3. Aarti
AARTI
Unlike most people who come here to achieve their dreams, Hollywood is my homie.
People always ask how I did it. How did I become the funniest woman on TV?
Of course, I first correct them that I am the funniest person on TV, and then get to the part no one likes to hear: comedy has always come naturally to me.
It’s gross, I know, but years of mimicking my Indian parents after they yelled at me for bombing yet another extracurricular math class basically hardwired me for laughs.
The first-gen immigrant kid math trauma runs deep, and nothing makes a girl funnier than being a certified fourth-grade Desi division dummy.
My phone rings through my Audi’s speakers. Incoming call from Maa. Perhaps my childhood fear that my overbearing mother could hear my thoughts wasn’t so far-fetched.
I sigh and answer. “Whaddup, Maa?”
“You’re up early, beta,” my mom shouts through the phone.
I turn the volume down before my ear drums shatter. “You know I’ve got the show to get ready for.”
“Show this, show that! Always the show! When are you going to settle down with a nice accountant or maybe a podiatrist? Both are very useful for you!” she yells. “I Googled yesterday and all of the boys who host the late nights have families! You can be like this!”
I know she means well. Both of my parents do. Although they’ve begrudgingly accepted at this point that comedy is my actual career, they still cling to whatever scraps remain of the life they once pictured for me.
“Maa, I have an accountant, I don’t need to marry one. Plus, Diti’s got the doctor thing covered for us both.”
“Oh, Diti, how is she? Is she getting enough sleep? Are you feeding her?”
I don’t bother with the truth, which is that my sister Diti didn’t even come home last night.
“Of course. She gets all the crafty scraps from set.”
“Beta! Your sister needs real meals, not that tatti from–”
“Maa! I’m kidding.” Even after all these years as a comedian, my toughest audience is my own parents.
“You know I don’t like it when you kid!” The speaker pops and I turn it down again as Maa rambles on about monitoring my sister’s diet, which is ironic, considering I have zero control over the UCLA med student squatting in my spare bedroom.
Diti doesn’t get any shit from our parents despite being broke and jobless, but that’s the perk of being the baby of the family.
Of course, my parents don’t know about the throwing-up-in-Ubers-and-crawling-to-bed-after-a-night-of-binge-drinking-with-future-doctors of it all. As long as she gets As, she’s golden.
“…just because you live off of Maggi at 2AM does not mean a doctor can,” she continues.
“All right, Maa, I’ll be sure to relay the message. Gotta go.”
I pull into my official parking spot–still labeled Guy Morrison–and steel myself for yet another day of trying to fill his shoes without doing exactly what got him ousted.
As a kid, I’d sneak out of my room past bedtime to watch any late night comedy I could get my eyes on.
I’d tiptoe downstairs, my mom’s favorite woven rug dampening my footsteps, and turn our modest little TV to the lowest possible volume.
Guy Morrison and the early-aughts Midnight Live cast taught me about timing, punchlines, how to play to the top of my intelligence–concepts I couldn’t name back then but which lodged themselves deep in my psyche nevertheless.
Morrison in particular demonstrated that if you dig deep enough into the truth–about a guest, society, yourself–the best comedy would be unearthed.
Which is why I really wish they’d take his name off the parking spot already. Comparing myself on the daily to my childhood idol, the man I’m replacing, while hiding the very parts of myself he taught me to mine? Let’s just say… it’s not not taking a toll on the ol’ mental health.
Also taking a toll on my psychological stability?
The past six weeks of prep, which have been a masterclass in death by a thousand line notes.
Every sketch my killer team of former Midnight Live writers has pitched has been dissected line by line by the least funny execs alive, each demanding to know, without a hint of irony, “But what’s the joke here?
” Gretchen, the network head, has turned guest booking into a forensic investigation, sending her minions to comb through internet archives for anything that might ruffle a sponsor.
It’s been a month and a half of constant rewrites, rejected segments, and terrible monologue notes sanding down every possible edge until what was once comedy feels more like assembling Ikea furniture.
No one else is in the office yet, allowing me to center myself ahead of the day. I take in our storyboards pinned to the writer’s room wall and meditate. Well, my version of meditation, at least.
I am hilarious.
We’re nailing it.
These jokes rule.
This is all I’ve ever wanted.
Seriously, I’ve never loved anything but comedy. This has to work or my career is over.
Wow, Aarti. Get a grip–
“This is bad, ohhhh god, this is bad.”
Ripping me from my zen is Magenta, my producer, as she bursts through the office door. Most people assume Magenta chose her name, but in reality, her bohemian Santa Fe artist parents pulled it out of thin air only to end up perfectly matching her colorful personality (and eventual hair).
Madge and I met when I first joined Midnight Live. She was a hungry upstart in the page program, and I was a wee television infant, thrust headfirst into the most competitive, high-stakes comedy environment imaginable. Where, just like in math class, I floundered.
My pitches bombed spectacularly. I barely got screen time.
Nobody seemed to find me funny, least of all myself, which was a drastic change from always being so effortlessly good at what I did.
I had no clue how to sell my humor among some of the best comedians in the country, and I lived in constant dread that soon, the network pages–the only people left who might still look up to me–would realize my fallibility, too.
So naturally, my rock bottom involved a page.
One afternoon, whimpering quietly in a bathroom stall, mere inches from losing my job, I heard a gentle knock.
“I saw your audition tape,” Madge stated through the door, not bothering to introduce herself.
I peered helplessly through the crack, waiting to be punched while I was down. What she didn’t know was that my confidence wasn’t exactly the main issue right then–it was the questionable street meat I’d scarfed down thirty minutes earlier.
“You’re like a hyper-caffeinated wolverine,” she said earnestly.
“Like… the superhero?”
“Oh, god no, it’s like a ferret. Found in the Arctic tundra. Freaky little thing.”
I scoffed.
“What I’m saying is, you’re funny, in this unhinged vaudevillian banana-peel way, and I don’t think it’s a mistake that you’re here.”
I groaned. “People think it’s a mistake that I’m here?”
“They didn’t cast you to be like everyone else. Stop trying to be.”
My bowels spoke up in my defense, loud and mortifying.
I gasped, but Madge laughed, unfazed.
“See? Comedic timing’s perfect. Even your gastrointestinal tract has it.”
We’ve been a team ever since.
As I found my footing at Midnight Live, rising the ranks from wildcard impressionist all the way to the ‘Now News!’ desk, Madge was right there with me, from page to assistant to contributing producer.
Now, she’s the lead producer of my very own talk show, and I couldn’t be prouder to have someone so sharp, so unflappable, so ruthlessly competent on my team.
Although, seeing as how she is currently flitting around the office in a frenzy as her own version of a caffeinated ferret, ‘unflappable’ might be a premature assessment.
Madge flicks through a pile of scripts atop the long boardroom table.
“Ahem?” I offer.
She whirls, papers fluttering to the ground. “Jesus!”
“Call me Aarti,” I quip. But Madge doesn’t bite, the panic only rising on her face.
“They hate it. They hate it all. Oh, fuck. Our careers! Our bank accounts!” She collapses onto the script pages strewn across the floor.
I stand over her. “Words, Madge. Who hates what?”
“’Bus Boys.’” Her voice wobbles. “The network hates it. Gretchen called me gleefully at four a.m.”
I blink. “’Bus Boys’? But that was already our ultimate compromise. No politics, no controversy, just a couple of sassy bus drivers bantering about the weather and reality TV. We gutted half the sketch packet to make room for it because Gretchen loved it.”
“In a shocking turn of events, Gretchen changed her mind. Again.”
“Fine,” I sigh. “Note taken. We’ll pivot. Again.”
She throws her head back and laughs wildly. “’Bus Boys’ is but the tip of the network executive iceberg of bullshit, my friend!”
I take a seat on the floor beside her. “Hit me.”
Madge clears her throat and emulates Gretchen’s demonic debutante drawl. “’We have immense faith in Aarti’s brilliance as an interviewer, and the celebrity guests are fine–’”
“I’m sure they’re fine . They’ve been cavity-searched by Legal more thoroughly than a drug mule at LAX.
” By sheer dumb luck, I never made having an internet presence a big part of my comedy career prior to Midnight Live .
Otherwise, any number of my early impressions would have barred me from getting this gig.
“‘–but the segments are feelin’ awful generic,’” she finishes.
Now it’s my turn to laugh hysterically. “Of course they’re generic! They’ve spent the past six weeks neutering every authentic, funny field piece we’ve pitched. Down to rejecting the least authentic, least funny field piece Gretchen herself pitched, formerly known as ‘Bus Boys.’ RIP.”
“Well,” Madge winces, “they did float a solution.”
“Me in a padded room reading aloud the phonebook?”
“A sidekick.”
I stare at her. “A what now?”
“You know, like other late night hosts. Someone to riff with, do bits with, digital shorts–think Conan and Sona.”
“Absolutely not.” I’m up now, pacing. “First of all, I don’t do sidekicks.
I’m not Batman. Second, we have one month until air.
Given that they’ve been vetting our celebrity guests like they’re Supreme Court nominees, where exactly am I supposed to find a sidekick who I magically have chemistry with but who’s also lived under a rock since birth and has never publicly expressed a single opinion? ”
Madge grabs script pages off the floor and buries her face in them.
“Don’t tell me there’s more.”
She peeks through the papers to deliver the final blow: “Advertiser-quarterly-is-Monday-and-if-we-don’t-restore-their-faith-before-then-they’re-swapping-our-slot-for- Bedtime-with-Brady.”
“The show where the retired quarterback does ASMR sports trivia? That’s not even a talk show!”
“Technically, it is.”
“You’re telling me that for the first time in eighty years, this show would have a female host and the shittiest time slot in its history?” I climb up off the floor, fueled by indignation.
She nods.
“Well,” I say, offering her my hand and pulling her upright. “We can’t let that happen, can we?”