Hello, Molly!: A Memoir

by Molly Shannon

“Molly, you really need a break. You’ve been around town for a while.” It was rough to hear, but I thought, She’s right.

I got so well-known around LA as the hostess there that people would shout, “Grilled lemon chicken salad!” when they saw me.

When I went up to Ibrahim’s office and told him that I was leaving, he gave me this look. He knew that we had had tough times. “Molly,” he said. Then he knelt down and kissed my hands. “Thank you, Ibrahim,” I said. After that, I drove to Pan Pacific Park and listened to “In Your Eyes” by Peter Gabriel over and over again on my Sony Walkman. It was really windy. I kept rewinding the song. I could feel that change was in the air. There was a kind of magic in the night. One of those nights. It was a very profound moment. I knew it was time. I’m gonna take a chance and get out of here. I really embraced the unknown. That was the spirit. Not knowing what lay ahead. I could feel that my life was going to change.

On the plane to New York, first-class again, I sat next to this young, very intelligent, serious businessman. “I’m going to meet Lorne Michaels,” I told him. “How should I approach that meeting? Do you have any tips?” “Ask him opinion questions,” he told me. “Don’t ask questions that would just get a one-word answer. Don’t talk all about yourself. Ask him what he thinks about stuff.” And now that I know Lorne, I realize that was the greatest advice ever. He loves giving his opinions about stuff.

a woman who lived next to my grandmother. She would get really drunk in the afternoon. Then she’d call handymen on the phone to settle scores. The drunker she got, the more grammatical she would get. “Listen up!” she would say. “Your, quote, ‘lawn boy,’ unquote, never showed up to mow my lawn today and I’m furious! Exclamation point! I received i before e except after c an invoice and he never showed up. Period.”