See ya, Bernie

I admit it: I was probably late coming to the Bernie Mac party.

The first time I heard him do stand-up was in during the 2000 The Original Kings of Comedy documentary. From the moment I saw that movie, Mac shot up my list of favorite funny guys.

It wasn't just his knack for storytelling, or his crazy facial expressions or his profanity-laden routines. He spoke the absolute truth in hilarious ways and he didn't apologize for it. "I'm saying what you're scared to say," he said in Kings. "Fun is fun. Jokes is jokes. This is just expression."

And when he finally scored his own sitcom, The Bernie Mac Show on Fox, we saw another side of him: A man who is just as ridiculously talented, even without the cussing and sex jokes.

So when I heard Saturday morning that he'd died, I was shocked and sad, and most of all, pissed that I'd never get to him utter another perfectly-delivered joke.

When I'm done being sad, though, I'll laugh. Because, of course, that's what Bernie would have wanted.

Here are five things I learned from Bernie Mac.

1. It's OK to want nice stuff. The premise of the award-winning The Bernie Mac Show is that he and his wife take in his sister's three kids (Vanessa, Jordan and Bryana) while she's in rehab. In the first episodes, the kids arrive to the house and he gives them a tour. When he gets to the media room, he says this:
"You are not to touch my stuff without my permission...Don't' touch my TV. Don't touch my DVD. Don't touch my dual-deck VCR. Don't touch the remote that works the TV, DVD, and dual deck VCR. Don't even look at it. When you walk past it, close your eyes. Don't touch my old school, my new school, my slow jams, my party jams, my happy rap, and you betta not touch my James Brown of somebody's gonna get hurt."
Lesson: Electronics and music are expensive and can be sentimental as well. Kids need to learn this from an early age.

2. Don't take your mom for granted.
Bernie Mac's comedy often was brash, largely based on his impatience with, well, everything. But at the end of the day, he was a nice guy with a big heart. When he was interviewed on the Tavis Smiley's show, he told a story about what made him want to do comedy: His mother, who died when he was a high school sophomore, was sick with breast cancer. He was sitting on her lap, and she was crying. Then, Bill Cosby came on TV and his mother was able to laugh. The little Mac told her: "I'm gonna be a comedian, so you'll never cry again."
Lesson: I continue to be grateful my mother is still alive after she suffered a traumatic brain injury in 1995. I try to make her laugh as much as possible.

3. Life is funny. Bernie Mac wrote comedy about real life, often about his colorful family. He reminded me that when the world is going nuts around you, it's not only advisable, but necessary to have a sense of humor about it. And that's truly therapeutic when you have a small family with a high concentration of crazies (mom not included), or a job that can produce its fair share of lunatics.
Lesson: As long as I present the information in the right way, I may not have to wait for my whole family to pass on before writing a book loosely based on them.

4. Cake is dangerous. During my favorite episode of his sitcom, "Now You Got It," Bernie takes every precaution to keep from getting sick when all the kids from Bryana's birthday party are passing around cold germs (which were visable, flourescent green floaties in the show). Relieved that the shindig is finally over, Mac goes to the kitchen and eats a piece of birthday cake -- which, of course, is coated with the germs because a kid had sneezed all over it. Mac is forced to stay home with Bryana instead of going to Las Vegas with his friends.
Lesson: Not only does cake have a lot of calories, it can keep you from winning a lot of money at Blackjack or running into K-Fed at Pure.

5. Tough love is the way to go. I cringe when I see parents let bratty kids call the shots or run loose like wild banshees. (If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times: Going to Wal-Mart on a Saturday is the best birth control in the world.) Mac might have been a little tough on the kids in his show, but at least he was invested in what they were doing. And when it mattered (such as when his sister stood up her children for visits), he was a nurturing uncle who tended to the kids' physical and emotional wounds.
Lesson: There's a happy medium between old-school child-rearing and being considered a "cool parent." (Someone remind me of this when I have kids, because I'm kind of a pushover.)

See ya in the funny papers, Uncle Bernie.