I am not a political comic. I try not to get into it on stage
cause really I don’t give a shit about your opinion. My dad calls me on the night right after this last inauguration
and is like, “Guess what?”
Me, “What?”
Him, “We made it!”
Me, “Made what?”
Him, “We got elected!”
Me, “What are you talking about? You don’t even vote.”
Him, “They finally let someone like us into the white
house!”
Me, “Someone like us?
Obama’s nether Russian nor Jewish, what the fuck are you talking about?”
Him, “They finally let someone like us, of color into the
white house!”
Me, “Dad we are Russian Jews. If anything, we are the opposite of being people of color;
we are the people of no color.
While some people tan, we ignite.”
What I should explain about this
conversation is that my father, like most Russian men thinks he’s black. He dresses like a white, bald Sinbad at
all times. He is best known for
his neon squiggle pants and random mid-90s hardcore gangster rap quotes. He is the only white, 5’7 and ¼ inch
tall Jew that was in the middle of the LA riots for no fucking reason.
My
father is at some random liquor store in the middle of south central purchasing
his cigarette of choice, (the following must be said with a Russian accent)
Benson Ultra-Lights. There is a
some black dude working the counter who tells him, “Honkey, you need to get the
fuck out of here, it’s not safe for you.”
Good
old dad doesn’t miss a beat and says “Honkey? Where?”
My father grew up in the former Soviet Union. Like most immigrant parents he would
try to use American expressions but would fuck them up. I would come home from school and
be upset that my head was too big for my body and that I was fat. As a kid, I was so fat, I was what was
eating Gilbert Grape. I had to
shop in the Husky section, which they may as well have called, “the you wont be
able to find your penis until you turn 25 section.”
My dad would pat me on the back,
look me straight in the eyes and say, “Yuri, hand me my Benson Ultra-Lights!
(Cough) Zthey aRRn’t laughing vith you, zhtey are laughing at you.” Light his
cigarette and make me watch boxing.
My father would make me watch
boxing all the time. He still
does. As a kid I hated it. This was his way of ensuring I wouldn’t
come out gay. He figured I would
learn everything necessary to be a man from watching muscled, sweaty guys duke
it out, round after round.
That’s like making a fat person watch the food network and then asking
them how their diet is going.
Point is, at around 14 I realized that boxing was something both of us
could enjoy but for very different reasons, if you get what I’m saying… I spent a lot of time at that age
pretending to have diarrhea as a result.
