Colin Jost - A Very Punchable Face: A Memoir

There comes a time when you look into the mirror and you realize that what you see is all you will ever be.

T ENNESSEE W ILLIAMS

I dont know what I think until I write it down.

J OAN D IDION

Ive wanted to write a book my entire life. Partially because (as you will soon learn) I have difficulty taking whats inside my head and saying it out loud. For someone whose job is essentially speaking, this creates a deep anxiety and sometimes a paralysis that keeps me from expressing what Im really thinking. Whereas the act of writing allows my brain to function in a different way. I can write and not be afraid of what Im going to say.

I also just love books. They were my first escape and the only way I traveled and learned about the world without leaving the island I grew up on. Books were my ticket to a good high school and a good college. And books were how I learned about the people I admired, from Teddy Roosevelt to Tina Fey (the modern Teddy Roosevelt).

Some of you know me from Saturday Night Live, where Ive been a head writer and co-anchor of Weekend Update (the real fake news) for the past six years.

Some of you know me from OK! magazine, where Im standing on a red carpet next to my much more famous fiance.

Some of you think you know me, but youre actually just thinking of the villain from an 80s movie who tries to steal the heros girlfriend by challenging him to a ski race.

And some of you, Ill admit, were duped. Because half the copies of this book were titled Becoming 2: Michelles Got More to Say. And for that I apologize, even as I continue to fight Mrs. Obama aggressively in court.

Regardless, thank you for reading my book. Im not a person who opens up easily. Im half German and half Irish Catholic. So its never a good sign when your German side is the less repressed one.

Thats why I rarely post anything on social media or do any serious interviews. I feel ashamed when talking about myself, even though everyone else is doing it.

But doing it in book form puts me at ease somehow. Because, again, books were my friends. Math was my girlfriend. And I lost my virginity to spelling.

I called this book A Very Punchable Face because multiple friends have told me: Colin, you have a very punchable face.

These are friends, mind you. So I can only imagine what my enemies are saying.

Im so punchable that Ive been punched in at least four different sketches on SNL, including one where my boss, seventy-five-year-old Lorne Michaels, punches me in the face fifteen times. (He demanded multiple takes. Said there were lighting issues.)

Leslie Jones has punched me. Tiffany Haddish has punched me. Cecily Strong has spit vodka in my face and vomited red wine all over me.

Ive learned that anytime I get physically abused on camera, people laugh.

That is why many chapters in this book involve me getting hit in the face, verbally assaulted, sliced open, pummeled by fruits and vegetables, thrown out of a wrestling ring, or metaphorically punched by trolls and critics. And yes, theres also a chapter about me shitting my pants as a grown adult. Sorry, Grandma!

And listen, I understand why some people want to punch me. Im self-aware enough to realize what I look like.

I look like a guy whos always on the verge of asking, Do you know who my father is? Even though my father was a public school teacher on Staten Island. If you had Mr. Jost for mechanical drawing freshman year, then you know who my father is!

I also realize that I look like the president of the Young Republicans Club, even though Ive voted Democrat in every election for every single office, even the weird ones like State Supreme Court Bailiff where half the names could be fake and no one would ever know.

And it doesnt help, punch-wise, that Im one of the whitest white people outside of Frozen.

Here are some names Ive been called on social media as well as regular media: Bland, Pasty, Transparent, Milquetoast (gross), the Whitest Man in History, Powder, If Milk Became a Person, Milk-Face, Milk the Movie, You Tall Glass of Egg Whites ( Leslie Jones), Casper, Gay Casper, Chicken Salad, If Jizz Became a Person, and of course, The Actual White Devil.

Sometimes these names are hurtful. Sometimes theyre just confusing. (What is a Mayonnaise Yeti?) But mostly they make me laugh. And I learned very early on that laughing at yourself is a terrific survival mechanism.

As someone who was bullied growing up, I realized that its way easier to play into the bullying rather than fight it. If youre better at making fun of yourself than a bully is, then the bully has no room to operate. (Except punches. They still have punches. Oh god, do they have punches.)

Ive applied this childhood approach to my adult whiteness. If people are going to make fun of how white I am, then I better do it before they do.

After all, Im so white, golf plays me!

For this reason, I almost called my book White Guy until I realized that it miiiiiiight feel a liiiiiiitttle politically charged in the wrong way.

So instead I went with A Very Punchable Face.

Except in Russia, where its called Mayonnaise Yeti.

Actually I dont have to imagine. Thats what Twitters for.

So far, name-dropping my father has only ever gotten me a free pretzel from one of his former students working at Auntie Annes.

I once voted for a judge because his last name was Ice and I just thought that was awesome.