SNL & THE ARCADE FIRE

I'm still reeling from one of the most unforgettable experiences of my life. In short, S. and I the were part of the live studio audience at Saturday Night Live this past Saturday as the lucky guests of Fred Armisen, a cast member of SNL. We were able to meet him in his dressing room backstage on the SNL set, and briefly hang out with him, Will Forte, Andy Samberg ("Google Maps, Double True!"), Seth Meyers (cuter in person), Amy Poehler (thinner in person), and several members of THE ARCADE MUTHERFUCKIN' FIRE. Yes, it's true. This, on top of being able to see the very funny show live, which was an experience in itself, and the special concert that The Arcade Fire put on after the show was over, in which they played Rebellion, Wake Up (a cappella), and Antichrist Televesion Blues from Neon Bible for the studio audience, who was allowed to leave their seats and crowd around the stage and yell and scream and jump around. It was un-fucking-believable. I honestly feel like I'm still half-dreaming and that it never really happened. It was absolutely thrilling. I will never be able to listen their music without the image of seeing all of the cast members of SNL jumping and screaming and singing along with them. After meeting them (that's a long story, but it involved from George Costanza-esque pretending like we totally belonged there), we shared an elevator down with the guitarist, the drummer, and one of the violinists from Arcade Fire as well as several of the cast members. The funniest part was leaving out of the special exit with the cast to the limos and people waiting outside to see if they could get a picture with someone famous. It was fucking hilarious, us standing there with the security guards and the cast members and the band members. Jesus fucking christ. I still can't believe it happened.

I'm trying to focus on the positive and not on how we should have tried harder to weasel our way into the after-party (all they could have said was "no"). The situation was delicate since we kind of had to lie about who we were to Fred, but I still wish we had weaseled our way in. The after-party was epic, I'm sure, on top of I would just really, really have loved to talk to one of the guys in the Arcade Fire. Fuck, I would have loved to talk to one of the stagehands! Fred seemed like a truly cool person and I thought we did a pretty good job of looking normal and not incredibly fucking dazzled, even though we were. We have his cellphone number, so maybe we'll try again. As an addendum, he told our contact that we were cool and he was glad he got to talk to us (?!). God, I am such a GEEK. I had to refrain from gushing about how cool his iTunes playlist is and how funny the judge segment was. I'm glad I did.

On another note, Neon Bible is a fucking incredible album. I'm really enjoying it, though that may have something to do with my weekend brush with fame. So far, I love Intervention, Antichrist Television Blues, and Keep the Car Running. This may have something to do with the fact that AF played all three on Saturday, but these are strong tracks. I'm not sure why it's already available on Rhapsody, but I'll just ignore that.

Other than SNL, we did a lot, A LOT of drinking and laughing and just generally acting like assholes. We didn't sleep, that's for sure. I'll never forget it. Before S. came, I did run in Central Park, see the El Greco to Picasso exhibit at the Guggenheim (muy cultural, no?) and ate at Bouchon Bakery, which was amazing, if not a bit expensive. Still, the roast beef sandwich and lemon tart were heaven. Carmelized onions can fuck up a sandwich if they are too sweet, but this was perfect and was cut nicely with the arugula and pesto. I also had Momofuku ramen Sunday afternoon to allay my hangover before heading out for the last flight from LaGuardia to make it to snowy Chicago on time.

NYC, I'll BE BACK!