I just killed a bottle of cheap Hungarian plonk (Egri Bikaver ’05, like 5 bucks at Trader Joes, if you are a snooty motherfucker) and watched the season finale of Saturday Night Live, America’s sketch show battlewagon, the venerable warhorse. I have to say; a bottle of wine makes it funnier.

I realized three (well, technically two) things while watching Saturday Night Live t.

One (1): I am far too personally invested in the minutiae of why SNL blows (a lot, or slightly less than a lot depending on the week). Fuck that, they’re doing the best they can under the constraints they have. 

Two (1.5): When you’re in a receptive place, warm with a belly full of kebab and cheap wine it does all right. The worst thing I can say is that it’s hard to remember to fast-forward through the commercials when you’re moderately buzzed. It’s only when you’re a comedy nerd-wonk-anorak mumbling and putzing around that you find joy in pulling apart the cracks. I love comedy, but I am realizing, in this instance, my love has become a hideous Norman Bates’ Mother-esque smothering love and at some point my love of comedy will start collecting road kill and taxidermy-ing it and might just begin to kill drifters and secretaries who embezzled money from their employer in the shower of my cheap motel.

Third (2): The end. I realized that one of the most touching and appealing parts of the business of making people laugh is that camaraderie at the end of the show. Watching the close of SNL, the shaking of hands with Tom Petty &/or the Heartbreakers, the “good job kid” from Alec Baldwin, the post show wrap-up, the after-parties, the BS and the grandiose plans. I want that. I want the bruises you get, the laughs (or no laughs at all) that come from going out in front of people with words and silly faces and, whether it gets nailed down or not, being able to walk backstage and know the people you did improv/sketch/standup with did the same damn thing.

I want the handshake as I come off stage.