Who do you want to be? I am not talking about who you want to be when you grow up—a successful lawyer, a healing physician, a leading ace in the financial world that enables you to walk around town with your wife all day. WHO do you want to be? I want to be Tina Fey. Or Amy Poehler. Or any female character on Saturday Night Live. They have the coolest jobs ever.
Every week they get to go on stage and make people laugh. Sometimes their skits are hilarious and sometimes they bomb, but it doesn’t matter because they are so incredibly talented. This summer I was able to go the Saturday Night Live exhibit in the city and it was two of the best hours of my life (sorry husband #1, but Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd are really, really funny). The exhibit takes you through the week-long process that becomes the show. From the writing to the set design and costumes, rehearsals…it is all there and it was all incredible to see. They played segments from older shows—classics that I hadn’t seen in years, and brought back such great memories of being home on a Saturday night and having these characters make me laugh and keep me company (since my older sister was probably on a date and my younger brother was probably playing Atari or his Strat-o-Matic cards).
Back in school on Monday we would become Eddie Murphy’s Buckwheat character or Joe Piscopo’s “Are you from Jersey? I’m from Jersey.” So much fun. Okay, yes, I was a bit of a loser and I was home most Saturday nights because my mom didn’t trust me enough to let me go out, but we won’t go into that right now. I loved pretending that I was a guest host on the show. Don’t ask what I was famous for, it could’ve been being in the Yavneh choir for all I know. I can’t really remember the details, but I just remember pretending that it was me on the show.
Last Saturday night, Tina and Amy hosted SNL and the musical guest was Bruce Springsteen. That is like the holy grail for Saturday Night Live fans and Bruce fans, because he rarely makes appearances like that. For all I know, some of you reading this might want to be Bruce. He certainly has a tremendous Orthodox Jewish fan base. I love that his wife is in the band even if he is aging so much better than she is…of course, because she is a she and life isn’t fair and his wrinkled skin makes him look distinguished, and we will never see her wrinkles because her plastic surgeon has done quite the job making her face as smooth as a melon (not that there’s anything wrong with that look).
But he is still as awesome as ever and for his final song, he played “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town.” Some of you might not be familiar with that little pagan ditty, but it is quite catchy and Bruce is quite well known for his rendition of this classic holiday hit. But what was so cool was how Tina and Amy and the entire cast came on stage to sing along with the great Bruce Springsteen… and there was the great former Beatle Paul McCartney on stage as well. The whole cast is singing and hanging with these musical legends and I am singing along on my couch in my bunker, thinking, “Man, that is so incredibly amazing,” and if you look at the faces of the actors you can see that they are thinking, “Wow, I have the best job ever!!” Wait, I am getting a bit carried away…back to reality. I would still love to be on the cast of SNL. I think that bringing an overweight, middle-aged Jewish housewife into the mix could really bring a whole new dimension to the show. So, if any of you out there have a connection with Lorne Michaels, PLEASE, give him my number.
On a totally different note, if you forgot about the New Year’s resolutions you made on Rosh Hashanah, now is your time to make some new ones as we are about to embark on 2016. I am not sure where 2015 went, but this next year is starting whether we like it or not. So, my public New Year’s resolution is to try and be nice to as many people as I can. However, if you are my friend on Facebook and do not say hello to me when I see you in real life, I will unfriend you. As son #1 says to me (a lot more than I am comfortable admitting), “Really normal mom, that is really normal.” Happy 2016 everyone—may it bring you an open heart, peace of mind and the weight loss or gain that you desire and a greater appreciation for whatever it is you want to greater appreciate… Cheers!
Banji Ganchrow has many other New Year’s resolutions, but has a tendency to break them soon after New Year’s that there really is no point. But, good luck to the rest of you!
By Banji Latkin Ganchrow
