CD: Is that different for performers? It seems like there’s a pretty clear career path for comedians to get on SNL. You perform at UCB in New York or Second City in Chicago, you make a bunch of comedy videos for YouTube and then you get lucky and Lorne Michaels picks you.

SR: That’s mostly true but there are also exceptions to that. If you look at Marika and Mulaney, Mulaney had been doing stand up comedy and was asked to audition for the cast of SNL. His material was so good they hired him to be a writer. And Marika had been a receptionist at SNL after being an intern for a number of years. Receptionists are allowed to submit jokes to Weekend Update and she sold some jokes and they read her packet and it was fantastic.

CD: You’ve obviously been really successful, but where do you want to go from here? What are you hoping to do?

SR: Really just more of the same, ideally. I don’t have any ambitions beyond being allowed every morning to sit down and write some more and not feel like I should be getting a real job. That’s always been my goal. Throughout high school, throughout college it was, “Man, if I could just write every day and not have to do anything else, then I would be set.” I’m kind of already there and there’s nothing else I want.

CD: That’s incredible. That must be a great feeling.

SR: Yeah, the fear is that somehow it’s all going to slip away and I’ll have to go into investment banking.

CD: One of the characters in your book, Vince, says that almost all human choices are based on “what they had eaten for breakfast, whether or not they had slept well, and how long it had been since their last satisfactory orgasm.” How much of that is your opinion?