Alec Mapa: Baby Daddy (2014) - full transcript
Actor and comedian Alec Mapa's one-man show about how his life has changed since he and his husband adopted a child through foster care.
(Birds whistling)
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Happy Show day! i'm gonna
get you. (Music)
Can I help you? Yeah, sure. Can
you fill this?
(Music)
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Thank you. Whew!
Ah, yi, yi. Oh my God. (Laughs)
What happened?
I think the waffle iron just
broke. What
happened? The waffle iron. Oh
my God.
Ok. So, it's still cooking. So,
we're
OK. Alright. It's still
cooking. Theodore is getting
into it. What did you do?
I don't know. This is supposed
to be part of the movie where
it's like
we're really cool gays dads and
we make waffles. Listen,
we are cool gay dads. Should we
turn it off now? (Laughs) That
would be a good idea. Did you
spray any non-stick stuff? No,
i'm nervous.
I can't think about this.
Alright. We're not going to use
any of this for the show.
(Laughs).
I think my brain is on the
show. This is
still a waffle. That's what the
cooking spray is for.
I know. I don't know what he
did here. Wow. Child
Protection Services will come
after us when they see (Laughs)
this.
Hey, look, look. I was able to
save it.
That's brilliant. How did you
do that? Alright. Go, go sit
there please.
You have other skills. Awww.
Mmm.
I'll make you some apple juice.
They taste really good. Thank
you.
Are you dressed?
Do you want me to put this in
the car?
Oh, sure.
(Music)
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Are you excited? Yay. I know
I'm excited.
I just have to pee really,
really bad. I know. Me too.
Should I try some makeup or
should I go au natural?
Air brush only? No, no. I want
everything done.
I want, I want a peel. I want
lip.
I got you. I want you to take
care of this Janet Reno waddle.
(Laughs)
This is how Asian people
deteriorate.
You are all pretty and
everything and then right
before 50.
There is some kind of elastic
band in back of your head that
just breaks.
And everything starts to fall.
Sure (Laughs).
It's true.
(Music)
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Should we have, should we bond
a little?
Hi, where are you going? And
off he goes again. He's like
Ms. Pacman right now
eating the entire crab service
table. Yeah. I'm sure he's like
I just don't want him to puke
on stage. That would be so
embarrassing. He's not going to
puke on stage.
Alright. The human reveal. I'll
see you on stage.
Look great. Alright. I love you
daddy.
Bye.
Thanks baby. Alright time for
you to leave.
Really loud. That's good.
Ok Zion, we're going to play
out here during the show.
(Music)
You go this way right? No, no,
no. This way? I'm never going
to get back.
Whoooo!
Whoo! Ladies and gentlemen,
please welcome to the
stage, America's Asian
sweetheart
Alec Mapa!
(applause)
(applause)
Hello, Los Angeles! I made it!
Welcome to the show!
Ohhh. We are
filming live tonight in
California,
the golden state of marriage
equality! (Applause)
Whooo!
I have no doubt in my mind that
gay marriage will be the law of
the land.
oooh! And you know what that
means,
generations from now, they'll
be gay grandpas sitting
around the Thanksgiving Day
table telling their grandkids
"you know, what. I met your
grandfather
ungrinded (Laughs)
He was 30 feet away and he
was so handsome and so charming
and then he
fucked me in the bathroom of
the
Renberg Theatre at the Alec
Mapa show."
(applause)
(applause)
Grandpa that's revolting.
Don't tell us that story ever
again! (Laughs)
Thank you so much for
supporting live
theatre. (applause)
owww!
I I love, I love, love, live
theatre or
as the Filipinos call it live
the atre. Um, I fell in love
with live
theatre while watching
television. The year
1977. The place
San Francisco. I was watching
the Tony Awards
with my parents. Because
watching the Tony Awards with
your
parents means never having to
say you gay.
(Laughter) Now the big show
that year was Annie, right?
But this is back in the
jurassic era, right? There's no
internet. There's no
shit about musical theatre,
right? I don't know who Andrea
McArdle
is. I don't know who Dorothy
Loudon is but all of that
changes, right? When the full
original
cast of Annie comes on and
proceeds to do a medley
of three musical numbers from
the show including
Tomorrow, You're Never Fully
Dressed Without a Smile
and Easy Street.
(Laughs). So Andrea McArdle
comes out
on stage, all you know,
chipmonk cheek with
her 70's red feathered bob and
she starts to sing
Tomorrow and I'm frozen in
front of the television, right?
Like
I'm encased in a block of ice.
(Laughter). And then the
orphans come out and sing
You're Never Fully Dressed
Without a Smile and
I can't move. I'm like must stay
strong and then Dorothy Loudon
(Laughter)
the original Ms. Hannigan comes
out and sings Easy
Street. Jesus
take the wheel. Now if you've
never seen this performance
before do yourself a favor.
When you get home watch it on
YouTube.
She pretty much sings, dances
and acts
as if her very life depended on
it.
It was like right before she
went on stage there was
somebody standing next to her
with a gun saying "Look Loudon.
This is your very last
chance. You go on that stage,
bring the house down
and nail this number. Cause if
you don't when you come back
here,
I'm going to shoot you in the
fucking head. " (Laughter)
So Dorothy Loudon goes out on
stage. Sings Easy
Street. Brings the house down
and moments later,
she wins a Tony Award and I
have a complete nervous
breakdown. (Laughter)
I start shaking and crying.
Shaking and crying like I'm
Kate Winslet and I've just been
fished out of the
icy waters of Nova Scotia and
my parents were like
" What the fuck is your
problem? Why
are you crying? Who's the crazy
old white
lady? Do we know her?"
(Laughter)
Is she a teacher from school?
(Laughter)
And looking back, I knew
why I was having an emotional
reaction.
I had just witnessed a
resurrection. Even back then
I knew that Dorothy Loudon was
somebody who had faced
oblivion. I knew she was
someone who had stared death
in the face and thought my
career is over.
It's too late. I'm
too old. There isn't enough
magic in the world
to sustain my dreams. I don't
have a single
chance left. No chance left but
this one.
(Laughter)
(applause)
And that's why I love live
theatre. Because
there's always that possibility
of redemption
right? That you're going to see
some performer give a
performance
like they don't have a single
chance left. No chance left -
But this one, right?
Tonight's not going to be one
of those performances...just to
(Laughter)
Lower your expectations right
now. (Laughter).
Now I've been too busy folding
laundry.
I have no act. I called
the show Babby Daddy because
I'm Fucking Exhausted
was too much of a buzz kill.
(Laughter)
So, I'm a new father.
My husband and I adopted a kid.
(applause)
Listen, thank you. (applause)
(Laughs). I'm not
gonna sugar coat it for you.
Ok? ah, ah,
ah. Having children is not for
everyone. Alright?
It's really easy to ooey
gooey and romantic about the
idea of children
especially when they're not
yours, right? And that's where
people get
into trouble. Right? Do you
know what being
a parent does to you? It turns
you into that
tree in that children's book.
(Laughter). Do you know which
book I'm talking
about? Shout it out! The Giving
Tree by Shel Silverstein.
Everybody has a real boner for
that book but
it's a real fucked up story
when you think about it.
(Laughter)
(applause)
Once upon a time there was this
tree
and a little boy and they love,
love, love each other very much
and every day they would play
together in the woods and he
would
carve his initials into her
trunk and climb her
and eat her fruit. Yeah, it's a
real fucked up story.
(Laughter). And one day the
little boy runs up to
the tree and says, "I need a
place to live and
things to sell." So what does
he do? He chops off all
her branches, takes all her
fruit and leaves.
Comes back years later and goes
"I want to see the world."
So, what does he do? He chops
down her trunk, runs away and
leaves.
So now she's nothing but a
stump. Right?
Right? The little boy comes
back years later only
he's not a little boy anymore.
No. He's
a tired broken down old man.
(Laughter).
And what does he say? Does he
say
sorry for the vandalism?
(Laughter).
(Laughter).
Does he say thank you? No. What
does he do?
(Audience: He sits on her). He
sits on her!
(Laughter). Being a parent is
like
living through that book every
single day.
(Laughter - applause).
(applause).
Children take and take and take
and exhaust
deplete you of every single
resource and just
when you have nothing left to
give, they fucking sit on you!
(Laughter).
(Laughter)
I'm so lucky.
This is terrific. I feel as it
we've
established a connection of
some time. I feel connected to
each
and every one of you. I really
do. Hey! Just for
fun. Let's each and every one
of us
share our most painful
childhood memory. (Laughter).
No? Ok.
Let's talk about my sex life.
(Whew!)
Alright my husband have been
together for 12
years. Right?
But we're at the point in our
relationship
where we have to switch things
up in order
to keep things interesting and
lately that's
meant a whole lot of blow jobs
in cars.
(Laughter). Alright, let me
explain.
My husband was raised Church of
Christ, very fundamentalist
Christian. So he
gets off on any kind of
scenario where he can caught
and feel ashamed. (Laughter).
I was raised Catholic. I don't
really need
any help in the shame
department. I'm
ashamed when I get up in the
morning.
(Laughter). I'm ashamed right
now.
I'm ashamed to be telling this
story but I'm going to anyway.
So, it's
date night, we're out driving
around Silver Lake
and all of sudden my husband
goes, "Let's fuck in the car."
And I'm like, "I don't want to
fuck in the car."
Getting fucked is complicated
enough, ok? When you
add a steering column and cup
holder to it, it's like
trying to eat a baguette on a
tilt-a-whirl, ok? There's
too much going on! But marriage
is about
compromise, right? So I was
like, "Ok, I'll blow you."
So, I'm not a prude. I'm not
afraid of
getting caught as long as I
don't fat. (Laughter).
Right? Like, if you told me
that TMZ had
a picture of me blowing
somebody in a car, my first
question would be
is do I look fat? Because, you
know,
the camera already adds 10
pounds, this
doesn't help. So, I'm blowing
my husband
in the parking lot of a Bank of
America in Silver Lake
but I'm really paranoid, so I'm
looking around, right? So, I'm
like oo
oo, oo, oo, oo, oo, oo. I look
like
a barn owl choking on a
titmouse, right?
oo, oo, oo. All of sudden the
phone starts ringing, right?
And he's like, "Don't answer,
I'm really close!" And I'm
like, "I have to.
It's the babysitter." So, I'm
like, "hello?"
"Yeah, no. Zion is not
allowed to have cake and ice
cream right before bed. He's
said that? Put him on the
phone. Zion
it's daddy. You are not allowed
to have cake and ice cream right
before bed. We discussed this.
You got to bed right now. You're
gonna be in big, big trouble.
Do you understand me?"
"No, I don't want to talk to
the
dog. I love you too. Good
night."
(applause)
Let's just say you won't be
seeing that on an episode of
Modern Family any time soon.
(Laughter).
(Laughter)
My husband and I always wanted
children. Always.
But it was something we thought
we would get around to
eventually.
Right? Like going to Tabet.
(Laughter). Or Machu Picchu. Or
Colonial Williamsburg, you know.
(Laughter). Eventually.
And then I turned 43 and a bell
went off. Bing!
I had a complete classic mid
life
crisis. I stopped eating, hired
a trainer and
I lost 30 lbs. Oh, don't
applaud. It was horrible. I was
like a
couple of pounds above organ
failure. (Laughter). I
looked fabulous.
Every morning it was struggle
to lift my head up off the
pillow.
But I looked 10 years younger
and that's all that mattered.
And then I had to go night
clubbing every single night
with boys
in their 20's cause I couldn't
afford a sports car.
(Laughter)
And here's the thing about gay
boys in their 20's.
God love them. They're cute,
adorable and fun. But most of
them are
really, really dumb. (Laughter)
Like they're even dumber than I
was.
I had a gay boy in his 20's in
my audience say, "Who's Betty
Davis?"
(Laughter). And I was like
you know what? Google it.
Press a button. Make a fucking
effort. I'm not here
to put you through gay school.
Right?
Alright, here's the thing. I
love my friends in their 20's
and I'm
not here to put anybody down.
So in order to bridge
the gap between our two
generations, I'd
like to do my impression of
Betty Davis
singing a Miley Cyrus song as
karaoke.
(Applause) Ready? Hit it!
(Music)
(Music)
(Music)
* Hopped off the plane at LAX
* with a dream and my cardigan
* Welcome to the land of fame
excess, am I going to fit in?*
(Audience clapping) * Jumped in
the cab, here I am for the
first time *
* Looked to my left and I see
the Hollywood sign *
* This is all so crazy,
Everybody seems *
* so famous. My tummy's turnin'
and I'm feelin' *
* kind of home sick, too much
pressure and I'm nervous *
* That's when the taxi man
turned on the radio *
* And a Jay-Z song was on, And
a Jay-Z song was on*
* And the Jay-Z song was on,
and the Jay-Z song *
* was on (Applause)
(Applause)
Should I continue? Alright.
* They're playing my song, the
butterflies fly away *
* Nodding my head, like yeah
* Moving my hips life yeah
* I got my hands up, they're
playing my song, I know I'm
going *
* to be ok. Yes
* There's a party in the USA.
(Applause). * Yes
*There's a party in the USA
(Applause)
(Applause)
(Applause)
(Applause)
(Laughs).
So, I partied really hard
with boys half my age for
a year and my husband was like
"What's wrong with you? Do you
want
to leave me?" And I was like,
"I don't want to leave anybody.
I'm just scared. I'm in the
middle."
"I'm too young to be old. I'm
too old
to be young and I just thought
if I hung out with
a bunch of young pretty boys
who were young and fuckable,
that would make me feel young
and fuckable too.
And my husband said, "I still
think you're
fuckable. I'll fuck you."
(Applause).
"Get in the car."
(Laughter) (Applause)
(Applause)
So we did it! We adopted a
5 year old African American boy
from Compton.
(Yayyy! Applause)
(Laughs). His
name is Zion. I'm Asian, my
husband's
white. Our son is black. We
look like the last two minutes
from It's A Small World.
(Laughter)
And people are always asking,
"Where's he from?"
Is he from Botswana?
(Laughter). Is he from Rwanda?
Is he from Malawi? And I'm
like, "No".
He's from Compton."
As a celebrity I feel it's my
duty to inform people
that you don't have to go all
the way to Africa to adopt a
black
child. (Applause)
(Applause)
You can get one right here in
the United States.
So, one time Zion had a
melt down at a Barnes & Noble
bookstore, right? And I was
surrounded
by people who did not have
children and they all gave me
that
stink eye, you know, like "Will
you please keep your adopted
African
American child quiet?" You know.
And I was so angry, I stared
them all
back and I went, "He's from
Haiti."
(Laughter) (Applause). Shame on
all of you.
(Applause)
Now,
to be honest, I had no business
taking a 5 year old I just
adopted
to the Barnes & Noble. But the
Patti Lupone memoir had just
come out.
(Laughter) It was an
emergency. (Laughter)
The first month was hell. He
would have one huge
melt down after an another. And
by melt down I mean he would
fall
to the ground kicking and
screaming at the top of his
lungs,
right? And it was always in a
public place. So my husband
and I had to physically
restrain him and carry him
back to the car. So we
basically looked like two gays
guys who were kidnapping Arnold
(Laughter) on a very episode
of Different Strokes.
(Applause). And I was like
thank God we drive a Volvo
station wagon. Cause if we
drove a
white van, we'd be in jail.
Now, looking back
maybe we shouldn't have been
driving him all over town the
first month
he came to live with us. But
the way I looked at it, he'd
been in
one shitty foster home after
another since he was 3.
Right? So it was time for him
to see the world. So I took him
to the
planetarium, The Museum of
Natural History,
Bloomingdales, you know. Places
a kid should know about. And
the melt downs were
understandable, right?
One minute he was living in the
hood. The next
minute he was living with us.
So, it was like, who are you?
Where am I? What's gazpacho?
(Laughter)
Now I have a high tolerance for
crazy. Ok? But that melt down
in the book store was the last
straw.
(Laughter). Driving him home
that night
I was screaming at him in the
rear view mirror. I was like,
"You know what?"
"Babies kick and scream because
they can't
talk. You can talk. If you're
angry
or sad, you can tell me. If
you're frustrated
or frightened, you can tell me.
But kicking
and screaming while daddy is
trying to buy a book by Patti
Lupone is
completely unacceptable."
(Laughter)
And he was like, "Ok", and the
melt down stopped.
And then he started pre-school
and the melt downs started
again.
Whenever I dropped him off he'd
say, "You're not coming back."
Because that had been
his experience, you know.
People would just drop him off
and never come back
again. So I was like, "What are
you talking about? I
love you. I'm crazy about you.
I will always come back."
"You know what, when school
lets out, I'm going to be
standing right here.
I won't even move. I will
always come
back." I said that every single
day.
So by the end of the school
year he was like, "I know!
You're coming back!"
(Laughter).
The other thing he used to say
when he first came to live with
us is
"Where am I gonna go next?" And
I was like
"Where do you want to go next?"
And he goes, "with you guys."
And I'm like, "Well you're not
going anywhere. You live here.
You're home
now. You live here."
"Now eat your quinoa."
(Laughter). So my husband
wanted a 5 year old
and this how is he sold me on
it. This was his pitch.
He comes to live with us. He
walks. He talks. He goes to
school.
No diapers. How hard could it
be? Hahaha!
(Laughter)
My husband and I are a couple
of dummies. Ok?
Cause what we feel to realize
is that shitting their
pants is what 5 year old boys
do best.
(Laughter). It is their area of
expertise.
It's their speciality de la
maison.
Which is French
for "Hey, I just shit my
pants!"
(Laughter). Five year old boys
notoriously
ignore the impulse to go potty
until
it's too late. I was always
like, "Baby this isn't like
Christmas shopping or doing
your taxes. You can't
wait until the last minute. You
have to go
when you feel like going. " Now
we adopted
our son out of foster care and
apparently in all of his
placements
nobody had ever taught him how
to pee in the potty,
wipe his booty, flush the
toilet or wash his hands.
I had to teach him those things
by saying it
over and over and over again. I
was like
a statulogical parent. Pee in
the
potty, wipe your booty, flush
the toilet, wash your hands.
Errrr!
The very first time I changed
my son's underwear
it looked like a crime scene.
(Laughter). All that was
missing was that police tape
and that Law and Order
segue music, you know, Dong!
Dong!
(Laughter).
He would pee like he was
putting out a forest fire.
Right? Just a slow and steady
stream right at the base.
The base meaning the wall, the
magazines. The really expensive
bubble bath that
gay men have right before they
have children. Right?
We used to have a really nice
bathroom, right?
It was a gay guys bathroom. It
was like a spa
at the Four Seasons. Now it's
like a port-a-potty
at Mardi Gras. (Laughter).
Not flushing the toilet was the
absolute worst. Every morning
walking into that bathroom was
like
taking a rorschach test. It was
like
Oh, that one looks like a
snake. Oh,
well that one looks like a
snake buying a bottle of wine
at Trader Joes.
(Laughter). Oh, that one
looks like a snake eating
another snake. Flush the
fucking toilet!
(Laughter) And he was the worst
liar. He came back to the
dinner table one time and I was
like, "Did you flush the potty?"
He said, "Yes." I said, "Can I
check?" He said, "Don't."
(Laughter).
Alright he's the thing. Zion
eats really healthy food
because when he
came to live with us out of
foster care, his health was
garbage. Right?
He had this cough that we
thought was a cold or allergies.
He turns out he had viral
pneumonia.
So we put him on all this
organic food. Really expensive.
But he rallied. My husband's
parents are
small town folk. They're not
really into health food
and we were spending
Thanksgiving with them and
right before Thanksgiving my
husband and I got into this huge
fight because he was like,
"Mmmmm
I just don't want them to give
him too many treats."
"Mmmmm." And I was like, "You
know what?
I don't want to be that gay,
hippy, crunchy couple
that ruins every single holiday
with all of their food
restrictions." Do you know who
I'm talking about?
Oh, we only feed our kid
vegan treats made out of spelt
and hemp milk, ohhhh.
I don't want to be that couple.
It's Thanksgiving. Let him have
whatever he wants. So we show up
at Thanksgiving. My son starts
eating like he's
going to the electric chair,
right? (Laughter).
He eats an entire
gingerbread house, a pumpkin
pie,
a gallon of ambrosia, a green
bean
casserole, an entire non-vegan
ham, right?
And after dinner he goes to the
fireplace
with grandma and grandpa to
make s'mores,
cause I think he still had room
in his esophagus.
(Laughter).
And that's when he turns to my
husband, he goes,
"Papa, I don't feel so good.
I'm
gonna be sick." So my husband
scoops him up. They run to the
bathroom.
They don't make it. My son
barfs all over the kitchen
floor.
ewwwahhhhh. So like, I
got this. I'm in the zone. Go
take care of this.
So I'm on all fours cleaning up
the mess
in Dior. (Laughter).
And I can see my husband in the
open
door way of the bathroom and
my son is barfing into the
toilet. Ewwaaahh.
Ewwwahhh. And just when it
couldn't get any worse,
he starts having explosive
diarrhea at the same time.
Ewwaahhh. Double dragon!
Ewaaah! I'd heard
of the phenomenon but I'd never
actually seen it in person.
Ewwaahh! And I look at my
husband and he's
covered in barf and shit and
he's looking at me
with just murder in his eyes.
Like. (Laughter)
And I was like, "Aren't you
glad we didn't adopt a baby?"
Ahhhh!
(Applause)
Oh my God. That was three years
ago.
My son is perfectly fine now.
And after 3 years of living
with two gay
guys, he sounds like he's been
living with two gay
guys. (Laughter). We were
flying back from New York
recently and he had the flight
attendant for a
Pellegrino (Laughter) with lime.
(Laughter). He was on a play
date
at a friend's house and the mom
said, "Baby do you want
something to eat?"
He said, "Yes." She said, "What
would you like?" He said, "I
would like
an assortment of breads with
balsamic vinegar and olive oil
please." (Laughter)
(Laughter)
(Laughter)
This is the absolute worst. So,
we're at the supermarket and
he's running up and down the
aisle
misbehaving and I hate kids who
misbehave in the supermarket,
right?
There's nothing worse. So he's
like bumping into people and
knocking
shit over and I grab him and I
said "Listen to me!"
"This is not a playground. This
is Whole Foods."
(Laughter). You nearly knocked
down that
tower of Kombucha. (Laughter).
"Settle down. Be considerate.
You are not
the only person here." And do
you know what he said to me?
"And the Oscar goes
to...." (Laughter)
(Applause)
Waaaaaaaaa!
(Applause)
I didn't
know whether to slap him or hug
him. I was
so proud and so angry at the
same time! (Laughter)
(Laughter)
I've become Faye Dunaway in
Mommy Dearest.
I am! I'm shouting all the
time, which, I mean,
it was like shouting at me. He
was like, I was on the phone
with my agent,
one of the few times my agent
actually called me. And I,
he was like, "Daddy!" My son's
the only person in Los Angeles
who can
call me daddy without giggling.
(Laughter).
"Daddy!" "I'm on the phone. I
will be right with you
as soon as I hang up." "But
Daddy!" "I am on the phone."
And then he shouts at me, "Stop
talking you great big
fat woman!" (Laughter)
(Laughter)
"Did you just call me fat?"
(Laughter)
"Go to your rooooommm!!"
(Applause)
"Why can't you give me the
respect
that I'm entitled to!"
(Applause)
He's done everything but say,
because I am not
one of your fans.
But he's going to. I'm waiting
for it. I've
re-read Mommy Dearest recently,
with completely
different eyes. (Laughter)
Christina Crawford is an
ungrateful, disloyal,
spoiled little twat. Just 50
pages
in that book devoted to how
pissed off she was because
she had to write thank you
notes. What's wrong with
writing thank you notes? My son
writes a thank you note
for every single gift he
receives. Not
an email or an e-greeting but
an actual
thank you note on a thank you
note card.
Why? Because it's the right
thing to do.
(Applause). Knock down
that bitch of an e-greeting and
put a thank you note where a
thank you note ought to
be. (Laughter)
My parenting style at any one
given moment
can be described by
four characters from the
amercian musical comedy
Fraulein Maria, Auntie Mame,
Miss Hannigan or
Mamma Rose. When I get up in
the morning I'm totally Fraulein
Maria, right? I'm peppy. I'm
optimistic. I wanna make
play clothes out of the
curtains. I want to have sex
with
Christopher Plummer. But by
10:00 a.m., after he's been up
since 6:00 a.m.,
and he's poured maple syrup on
the dog and we're out of
coffee, I turn into Miss
Hannigan and sometimes
you get Miss Hannigan all day
long. Look, I love
Julie Andrews but she set the
bar too fucking high.
Nobody can be Fraulein Maria
24/7.
Ok? Have you ever seen pictures
of
the real Maria Von Trapp. She
didn't look like
Julie Andrews. She was a battle
axe. She didn't even have
a neck. She looked like Brian
a neck. She looked like Brian
Dennehy in
The Bull and you know she
beat those kids. How else are
you gonna make
them sing? I bet she was more
Joe Jackson
than Julie Andrews. Right?
(Laughter).
I bet she sounded just like
Lawrence Fishburn in What's
Love Got to Do With It.
You trying to help Ike.
(Laughter).
You trying to help Fraulein
Maria.
Now, when we entertain at the
house, I'm totally
anti Mame, right? Because all
of our friends are
circus people, right? It's all
burlesque performers and drag
queens and (Laughs) it's
circus people. My son's
favorite babysitter,
Shangela, from Ru-Paul's Drag
Race. (Laughter).
Now at baseball games I'm
totally Mama Rose, right? I'm
like, I wanna know
why that no talent klutz gets
to play
first base every single game
while my son who has more
talent than all of you
put together is playing
shortstop. (Laughter).
Ok, here's the thing, I don't
give a shit about baseball, ok?
But my son really wanted to
play and I
didn't want him to miss out
just cause I'm a big sissy.
So I took him to try outs.
Oh, I'm learning so much.
There not auditions there
try outs. (Laughter).
There not costumes there.
(Uniforms)
And it's not rehearsal, it's
(Practice). Whatever.
(Laughter).
So we
show up for try outs and all
the kids are in full baseball
drag already, right? They've
got the
cleats, they've got the helmet,
they got a mitt (Laughter)
and my son's like in a Hello
Kitty tank top shirt,
shorts and flip flops, right?
(Laughter).
And all of the kids are playing
catch
with their dad like they've
been doing this since their kid
could walk, right?
And I'm like, "I don't know how
to do this. I'm not
a lesbian, right?" So,
(Laughs), the coach comes up to
me. He goes "Does he have a
glove?" And I'm like, "What
length? What are you talking
about?"
(Laughter)
So, my son sees a friend of his
from school playing with his dad
and they wave them over and he
starts playing catch with them.
Right? So, already I'm on this
huge
gay shame spiral, right? Like
bad gay dad, bad gay dad.
I haven't been doing any of
these things with him
and now because of me my son's
going to totally fuck up with
audition
and not get a call back, right?
(Laughter)
(Laughter).
So this is what they had to do
for the try out. They had to
catch the ball. Throw it to
first
base and hit the ball off the
T. Right? And by the way most
of the dads at the try outs are
total douche bags. Right?
Like they're yelling at their
kids, "Concentrate. Eyes
front. What are you doing?"
Now I could understand if this
were a ballet class. (Laughter).
(Laughter)
It's baseball.
So, it's my son's turn to try
out and by this
time everybody knows that he's
with me, right? So, they're not
expecting
much. So I pull him aside and
say, "Listen to me.
I don't care if you hit the
ball. I don't care if you throw
the ball. I don't care if you
can catch the ball. All that
matters to Papa and Daddy is
that you're
a good sport and you have fun.
We will love you no matter what.
Now go." So what does he do?
He catches the grounder
immediately. He throws the ball
so far
past first base that it hits
the back fence and he hits the
ball so
far to the outfield that nobody
can catch it. (Whooo!)
(Applause)
And all the other dads are
looking at me like
"what the fuck, what, what?"
and I'm like, "I don't know. "
(Laughter)
But inside I was like (Laughter)
(Applause)
(Laughter)
We wanted to adopt out of
foster care. I found out about
the foster care adoption
system after working on a Rosie
O'Donnell
cruise. Cause that's how they
get ya.
(Laughter) Ok? All my friends
before going
on that R Family cruise were
like "ooo girl, don't go on
that cruise."
"You go on that cruise with the
lesbians and their kids
they're going to brainwash you
girl. You're going
to come back with a baby." And
I'm like, "what?
Are they going to give them out
at the gift shop?"
(Laughter). It's so stupid. But
that's exactly what happened.
My husband and I got off that
ship and we could not stop
thinking about having a baby.
We attended every single
foster adopt seminar on that
ship. We attended
hair care for your African
American child.
(Laughter) That was
the day when all the lesbians
on the ship had cornrows.
(Laughter)
It looked like Stevie Wonder
had fucked Melissa Etheridge.
You know, like,
(Laughter)
We attended how to adopt
through the
foster care system. Now here's
some interesting
statistics. At any one given
time
there are 500,000 kids in the
foster care system.
100,000 of those kids are not
going to be
reunited with their parents so
those kids are up for adoption.
The most desirable placement is
a caucasian baby girl.
Now look, I have nothing
against little white
girls. (Laughter). I've been
one my
whole life. (Laughter).
(Applause). (Laughter).
But if my husband and I are
going to start a family, there
can only be one lady of the
house and you're looking at her.
(Laughter). There's only one
lady
that comes out of Alec Mapa
house and that's Alec Mapa
and that's me, baby, remember!
(Laughter).
(Applause)
Nobody wants a boy.
Nobody wants them over the age
of 3
and if they're African
American, yikes.
A caucasian baby girl is 7
times more likely
to be adopted than an African
American boy
over the age of 3.
When my husband and I heard
that we were like, "Oh my God.
Our son is black. (Laughs)
Not our son should be black.
Or our son is going to be black
but our son is black.
He's already out there. He
exists.
We knew it in our bones and we
knew that if we didn't do
everything in our power
to go out, find him and start
our lives
together it would be the
biggest regret of our lives.
Lesbian
the brainwash. We met
immediately to the Southern
California Foster
Family Adoption Agency. SCFFAA.
To become a foster
adopt parent in California, you
have to pass a 6 week
parenting course. Your home has
to pass
a safety inspection . You have
to be certified in CPR
and first aid and you have to
pass a background check
with the FBI. If your
a teenaged girl in California
and you want a baby, all you
need is
sperm. And not only can you have
a baby, you can get your own
reality show. (Laughter).
If you're a couple of gay guys,
they go through
drawers. They want tax forms
for the past 5 years.
The FBI background check,
that's what freaked me out the
most.
Right? Cause they fingerprint
you like 5 different times and
they
cross reference, cross cross
reference that info
with their data base and that's
where they could really dig up
the dirt on you, right? I was
up all night
thinking "Was I arrested?"
(Laughter)
"Was I in jail?" I knew I
deserved to be at one point.
We showed up for classes. Half
the class was gay and lesbian.
Right?
All the gay guys took up the
entire front row.
Notebooks open. Pencils at the
ready.
They were like Hermione
Grangera at the Hogwarts,
rights? It's like
"I know the answer Professor
Dumbledore!" When God in
liviosa, When God
in liviosa. All the lesbians sat
in the back row. They were like
the bad asses of the class,
right?
Cause a lot of them had their
own biological children and
they were there to find out how
to adopt siblings for their
kids.
So they were like, "parenting
class. I don't need
to listen to this shit. I've
got a vagina."
And all the gay guys were like,
"Um girls, if you didn't
want to learn about magic,
maybe you shouldn't have
enrolled in Hogwarts."
(Laughter). So we had a whole
class
on the safety inspection and we
were told that if we were
bringing
a baby home, there couldn't be
any fountains on the
property. And all the gay guys
were like "oooh!"
(Laughter)
ooooo.
So we passed the course.
We were certified to become
foster adopt parents.
And 9 months after we started
the whole process, our social
worker told us about a little
boy named Zion.
He is 4 1/2 years old and he'd
been in foster
care since he was 3 because of
neglect.
Nnnn...neglect.
See neglect is one of the worst
of the things you
subject a child to because they
can become catatonic.
You know it's like if you cry
and cry and
nobody comes to take care of
you, you just stop crying.
And sometimes if they're moved
from place to place and they
suffer one loss
after another, you can lose the
ability to
attach. It's like you can adopt
them, but they can't adopt
you. It's like, why should I
get close to you, you're just
going to break up with me
anyway.
Right? So we were like
"neglect. Uh...I don't know. "
And our social worker's like
"No,
no, no, no, no. This child is
different.
He is affectionate
and creative and as far as
expressing himself,
he has no problem whatsoever."
(Laughter). We always know when
he's in the office.
He has a very distinctive voice
and
it carries."
So, we're like, "When can we
see a picture?" and
the social worker was like,
"When you stop asking
questions."
So we stopped asking questions
and
she showed us a picture and we
were like, "Ah!
That's our baby.
That's our kid. When can we
meet him?" And she said
"this week"? And I like, "Oh my
God, it's Thanksgiving. Ok, we
have to go home.
We have to get him a bed and we
have to tell your parents
that we're taking their black
grandson home for Thanksgiving."
(Laughter).
We got a call the very next day
from the social worker telling
us that we were out
of the picture. Another family
member
had come forward and said they
would be Zion's legal guardian.
Now this is somebody who had
never expressed any
interest before and had a
signficant
criminal record but it's what
the court ordered so we had
absolutely no say. We
were crushed.
Right? So,
Christmas and Thanksgiving
sucked because we felt we
had missed out on somebody
really special. We don't know
how
but we just felt in our bones
that we missed out on somebody
amazing.
So much that when we were
offered another case in January
we told our social worker
"You know what? We don't want
to go further with that case
because we don't feel
in our bones what we felt about
Zion."
And the social worker said,
"You know what? Let me find out
what Zion's
situation is and I'll call you
back in 10 minutes."
She called us back in 10
minutes and said, "The
placement with Zion's
relative has been a complete
disaster.
You have to pick him up tonight
at 6."
So we were like, "Oh my God!
Did we really mean
all those things that we said?
Ohhhhh."
(Laughter). So we white
knuckled it all the way
down to the offices in Long
Beach like "aaahhhhh!"
And we showed up
at the offices where Child
Protection Service is and Zion
was already
waiting for us in the waiting
room.
This tiny little boy and he was
sitting
between two garbage bags. One
had all of his
clothes and one had all of his
toys.
And he was just sitting in the
middle of them like he was just
another bag of stuff that
somebody had forgotten and
didn't want.
And I thought, "This isn't
fair."
Right, like no kid should ever
be
made to feel this way. And this
wasn't a 5 year old, this was a
baby right? Cause when you're 5
years old
you still need your mommy.
Right? You still need
your daddy or mommies or two
gay guys with
a really cute house, right?
(Laughter).
so I was like, "Hi.
I'm Alec. This is Jamie."
And he said, "Do you want to
play Don't Break the Ice?"
(Laughter) Do you remember
Don't Break the Ice that game
where
you tapped on the little
plastic ice cubes and
sent the ice skating polar bear
plunging to his death, right?
(Laughter)
Well, that's what we did. We
broke the ice by playing
Don't Break the Ice. And every
time
that polar bear plunged to its
death, my husband and I
felt exactly the same way like,
"Oh, my God!
This is really happening and
they're really going to give us
this kid!"
And after about an hour
of playing Don't Break the Ice,
I said, "Are you hungry?"
And he said, "Yes."
I said, "Well, let's go."
So we all piled into the car
and I asked him, "What do you
want
to eat?" And he said, "Chuckee
Cheese."
(Laughter).
(Laughter)
And in that moment I became a
parent.
(Laughter) (Applause)
(Applause)
We are not spending our first
night
together as a family at Chuckee
Cheese.
So we brought him home,
9 months later we legally
adopted him and became
Zion Joseph Abare Mapa.
(Applause)
(Applause)
(Applause)
Now that was three years ago.
My husband makes
documentaries and I'm in
vaudeville.
So we've taken Zion with us
everywhere. He's gone to
London, Paris, Barcelona,
Ixtapa, San Diego,
(Laughter) and everybody always
says, "He's so lucky." And
I know they mean well but I
always feel like it's kind of
insulting to
him, because the truth is we're
lucky.
There's nothing I could give my
son
or any place I could take him
that could compare
to all the things he's that
he's given me. Right?
Being a parent requires so much
patience, compassion and
understanding
and I don't possess any of
those qualities. (Laughter).
So being a parent
is literally my last chance to
become a good
person. Right? I don't have a
single
chance left. No chance left
but this one!
(Applause)
(Applause)
(Applause)
So, a couple of years ago we got
to go on another R Family
Vacation and, uh,
instead of a cruise they rented
out an entire club med right?
So it was a great opportunity
for my husband and I to
reconnect
with the other gay and lesbian
parents and say thank you.
You did this to us.
(Laughter)
So Club Med's great cause the
kids have camp all day long, so
all the parents would just hang
out by the pool
and get completely wasted,
right. Just think Bloody Marys
all day
and then we'd pick up our kids
like, ahhhhhh.
(Laughter) So my husband and I
are having
dinner with this family from
New Jersey in the dining room
and you know
how a dining room is. It's
noisy, noisy, noisy and
all of a sudden there's that
window of silence.
Well my son uses that window of
silence to
yell at me from across the
dinner table, "Are you drunk?"
(Laughter)
(Laughter)
And I was like "you know what?
It's not nice to yell at Daddy
at the dinner table like that.
I'm very drunk."
(Laughter). Still not nice.
So he goes, "Can I go look at
the desserts?" and I'm like,
"Sure."
You know by this point during
the week, he has like 500
lesbian
moms at this point. All eyes
are on him. I'm like, "Go ahead.
But be back here in 15
minutes." So
he goes to the dessert table.
Fifteen minutes past by.
Twenty minutes passed by.
Twenty-
Five minutes pass by. So I'm
like, "Oh, great."
So I go look for him at the
dessert buffet
and he's not there.
And I'm looking around the
dining room. I can't find
find him anywhere. And there's
too many black kids
at this resort. Right?
(Laughter). All week long I've
been yelling at the wrong kid
like, "Get down from there.
This - oh, sorry."
"No running. As you were,
sorry."
(Laughter)
And then I remember
he was going to look at the
desserts and then
I remembered Thanksgiving.
And I was like, "Oh my God." So
I'm running to the bathroom
because I'm pretty sure
he's in there double dragoning
even as we speak, right?
So I swing open the bathroom
door and my son
is standing there washing his
hands. (Ohhhh).
And I could hear a toilet has
just flushed.
(Laughter).
And I'm like, "Did you wipe
your booty?" He said "Yes.
Daddy, guess what?"
I'm like, "What?" "I love you."
See that's how they get you.
(Laughter)
(Laughter)
Children drive you absolutely
crazy one minute and
the next minute they do
something or say something so
magical that you want to give
them everything.
In that moment I was like "You
know what, baby. You can poo or
pee wherever
you want. You can poo
in my hand. You can poo on my
head.
(Laughter). You can poo in my
mouth."
The three of us were walking
home that night from the dining
room
and we were looking up at the
sky and my son says, "Pappa,
Daddy, look.
It's the big dipper."
And I was like, "Really?
Where?" And he goes, "Right
there.
You could see the handle.
And the ladle andi if you draw
a straight line
from that star to that star you
can find Polaris.
It's the North Star. It never
moves so you can never get
lost. "
I was like, "Where'd you learn
that?"
And he said, "The planetarium.
Duh."
(Laughter)
(Laughter)
And I was like, "You know what?
Your father and I are glad that
you're a genius,
but we could do without the
tone."
(Laughter)
And then he said,
"Where am I going to go next?"
And I was like, "Well, where do
you want to go next?" He said,
"With you guys."
I'm like, "Well the answer to
that is easy.
We're going home."
Now, right about now is when
I'd be telling
my son a bedtime story so I'm
going to do the same for you.
Ok? On the day we adopted our
son,
we took a whole bunch of
pictures of the court room and
we
later found out that that was
totally illegal. (Laughter).
(Laughter).
So not only did we take a whole
bunch of
pictures but we hired a
professional editor to make a
slide
show. Do you want to see it?
(Applause)
There's your bedtime story.
(Music) Once upon a time there
is
a little boy named Zion and
papa named Jamie
and a daddy named Alec.
And they wanted more than
anything to become a family.
And their wish came true.
Goodnight.
(Music)
* If you could see
* yourself like I do when I'm
* looking down at you. You
* would how every star inside
of you *
* is shing through.
* So don't believe it if they
tell you *
* that a cow can't jump the
moon *
* Cause there just might be a
* Santa Clause and wishes can
come true *
* It's alright
* It's okay, I love
* you anyway that you
* are, that you are cause
* to me you're the star
* and you shine like the
* diamond tears in your eyes
* and I would kiss them away
* If I could, I
* would, If I could kiss them
* away, I would
(Applause)
(Applause)
(Applause)
* Baby, baby, baby, love a star
*
* Love a star
* Love, love
* Love
* Baby, baby, baby
* Love a star
* Love, love
* Love
* Baby, baby
* Baby, Baby, Baby, love a star
*
* Star, You're my star
(Applause) (Music)
Cheers to a great show. Cheers
to a great show. Triple cheers.
No, no. I don't put anything in
it, I just drink form it.
Oh, we're just raising. Ok. Ok,
cheers.
Don't clink. Goodnight, you
guys. Thank you. Goodnight.
Let's go home. Ok, let's go
home. Yes, please, I'm going to
fall asleep.
Zion, we're, we're very
lucky to have you. You know
that, right?
Mmm, yeah. Errrrr.
You're very special to us. Errr.
I need both of your hands.
(Laughs)
I'm hungry. (Laughs) Really?
Yes.
Ok. We're figure something out.
*I want to eat. Hang on.
* Some toilet paper
* I want to eat. And there we
go. * Some toilet paper.
* With Theodore (Laughs)
* Because he likes it. So I'm
gonna *
* try a little bite to see if I
like *
You're kind of
(indistinguishable) so very
good.
Please. Please. I think we can
have one
story. Right. OK? What do you
mean?
One story. Cause it's late.
Alright. Aren't you the
burglar? And isn't sitting on
the doorstep your job and
not to speak of getting inside
the door, but I
(Music)
(Music)
(Music)
(Music)
(Mjusic)
(Music)
(Music)
(Music)
(Music)
(Music)
(Music)
(Music)
(Music)
* Baby, baby, baby
* You're the star
(Music)
(Music)
(Music)
(Music)
(Music)
(Music)
(Music)
(Music)
(Music)
(Music)
(Music)
(Music)
(Music)
(Music)
(Music)
(Music)
(Music)
(Music)
For information on fostering an
(Music)
(Music)
(Music)
(Music)
(Music)
(Music)
(Music)
(Music)
(Music)
(Music)
Happy Show day! i'm gonna
get you. (Music)
Can I help you? Yeah, sure. Can
you fill this?
(Music)
(Music)
Thank you. Whew!
Ah, yi, yi. Oh my God. (Laughs)
What happened?
I think the waffle iron just
broke. What
happened? The waffle iron. Oh
my God.
Ok. So, it's still cooking. So,
we're
OK. Alright. It's still
cooking. Theodore is getting
into it. What did you do?
I don't know. This is supposed
to be part of the movie where
it's like
we're really cool gays dads and
we make waffles. Listen,
we are cool gay dads. Should we
turn it off now? (Laughs) That
would be a good idea. Did you
spray any non-stick stuff? No,
i'm nervous.
I can't think about this.
Alright. We're not going to use
any of this for the show.
(Laughs).
I think my brain is on the
show. This is
still a waffle. That's what the
cooking spray is for.
I know. I don't know what he
did here. Wow. Child
Protection Services will come
after us when they see (Laughs)
this.
Hey, look, look. I was able to
save it.
That's brilliant. How did you
do that? Alright. Go, go sit
there please.
You have other skills. Awww.
Mmm.
I'll make you some apple juice.
They taste really good. Thank
you.
Are you dressed?
Do you want me to put this in
the car?
Oh, sure.
(Music)
(Music)
(Music)
(Music)
(Music)
Are you excited? Yay. I know
I'm excited.
I just have to pee really,
really bad. I know. Me too.
Should I try some makeup or
should I go au natural?
Air brush only? No, no. I want
everything done.
I want, I want a peel. I want
lip.
I got you. I want you to take
care of this Janet Reno waddle.
(Laughs)
This is how Asian people
deteriorate.
You are all pretty and
everything and then right
before 50.
There is some kind of elastic
band in back of your head that
just breaks.
And everything starts to fall.
Sure (Laughs).
It's true.
(Music)
(Music)
(Music)
(Music)
Should we have, should we bond
a little?
Hi, where are you going? And
off he goes again. He's like
Ms. Pacman right now
eating the entire crab service
table. Yeah. I'm sure he's like
I just don't want him to puke
on stage. That would be so
embarrassing. He's not going to
puke on stage.
Alright. The human reveal. I'll
see you on stage.
Look great. Alright. I love you
daddy.
Bye.
Thanks baby. Alright time for
you to leave.
Really loud. That's good.
Ok Zion, we're going to play
out here during the show.
(Music)
You go this way right? No, no,
no. This way? I'm never going
to get back.
Whoooo!
Whoo! Ladies and gentlemen,
please welcome to the
stage, America's Asian
sweetheart
Alec Mapa!
(applause)
(applause)
Hello, Los Angeles! I made it!
Welcome to the show!
Ohhh. We are
filming live tonight in
California,
the golden state of marriage
equality! (Applause)
Whooo!
I have no doubt in my mind that
gay marriage will be the law of
the land.
oooh! And you know what that
means,
generations from now, they'll
be gay grandpas sitting
around the Thanksgiving Day
table telling their grandkids
"you know, what. I met your
grandfather
ungrinded (Laughs)
He was 30 feet away and he
was so handsome and so charming
and then he
fucked me in the bathroom of
the
Renberg Theatre at the Alec
Mapa show."
(applause)
(applause)
Grandpa that's revolting.
Don't tell us that story ever
again! (Laughs)
Thank you so much for
supporting live
theatre. (applause)
owww!
I I love, I love, love, live
theatre or
as the Filipinos call it live
the atre. Um, I fell in love
with live
theatre while watching
television. The year
1977. The place
San Francisco. I was watching
the Tony Awards
with my parents. Because
watching the Tony Awards with
your
parents means never having to
say you gay.
(Laughter) Now the big show
that year was Annie, right?
But this is back in the
jurassic era, right? There's no
internet. There's no
shit about musical theatre,
right? I don't know who Andrea
McArdle
is. I don't know who Dorothy
Loudon is but all of that
changes, right? When the full
original
cast of Annie comes on and
proceeds to do a medley
of three musical numbers from
the show including
Tomorrow, You're Never Fully
Dressed Without a Smile
and Easy Street.
(Laughs). So Andrea McArdle
comes out
on stage, all you know,
chipmonk cheek with
her 70's red feathered bob and
she starts to sing
Tomorrow and I'm frozen in
front of the television, right?
Like
I'm encased in a block of ice.
(Laughter). And then the
orphans come out and sing
You're Never Fully Dressed
Without a Smile and
I can't move. I'm like must stay
strong and then Dorothy Loudon
(Laughter)
the original Ms. Hannigan comes
out and sings Easy
Street. Jesus
take the wheel. Now if you've
never seen this performance
before do yourself a favor.
When you get home watch it on
YouTube.
She pretty much sings, dances
and acts
as if her very life depended on
it.
It was like right before she
went on stage there was
somebody standing next to her
with a gun saying "Look Loudon.
This is your very last
chance. You go on that stage,
bring the house down
and nail this number. Cause if
you don't when you come back
here,
I'm going to shoot you in the
fucking head. " (Laughter)
So Dorothy Loudon goes out on
stage. Sings Easy
Street. Brings the house down
and moments later,
she wins a Tony Award and I
have a complete nervous
breakdown. (Laughter)
I start shaking and crying.
Shaking and crying like I'm
Kate Winslet and I've just been
fished out of the
icy waters of Nova Scotia and
my parents were like
" What the fuck is your
problem? Why
are you crying? Who's the crazy
old white
lady? Do we know her?"
(Laughter)
Is she a teacher from school?
(Laughter)
And looking back, I knew
why I was having an emotional
reaction.
I had just witnessed a
resurrection. Even back then
I knew that Dorothy Loudon was
somebody who had faced
oblivion. I knew she was
someone who had stared death
in the face and thought my
career is over.
It's too late. I'm
too old. There isn't enough
magic in the world
to sustain my dreams. I don't
have a single
chance left. No chance left but
this one.
(Laughter)
(applause)
And that's why I love live
theatre. Because
there's always that possibility
of redemption
right? That you're going to see
some performer give a
performance
like they don't have a single
chance left. No chance left -
But this one, right?
Tonight's not going to be one
of those performances...just to
(Laughter)
Lower your expectations right
now. (Laughter).
Now I've been too busy folding
laundry.
I have no act. I called
the show Babby Daddy because
I'm Fucking Exhausted
was too much of a buzz kill.
(Laughter)
So, I'm a new father.
My husband and I adopted a kid.
(applause)
Listen, thank you. (applause)
(Laughs). I'm not
gonna sugar coat it for you.
Ok? ah, ah,
ah. Having children is not for
everyone. Alright?
It's really easy to ooey
gooey and romantic about the
idea of children
especially when they're not
yours, right? And that's where
people get
into trouble. Right? Do you
know what being
a parent does to you? It turns
you into that
tree in that children's book.
(Laughter). Do you know which
book I'm talking
about? Shout it out! The Giving
Tree by Shel Silverstein.
Everybody has a real boner for
that book but
it's a real fucked up story
when you think about it.
(Laughter)
(applause)
Once upon a time there was this
tree
and a little boy and they love,
love, love each other very much
and every day they would play
together in the woods and he
would
carve his initials into her
trunk and climb her
and eat her fruit. Yeah, it's a
real fucked up story.
(Laughter). And one day the
little boy runs up to
the tree and says, "I need a
place to live and
things to sell." So what does
he do? He chops off all
her branches, takes all her
fruit and leaves.
Comes back years later and goes
"I want to see the world."
So, what does he do? He chops
down her trunk, runs away and
leaves.
So now she's nothing but a
stump. Right?
Right? The little boy comes
back years later only
he's not a little boy anymore.
No. He's
a tired broken down old man.
(Laughter).
And what does he say? Does he
say
sorry for the vandalism?
(Laughter).
(Laughter).
Does he say thank you? No. What
does he do?
(Audience: He sits on her). He
sits on her!
(Laughter). Being a parent is
like
living through that book every
single day.
(Laughter - applause).
(applause).
Children take and take and take
and exhaust
deplete you of every single
resource and just
when you have nothing left to
give, they fucking sit on you!
(Laughter).
(Laughter)
I'm so lucky.
This is terrific. I feel as it
we've
established a connection of
some time. I feel connected to
each
and every one of you. I really
do. Hey! Just for
fun. Let's each and every one
of us
share our most painful
childhood memory. (Laughter).
No? Ok.
Let's talk about my sex life.
(Whew!)
Alright my husband have been
together for 12
years. Right?
But we're at the point in our
relationship
where we have to switch things
up in order
to keep things interesting and
lately that's
meant a whole lot of blow jobs
in cars.
(Laughter). Alright, let me
explain.
My husband was raised Church of
Christ, very fundamentalist
Christian. So he
gets off on any kind of
scenario where he can caught
and feel ashamed. (Laughter).
I was raised Catholic. I don't
really need
any help in the shame
department. I'm
ashamed when I get up in the
morning.
(Laughter). I'm ashamed right
now.
I'm ashamed to be telling this
story but I'm going to anyway.
So, it's
date night, we're out driving
around Silver Lake
and all of sudden my husband
goes, "Let's fuck in the car."
And I'm like, "I don't want to
fuck in the car."
Getting fucked is complicated
enough, ok? When you
add a steering column and cup
holder to it, it's like
trying to eat a baguette on a
tilt-a-whirl, ok? There's
too much going on! But marriage
is about
compromise, right? So I was
like, "Ok, I'll blow you."
So, I'm not a prude. I'm not
afraid of
getting caught as long as I
don't fat. (Laughter).
Right? Like, if you told me
that TMZ had
a picture of me blowing
somebody in a car, my first
question would be
is do I look fat? Because, you
know,
the camera already adds 10
pounds, this
doesn't help. So, I'm blowing
my husband
in the parking lot of a Bank of
America in Silver Lake
but I'm really paranoid, so I'm
looking around, right? So, I'm
like oo
oo, oo, oo, oo, oo, oo. I look
like
a barn owl choking on a
titmouse, right?
oo, oo, oo. All of sudden the
phone starts ringing, right?
And he's like, "Don't answer,
I'm really close!" And I'm
like, "I have to.
It's the babysitter." So, I'm
like, "hello?"
"Yeah, no. Zion is not
allowed to have cake and ice
cream right before bed. He's
said that? Put him on the
phone. Zion
it's daddy. You are not allowed
to have cake and ice cream right
before bed. We discussed this.
You got to bed right now. You're
gonna be in big, big trouble.
Do you understand me?"
"No, I don't want to talk to
the
dog. I love you too. Good
night."
(applause)
Let's just say you won't be
seeing that on an episode of
Modern Family any time soon.
(Laughter).
(Laughter)
My husband and I always wanted
children. Always.
But it was something we thought
we would get around to
eventually.
Right? Like going to Tabet.
(Laughter). Or Machu Picchu. Or
Colonial Williamsburg, you know.
(Laughter). Eventually.
And then I turned 43 and a bell
went off. Bing!
I had a complete classic mid
life
crisis. I stopped eating, hired
a trainer and
I lost 30 lbs. Oh, don't
applaud. It was horrible. I was
like a
couple of pounds above organ
failure. (Laughter). I
looked fabulous.
Every morning it was struggle
to lift my head up off the
pillow.
But I looked 10 years younger
and that's all that mattered.
And then I had to go night
clubbing every single night
with boys
in their 20's cause I couldn't
afford a sports car.
(Laughter)
And here's the thing about gay
boys in their 20's.
God love them. They're cute,
adorable and fun. But most of
them are
really, really dumb. (Laughter)
Like they're even dumber than I
was.
I had a gay boy in his 20's in
my audience say, "Who's Betty
Davis?"
(Laughter). And I was like
you know what? Google it.
Press a button. Make a fucking
effort. I'm not here
to put you through gay school.
Right?
Alright, here's the thing. I
love my friends in their 20's
and I'm
not here to put anybody down.
So in order to bridge
the gap between our two
generations, I'd
like to do my impression of
Betty Davis
singing a Miley Cyrus song as
karaoke.
(Applause) Ready? Hit it!
(Music)
(Music)
(Music)
* Hopped off the plane at LAX
* with a dream and my cardigan
* Welcome to the land of fame
excess, am I going to fit in?*
(Audience clapping) * Jumped in
the cab, here I am for the
first time *
* Looked to my left and I see
the Hollywood sign *
* This is all so crazy,
Everybody seems *
* so famous. My tummy's turnin'
and I'm feelin' *
* kind of home sick, too much
pressure and I'm nervous *
* That's when the taxi man
turned on the radio *
* And a Jay-Z song was on, And
a Jay-Z song was on*
* And the Jay-Z song was on,
and the Jay-Z song *
* was on (Applause)
(Applause)
Should I continue? Alright.
* They're playing my song, the
butterflies fly away *
* Nodding my head, like yeah
* Moving my hips life yeah
* I got my hands up, they're
playing my song, I know I'm
going *
* to be ok. Yes
* There's a party in the USA.
(Applause). * Yes
*There's a party in the USA
(Applause)
(Applause)
(Applause)
(Applause)
(Laughs).
So, I partied really hard
with boys half my age for
a year and my husband was like
"What's wrong with you? Do you
want
to leave me?" And I was like,
"I don't want to leave anybody.
I'm just scared. I'm in the
middle."
"I'm too young to be old. I'm
too old
to be young and I just thought
if I hung out with
a bunch of young pretty boys
who were young and fuckable,
that would make me feel young
and fuckable too.
And my husband said, "I still
think you're
fuckable. I'll fuck you."
(Applause).
"Get in the car."
(Laughter) (Applause)
(Applause)
So we did it! We adopted a
5 year old African American boy
from Compton.
(Yayyy! Applause)
(Laughs). His
name is Zion. I'm Asian, my
husband's
white. Our son is black. We
look like the last two minutes
from It's A Small World.
(Laughter)
And people are always asking,
"Where's he from?"
Is he from Botswana?
(Laughter). Is he from Rwanda?
Is he from Malawi? And I'm
like, "No".
He's from Compton."
As a celebrity I feel it's my
duty to inform people
that you don't have to go all
the way to Africa to adopt a
black
child. (Applause)
(Applause)
You can get one right here in
the United States.
So, one time Zion had a
melt down at a Barnes & Noble
bookstore, right? And I was
surrounded
by people who did not have
children and they all gave me
that
stink eye, you know, like "Will
you please keep your adopted
African
American child quiet?" You know.
And I was so angry, I stared
them all
back and I went, "He's from
Haiti."
(Laughter) (Applause). Shame on
all of you.
(Applause)
Now,
to be honest, I had no business
taking a 5 year old I just
adopted
to the Barnes & Noble. But the
Patti Lupone memoir had just
come out.
(Laughter) It was an
emergency. (Laughter)
The first month was hell. He
would have one huge
melt down after an another. And
by melt down I mean he would
fall
to the ground kicking and
screaming at the top of his
lungs,
right? And it was always in a
public place. So my husband
and I had to physically
restrain him and carry him
back to the car. So we
basically looked like two gays
guys who were kidnapping Arnold
(Laughter) on a very episode
of Different Strokes.
(Applause). And I was like
thank God we drive a Volvo
station wagon. Cause if we
drove a
white van, we'd be in jail.
Now, looking back
maybe we shouldn't have been
driving him all over town the
first month
he came to live with us. But
the way I looked at it, he'd
been in
one shitty foster home after
another since he was 3.
Right? So it was time for him
to see the world. So I took him
to the
planetarium, The Museum of
Natural History,
Bloomingdales, you know. Places
a kid should know about. And
the melt downs were
understandable, right?
One minute he was living in the
hood. The next
minute he was living with us.
So, it was like, who are you?
Where am I? What's gazpacho?
(Laughter)
Now I have a high tolerance for
crazy. Ok? But that melt down
in the book store was the last
straw.
(Laughter). Driving him home
that night
I was screaming at him in the
rear view mirror. I was like,
"You know what?"
"Babies kick and scream because
they can't
talk. You can talk. If you're
angry
or sad, you can tell me. If
you're frustrated
or frightened, you can tell me.
But kicking
and screaming while daddy is
trying to buy a book by Patti
Lupone is
completely unacceptable."
(Laughter)
And he was like, "Ok", and the
melt down stopped.
And then he started pre-school
and the melt downs started
again.
Whenever I dropped him off he'd
say, "You're not coming back."
Because that had been
his experience, you know.
People would just drop him off
and never come back
again. So I was like, "What are
you talking about? I
love you. I'm crazy about you.
I will always come back."
"You know what, when school
lets out, I'm going to be
standing right here.
I won't even move. I will
always come
back." I said that every single
day.
So by the end of the school
year he was like, "I know!
You're coming back!"
(Laughter).
The other thing he used to say
when he first came to live with
us is
"Where am I gonna go next?" And
I was like
"Where do you want to go next?"
And he goes, "with you guys."
And I'm like, "Well you're not
going anywhere. You live here.
You're home
now. You live here."
"Now eat your quinoa."
(Laughter). So my husband
wanted a 5 year old
and this how is he sold me on
it. This was his pitch.
He comes to live with us. He
walks. He talks. He goes to
school.
No diapers. How hard could it
be? Hahaha!
(Laughter)
My husband and I are a couple
of dummies. Ok?
Cause what we feel to realize
is that shitting their
pants is what 5 year old boys
do best.
(Laughter). It is their area of
expertise.
It's their speciality de la
maison.
Which is French
for "Hey, I just shit my
pants!"
(Laughter). Five year old boys
notoriously
ignore the impulse to go potty
until
it's too late. I was always
like, "Baby this isn't like
Christmas shopping or doing
your taxes. You can't
wait until the last minute. You
have to go
when you feel like going. " Now
we adopted
our son out of foster care and
apparently in all of his
placements
nobody had ever taught him how
to pee in the potty,
wipe his booty, flush the
toilet or wash his hands.
I had to teach him those things
by saying it
over and over and over again. I
was like
a statulogical parent. Pee in
the
potty, wipe your booty, flush
the toilet, wash your hands.
Errrr!
The very first time I changed
my son's underwear
it looked like a crime scene.
(Laughter). All that was
missing was that police tape
and that Law and Order
segue music, you know, Dong!
Dong!
(Laughter).
He would pee like he was
putting out a forest fire.
Right? Just a slow and steady
stream right at the base.
The base meaning the wall, the
magazines. The really expensive
bubble bath that
gay men have right before they
have children. Right?
We used to have a really nice
bathroom, right?
It was a gay guys bathroom. It
was like a spa
at the Four Seasons. Now it's
like a port-a-potty
at Mardi Gras. (Laughter).
Not flushing the toilet was the
absolute worst. Every morning
walking into that bathroom was
like
taking a rorschach test. It was
like
Oh, that one looks like a
snake. Oh,
well that one looks like a
snake buying a bottle of wine
at Trader Joes.
(Laughter). Oh, that one
looks like a snake eating
another snake. Flush the
fucking toilet!
(Laughter) And he was the worst
liar. He came back to the
dinner table one time and I was
like, "Did you flush the potty?"
He said, "Yes." I said, "Can I
check?" He said, "Don't."
(Laughter).
Alright he's the thing. Zion
eats really healthy food
because when he
came to live with us out of
foster care, his health was
garbage. Right?
He had this cough that we
thought was a cold or allergies.
He turns out he had viral
pneumonia.
So we put him on all this
organic food. Really expensive.
But he rallied. My husband's
parents are
small town folk. They're not
really into health food
and we were spending
Thanksgiving with them and
right before Thanksgiving my
husband and I got into this huge
fight because he was like,
"Mmmmm
I just don't want them to give
him too many treats."
"Mmmmm." And I was like, "You
know what?
I don't want to be that gay,
hippy, crunchy couple
that ruins every single holiday
with all of their food
restrictions." Do you know who
I'm talking about?
Oh, we only feed our kid
vegan treats made out of spelt
and hemp milk, ohhhh.
I don't want to be that couple.
It's Thanksgiving. Let him have
whatever he wants. So we show up
at Thanksgiving. My son starts
eating like he's
going to the electric chair,
right? (Laughter).
He eats an entire
gingerbread house, a pumpkin
pie,
a gallon of ambrosia, a green
bean
casserole, an entire non-vegan
ham, right?
And after dinner he goes to the
fireplace
with grandma and grandpa to
make s'mores,
cause I think he still had room
in his esophagus.
(Laughter).
And that's when he turns to my
husband, he goes,
"Papa, I don't feel so good.
I'm
gonna be sick." So my husband
scoops him up. They run to the
bathroom.
They don't make it. My son
barfs all over the kitchen
floor.
ewwwahhhhh. So like, I
got this. I'm in the zone. Go
take care of this.
So I'm on all fours cleaning up
the mess
in Dior. (Laughter).
And I can see my husband in the
open
door way of the bathroom and
my son is barfing into the
toilet. Ewwaaahh.
Ewwwahhh. And just when it
couldn't get any worse,
he starts having explosive
diarrhea at the same time.
Ewwaahhh. Double dragon!
Ewaaah! I'd heard
of the phenomenon but I'd never
actually seen it in person.
Ewwaahh! And I look at my
husband and he's
covered in barf and shit and
he's looking at me
with just murder in his eyes.
Like. (Laughter)
And I was like, "Aren't you
glad we didn't adopt a baby?"
Ahhhh!
(Applause)
Oh my God. That was three years
ago.
My son is perfectly fine now.
And after 3 years of living
with two gay
guys, he sounds like he's been
living with two gay
guys. (Laughter). We were
flying back from New York
recently and he had the flight
attendant for a
Pellegrino (Laughter) with lime.
(Laughter). He was on a play
date
at a friend's house and the mom
said, "Baby do you want
something to eat?"
He said, "Yes." She said, "What
would you like?" He said, "I
would like
an assortment of breads with
balsamic vinegar and olive oil
please." (Laughter)
(Laughter)
(Laughter)
This is the absolute worst. So,
we're at the supermarket and
he's running up and down the
aisle
misbehaving and I hate kids who
misbehave in the supermarket,
right?
There's nothing worse. So he's
like bumping into people and
knocking
shit over and I grab him and I
said "Listen to me!"
"This is not a playground. This
is Whole Foods."
(Laughter). You nearly knocked
down that
tower of Kombucha. (Laughter).
"Settle down. Be considerate.
You are not
the only person here." And do
you know what he said to me?
"And the Oscar goes
to...." (Laughter)
(Applause)
Waaaaaaaaa!
(Applause)
I didn't
know whether to slap him or hug
him. I was
so proud and so angry at the
same time! (Laughter)
(Laughter)
I've become Faye Dunaway in
Mommy Dearest.
I am! I'm shouting all the
time, which, I mean,
it was like shouting at me. He
was like, I was on the phone
with my agent,
one of the few times my agent
actually called me. And I,
he was like, "Daddy!" My son's
the only person in Los Angeles
who can
call me daddy without giggling.
(Laughter).
"Daddy!" "I'm on the phone. I
will be right with you
as soon as I hang up." "But
Daddy!" "I am on the phone."
And then he shouts at me, "Stop
talking you great big
fat woman!" (Laughter)
(Laughter)
"Did you just call me fat?"
(Laughter)
"Go to your rooooommm!!"
(Applause)
"Why can't you give me the
respect
that I'm entitled to!"
(Applause)
He's done everything but say,
because I am not
one of your fans.
But he's going to. I'm waiting
for it. I've
re-read Mommy Dearest recently,
with completely
different eyes. (Laughter)
Christina Crawford is an
ungrateful, disloyal,
spoiled little twat. Just 50
pages
in that book devoted to how
pissed off she was because
she had to write thank you
notes. What's wrong with
writing thank you notes? My son
writes a thank you note
for every single gift he
receives. Not
an email or an e-greeting but
an actual
thank you note on a thank you
note card.
Why? Because it's the right
thing to do.
(Applause). Knock down
that bitch of an e-greeting and
put a thank you note where a
thank you note ought to
be. (Laughter)
My parenting style at any one
given moment
can be described by
four characters from the
amercian musical comedy
Fraulein Maria, Auntie Mame,
Miss Hannigan or
Mamma Rose. When I get up in
the morning I'm totally Fraulein
Maria, right? I'm peppy. I'm
optimistic. I wanna make
play clothes out of the
curtains. I want to have sex
with
Christopher Plummer. But by
10:00 a.m., after he's been up
since 6:00 a.m.,
and he's poured maple syrup on
the dog and we're out of
coffee, I turn into Miss
Hannigan and sometimes
you get Miss Hannigan all day
long. Look, I love
Julie Andrews but she set the
bar too fucking high.
Nobody can be Fraulein Maria
24/7.
Ok? Have you ever seen pictures
of
the real Maria Von Trapp. She
didn't look like
Julie Andrews. She was a battle
axe. She didn't even have
a neck. She looked like Brian
a neck. She looked like Brian
Dennehy in
The Bull and you know she
beat those kids. How else are
you gonna make
them sing? I bet she was more
Joe Jackson
than Julie Andrews. Right?
(Laughter).
I bet she sounded just like
Lawrence Fishburn in What's
Love Got to Do With It.
You trying to help Ike.
(Laughter).
You trying to help Fraulein
Maria.
Now, when we entertain at the
house, I'm totally
anti Mame, right? Because all
of our friends are
circus people, right? It's all
burlesque performers and drag
queens and (Laughs) it's
circus people. My son's
favorite babysitter,
Shangela, from Ru-Paul's Drag
Race. (Laughter).
Now at baseball games I'm
totally Mama Rose, right? I'm
like, I wanna know
why that no talent klutz gets
to play
first base every single game
while my son who has more
talent than all of you
put together is playing
shortstop. (Laughter).
Ok, here's the thing, I don't
give a shit about baseball, ok?
But my son really wanted to
play and I
didn't want him to miss out
just cause I'm a big sissy.
So I took him to try outs.
Oh, I'm learning so much.
There not auditions there
try outs. (Laughter).
There not costumes there.
(Uniforms)
And it's not rehearsal, it's
(Practice). Whatever.
(Laughter).
So we
show up for try outs and all
the kids are in full baseball
drag already, right? They've
got the
cleats, they've got the helmet,
they got a mitt (Laughter)
and my son's like in a Hello
Kitty tank top shirt,
shorts and flip flops, right?
(Laughter).
And all of the kids are playing
catch
with their dad like they've
been doing this since their kid
could walk, right?
And I'm like, "I don't know how
to do this. I'm not
a lesbian, right?" So,
(Laughs), the coach comes up to
me. He goes "Does he have a
glove?" And I'm like, "What
length? What are you talking
about?"
(Laughter)
So, my son sees a friend of his
from school playing with his dad
and they wave them over and he
starts playing catch with them.
Right? So, already I'm on this
huge
gay shame spiral, right? Like
bad gay dad, bad gay dad.
I haven't been doing any of
these things with him
and now because of me my son's
going to totally fuck up with
audition
and not get a call back, right?
(Laughter)
(Laughter).
So this is what they had to do
for the try out. They had to
catch the ball. Throw it to
first
base and hit the ball off the
T. Right? And by the way most
of the dads at the try outs are
total douche bags. Right?
Like they're yelling at their
kids, "Concentrate. Eyes
front. What are you doing?"
Now I could understand if this
were a ballet class. (Laughter).
(Laughter)
It's baseball.
So, it's my son's turn to try
out and by this
time everybody knows that he's
with me, right? So, they're not
expecting
much. So I pull him aside and
say, "Listen to me.
I don't care if you hit the
ball. I don't care if you throw
the ball. I don't care if you
can catch the ball. All that
matters to Papa and Daddy is
that you're
a good sport and you have fun.
We will love you no matter what.
Now go." So what does he do?
He catches the grounder
immediately. He throws the ball
so far
past first base that it hits
the back fence and he hits the
ball so
far to the outfield that nobody
can catch it. (Whooo!)
(Applause)
And all the other dads are
looking at me like
"what the fuck, what, what?"
and I'm like, "I don't know. "
(Laughter)
But inside I was like (Laughter)
(Applause)
(Laughter)
We wanted to adopt out of
foster care. I found out about
the foster care adoption
system after working on a Rosie
O'Donnell
cruise. Cause that's how they
get ya.
(Laughter) Ok? All my friends
before going
on that R Family cruise were
like "ooo girl, don't go on
that cruise."
"You go on that cruise with the
lesbians and their kids
they're going to brainwash you
girl. You're going
to come back with a baby." And
I'm like, "what?
Are they going to give them out
at the gift shop?"
(Laughter). It's so stupid. But
that's exactly what happened.
My husband and I got off that
ship and we could not stop
thinking about having a baby.
We attended every single
foster adopt seminar on that
ship. We attended
hair care for your African
American child.
(Laughter) That was
the day when all the lesbians
on the ship had cornrows.
(Laughter)
It looked like Stevie Wonder
had fucked Melissa Etheridge.
You know, like,
(Laughter)
We attended how to adopt
through the
foster care system. Now here's
some interesting
statistics. At any one given
time
there are 500,000 kids in the
foster care system.
100,000 of those kids are not
going to be
reunited with their parents so
those kids are up for adoption.
The most desirable placement is
a caucasian baby girl.
Now look, I have nothing
against little white
girls. (Laughter). I've been
one my
whole life. (Laughter).
(Applause). (Laughter).
But if my husband and I are
going to start a family, there
can only be one lady of the
house and you're looking at her.
(Laughter). There's only one
lady
that comes out of Alec Mapa
house and that's Alec Mapa
and that's me, baby, remember!
(Laughter).
(Applause)
Nobody wants a boy.
Nobody wants them over the age
of 3
and if they're African
American, yikes.
A caucasian baby girl is 7
times more likely
to be adopted than an African
American boy
over the age of 3.
When my husband and I heard
that we were like, "Oh my God.
Our son is black. (Laughs)
Not our son should be black.
Or our son is going to be black
but our son is black.
He's already out there. He
exists.
We knew it in our bones and we
knew that if we didn't do
everything in our power
to go out, find him and start
our lives
together it would be the
biggest regret of our lives.
Lesbian
the brainwash. We met
immediately to the Southern
California Foster
Family Adoption Agency. SCFFAA.
To become a foster
adopt parent in California, you
have to pass a 6 week
parenting course. Your home has
to pass
a safety inspection . You have
to be certified in CPR
and first aid and you have to
pass a background check
with the FBI. If your
a teenaged girl in California
and you want a baby, all you
need is
sperm. And not only can you have
a baby, you can get your own
reality show. (Laughter).
If you're a couple of gay guys,
they go through
drawers. They want tax forms
for the past 5 years.
The FBI background check,
that's what freaked me out the
most.
Right? Cause they fingerprint
you like 5 different times and
they
cross reference, cross cross
reference that info
with their data base and that's
where they could really dig up
the dirt on you, right? I was
up all night
thinking "Was I arrested?"
(Laughter)
"Was I in jail?" I knew I
deserved to be at one point.
We showed up for classes. Half
the class was gay and lesbian.
Right?
All the gay guys took up the
entire front row.
Notebooks open. Pencils at the
ready.
They were like Hermione
Grangera at the Hogwarts,
rights? It's like
"I know the answer Professor
Dumbledore!" When God in
liviosa, When God
in liviosa. All the lesbians sat
in the back row. They were like
the bad asses of the class,
right?
Cause a lot of them had their
own biological children and
they were there to find out how
to adopt siblings for their
kids.
So they were like, "parenting
class. I don't need
to listen to this shit. I've
got a vagina."
And all the gay guys were like,
"Um girls, if you didn't
want to learn about magic,
maybe you shouldn't have
enrolled in Hogwarts."
(Laughter). So we had a whole
class
on the safety inspection and we
were told that if we were
bringing
a baby home, there couldn't be
any fountains on the
property. And all the gay guys
were like "oooh!"
(Laughter)
ooooo.
So we passed the course.
We were certified to become
foster adopt parents.
And 9 months after we started
the whole process, our social
worker told us about a little
boy named Zion.
He is 4 1/2 years old and he'd
been in foster
care since he was 3 because of
neglect.
Nnnn...neglect.
See neglect is one of the worst
of the things you
subject a child to because they
can become catatonic.
You know it's like if you cry
and cry and
nobody comes to take care of
you, you just stop crying.
And sometimes if they're moved
from place to place and they
suffer one loss
after another, you can lose the
ability to
attach. It's like you can adopt
them, but they can't adopt
you. It's like, why should I
get close to you, you're just
going to break up with me
anyway.
Right? So we were like
"neglect. Uh...I don't know. "
And our social worker's like
"No,
no, no, no, no. This child is
different.
He is affectionate
and creative and as far as
expressing himself,
he has no problem whatsoever."
(Laughter). We always know when
he's in the office.
He has a very distinctive voice
and
it carries."
So, we're like, "When can we
see a picture?" and
the social worker was like,
"When you stop asking
questions."
So we stopped asking questions
and
she showed us a picture and we
were like, "Ah!
That's our baby.
That's our kid. When can we
meet him?" And she said
"this week"? And I like, "Oh my
God, it's Thanksgiving. Ok, we
have to go home.
We have to get him a bed and we
have to tell your parents
that we're taking their black
grandson home for Thanksgiving."
(Laughter).
We got a call the very next day
from the social worker telling
us that we were out
of the picture. Another family
member
had come forward and said they
would be Zion's legal guardian.
Now this is somebody who had
never expressed any
interest before and had a
signficant
criminal record but it's what
the court ordered so we had
absolutely no say. We
were crushed.
Right? So,
Christmas and Thanksgiving
sucked because we felt we
had missed out on somebody
really special. We don't know
how
but we just felt in our bones
that we missed out on somebody
amazing.
So much that when we were
offered another case in January
we told our social worker
"You know what? We don't want
to go further with that case
because we don't feel
in our bones what we felt about
Zion."
And the social worker said,
"You know what? Let me find out
what Zion's
situation is and I'll call you
back in 10 minutes."
She called us back in 10
minutes and said, "The
placement with Zion's
relative has been a complete
disaster.
You have to pick him up tonight
at 6."
So we were like, "Oh my God!
Did we really mean
all those things that we said?
Ohhhhh."
(Laughter). So we white
knuckled it all the way
down to the offices in Long
Beach like "aaahhhhh!"
And we showed up
at the offices where Child
Protection Service is and Zion
was already
waiting for us in the waiting
room.
This tiny little boy and he was
sitting
between two garbage bags. One
had all of his
clothes and one had all of his
toys.
And he was just sitting in the
middle of them like he was just
another bag of stuff that
somebody had forgotten and
didn't want.
And I thought, "This isn't
fair."
Right, like no kid should ever
be
made to feel this way. And this
wasn't a 5 year old, this was a
baby right? Cause when you're 5
years old
you still need your mommy.
Right? You still need
your daddy or mommies or two
gay guys with
a really cute house, right?
(Laughter).
so I was like, "Hi.
I'm Alec. This is Jamie."
And he said, "Do you want to
play Don't Break the Ice?"
(Laughter) Do you remember
Don't Break the Ice that game
where
you tapped on the little
plastic ice cubes and
sent the ice skating polar bear
plunging to his death, right?
(Laughter)
Well, that's what we did. We
broke the ice by playing
Don't Break the Ice. And every
time
that polar bear plunged to its
death, my husband and I
felt exactly the same way like,
"Oh, my God!
This is really happening and
they're really going to give us
this kid!"
And after about an hour
of playing Don't Break the Ice,
I said, "Are you hungry?"
And he said, "Yes."
I said, "Well, let's go."
So we all piled into the car
and I asked him, "What do you
want
to eat?" And he said, "Chuckee
Cheese."
(Laughter).
(Laughter)
And in that moment I became a
parent.
(Laughter) (Applause)
(Applause)
We are not spending our first
night
together as a family at Chuckee
Cheese.
So we brought him home,
9 months later we legally
adopted him and became
Zion Joseph Abare Mapa.
(Applause)
(Applause)
(Applause)
Now that was three years ago.
My husband makes
documentaries and I'm in
vaudeville.
So we've taken Zion with us
everywhere. He's gone to
London, Paris, Barcelona,
Ixtapa, San Diego,
(Laughter) and everybody always
says, "He's so lucky." And
I know they mean well but I
always feel like it's kind of
insulting to
him, because the truth is we're
lucky.
There's nothing I could give my
son
or any place I could take him
that could compare
to all the things he's that
he's given me. Right?
Being a parent requires so much
patience, compassion and
understanding
and I don't possess any of
those qualities. (Laughter).
So being a parent
is literally my last chance to
become a good
person. Right? I don't have a
single
chance left. No chance left
but this one!
(Applause)
(Applause)
(Applause)
So, a couple of years ago we got
to go on another R Family
Vacation and, uh,
instead of a cruise they rented
out an entire club med right?
So it was a great opportunity
for my husband and I to
reconnect
with the other gay and lesbian
parents and say thank you.
You did this to us.
(Laughter)
So Club Med's great cause the
kids have camp all day long, so
all the parents would just hang
out by the pool
and get completely wasted,
right. Just think Bloody Marys
all day
and then we'd pick up our kids
like, ahhhhhh.
(Laughter) So my husband and I
are having
dinner with this family from
New Jersey in the dining room
and you know
how a dining room is. It's
noisy, noisy, noisy and
all of a sudden there's that
window of silence.
Well my son uses that window of
silence to
yell at me from across the
dinner table, "Are you drunk?"
(Laughter)
(Laughter)
And I was like "you know what?
It's not nice to yell at Daddy
at the dinner table like that.
I'm very drunk."
(Laughter). Still not nice.
So he goes, "Can I go look at
the desserts?" and I'm like,
"Sure."
You know by this point during
the week, he has like 500
lesbian
moms at this point. All eyes
are on him. I'm like, "Go ahead.
But be back here in 15
minutes." So
he goes to the dessert table.
Fifteen minutes past by.
Twenty minutes passed by.
Twenty-
Five minutes pass by. So I'm
like, "Oh, great."
So I go look for him at the
dessert buffet
and he's not there.
And I'm looking around the
dining room. I can't find
find him anywhere. And there's
too many black kids
at this resort. Right?
(Laughter). All week long I've
been yelling at the wrong kid
like, "Get down from there.
This - oh, sorry."
"No running. As you were,
sorry."
(Laughter)
And then I remember
he was going to look at the
desserts and then
I remembered Thanksgiving.
And I was like, "Oh my God." So
I'm running to the bathroom
because I'm pretty sure
he's in there double dragoning
even as we speak, right?
So I swing open the bathroom
door and my son
is standing there washing his
hands. (Ohhhh).
And I could hear a toilet has
just flushed.
(Laughter).
And I'm like, "Did you wipe
your booty?" He said "Yes.
Daddy, guess what?"
I'm like, "What?" "I love you."
See that's how they get you.
(Laughter)
(Laughter)
Children drive you absolutely
crazy one minute and
the next minute they do
something or say something so
magical that you want to give
them everything.
In that moment I was like "You
know what, baby. You can poo or
pee wherever
you want. You can poo
in my hand. You can poo on my
head.
(Laughter). You can poo in my
mouth."
The three of us were walking
home that night from the dining
room
and we were looking up at the
sky and my son says, "Pappa,
Daddy, look.
It's the big dipper."
And I was like, "Really?
Where?" And he goes, "Right
there.
You could see the handle.
And the ladle andi if you draw
a straight line
from that star to that star you
can find Polaris.
It's the North Star. It never
moves so you can never get
lost. "
I was like, "Where'd you learn
that?"
And he said, "The planetarium.
Duh."
(Laughter)
(Laughter)
And I was like, "You know what?
Your father and I are glad that
you're a genius,
but we could do without the
tone."
(Laughter)
And then he said,
"Where am I going to go next?"
And I was like, "Well, where do
you want to go next?" He said,
"With you guys."
I'm like, "Well the answer to
that is easy.
We're going home."
Now, right about now is when
I'd be telling
my son a bedtime story so I'm
going to do the same for you.
Ok? On the day we adopted our
son,
we took a whole bunch of
pictures of the court room and
we
later found out that that was
totally illegal. (Laughter).
(Laughter).
So not only did we take a whole
bunch of
pictures but we hired a
professional editor to make a
slide
show. Do you want to see it?
(Applause)
There's your bedtime story.
(Music) Once upon a time there
is
a little boy named Zion and
papa named Jamie
and a daddy named Alec.
And they wanted more than
anything to become a family.
And their wish came true.
Goodnight.
(Music)
* If you could see
* yourself like I do when I'm
* looking down at you. You
* would how every star inside
of you *
* is shing through.
* So don't believe it if they
tell you *
* that a cow can't jump the
moon *
* Cause there just might be a
* Santa Clause and wishes can
come true *
* It's alright
* It's okay, I love
* you anyway that you
* are, that you are cause
* to me you're the star
* and you shine like the
* diamond tears in your eyes
* and I would kiss them away
* If I could, I
* would, If I could kiss them
* away, I would
(Applause)
(Applause)
(Applause)
* Baby, baby, baby, love a star
*
* Love a star
* Love, love
* Love
* Baby, baby, baby
* Love a star
* Love, love
* Love
* Baby, baby
* Baby, Baby, Baby, love a star
*
* Star, You're my star
(Applause) (Music)
Cheers to a great show. Cheers
to a great show. Triple cheers.
No, no. I don't put anything in
it, I just drink form it.
Oh, we're just raising. Ok. Ok,
cheers.
Don't clink. Goodnight, you
guys. Thank you. Goodnight.
Let's go home. Ok, let's go
home. Yes, please, I'm going to
fall asleep.
Zion, we're, we're very
lucky to have you. You know
that, right?
Mmm, yeah. Errrrr.
You're very special to us. Errr.
I need both of your hands.
(Laughs)
I'm hungry. (Laughs) Really?
Yes.
Ok. We're figure something out.
*I want to eat. Hang on.
* Some toilet paper
* I want to eat. And there we
go. * Some toilet paper.
* With Theodore (Laughs)
* Because he likes it. So I'm
gonna *
* try a little bite to see if I
like *
You're kind of
(indistinguishable) so very
good.
Please. Please. I think we can
have one
story. Right. OK? What do you
mean?
One story. Cause it's late.
Alright. Aren't you the
burglar? And isn't sitting on
the doorstep your job and
not to speak of getting inside
the door, but I
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* Baby, baby, baby
* You're the star
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For information on fostering an
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