The Adventures of Meghan the Adventurer

Read More

It may come as some surprise to you that I am not exactly super strong. I know, right? I had you all fooled. So when I lugged a particularly heavy wardrobe bag onto the dolly that the fabulous crew members at SNL had managed to find at 1:15 am, I was quite pleased. One of the crew guys shook his head at me and said something along the lines of “You don’t have to do that” (aka Stop! I’m intimidated by your strength and your insistence on wearing converse to every show!). When I straightened, he caught a glimpse of my fashionable intern badge and nodded: “Oh! You’re one of us!”

“One of us.”

I was one of them.

This past semester has been the best five months of my entire life. I literally got to live my dream in walking the halls of 8H and beyond. Of getting to walk into 30 Rock everyday. Of getting to hang around some of the greatest musicians, funniest people, and fantastic-est friends I’ve ever met. There’s a lot I can’t tell you about working at SNL, but that’s okay. There should be some sort of mystery around this show.

The people who work there are all crazy. Seriously, there has to be something wrong with people who work six days a week at all hours in order to produce a live comedy show once a week. But they’re all wrong in the best possible way. You haven’t lived until you have to run band members to the stage because they cut a sketch without telling you. Or had to run copies of a run down to seventeen different people with five minutes to air.

I will never forget my time at this show and have developed a long term plan in which I live in the studio undetected for several months before someone makes me leave.

Because it’s not fair that I won’t get to see these people everyday.

And I most certainly don’t intend on never seeing them again.

So it’s not goodbye. It’s see you later, 8H.

It was the best.

“One belongs to New York instantly, one belongs to it as much in five minutes as in five years”

-Thomas Wolfe

It has come to my attention that I haven’t actually updated this blog.

At all.

For three months.

It seems that I’m actually pretty tragic at this whole blogging thing, and I do apologize for any inconvenience.  However, I’m here now and am proud to present Meghan’s Past Two Months Living in New York and Riding the Subway and Generally Being Adult-ish: A Retrospective in Blue (Presented in Technicolor).

So, as you know (or maybe not [sorry]), I’ve been lucky enough to secure an internship with Saturday Night Live, which is everything you could possibly imagine and more.  I seriously doubt that any of you want to hear me wax poetic about prancing about in 8H or about how my life has turned into one of my more unrealistic daydreams.  I will say this, though: it’s exactly the kind of totally organized chaos that I was hoping for.

It’s also super busy (shocker) and the shows have kind of blurred together into one swirl of disbelief and laughing and running all with a sort of golden brown tint.

The rest of my time can be summarized in a list.  Mostly because after two months I’m finding it very hard to actually remember details and also because it’s getting late and I have to be back at said workplace tomorrow morning:

1. Saw Mary Poppins on Broadway the first week here.  Gavin Lee is still playing Bert. My life was made (for the third time).
2. Have eaten far too much good food of all sorts of varieties.
3. Can successfully navigate the subway, which is not a huge accomplishment seeing as it’s pretty easy in the first place.
4. The weather here is simultaneously lovely and awful.  If it’s sunny when you get off the subway, it’ll probably be raining when you get back on.
5.  I saw a taping of The Daily Show and it was glorious.  Also Jon is much taller than I had come to believe based on Tumblr.  I thought that I’d be able to fit him in my pocket and was disgruntled to find that he is a normal sized human being.  Also Stephen Colbert showed up to that taping, thus making the night the most magical of all nights.
6.  I’ve found that watching a lot of British TV is actually a great way to make friends.  Especially when there is a bar based off one of the shows.
7. I’m not entirely sure where the whole “New Yorkers are rude and stuff” reputation came from because almost everyone I’ve met here has been lovely.  I have also gotten more free stuff here than I have in my entire life.
8. Accomplished a personal goal by finding a coffee shop to frequent.  Subsequently discovered that macchiato without the caramel tastes like awful with a side of gagging forever.  Even if it is served in a tiny little tea cup.
9. Magnolia cupcakes are not delicious. Do not eat them. Go to Molly’s.
10. A group of people wearing capes and carrying guitars ran past a friend and me on the sidewalk the other night, which I think pretty much sums up the whole people watching experience that a walking city like New York has to offer.
11. Rats seen: 6
12. Amount of time it took for me to stop thinking “Bless” when tourists stopped in the middle of the sidewalk to take pictures: 3 days.

Even after all this time, I still haven’t lost that initial rush upon seeing 30 Rock or Radio City Music Hall when walking down 50^th.  I can answer people when they ask for directions.  I can also kindly tell people that if they really wanted to see SNL that day then they should have camped out the night before like the rest of the hopefuls.  *Ahem* Not that I don’t get that question multiple times a week or anything (lie for comedic effect!). For some it’s the lights of Time Square that get them, for others it’s the Met Opera House, but for me it’s those flags lining the skating rink and that neon NBC sign. You can’t beat that.

Moral of the story is that I’m having a fabulous time and wish that all of you could be as spectacular as Kara and Emily and (hopefully) Kayla and visit me.

Because I could totally show you around.

And we could get cupcakes.

And pizza.

Not that my whole life revolves around food.

There was a moment when we were flying over New York City where I thought, “Hey, I should get out my ipod and crank out some Gershwin.”

But I didn’t.  Instead, I spent our strange circling of the city craning my neck to catch glimpses of it and sporadically imagining bursts of Rhapsody in Blue when the clouds cleared and offered clear views of the buildings.  And thus the New York Semester Pre-Show began.

Once my dad and I had unloaded our cases, we came to the mutual decision that we should probably explore a little bit.  And explore we did.  We went to the Empire State building, allowing me to pretend I was in Elf.  Then, after I mentioned my recent listening of David Sedaris’s “The SantaLand Diaries,” we came to another mutual agreement that we very much wanted a glimpse of this human suffering and decided to troll SantaLand. 

Much to our disappointment, the Macy’s SantaLand is actual pretty magical and the elves do not ooze self-hatred.  It’s more like a line for a Disney ride than one to see Santa.  My plan was to get in, look around, and get out, but my dad insisted that we actually stay the course and see the big guy.  And so that’s how I ended up requesting the A Fish Called Wanda Two-Disc Collector’s Edition from a very surprised looking Santa.  However, after some bemused laughter, Santa admitted that he thought that A Fish Called Wanda was a hilarious and great movie and I was quite pleased.  Also we got “I saw Santa 2011!” buttons.  So it was totally worth it.

We rounded out the day with a trip to Times Square at night, which was a nightmarish blur of overstimulation.

The next day was the big one: Interview Day, codename Operation Don’t Trip in Your New Boots.  And so, after a nutritious breakfast of a hotdog from a sidewalk vendor, we made our way over to 30 Rock.

Long story short, it was spectacular.  Everything I was promised by Tina Fey.  The tree.  The ice skating rink.  The masses of people refusing to walk because they were too busy taking in the majesty of Rockefeller Center.  Which is a total labyrinth inside, but not the scary kind with pits with hands in the walls and David Bowie.  A really cool, marbley labyrinth. 

After the interview, my dad and I decided to give the NBC tour a whirl (aka I not-so-subtly implied that it would be the most important thing of my life).  We saw some news stuff, some hallway stuff, some elevator stuff, and then we got to SNL’s section.  The fabulous pages (minus Kenneth, to my dad’s disappointment), led us to a window overlooking the studio where Jimmy Fallon was rehearsing his monologue with Chris Kattan and Horatio Sanz.  I had the great satisfaction of knowing who both these former cast members were while the rest of our group (minus dad) looked on with blank non-recognition.  Jimmy was wonderful and waved at us before the pages attempted to lead us away.

Sidenote: Everyone better watch Jimmy’s SNL episode because it was one of the most flawless episodes that I’ve seen in a while.

But my dad and I would not leave.  We lingered the heck out of that tour and were rewarded by a bonus enthusiastic wave from the 150% adorable Jimmy.  Then my dad and Horatio had a lovely waving moment.  Then we actually had to move on so we wouldn’t be asked to leave the tour.

The last day was filled with me marveling at the enormity of Central Park and mentally berating myself for only being able to think of Doctor Who when looking at the Van Gogh’s in the Met (I regret nothing [tears everywhere]). In all seriousness, the paintings were gorgeous, the most beautiful things I had ever seen.

I’ll stop there because I think that I’m already overestimating your capacity to stick with this post.  So thanks for reading, and New York, I cannot wait to go back.

And that’s the story of how I became one of the music interns for Saturday Night Live.

Hello! And welcome to my Very Special Extra Blog! As some of you may know, in January I am packing up my slinky and moving it to NYC for the semester. It will be fun and fraught with adventure, so I decided to start a new blog in which I can share said adventures.

I can’t promise it’ll be interesting. Or exciting. At least not for you, I’m sure I’ll be having a blast.

Anyway, I’m headed to the city tomorrow for things of an interviewing nature and decided that it would be a perfect time to launch this blog. So expect a lot of “OH MY GOD. All of this is in 30 Rock!” pictures attached to the next post.

Hang on to your keyboards. Things are about to get crazy.