Last week, the cover and release date (October 28th) for Amy Poehler’s first book, Yes Please, was released. Over the weekend, Poehler appeared at BookCon to share some more info about the memoir (via Bustle and Vulture):
“I’m writing a book in what feels like the middle of my life,” Poehler explained adding that the tome is her attempt to describe what it feels like to be “young and old at the same time” and that she’s too old for “cute” and too young for “wisdom.”
Poehler explained the title, saying, “The good things that’ve happened to me are because I said, ‘Yes, please.’” She also discussed her beginnings on SNL, which came right after 9/11 when Poehler says, people “were talking about if they’d ever laugh again … It’s nice to start SNL at a time when everyone’s saying comedy is dead.” She added, “Tina [Fey] was already running the machine there. I got the job like most people do — I just slept with the head writer.”
The book will include a chapter on sex tips (like “please don’t make it last so long, we’re really tired”), a chapter on her divorce (which she says is “not about dishing dirt” because “I don’t like people knowing my shit”), and chapter titles like She Doesn’t Cry Enough, He Seems Gay to Me, My Phone Is Trying to Kill Me (about social media), and Don’t Worry, I Don’t Want to Fuck Your Husband.
Poehler also shared a funny story about how Jon Hamm cheered her up after her OB/GYN died during her pregnancy:
Jon Hamm was hosting Saturday Night Live, his first time, and I was just getting to know him, and we were doing a sketch, a Mad Men sketch, I was dressed in an old-timey way, in a big dress, and I was huge. And I had, my plan was that I was gonna do the Jon Hamm show and I was due the next day. And it was an example of the beginning of what children do to you, which is they fuck up all your plans. So I remember saying to my doctor, Dr. G, ‘I’m gonna do the show and I’ll come in Sunday, and maybe we’ll do it Sunday/Monday.’I did the sketch, I was shooting with Hamm on Friday, and I called my doctor ‘cause at the end there you kind of have to call in every day, and the receptionist was crying. I said, ‘What’s wrong?’ and she said, ‘Oh, he passed away last night.’I was due the next day. So it’s my first kid, I’m in a Mad Men outfit, I turn to everybody and I hysterically start crying, and a really pregnant woman crying is terrifying. So, juicy tears just like squirting out of my eyes. And it was like the punch line to a joke, it’s like, my doctor just died and I’m due tomorrow. And Jon Hamm, who I am just getting to know, comes over and puts his hands on my shoulder and is like, ‘This is a really important show for me. I’m gonna need you to get your shit together.’ And I laughed so hard, I probably peed myself – I believe that going through crying to laughing adds like five years to your life.
