Standard celebrity autobio and very well narrated by Dratsch. I don't much care for biographies in general and care even less about celebrity books. (Excluding Norm MacDonald's forthcoming book and Jenna Jameson's book on her bizarrely fascinating as a porn actress.) But, I always thought Dratsch was funny and enjoyed her sketches on SNL.
Dratsch follows the standard story line of family life, pre-professional entertainment background, friends and funny stories, and entertainment career. The meat of the story is Dratch's unusual family situation. Over 40 Dratsch ends up "casually" dating a wine importer living in Northern California. Dratsch still lives in New York and they travel to meet one another. Dratsch has a surprise pregnancy. But, the two of them are not close enough to marry. CA Guy is a good dude though and moves to New York and gets his own apartment to be with his upcoming son. The book ends with the two on very good terms and seemingly still in a romantic relationship. Dratsch does not go into too much detail there.
Anyhoo. How does an actress spend seven years on Saturday Night Live and then mostly disappear from entertainment? She hits 40. Dratsch wrote this shortly after her well publicized firing from 30 Rock and, at the time at least, the only acting roles she was offered were overweight-lesbian-secretary-best friends. I wonder if that is also what happened with Cheri Oteri. She, too, was a heck of a good comedic actress.
One of Dratsch's detriments is that she is not tall, blond, and thin. As Dratsch says, you would see her on the street and see a regular person. But, producers see Dratsch and mark her as a hag. It's very weird and Dratsch tells of her difficulty in not taking personal insult by Hollywood's Bizarro World.
This book had quite a few laugh out loud moments for me.
Comments:
1. Lorne Michaels as the aloof guru. No one seems to actually know the guy. They just take orders and hope for the best.
2. I don't think I ever heard of Bizarro World until that Seinfeld episode.
3. I sent a Tweet to Dratsch telling her I enjoyed the book and she liked the Tweet. I feel an odd sense of approval when a author "likes" something or responds to my online comments. I do admit to being a bit of a suck-up though.
4. Except Neil Smith. Screw that guy.
5. Just kidding. I like Smith, he's a good dude.
EDIT:
6. Re: Lorne Michaels. I was just reading a Washington Post profile of Norm MacDonald. The writer includes several text messages he and Norm exchanged. There is this comment by Norm regarding Lorne Michaels.
As concerns Lorne, all the things said about him don't interest me and I think miss where the success of Lorne lies. He is one of the funniest people ever. And he has better taste in comedy than anyone. The latter is obvious. But the most interesting thing about Lorne Michaels to me is that when I am with him, I always find myself genuinely laughing. When people think of the funniest people to ever be at SNL, they overlook Lorne, whose right there fighting for top spot.
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