SNL comics have burst like humorless spiders from putrid nests into numerous movies, TV shows, stand up tours, and plays, and there have been many memoirs by and bios of these comedians, but no book has addressed the real question that plagues the show: Why isn't SNL funny? Hammond's autobiography, God, If You’re Not Up There, I’m Fucked: Tales of Stand-Up, Saturday Night Live, and Other Mind-Altering Mayhem (Harper) finally provides an indirect answer, especially if his life is held up against books about John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Michael O’Donoghue, Phil Hartman, Chris Farley, and the oral history of the show itself.
In their terrific book about screenwriting, Writing Movies for Fun and Profit, Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon discuss booze and creativity (they’re for them). Booze relaxes you and stimulates new ideas and perspectives; it also drowns trouble when your script goes into turnaround yet again. Hammond took booze to extremes, however, along with cocaine and self-cutting, somehow managing to maintain a healthy work ethic while keeping himself blotto and/or blacking out and ending up in Mafia bars at two in the morning.