Playboy's 20 Q: Bernie Mac

tv's big man of comedy on fashion, lying and what happens when you give a woman some good dick

Bernie Mac grew out of poverty on Chicago's South Side to become a man whose size could intimidate anyone, were he not so gentlemanly and refined—offstage, that is. One of today's highest-grossing comedians, Mac made his mark on Russell Simmons' Def Comedy Jam with his musings about men, women, sex and especially family, based on his own tough youth. His mother and one brother died when he was a teenager. He hardly knew his father. Somehow, that life formed the basis of a comic viewpoint that Mac took public in 1977 while he drove a Wonder Bread truck to make ends meet. Fast-forward to 1997, when Mac joined the Kings of Comedy tour that eventually became the subject of Spike Lee's documentary. He followed that with a scenery-chewing turn as a blackjack dealer in the 2001 remake of Ocean's 11. Now he's on the Fox TV network with The Bernie Mac Show and was nominated for an Emmy for lead actor in a comedy series. He's also co-starring as Chris Rock's older brother in Head of State and he'll be in Bad Santa with Billy Bob Thornton, followed by a role in Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle.

Contributing Editor David Rensin met with Mac recently in Los Angeles.

1

[Q] Playboy: You're a big man. How do you dress to be big?

[A] Mac: Dressing smaller is better. When you dress too big, you're not really secure with yourself. If you're big, it's good to be neat. The more you play down your size, the better; the attention is already there. Everybody likes a gentle giant. I've always been a dresser. I wouldn't dress like this if I couldn't afford it. I've always been into fashion. I was a black-and-white guy. I loved the style of a man—with the hats and the handkerchiefs. I used to watch the entertainers from the old Regal Theater. They left the room and you still smelled them. Their hands were so neat. I always liked the manicured man.

2

[Q] Playboy: When did you get your first manicure?

[A] Mac: When I was 15. It was a cool thing for me. I admired my brother, who was called Sweet Rob. He sang background with the Chi-Lites, and he was very well groomed. After he spoke on the phone and handed it to you, you smelled him. I watched my brother's hands, how they glittered and how he used them to express himself.

[A] You can tell the essence of a man from his teeth, his eyes, his hair and his skin. When you shake his hand and you feel the firmness and the softness combined, when you see the neatness of his manicure and the way his clothes lay on him. It shows not only his style but his character and what he's about internally. You see the love he has for himself, and what he can share with others.

3

[Q] Playboy: What does "keeping it real" mean?

[A] Mac: I have no idea what the fuck "keeping it real" means. Keeping it real is the stupidest shit I've ever heard. Is there any other way? I have asked my people and got different explanations, but nothing makes sense. The more ignorant you are, the more real it is? I've seen cats, especially in Vegas during the fights, doing some of the most ignorant shit you've ever seen in your life. And I've heard people next to me say, "Man, he's keeping it real." The less manners you have, the more real you are?

4

[Q] Playboy: About what sexual habits do most men lie?

[A] Mac: How long they fuck. How they tore up somebody's ass. Men lie on their dicks all the time. Women lie about good dick: "Girl, that dick, he can throw that ass." He can throw that money, is what it is. Women fuck men more for money and personal shit than they do for pleasure. They are just as guilty as men, only women can get away with it more.

5

[Q] Playboy: Does the first time you have sex with a woman change her?

[A] Mac: Women love dick. They try to lie about it because it's unorthodox to admit it. But if you get a woman in bed and truly please her physically, you will see the transformation and hear things you thought she would never, ever say; then she starts walking with the mattress on her back. The problems begin when you throw good dick to a woman who's not accustomed to it. Not only will she not leave you alone, she'll overcommit herself to you. Some men have the same problem. It's no different from being broken in for the first time by an experienced woman. I hear men say their woman is not compatible with them—no way, no how. Then they say, "Yeah, but she got some good puss." Stupidest statement in the world. It's like, "Damn everything you work for. Damn everything you believe in." You know she ain't right. You know she's fucking your brother. You know she sucks dick for a living. And the first thing you say in your sorry-ass defense is, "She got some good puss."

6

[Q] Playboy: Did you get enough when you were young?

[A] Mac: I never got enough. But I had to make peace with it because it gets old. Other things become more important. I got my signs like everybody else. At first I didn't pay any attention. Thought I was irresistible. Invincible. Flat stomach. Solid. Ripping and running. Drinking beer all night, smoking two packs of squares and still going to play ball in the morning. Fucking all night. No one thinks he's going to have a stroke. No thought about high blood pressure or diabetes. No worries about AIDS. I was in that place. But I had to get humble. Sometimes you have to break all the way down before you get it. It's like dealing with a pretty face: You look across the room and, damn, she's gorgeous. She walks past and, damn, look at the ass on that. Bowlegged son of a bitch, shit. Then you start hooking up with her and you can't stand her. Everybody around you will tell you, "Man, she loves you." Maybe, but she gets on my nerves, and when that happens, even that fine, beautiful face ain't enough anymore.

7

[Q] Playboy: What signs show you that life with a particular woman will be nothing but misery?

[A] Mac: The motherfucker wants to be your mother. She tries to change you. She tells you from the beginning what to do, how to do it, when to do it, what to eat, where to go, where to park. Another one is the woman who can never keep a relationship. You see a woman with four or five kids and no man, that motherfucker's got a problem. People can get mad that I'm saying this, but these are true signs—and it ain't no different than the son of a bitch who can't keep a job, or who's got four or five kids with four different women.

8

[Q] Playboy: On your show, Bernie always seems so aggrieved. What percentage of your comedy comes from pain?

[A] Mac: Eighty-five percent. I reflect on my childhood, my young adulthood, the disappointments of life—the problems I brought on myself, the self-pity I went through before I became a man. It comes from watching how my mother dealt with her pain, not knowing what her pain was all about. That was torture for me. Realizing that my father made me the man I am without even knowing it. What a waste. He missed out on so much. I don't curse him and I don't look down on him. I just pity him. That's what motivated me to be a better father. I look at the relationship between me and my daughter, how close we are and how she's my friend, and I attribute all that to my father's not being a father.

9

[Q] Playboy: Tell us about your dad.

[A] Mac: My father died three years after my mother did. He died penniless. I had to bury him. I saw him maybe 10, 12 times. He used to fight my mother. She used to fight him back, and I mean fight him. She was rough.

On one holiday when I was eight, maybe nine, my father called me on the phone. He was very articulate, clever, a smooth dresser. He said, "Son, I'm on my way home. I'm going to take you out and we're going to do this and we're going to do that." Trouble is, our home wasn't his home. He had never lived with us. I'd always say, "Daddy, when are we going to be a family?" And he'd always promise to get us an apartment. Until my mother died, I never even knew they weren't married. Anyway, I told my mom he'd called and asked, "Mom, can I put on my suit?" I had a blue suit. "I want to look real nice for him." She just looked at me. "OK, son." She knew the man; she knew he wasn't coming. One o'clock. Two o'clock. Three o'clock. Four o'clock. Five o'clock. Six o'clock. I'm sitting on the couch, in a suit, my hair parted with Vaseline. All my cousins were playing, but I didn't want to play. I wanted my father. Finally, my mother said, "Son, take your clothes off. He's not coming." I said, "He is coming! He is!" She said, "Son, you can keep the suit on for a few minutes longer, but then you're going to have to take it off." Seven o'clock. Seven-thirty. Eight o'clock. My mother said, "Bernie, I want you to take your clothes off." I started crying. "He's coming!" She said, "He's not coming."

My mother looked at me, trying to be stern, but I guess I had a look on my face. She said, "I'm going to the store to get some cigarettes. When I come back, you're going to have to take that suit off, OK?" I put my head down. She went to the store. A few minutes later I heard a knock and opened the door. My father stood there. He said, "Hello, son." Man, I jumped in his arms. He was six-three, about 230. He picked me up with just one arm: "That's my boy." "Daddy! Daddy! I waited for you!" He said, "You know what, son? Come here." He took me to the window and pulled the blinds open. He said, "Look across the street, son. See that? Dad was out buying you a car." Then he jiggled some keys. "That's where Dad was." "You bought me a car?" I said. "I sure did. But you know what, son? Dad spent all of his money trying to buy a car for you. Is there any loose change around here so I could put some gas in the car? I'm going to take you driving." I said, "Dad, I got some money!" He said, "You do?" Man, I shot into my room and I cracked my piggy bank open. I had 40-something dollars. He said, "Oh, my God." He took all my money. He said, "I'm going to get some gas, son. You stay right there." And he left. A few moments later my mother walked in. It was like in the movies. She marched me upstairs and said, "Bernie, take your suit off." I said, "No, Mom, no! Daddy just left." She ran out of patience. "Son, he is not coming," she said. "I'm tired of playing with you. I want you to take it off now." Then she saw my piggy bank. "Boy, you broke that bank? What did you do with the money?" I said, "Mom, Daddy bought me a car! He just came and—" She shot down those stairs. I didn't get a chance to finish the sentence. She chased him and caught him. There was humbugging in the street. I was the talk of the school for a whole month. They used to call my mother Champ. Oh, it was scrapping. And she got the money back.

10

[Q] Playboy: Ever consider therapy?

[A] Mac: If I needed it I would have no problem going, but things are working well for me. My family life is a beautiful thing. I don't have any vices. I don't have a nightlife. That life has all gone past me. Right now I wouldn't fuck with the recipe.

11

[Q] Playboy: On the show you have a regular poker game. When you play in real life, is it about the camaraderie—or the bad food, the cigars and the opportunity to take money from your friends?

[A] Mac: All of that. The ego gets involved. It's all about competition. Who can psych out whom? You know the other guy's lying and you want to see if your lying's better than his. We play golf like poker. Fifty dollars front, $50 back, $10 a hole. I love it. Every week it's a grinding thing.

12

[Q] Playboy: What's so good about golf?

[A] Mac: I started playing seven years ago. I wish I had gotten into it earlier, because I have a mean swing. I didn't know what the fuck I was missing. Boxing was the sport in my neighborhood. I was also into baseball, basketball and football. But now I love trying to use course management to defeat the course. It's not about what you do, it's about what I do. It's not about you hitting your 310 in the rough; it's about me hitting my 250 right in the doggone middle of the fairway. It's about me laying it up while you're trying to make the green on the back fringe. I also love the camaraderie and the aftermath—meeting people, drinking beer, the cigars and the food. I love a good time.

13

[Q] Playboy: The day of the setup–punch line comic seems almost gone. Which {continued on page 146)Bernie Mac(continued from page 114) of the survivors do you admire?

[A] Mac: Norm Crosby. Rodney Dangerfield is awesome. Today, it's out of fashion, but you can't beat that shit when it's good. Rodney always makes me laugh, even if I know what's coming. It's like a Muhammad Ali jab. You can't stop it. That's good shit.

14

[Q] Playboy: Which sitcoms shaped your worldview? Who got you hot? Who got your respect?

[A] Mac: Dick Van Dyke, Andy Griffith, Beverly Hillbillies, Brady Bunch. I didn't have the hots for any of the Bradys, though; they didn't appeal to me. But I used to want to fuck Patty Duke or her cousin—no, both of them [laughs].

I loved Leave It to Beaver. Ward was a stern but loving disciplinarian. He taught values. I admired a dad who came from the office with a briefcase and tie. He'd read the paper. Ward and June let the kids stay in the house alone; they trusted them. They had their own house keys. I used to crave that. I didn't grow up like Wally and the Beaver. For me it was, "Mom, can I go to the store?" "Take your brother and sister." Eight of you walk down the street. All you've got is a nickel and everybody has to pick over shit. If you got a whupping, everybody got a whupping.

15

[Q] Playboy: What are your Ten Commandments of child discipline? Do you bring out the belt?

[A] Mac: If an individual is being defiant to the point where he's extremely disrespectful or to the point where his behavior harms or is capable of harming others or when you have tried everything in terms of leniency and reaching this child, you might have to bring out the belt.

As a parent, I wouldn't give a damn if you saw me smack the kid if what I was trying to do was save a life. You can say whatever you want, but this is my son or my daughter. I'm not smacking the kid like I would someone who's trying to break into my home, I'm trying to smack guidance into this individual. Some desperately need it. On my block there was a family called the Joneses. There were around 10 of them, and all of them were bad. Girls, boys, all of them. Break into your house and rob you. Throw old ladies down and snatch their purses. Their mother was a spiritual woman, and everyone was wondering how the heck they became who they were. One day she came to our school—to our school!—and in front of the whole class said to her son, "I am tired. God knows I tried everything in my power to make you a good person, but you're just bad." Then she hauled off and slapped him. He turned around as if he was getting ready to attack her, and then she whupped the dog shit out of him. He needed it. Everybody was like, "Yeah!" because he had once hit the teacher. He was a bad fuck, and she tore him off a new ass. Everybody felt so damn relieved.

16

[Q] Playboy: What four songs would you put on your Seventies soundtrack for a desert island?

[A] Mac: Earth, Wind and Fire's Can't Hide Love. The Spinners' Mighty Love. Chicago's If You Leave Me Now. The Stylistics' Stop, Look, Listen (To Your Heart). I'm a ballad man.

17

[Q] Playboy: In your book, I Ain't Scared of You, you write about how Roots changed everything when it came to black names. What are some of the rules of name construction?

[A] Mac: It started in the Seventies. Tamika. Kawana. The old African names. The Similac babies in the Eighties took it to another plateau. In the Nineties women started trying to be more fashionable with it, naming their kids Champagne and Porsche and Lexus and Mercedes. Some of the names are made up: Kuwana, Kuweesha, Kalamilla. Kalamilla? OK, lady, spell it any kind of way you want. The simplest name now is the most difficult name to spell. Devra with a "v." "It's French." What? It's all a fad. You roll the ball and everybody jumps on it. Now it's out of hand and extends to every part of life. No one seems to have an identity for themselves. Now everybody struggles with piercings, tattoos, hair color. The more unorthodox you look, the more you're accepted. When you saw a good tattoo back in the day, you knew what it represented. The cat was part of some motorcycle gang, or he'd been in prison. Now they've got them on their neck, on their titty, the whole left side of their back, their ankle, inner thigh, the crack of their ass. They have five earrings in their ear and in their tongue, and they can't hardly talk. They got their nose pierced, their eyebrow pierced. They got their dick pierced and their clit pierced. Come on!

18

[Q] Playboy: Have you been criticized for not being black enough?

[A] Mac: Not yet. I know that stuff's going to come. You can't win, and that's why I don't concern myself with it. I don't want a black show. Life ain't all black. Life ain't all white. Is heaven going to be all black? Is it going to be all white? You have to look at the motive behind that stuff.

19

[Q] Playboy: Your act is often a deep shade of blue. Is there any other word as personal and as rich in meaning as mother-fucker? What word would you be happy to never hear again?

[A] Mac: Nigger. It's been abused and over-dramatized. Nigger has even been embraced as a term of greeting. I used it in my book to define what I was talking about, but I don't use the word when I'm speaking. How can black people use it among themselves and then get upset when someone of a different ethnicity uses it? For instance, at an airport I once saw some white people with their black friends and one of the white guys was saying, "Come here, nigger. This is my nigger." And his friend didn't mind.

On the other hand, I was walking in a park one day. A car pulled up, a Chevy, and somebody yelled, "Niggers, get out of the fucking neighborhood! Fucking niggers!" The guys who were with me blew a gasket. "Fuck you! Come back and say it, you motherfucker!" But I kept walking. "Come on back here, Bernie. Did you hear what they said, man?" I said, "Yeah, I heard 'em." "Then why you ain't mad?" I said, "They weren't talking to me."

My feeling is that it's not all right for black people to say it. Nigger is nigger. I don't care how you phrase it, dress it up, put a ribbon on it. "Whassup, nigger?" is still nigger. It sounds the same to me. It don't sound Latin. It don't sound French. Why use it? What if an Asian woman says, "This is my nigger"? Can you say, "This is my chink"?

20

[Q] Playboy: What cussword sounds the best coming out of a woman's mouth?

[A] Mac: Cocksucker.

I don't want a black show. Life ain't all black. Life ain't all white. Is heaven going to be all black?