being Russian Cont.

Being raised by Russians is not as fun as it sounds like. Sure, it gives one an excuse to wear enough glitter and rhinestones to make Liberace himself throw in the towel. We do also like to eat, a lot, but those are just some of the perks. There is nothing like a russian meal or fancy restaurant. If you can see the table cloth, it's considered improper. There must be plate on top of plate of food at all times and plenty of vodka a flowin,' just to keep stereotypes alive. If anything, it's just plain awkward. As a child I grew up in a household that screwed up every American expression. My father, like Wayne Brady and most Russian men, thinks he's black. To this day he still fancies himself to be a meld of a one Mr. Mike Tyson and a mafia outcast. Unfortunately he is neither. That, of course didn't stop him from being the only fair-skinned fellow in the middle of the LA riots for no apparent reason and to still quoting Coolio and LLCoolJ whenever he gets a chance. He has worked out in Compton for the past 26 years because he watched "White Man Can't Jump," one too many times.

Whenever I was upset at the world for not understanding me or being made fun of for having a head too large for my body I would come home and cry. I didn't understand why kids were so cruel to me. I was bullied more than most kids. I was bullied by girls and guys alike. There was this one bitch who would spread awful rumors about me in elementary school, would bark at me and once thew yogurt on me. She did it just so everyone could see it. I had to walk home covered in that shit and it ruined my backpack. As a consolation prize I'm sure she became a stripper somewhere and still has a that ridiculous over-bite (clear sign of inbreading), not that I am bitter. I will have her to thank when I am famous. Interesting side-note, her side kick who I didn't have much of a problem with, but she did participate in the taunting, she was like the mother that watched her kid get beat by a husband and never spoke up... Anyway, recently she emailed me a long letter and apologized, 15 years later. It was both nice and odd. I plan on one day putting my rebuttal to the barking in my "standup act."

Back to my dad. My dad was a boxer, he always wanted me to get into a fight which I didn't. I would just eat until I felt better. That was when I learned that pop-tarts and peanut butter made a great afternoon pallet-cleaner. My father would light a cigarette while driving and keeping the windows closed, because he feared the wind would give me a cold, because that is one of the stupid neurosis that Russian people believed, even though he lived in LA and it was often 80+ degrees, but I digress. He would tell me in a really loud voice, because my father didn't know how to whisper, actually he has always been that guy in the theater that talks shit about everything so loud its just embarrassing. When I would ask him to talk quieter he would tell me that real men spoke up... Anyway, he would tell me about the kids making fun, "YYURI, they aRRRn't laughing Vit you, they aRRe laughine at you. Young blood." it was odd and probably why to this day when I heard gangsta rap, I think of good ol' dad.

Back to being Russian. It sucks. Every time you introduce your family to friends or significant somethings, it's hard. This is mostly cause Russian families can scare apple-pie Americans. Russians, when they learn english tend not to use words like "the" or "thank you" excessively and for this reason they sometimes sound scary. You would scare people too if you spent your entire life using newspaper instead of toilet paper! Americans just don't know what to do with us. Then there is that one uncle we Russians all have at least one of, the one who scares people, but actually is so harmless it's funny. It's like with a grumble, this uncle can make any grown man piss themselves. In my experience, most Russians often, also, have a relative that no one know exactly what they do for a living. For me, it's that uncle who also can scare people with a grumble. He is like a Russian-John Candy, Goodman type of fellow. No one knows exactly what he does for a living. At one point when we would ask him his response was, "we import meats." For some reason, this response always made me think of the Coneheads, "we are from France" response. He lived in Russia 3-4 months at a time and then would come home with nice trinkets from his travels. At the time, I didn't realize how odd it was. This uncle, whenever any of his daughters would date a new boy, he would pour them a shot of vodka, which is he Russian test of balls He would pour them the shot, if they refused, he would grumble and remind the daughter of how much of a pussy her new whatever was. As the two would leave on their date I always assumed the guy that didn't take the shot would piss themselves. If they did take the shot and drink the shot for some reason it was a proof of virility and not a sign of Alcoholism, because Russians didn't worry about those things.

When most people imagine Russian grandmothers they think of little old ladies that match the crap you see on television. For me it was not the case. Even though, my grandmothers were from right behind the iron curtain, they still remained vain enough to be able to compete with any American woman. One grandmother was like Zha Zha Gabore, when she had both legs (the leg reference is about Gabore, out of poor taste, I know). That one grandmother though, even sounded like Ms. Gabore, she always wore a ring on every finger to show her power and was once quoted at my 20th birthday as telling my friend, "I HHH-Hope u live to be as beauuutiFUL as me darRRlinG!" She had her face done so many times that finding an original piece was like finding Waldo. She had her hair done at all times. It was always so boufant that air-traffic control had it on radar. She is the same woman that once told me that there were no such thing as monsters in my closet, just people who come in the middle of the night to take away people you love to never see again.

My other grandmother, we shall call her Lilia for the purpose of this story. Lilia, always had bright ideas. As my other grandmother was self-centered and vain, this one well, was just careless. After my mother divorced my father, he moved back in with her. Whenever I visited my father, I would also see her. While I had never EVER seen my grandmother cook, Lilia, like most Russian women made everything in a pan. If it could be fried, she would make it. Oddly, every dish tasted the same. Her favorite thing to make was rice that was cooked so much that it was mushy and burned to the saucepan. Also, almost every meal was followed with tea because Russians love drinking tea and saving one tea-bag and reusing for a week to make at least 10 cups of the stuff. I didn't know if she did that because she was cheap or because she was used to rationing as a result of growing up in a country where stores would run out of food. As a child, I always assumed it was cause of the cheap thing.

Once as a small child, I came home, to my dad's house badly sun-burned. What do you think my father and grandma Lilia offered me? Aloe? No. Some sort of after-son lotion? No. My grandmother opened the fridge and started to cover me in sour cream. Which may have done something, but it mostly made me feel like I was wearing salad dressing. That was another one, no Russian home could be complete without sour cream. We use it on everything because well we do. The burning easily has always been the worst part of being Russian. many are like me, not meant for the sun. Like when am in the sun too long, I ignite and don't get me started on sweating. I hate sweating... Russians sweat differently than most people, when I sweat I automatically secrete this odd cheap cologne smell. The only thing that has set me apart from most Russians is my love of anti-persperant and lack of adidas track suits.

The other thing about being Russian was that my grandmothers often talked about the "black market". This, I always assumed was a market that black people shopped at. Whenever they would talk about the old country, they often would mention buying things at this market. Until I was 10 I was pissed that my mother never took me to this place. Later I found out that this was just their term for buying illegal or hard to get things in Russia that may have been contraband.

Point is that while we all have our axe to bare, I have a huge bowl of borsht and peroshki along with a crazy dis-functional family that is fun to talk about.

(more to come soon)