Bootleg

by Damon Wayans; David Asbery

  No Cussing in the House

  With four kids, I’ve had to make sacrifices. Like, I can’t curse in my own house. This may not seem like a big deal, but when you’ve got kids that make you want to curse, it really is a burden. Still, I watch my mouth in my house because kids say what you say, not what you don’t say, and they’re so incredibly impressionable.

  I took my oldest son, Damon, to the movie Home Alone when it first came out. After we got back to the house, this fool went and put Krazy Glue on the toilet seat, hoping to stick his little sister to the bowl. This was his idea of a joke. I’m the one that took her to the bathroom, thank God. She was about two years old at the time. I removed her diaper and went to put her on the toilet. I looked down at the toilet seat, though, and saw the glue, and I was like, “What the fuck is this shit? Who the fuck put this shit on the toilet?”

  My two-year-old daughter picked right up on this: “Fucking shit. Fucking shit is fucking shit … fuck this shit.”

  “Baby, don’t talk like that,” I said. “Daddy’s sorry he said those bad words.”

  “Fuck that shit,” was her reply. I’m glad my wife wasn’t around.

  I couldn’t get mad at my son because it was kind of funny. I mean, I’m a comedian, and there’s a rule in my house: If it’s funny, you’re not in trouble. The most I can say is, “Boy, work on your timing.” If she got stuck on the bowl I would have had to laugh. Her behind is only the size of two nickels, so she has to hold onto the toilet seat to keep from falling in. Which means she would’ve got stuck hands and ass to the bowl. I would’ve had to take the whole toilet seat off and put that in the car like it’s a car seat. Then, drive her to the hospital and I guess, throw her to the doctor like a Frisbee. He would’ve looked on in horror as she spun toward him saying, “Fucking shit. Fuck that shit. The fucking shit.”

  Laying Down the Rules

  The greatest compliment to me as a father is when people like my kids. That makes me feel good. All the sacrifice and hard work is paying off. It would make me sick if people were talking bad about my kids, saying things like, “Oh, those damn Wayans boys are just trouble. They don’t get any love at home. Just look at them playing in the traffic like that. It’s a damn shame. Their parents need to be shot.”

  I believe as a parent you have to lay down rules and live by them yourself. I knew kids when I was growing up that could steal stuff and bring it home. My friend had a room full of stereo equipment that wasn’t his and his mother would be in his room jamming to the music, saying, “Oh, baby, this is my song! Pee Wee, turn up the sound!”

  I used to think to myself, “Damn, that stereo is stolen. And I know it’s stolen because I helped steal it.” That didn’t happen in my house. If you didn’t have a receipt, or couldn’t justify where you got the money to buy the equipment, it didn’t get past the front door. Being poor, we needed some of that stolen stuff, but there was no way I could bring it in the house. That taught me to work hard and appreciate the things I had. It kept me from being spoiled.

  That’s the worst thing you can do: spoil your kids. Take the Menendez brothers. Remember them? They killed their parents. How do you shoot your own mother and father? Apparently, there wasn’t a lot of love in that house. But I think that a kid should understand that if you bring them into the world they have an obligation to, at least, let you live. I mean, parents feed you and clothe you. And I bet Mr. Menendez was the one who bought his sons their first guns. But they probably took it all for granted.

  Thank God those boys are in jail. That’s where they need to be. It’s unfortunate for them that they didn’t go to prison for killing their parents for no reason, because they would have gotten a lot of respect for that. Nobody would’ve messed with them. But they put it out in the trial that the father was molesting them. Now, that’s the kind of stuff they want to hear about you when you’re in prison. Bubba is gonna have them bent over with a girlie magazine on their backs, saying, “Just call me Daddy. I’m gonna make it feel like home.”

  You’re the Proud Parents of a Baby Girl Named Monica

  I feel sorry for the parents of Monica Lewinsky. I mean all those years of sacrificing, nurturing, and caring for their baby girl. All those late nights at the hospital, putting her through private school, and making sure that she feels loved and protected in the world. After all of that you end up being known as, “The Parents Who Raised the Ho.”

  It must hurt. I bet that before all of this happened Monica’s parents were the biggest braggers in their town. You can just hear the proud father on the golf course, saying, “It’s a government job with a great future. She has special security clearance. Mr. Clinton is crazy about her. Every night she brings me home a cigar from him. I just sit back and puff it thinking about how my little pumpkin is friends with the President of the United States. Do you know she can just walk right into the head office whenever she wants?”

  You know now that the scandal is out in the open he gets shit from all those people he used to brag to, saying things like, “Hey, Lewinsky, certainly were right about your daughter and that ‘head’ office. Ha ha!”

  Where’s the Rule Book?

  I’m raising four different personalities. I wish there was a rule book that you simply follow A-B-C, and you are guaranteed to raise a child that can function in society. But there’s no such thing. You can feed them the same thing, send them to the same school, and dress them in the same clothes, and one will grow up to be a doctor the other one will be a crack addict. They are all so different. My daughters are low-maintenance, especially the older one. I can just talk to her and she’ll understand exactly what I’m saying.

  I can tell her, “Cara Mia, I’m really disappointed in you.”

  Her lower lip will start quivering and tears will well up in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Daddy. I don’t want to disappoint you. I’m gonna go and punish myself.” And she’ll march right off to her bedroom.

  That doesn’t work on my sons. If I tell my son, “Damon, I’m really disappointed in you,” he’ll reply, “Well, you’re gonna be real pissed off when you see the rest of the shit I did. You’re about to be livid, old man!”

  My youngest son, Michael, is growing up nicely. I’m glad, because I was worried about him for a while. He was spoiled as a baby and that made him a whiner. The boy would whine about everything. He would fall on the floor crying and throw these temper tantrums, and I would be thinking, “What the hell am I raising here?” He made me want to grab him and shake him and say, “Look, faggot, stop it!”

  They say you shouldn’t hit your kids. Obviously, whoever said that didn’t have kids. I believe that you shouldn’t hit some of your kids. Some kids, all they understand is an ass whupping. If I wanted to motivate Michael I’d have to pop him upside his head. I tried talking to him, reasoning with him, being a patient, understanding father, but he’d always frustrate me to a point where I’d have to hit him.

  Me: Michael, would you go in there and clean up your room, please.

  Michael: (whiny) Do I have to? I’m watching the Power Rangers.

  Me: Yes, turn that television off. Your room is a pigsty and I want it cleaned.

  Michael: (more whiny) Awwww, can’t someone else do it?

  Me: No, it’s your room. Now, I’m not gonna tell you again, Michael. Go clean it up!

  Michael: (as whiny as a human being can possibly get) But I don’t want to! Why do I always ha—

  Me: Smack!

  Michael: Oh, you mean clean the room!

  Suddenly, he turned into a little janitor. He got a big set of keys, a broom in his hand, and a squeegee in his back pocket.

  Michael: (singing) Clean and shine, clean and shine.

  My Son Is a Nerd

  My two sons go to private school. It’s a good one, the kind where if you lose your wallet, they return it with a note and a dollar that says, “Hope you weren’t inconvenienced.” The only drawback about private school is that my son, Damon, is a little nerd. My son will w
alk into my living room when I have my friends over. “Morning, Dad, can I borrow your computer? I want to do some extra-credit homework.”

  “Yo, slow that up, son. I got company. Put your hands in your pockets and be cool.”

  “Never mind, Dad, I’ll just work it out in my head!”

  That’s my boy! I don’t mind. I’d rather he be a nerd that becomes a doctor than some cool mother-fucka in jail. I’ll have to go visit his cool ass on death row.

  “Hi, I’m here to see Ice Wayans.”

  “Yeah, Ice … Sorry, it’s too late,” the guard would say.

  “That’s terrible! But was he cool?”

  Disneyland: White Man’s Paradise

  I learned that you shouldn’t promise a child anything unless you’re going to follow through on it. It’s better to say no because they will hold you to your word. I remember once I made the mistake of promising my kids two weeks ahead of time that I was going to take them to Disneyland, and they drove me crazy for two weeks straight. They would startle me out of my sleep, scaring the hell out of me.

  Kids: Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!

  Me: Wha— what is it? Is the house on fire?

  Kids: Are we still going to Disneyland?

  Me: Yeah, we’re gonna go to Disneyland.

  They got so caught up in it, they even made up a little song that they’d sing while they were marching around the house: “Daddy’s gonna take us to Disneyland, Disneyland, Disneyland. Daddy’s gonna take us to Disneyland in just one more week and six days, twelve hours, four minutes and eight seconds.”

  I’d be on the toilet and they would start banging on the door.

  Kids: Daddy, Daddy!

  Me: (straining) Wwwwwwwhat?

  Kids: Are we still going to Disneyland?

  Me: Yyyyyyes … we gonna gggggo to Disneyland!

  Then, they would be holding their noses, singing their Disneyland song, “Daddy’s gonna take us to Disneyland, Disneyland, Disneyland. Daddy’s gonna take us to Disneyland, as soon as he finishes in the potty!”

  By the time we arrived at Disneyland I had an attitude. I really don’t like that place. They charge a $32.50 fee just to get into the park, and they give you two dollars off for the kids like they’re doing you a favor. And the place is always packed, mostly with white folks. They don’t seem to have a problem paying the $32.50. It’s like they’re hypnotized when they’re standing at the ticket office window.

  A typical white person will say, “Why, Disneyland is the greatest place on earth. Here, Mickey, take my wallet and you give me back how much you think I should have.”

  Black people won’t have any of that. They’ll be at the gate arguing, “$32.50 to get up in this mother-fucka? What, is Snow White gonna blow me during the electric parade? No, I just want to know when the $32.50 is gonna kick in. Let me tell you something, for $32.50 I’m gonna fuck one of them dwarfs. That’s right, Dopey is gonna be real sleepy and grumpy tonight.”

  But Disney knows that a parent will pay anything to see their kids smile. That’s how they get you. They could charge three hundred dollars and you’d be out there robbing banks trying to scrape the money together.

  Parent: (holding a gun) All right, everybody freeze! Put your hands up, and nobody will get hurt. I just want to get my kids some mouse ears!

  Taking Revenge on the Family Dog

  I hate dogs. I hate them because they’re nasty. I don’t understand people who’ll share their ice cream cone with a dog. I’ve watched dogs lick their balls, not just one time a day, but they lick them all damn day long. I bought a dog for my kids and the dog would lick his balls and then lick my kids in the face. I tried to get the dog to stop doing this, but he wouldn’t stop. It was like a little game with him. Then, the dog started trying to do this to me. That couldn’t continue.

  One day I got fed up and decided to teach him a lesson. I stuck my finger up my ass and rubbed it on the tip of his nose. I said if he wants to be nasty, I’ll be nasty, too. The dog was running around the house like he had gone mad. I chased him around with that finger until the message sank in: Don’t lick your balls and then lick me.

  Appreciate Your Parents or Die

  Sometimes after we grow up we forget what it was like for our parents and all the sacrifices they made to take care of us. Some of my brothers and sisters have chips on their shoulders. They sit around saying things like, “Daddy didn’t spend enough time with me.”

  And I’m thinking, “Daddy had three jobs to raise ten kids. You think he enjoyed himself, being away from home all that time?” I say be happy you’re alive and be grateful you had a daddy who stuck around and didn’t run away from his responsibilities. If my kids ever say that to me, I’ll kill ‘em.

  Kid: You didn’t spend enough time with me, Daddy.

  Me: POW! Good. Now I don’t miss you.

  I spend a lot of time on the road, doing standup or doing TV work or on-location for films. I have a feeling there’s going to be a point in my life when one of my kids is going to tell me he doesn’t think I was a good father. In anticipation of that, I bought me a video camera and I videotaped my kids. I don’t go around doing what everyone else does—I don’t tape my kids doing cute stuff like playing at the beach or blowing out birthday candles. Everything bad they do, I put on videotape, and I mean everything. Needless to say, I’ve built up a huge collection of clips. So when, say, one of my sons comes up to me and says I wasn’t a good father, I’ll be ready.

  I’ll say, “Well, you wasn’t a good son. And I have videotape to prove it. Go on, sit down. I’ve been waiting a while for this day, a long time. Let me put the tape in, turn on the TV. Okay, here we go. Now look, this is you when you hit your brother in the head with a hammer. See, I had to take him to the hospital to get that hook out of his head. Here’s another one. These are my brand new suede shoes. And that’s you dipping them in the toilet. Dip, dip, dip. Four-hundred-dollar shoes … just dipping them in the toilet. Now this is my favorite. This is me and your mother in the bed. Look … damn, that’s pretty impressive. I can’t do that move no more. See how happy I am? You see my face? All right, now look who comes in the room. That’s you. You see my face now? Do I look happy to you?”

  Po Me

  I grew up poor. We were so poor we couldn’t afford the other 0-R. We were just PO. Sometimes we didn’t eat because there was no food in the house. We’d ask, “Hey, Mom, what’s for dinner?”

  My mother would look at us and say, “Look, babies, there ain’t no food in the house. We’re having sleep for dinner. Now brush your teeth and get ready for bed. Keenen, you make sure everyone gets a little extra toothpaste tonight.”

  1 felt sorry for my father ‘cause he’d have to watch all ten of his children walk by him with that look that said, “Mr. Provider! Couldn’t bring home the bacon. Couldn’t even bring home a damn can of Spam. Thank God for water … You did pay that bill, I hope?”

  I remember once I stole fifteen cents from my father and he missed it. You know you’re poor when your father starts trippin’ over change. He’d be stalking around the house, all upset: “All right, this ain’t funny. Now, someone in this house took my fifteen cents! How am I supposed to pay the rent now? I want my money back. Otherwise, I’m gonna strip search every one of y’all, starting with your momma. One of the nickels was a buffalo head and that’s worth at least six cents on the market. Come on now!”

  Clubfoot

  I was born with a clubfoot. I had to wear an orthopedic shoe with a heel about four inches thick, and it had a brace that went up around my knee, just like Forrest Gump, which caused me to limp when I walked. Thank God I lived in the ghetto because the people that didn’t know me thought I was cool. They would say, “Hey, man, check out that brother’s walk. He must be in a gang or something.”

  I used to get into a lot of fights, too, because kids used to tease me about my shoes. And I didn’t like to fight. Actually, I couldn’t fight, not even with girls. I had a fight with this girl in the s
ixth grade. I went through my preparations like Keenen taught me. I was doing my little boxing stances, motivating myself with things like, “Yeah, come on. This little bitch wanna fight me? Bring it on. Yeah, come on—bring it on!” When Elaine heard me call her a bitch, she went into this windmill stance and threw a barrage of punches at me—I’ve never been hit so hard, so fast, so many times. She had me running like a little bitch.

  I guess you’re not going to find too many handicapped bullies out there. You never hear a handicapped person say, “Give me your lunch money! Well, you better have it tomorrow, otherwise I’m gonna kick your ass.”

  And it’s hard to imagine people being scared of a handicapped gang, running away, screaming, “Oh shit, run! Here come the Crips!” Then the leader rolls up in a low rider wheelchair saying, “Hey, punk, you got a problem with me? All right, then, don’t make me get up.”

  Most of my fights were because of my mouth. We use to play this game called The Dozens. I was real good at this game because I was so insecure. Kids didn’t want to play with me because they knew they couldn’t talk about my shoe. If they did, then it’d turn ugly and the game was over. The game would usually go something like this.

  Kid: Damon, yo mother is so fat she has to take her pants off just to get into her pockets.

  Me: Yeah, well, your mother’s so fat that when she gets on the scale it says, “To Be Continued.”