I Ain't Scared of You

I Ain't Scared of You

All photos courtesy of the author's collection unless otherwise noted.

An
Original
Publication of MTV Books/Pocket Books

Visit us on the World Wide Web:
http://www.SimonSays.com

Copyright © 2001 by Bernie Mac

MTV Music Television and all related titles, logos, and characters are trademarks of MTV Networks, a division of Viacom International Inc.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

ISBN: 0-7434-3985-6

POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Thanks to my wife, Rhonda, and my loving daughter, Je'Niece, who have been my motivation. They are my two best friends in all my life. To my entire family, in-laws, acquaintances past and present, associates, and friends. To my enemies, thank you for your motivation! To “Big Fella” and “AV,” thanks for thirty years of straight-up friendship.

Thanks to Richard Abate at ICM; Armstrong and Hirsch; Simon & Schuster, MTV, and Pocket Books; UTA. To my editor, Tracy Sherrod—great work! Thanks for getting it right, baby girl! To Darrell Dawsey, for taking my words out of context!

Thanks to my main man and manager, Steven Greener, who has done a great job with my career—knowing me, knowing my style, and knowing when to stay the hell out of my business!

To Chuck, my tour manager, who has been “busted” on numerous occasions. To my hair designer, Teressa, who don't appreciate shit! Just kidding (on the real).

To Haj, my clothes designer, who's been with me an eternity and
who's one selfish sumbitch; to my main man, the Big Fella, thank you for loving Bernard, not Bernie Mac; and to my booking agent, Jody Wenig, who really knows how to book me “right” and cares about me. Thanks to my good friend and assistant—they come no better than Geri Bleavings. And last but not least, to my fans, who truly made me and not Hollywood. Thank you with all my heart.

From the Mac Man,

Bernie Mac             

Darrell Dawsey would like to acknowledge: God; moms and family; my sweetie, Chastity Pratt, and our newborn son, Khalil Aziz; Cara; Jamil; Natasha; my editor, Tracy Sherrod; Richard Abate; my Manifest dogs; my cousins in Philly; Tom, Kel, Al and the whole team, from Detroit to LA to NY.

Introduction

Chapter One
   
Hard Times and Humble Beginnings

Chapter Two
   
How People Are

Chapter Three
  
Entertainment

Chapter Four
   
The Career Track

Chapter Five
    
Family

Chapter six
      
In Case I Didn't Mention

Bernie Mac, age five.

People are always coming up to me, asking me how I got into comedy, what made me want to do this. They think it's something a muh'fucka just picked up along the way to try and make some money. Unh-unh. Naw. This is something I was born to do, baby. I been doing shows since I was a kid. It didn't matter where—backyards, apartment hallways, the alley. I been entertaining since I was little.

I'mma tell ya a true story. It started when I was about four. I was at home with my mama, and I noticed that she had started crying. I went, sat on her lap. And you know, as a little boy, when you see you mama crying, you automatically start crying.

I took my mother's hand, and I was wiping her face. I asked why she was crying. And my mom told me, “Nothing, son. Nothing.” The same instant she told me “nothing,” Ed Sullivan came on. And he said that he had a “really big shew.” And then he introduced Bill Cosby.

At that particular time, there wasn't nothing but four people on TV—four blacks—that was Diahann Carol, Sidney Poitier, Sammy
Davis Jr. and Bill Cosby. When I saw Bill Cosby, he came on and my mother was looking at him. I'll never forget: He was doing this bit about sex in the bathroom. And while he was doing his act, I noticed that mother was still crying—but she had also started to laugh. Pretty soon, she was laughing so hard you wouldn't even have known she had just been crying. And when I saw her laughing, I started laughing. I saw the joy in my mother's smile. When I looked on television, I saw this man making her laugh—even with all the problems and struggles she was going through at the time.

I saw the power of comedy.

Right then and there, I turned to her and said, “Mama, that's what I'm going to be. I'm going to be a comedian—so I don't ever have to see you cry no more.”

That's a true story, man. That's what made me want to do this, even after my mother passed. That's what inspires my humor: I don't want nobody to cry.

—Bernie Mac, April 3, 2001

I Ain't Scared of You

I grew up in the streets of 69th and Morgan, the south side of Chicago. Rough as hell. We did all that bullshit—fighting, cuttin' each other with glass, shootin'. But back when we were coming up, we could joke with each other hard. We killed each other with jokes, all day long. And we didn't run and get no pistols or nothin'. Learning how to take a joke, learning how to tell one on somebody—that shit made you stronger. People talkin' about you: “Ya hair nappy”; “You got on floods up to here.”

Lint in ya hair? Shit, you had the teddis.

And it's
always
a guy that smells like piss.

“Black ass tar baby,” they used to call me. “Spooky Juice.” I'm sitting up there, they laughing at me and shit. I went home mad, can't sleep. Next day, I come back: “Motherfucker,” I was talking that shit, too. “Yeah, look at you . . .” You learn how to fight back, man. I didn't go get no pistol. That's when I learned to come back. “Look at you!”

Growing up, I laughed at stuff that people couldn't understand. I'd be laughing at the craziest thing, and people would be lookin' at me like,
What the hell? Something wrong with that muthafucka.

I laughed at people's misfortune—because I had so many misfortunes. But I didn't look at them as misfortunes. I learned hard lessons in life; I had to because I had so much happen: My mother died my sophomore year in high school. The next year, same day, my brother dropped dead. Two years after that, I got married because my girlfriend got pregnant. The year after my wedding, my father—who I had only recently met—died.

That was just life to me. So my mentality was, your misfortune wasn't all that bad because that's the way I thought about mine. But on the flip side, you were like, “This muthafucka laughing. I'm sitting up here, house burnin' down, and this muthafucka up here
laughing.”

That's true. One time, there was this fire on our block, and everybody had come running out this house. They was in they draws, hair all messed up, and there go Ms. Lee screamin', “Aw Lord, our prop'ty, our prop'ty!”

And I'm laughing. Ms. Lee snapped on me: “It ain't funny! It ain't funny!” The more she screamed, the harder I laughed. But I wasn't laughing at the fire. I wasn't laughing at the fact that their house was burning down. I was laughing at their expressions.

I just kept seeing her face, all frowned up, eyes bugged out, raggedy-ass headrag on, and she just screamin'. One side of her panties was in the crack of her ass. Her old man—he had lost a leg to diabetes—and this peg-leg muh'fucka was just kickin' at the air. Just kickin'. Talkin' to firemen, talkin' 'bout, “Hurry up!”

I just couldn't hold it. I was falling out.

But like I said, I could laugh at people's misfortunes because I had so many of my own. Like a lot of black people, I grew up straight po'. Wasn't no question about whether we was po', either. If you really wanted to know, all you had to do was look in our refrigerator.

You go to some people houses and the kids got all kinds of cookies and cakes and ice cream and shit. You know,
snacks.

But not us. We ain't never have no good food, man, nothin' for kids to just munch on. Shit, fuck around and ask my granddaddy 'bout some damn snacks.

Seriously, that was a snack at our house. We'd put about three or four eggs in a pot, boil 'em, then my granddaddy would cut 'em up in halves. I'd get a half. My brother would get a half, and so on. Then you'd add salt and pepper
and hot sauce.

Maaaaan, you'd be farting all damn night.

Everybody would be in the bed trying to get some rest, my grandmama and granddaddy in the next room, and then all of a sudden—
fffrrrrrppppppp.

“Man, why you—why you—why you do it by my
face? Ma-maaaaaa!
He fartin' in people's face!”

“Well, he just did in mine! He did it in mine!”

That's from eating all them eggs.

And it wasn't just snacks. You
know
you poor when you eatin' breakfast food late. You fryin' toast? At nine o'clock at night? With bacon?

You're broke.

We'd have to get some baloney and fry it until the black forms a circle around the edges. Don't even have no bread. Just roll it up like a hot dog and eat it.

And don't let us really get some ice cream.
Booooyyy.
When we'd get ice cream, my granddaddy would give us all one scoop each. I'd get mine, stir it up, mash it, make it seem like I had a lot. And you know kids: always examining what the other kids got.