Saturday Night Live

I’m in bed last night writing, at midnight on a Saturday. Woo hoo! So exciting! I know. And I’m flipping channels, because the TV has to be on in the background and I’ve heard everything there is to hear about the Paris attackers on CNN (which is on right now) and I see Saturday Night Live is on.

It’s the 41st season of Saturday Night Live. Seriously. I remember when it started. It was one big dirty joke you weren’t allowed to hear if you were under a certain age, which I was, but for some reason my brother and I got to stay up and watch it anyway. Good thing, because the VCR hadn’t even been invented yet. I have no idea what I did before we could tape stuff. Wait for the repeat, I guess.

I don’t even think we knew ahead of time who was hosting, or who the musical guest was. We were obsessed. We had the album. The Saturday Night Live album, with the original cast, the “not ready for prime time players” (do they even still say that?) who were live, from New York! And the sax music would play. Two of them are dead now, and everyone else has faded into obscurity, except Chevy Chase who probably would have been better off if he had.

I know I’ve seen a hundred people perform on Saturday Night Live, but I remember exactly two: Pearl Jam singing “Alive” in 1992. And Madonna singing “Bad Girl” in 1993. I loved them both. Oh, and Sinead O’Conner.

Adele sang on Saturday night. It was astonishing. Tears. And she looked like a fucking goddess.