drive a wedge between a clique on the show and me were some flare-ups I had with Chris Kattan. Around Christmastime 1996, Rosie O’Donnell was going to host the show. I’m a big fan, so I was excited to have her on. She was really popular at the time, and I knew the ratings would be huge. I purposely saved a Pesci sketch especially for that episode, but I was going to do it as something different from the usual Pesci show. On the chalkboard in my office, I wrote down, “Pesci doing Christmas stories in front of a classroom.” I was thinking it would be Pesci in a school talking to kids, saying stuff like, “Hey, you guys know about Rudolph and his red nose? Why do you think his nose was red? Because he was a rat. A snitch. His whole family was rats, he’s not even a reindeer.”

Chris came into my office shortly afterward, studied the chalkboard, and asked, “Pesci Christmas stories, what’s that?”

“Instead of doing the normal ‘Joe Pesci Show,’” I said, “I’m gonna have Pesci doing classic Christmas stories in a classroom, in front of kids. I’m saving it for when Rosie O’Donnell comes on.”

“Oh, that’s a great idea,” he said.

Well, the week before Rosie arrived, all I remember is being in a meeting and hearing Chris’s voice announce, “Al Pacino’s Christmas stories,” to assorted laughs. I looked up from my stack of papers in utter disbelief. My head started sweating. Lasers were shooting out of my eyes. He had snagged my idea and repurposed it as an Al Pacino sketch. Everyone was like, “Oh my God, this is a great idea.” And it was picked it up—though it died in dress rehearsal and never made it to air.

I didn’t confront Chris about it right away, which was probably the wrong approach. Instead, when we were rehearsing a couple days later, just before a take, I gave him a serious look, like I was really disappointed with him.

“What’s the matter?” he whined. “
God.
What’s going on?”

“Oh, nothing,” I said.

Then he had to start all over. Just before the take, he looked at me and stopped again.

“Are you mad at me? Jeez.”

“We should have a talk, actually,” I said. “Let’s sit down after rehearsal.”

“What’s bothering you?”

“Let’s sit down
after
rehearsal.”

“You’re upset,” he squealed. “Why are you upset?”

“We’ll talk after rehearsal.”

“Tell me
now,
” he whined. “This is so distracting.”

“Nah,” I said. “Just rehearse and we can sit down afterward.”

I kept it up for about twenty minutes and it nearly drove him insane. I wanted to see him dangle. I wanted to see the guilt come out in him. After rehearsal, when I asked Chris about it, he played dumb. “Oh, I totally forgot about that!” he said. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t even think of yours! Mine’s a bit different anyway, because it’s Al Pacino, not Pesci.” I knew he was full of crap.

Looking back, I get what happened. I understand the pressure of that place. And every time I reflect on it now, I don’t find any bad feelings anymore. But at that time, we were both fighting for our lives to stay on the show. Chris annoyed me sometimes, but he was hilarious. And I loved playing his jerky older brother in the “Goth Talk” sketches. I was always really envious of what he did with that sketch. When we first started rehearsing, he told me, “Feel free to really hit me. The harder you hit me, the funnier it will be.”

Then when I’d hit him, he’d stop and say, “No, you gotta really smack me in the head. They’ve got to
hear
it,” pointing out toward where the audience would sit. I loved how seriously he took that. I guess that perfectionist attitude manifested itself in different ways for all of us. With Chris, it made him vulnerable to pranks from some of the more jaded cast members. Norm, specifically.

Whenever Norm was in a sketch, he wouldn’t rehearse it properly at all. He warned us of that early on. I remember when I first got on the show, he told all of the new cast members, “Don’t put me in any of your gay sketches!” So how he wound up in them, I have no idea. He had the “Update,” and that’s where he seemed to be happiest. So, if he did somehow wind up in your sketch—when Pamela Anderson was on in the spring of 1997, he mysteriously wound up in two or three sketches—he wouldn’t bother to nail it until it was on the air.

The three of us did a
Twilight Zone
sketch where Norm had to play Rod Serling, the show’s creator and emcee, who began each episode with that distinctive voice: “Imagine if you will ...” It was Chris’s only sketch that week, and he was as eager to share the stage with Pamela Anderson as Norm was.

During rehearsal all week, and into the dress rehearsal Saturday night, Chris was riding Norm about not doing the proper Rod Serling voice. “Oh my God, Norm, you’re so terrible,” he’d say bitchily. “Is that the way you’re going to do the voice? The sketch is going to get cut! C’mon! Why don’t you rehearse it the way it’s going to be?” And whenever Chris was not bitching at Norm, he was flirting big-time with Pamela Anderson. “How come Jim gets to kiss you in the ‘Goat Boy’ sketch? I want to be able to kiss you! God, you’re so hot. You’re so sexy. If Tommy Lee ever breaks up with you ...” Then he’d pause and look at Norm and start yelling at Norm again. “God, get the voice right!”

The whole time this was going on, I was shocked that Norm wasn’t saying anything back. If you went after Norm, he would generally crush you with a barrage of insults. But it was almost like he was tuning Chris out.

Finally, we made it to the dress show. “Oh my God,” Chris squealed. “If this sketch doesn’t get picked up, I’m going to freak out!” Again, Norm completely half-assed his lines. He knew that it would get on the air. It was a good sketch. Still, Chris didn’t relax. Right before we went to air, he was still bitching at Norm. “Are you really going to use that voice, Norm? It’s so terrible! I should have gotten someone else. Why are you even doing this?”

Over the PA, we heard: “One minute to airtime.” Chris was still bitching at Norm, and also still trying to flirt with Pamela. He was alternating back and forth, like he was completely unhinged.

“Thirty seconds to airtime.” Norm was completely oblivious and immune to Chris’s scolding. I was looking over at him, as if to say, “Are you really going to let him keep badgering you? This has gone on for days!” Norm was my hero, and I couldn’t stand to see him just take the abuse from whiny little Chris Kattan.

“Fifteen seconds to airtime.” Just as everyone in the sketch was trying to concentrate, Norm finally spoke up, unleashing a brutal tirade. “Hey, ah, Chris, Pamela knows you’re gay!” he yelled. “We
all
know you’re gay. So why don’t you just come out of the closet and then you wouldn’t be such an angry little gay guy. Christ, you’re always in everyone’s business! Stop hitting on chicks!”

As soon as he finished, we all immediately heard,
“Action!”

Then from out of nowhere, Norm perfectly captured Rod Serling’s voice and began the sketch: “Imagine if you will ...” He just nailed it. If you watch the sketch, all you see is my shoulders heaving up and down because I was laughing so hard. I couldn’t get my lines out. Chris was furious. He couldn’t get his lines out. It was one of the greatest things ever.