Tag Archives: tiktok

09.29.24
by

SNL’s Golden Year

Saturday marked the first episode of SNL’s 50TH anniversary season with guest host Jean Smart, a recent Emmy winner for playing another, albeit fictional, comedy stalwart of 50 years, Hacks stand-up, Debra Vance.

Was the combination fun?  Yes. 

Did it have some rough spots?  A few.  Sure.

Never need to see this monkey again

But were there any real memorable moments?  Of course!

Can you say —

Maya/Kamala???? 

with Andy as Doug??? Yes, please!

Or —

Ms. Smart as: a romance writer reading salacious excerpts from her new math textbook; a too dramatic actress cast prior to Lucille Ball in faux clips from a very different I Love Lucy; a Real Housewife in Santa Fe trading bitchy bon mots in a Mexican restaurant  ….all of which followed her sweet comic opening monologue to the tune of I Happen To Like New York?

But first…

Let’s get a few things straight. 

So to speak.

Go off, Chair.

No, the Chair will not be writing about Saturday Night Live ad infinitum/for the rest of eternity despite the way it’s looked for the last 3 weeks. 

Think of this as the final (Note:  Well, maybe for a while) shameless self-promotion of his just published book, The SNL Companion: An Unofficial Guide to the Seasons, Sketches and Stars of Saturday Night Live.

Click here to purchase! #shamelessbutIdontcare

Yes, it’s available from Amazon in paperback or on Kindle  at a discounted price – and it will make a GREAT holiday gift/stocking stuffer/Halloween favor or Thanksgiving something.

And if you want to get a free preview of what it’s about, here’s a link to a short interview on NPR’s Here and Now segment with my co-author/husband Stephen Tropiano that aired this weekend in honor of the #50.

Yes, they could only have on one of us (Note:  Cause it’s radio?) and I was more than pleased to be Doug Emhoff since, well, I’m the Jewish one and, well, who wouldn’t be?

Ahem.

Worth posting again because it was so good!

In any event, SNL’s return….

It was solid and had a great political opening with some fun guest cameos.  We’ve seen Maya Rudolph’s Kamala but there was something about watching her at the podium center stage.

The swagger. 

The joy.

The hope that she gets to do it a bunch of times for the next FOUR/EIGHT seasons.

The dream team

Not to mention Jim Gaffigan as Coach Walz (Note: Why didn’t I have his name in the pool?), Andy Samberg (Note: He’s Jewish, too) debuting in Studio 8H as Doug; James Austin Johnson returning as an endless loop of Trump; Bowen Yang as a decent but strange choice for Vance; and much-missed Dana Carvey doing a fairly on-target but slightly too beleaguered (Note: Was it the writing or him?) Joe Biden.

Sometimes when there is soooo much real-life political material to choose from it makes the task all that more difficult for SNL.   But as Weekend Update anchor Colin Jost cracked from behind his fake anchor desk when he recalled that more than one person over the last 3-4 months asked him if he regretted not being on the air with all of the political upheaval:

I have a feeling there’s going to be more that happens when we get back.

We are all too familiar with these dumpster fires

The emergence of cable news and faux cable news shows in the 1990s, combined with the power of  incessant and omni-present social media platforms with streams of creativity and craziness, has created a perfect storm of fame for all sorts of characters and borderline sociopathic behavior.

It might not be great for the world but it sure does help provide SNL and shows like it tons of opportunity to land a laugh in the oddest of ways. For example, it’s rare for a Weekend Update segment to in one moment have a set piece where we have commentary from the beleaguered 10-week old world famous baby Chinese hippo Moo Deng (Note: A hilariously costumed Bowen Yang) after just moments before hearing Jost remark that TikTok voters are using AI to translate Hitler speeches into English, whereupon he plays an actual short clip from a real post that shows the real Hitler ranting but has us hearing the actual debate voice of Trump claiming (about Haitians):

They’re eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats.

Watch all of Weekend Update here

You may ask: How do I know that was an actual video from TikTok??

And I would answer:  Because I saw it myself on Twitter/X last week.

And of course I’m embarrassed to still be in the cesspool that is Twitter/X.  But please know I have not given Elon any money for my own verified check mark.  Just as I have no plan to buy into Trump crypto. 

Or any crypto.

I mean, why??????

I’m giving my money to whatever this is

But I do look forward to watching John Mulaney, Ariana Grande and Michael Keaton hosting SNL in the coming weeks of 2024. 

For free.

And not cuz I just wrote a book about the show.

Jelly Roll – “Winning Streak (Live on SNL)”

11.15.20
by

Landslide

In 1974, Stevie Nicks wrote her enduring and now iconic song, Landslide.   In it she reflects on the challenges of change in one’s life and imaginatively uses the various images and seismic shifts in nature to relate her thoughts and feelings.

I took my love, I took it down
Climbed a mountain and I turned around
And I saw my reflection in the snow covered hills
‘Til the landslide brought me down…

ICON

Like many creative artists, Nicks was using her talent to express what was, for her, the inexpressible at that moment.  She and her boyfriend, guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, had little money and, despite some limited success and encouragement, she wondered whether to continue with her relationship and musical career or, instead, simply leave both and, well, go back to school.

Oh, mirror in the sky, what is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changin’ ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?
Mmm, I don’t know….

Is this just a Stevie Nicks appreciation blog? #maybe #whynot

Little did she know that the following year she would become a part of Fleetwood Mac and the band would explode with a string of hit singles and albums that would earn them worldwide fame, fortune and eventually even a spot in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. 

@420doggface208

♬ Dreams (2004 Remaster) – Fleetwood Mac
And 40 years later a viral TikTok video

Not to mention, many of their greatest hits would be written by Nicks herself and that she would go on to have her own hugely successful solo career.  And that she and her great love affair with Buckingham would indeed end.  And that she and this world famous band would break up, reunite, then break up and reunite, and break up again until even their worldwide fans lost count.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Landslide lately as I’ve spent my days being haunted by the prospect of democracy enduring and the hope (yet fear) of an electoral landslide.

I swear this hasn’t been me for the past month #promise

Moreover, I’ve been petrified by the thought of our country’s ability to withstand either and move on even semi-intact.

Well, I’ve been ‘fraid of changin’
‘Cause I’ve built my life around you
But time makes you bolder
Children get older
And I’m gettin’ older, too

Watch it

Strangely, it is at this point in the song where there is a long, poignant musical interlude where no words are spoken and we are all, indeed, meant to feel, think and reflect.  So it seems appropriate at this moment to consider the crystal clear shift of Americans as we fully take in the results of the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election vs. where we stood four years ago.

2020 Electoral College (270 needed to win):

  • Joseph R. Biden: 306
  • Donald J. Trump: 232

2020 Popular Vote (and still counting):

  • Joseph R. Biden: 78,686,795
  • Donald J. Trump: 73,102,757
I’m not gloating I swear #OKmaybealittle #itsearned #WOO

2016 Electoral College Results (270 needed to win):

  • Donald J. Trump: 306
  • Hillary Clinton: 232

2016 Popular Vote Results (final tally):

  • Hillary Clinton: 65,853,625
  • Donald J. Trump:  62,985,106

Geologically a landslide is the sliding down of a mass of earth or rock from a mountain or cliff.  But society, being what it is, long ago appropriated that word for its politics.  As a group we freely, and universally, now consider landslide to mean an overwhelming majority of votes for one party in an election.

Crushed?

Certainly we don’t want to get further down into the weeds at what constitutes overwhelming since we now occupy an American space where we find ourselves fist-fighting (and worse) in the public square over whether it should be a moral, and perhaps legal, requirement to wear a mask when coming within six feet of others during our current global, and airborne, viral pandemic.

AGHHHHHHHH

Note: COVID-19 has so far killed over 1.3 million people worldwide and murders close to1500 Americans daily. Total infections are 53.8 million to date, 10.9 million (almost 20%) of which are in the U.S.

So to be fair, let’s bend over backwards and use the measure of our outgoing POTUS. The guy who tweeted right after his Nov. 2016 win, and restated publicly, privately and throughout the world various iterations of these same thoughts about what constitutes overwhelming and thus, landslides, via his many surrogates over the last four years, in proclamations such as this:

“In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide . . .”

— Donald Trump, in a tweet, Nov. 27, 2016

“CNN is so embarrassed by their total support of Hillary Clinton and her loss in a landslide, that they don’t know what to do.”

— Donald Trump, in a tweet, Nov. 28, 2016

And —

Me, not having to think about Kellyanne ever again

With 306 established as the legitimate mark of victory and DEFEAT, now might be a good time to remind everyone, especially those who this year LOST, that with the above musical interlude over this is the point in the song where the prior verse again repeats, and by doing so asks us ALL to once again truly rethink, and reflect, on all of our very human natures:

Well, I’ve been ‘fraid of changin’
‘Cause I’ve built my life around you
But time makes you bolder
Even children get older
and I’m gettin’ older, too
I’m gettin’ older, too

What? My birthday is this week? No we’re skipping 2020

Now as a writer, I will admit that I am prone to attach superhuman power to the words the best of my fellow writers put together, whether in prose or dialogue, comedy or drama, or anything in between. 

But after the last four years I gotta hand it to Steve Nicks for decades later giving us a way to move forward, individually and en masse, when our backs are pressed against the wall. 

Did I mention ICON?

That’s why this weekend, and hopefully from now on, I take a lot of comfort from her concluding verse.  Rather than a shift in weather patterns or a deadly collapsing of the universe as I knew it, it finally offered me massive glimmers of light through the resounding power of reinvention:

So take this love, take it down

If you climb a mountain and turn around
And if you see my reflection in the snow covered hills
Well, the landslide will bring it down
And if you see my reflection in the SNO-O-O-O-WWWW covered hills
Well, the landslide will bring it down
Oh, the landslide will bring it down

Listen, none of this is ever without risk.  But when you get a chance to level what wasn’t working away and leave behind an avalanche of tweets, it’s hard not to celebrate the sight of a newly imagined playing field and all the potential it offers moving forward.

Fleetwood Mac – “Landslide”