- My dad's alive.
Wrong tone? Is that the wrong tone?
(upbeat music)
- If you're blessed and still
have your parents in your life,
you realize it's a blessing and a challenge, man.
The older they get, the more childlike they become.
You ever look at your parents and go,
how the fuck did y'all raise us?
I'm scared to leave y'all home with the pilot light on.
See you next week. (blows out light)
(audience laughing)
My daddy 82 years old, he got the nerve to have dementia
as evil as he was growing up.
"I-I don't remember." Motherfucker, I do.
(audience laughing)
That's why your medication late.
You forgot my baseball game,
I forgot your doctor's appointment, that's the way.
My sister called.
"You know daddy, he don't remember nothing.
You better go see him."
I said, "Daddy don't remember nothing?"
She said, "No."
I said, "Well, tell that motherfucker I just left.
(audience laughing)
And I'll be back at the same time tomorrow."
I ain't gonna burn my gas up,
he don't know who the fuck I am.
- I don't know how to have fun. How do you have fun?
(audience laughing)
How do you guys do it?
Like, I don't think I would've come to this show.
(audience laughing)
(audience applauding)
Like, if Marc Maron's playing, I'm like, I don't know.
I like him, but I got to go down to the...
I don't know.
I think it's genetic, really.
You know, like, my dad's alive.
Wrong tone? Is that the wrong tone?
Let me try again.
I'm blessed to have my father still with us,
but sometimes, some days, it's like, when?
When?
- My father was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer,
so we're all over at the house
deciding the course of treatment.
Doctor tells my father, he said, "Mr. Hughley,
you can go to the City of Hope and you can receive
the most advanced cancer treatment known to man."
You know what this motherfucker said?
"Well, how far is that?"
I said, "Well, motherfucker, not as far as the upper room.
(audience laughing)
Get in the car,
you ain't gonna remember it no goddamn way, that's it."
Father had cancer, my mother had a stroke,
and my sister and mother had fought so much
about my father, they got restraining orders on each other.
My mother has a stroke and an ambulance comes
to pick her up, my sister can't even ride with her.
She got to follow 1,000 feet behind.
(audience laughing)
I wish I was lying, but I'm not.
- Do you remember the day you realized
your dad was a fucking idiot?
Do you remember that day?
It's a pretty important day, 'cause you spend a lot of time
thinking, like, he's great, my dad's great,
he's the greatest guy in the world,
probably longer than you should,
and then one day the fucking other shoe drops
and you're like, holy shit, when did he turn into an idiot?
You know,
like, my father used to be a doctor,
and he screwed that up somehow, but he was a bright man
and he did his job and I was very impressed with him,
and I don't know, something went wrong.
Like, I don't know, I got a phone call from him once.
He was all upset, and I'm like, "What's the matter, dad?"
And he goes, "I just don't understand
why I didn't win the lottery."
(audience laughing)
"Wait, what?"
"Yeah, I play every day, I don't get why I'm not winning."
I'm like, oh my god, when did you become a fucking idiot?
Like, I said to him, just to feel him out, I'm like,
"So what would you do, dad, if you won the lottery?"
And he just immediately goes,
"I'd do everything I wanted to do.
I would do everything I want to do."
And I go, "Like what?"
And there's a beat and he goes, "Yeah, you're right."
(audience laughing)
That quick? That quick?
So it's genetic, and I don't want...
Like, I'm already there, that's it, nothing?
Can't do nothing.
- Remember the evil shit our parents used to do to us,
sending you to the store to buy shit
that's illegal for a child to purchase?
"Go down to the store,
get me a fifth of gin and a pack of cigarettes."
"I'm three, they ain't gonna let me have that."
"Huh. Take this note."
(audience laughing)
They'll give it to you, too.
You ride up on a Big Wheel with liquor and cigarettes.
All your neighbors, "That's a good little boy right there.
He gonna amount to something one day, you watch."
Then we had the screen door with the screen torn out,
and you used to get in trouble
for just running through the screen door.
"Bring your ass back in this house.
You open that door and walk outside like you got some sense"
(audience applauding)
The worst shit to be is the little boy that look
like your daddy if your mama don't like your daddy, now.
"Why are you walking like that?
You look just like your goddamn dad."
- "Hasan bai, come home, dad had a heart attack.
Hey, idiot, pick up your phone.
I need you. Dad had a heart attack."
And my dad had just suffered a quintuple bypass,
so they're rushing him to the hospital.
Ayesha goes, "Come home now."
I was like, "Yeah, I got a set at The Comedy Store,
so I'm gonna do that, then I'll come home."
And I went and I did a set at The Comedy Store,
and then I drove home,
and I don't know why.
I get to Kaiser and run upstairs.
My mom and my sister, they're crying,
and my sister looks at me 'cause she's responsible.
She's like, "They don't know what you did. I do."
Doctor sees me, comes over to me.
"Are you his son?" "Yeah."
"You over 18?" "Yeah."
"Sign this."
I sign this waiver
that clears the hospital of any liability
if something happens to my dad.
The surgery's that risky.
And I'm signing this piece of paper and I'm looking at him
and I feel like I'm signing a death certificate.
His body temperature's so low that he looks blue.
They wheel him into surgery,
and I hand the clipboard back to the doctor,
and I take one last look at my dad and I'm like,
man, if this is the last time I see my dad,
I'm saying goodbye to a person I barely even know.
And I'm waiting and I'm hoping
that he comes out of surgery okay.
Somehow he makes it through.
So we're sitting there in the hospital,
and I have to tell him stories,
so I'm telling him stories about my life,
he's telling me stories about his life,
and so I tell him the prom story.
He goes, "Hasan, I'm mad at you."
I was like, "I know, I kissed a girl.
I'll never do it again." (audience laughing)
He goes, "No. Why don't you forgive Bethany?"
(speaking Hindi)
I couldn't understand,
he wanted to be the bigger person again.
I was like, "Why?"
He goes, "Come on, Hasan.
You know when I first immigrated to this country in 1982?
Everything I saw on TV, I thought if I let you go
to a school dance, you would join a gang,
get a girl pregnant, and become a drug dealer
all in one night, so I wanted to protect you.
And her family, they saw stuff on TV about us.
They wanted to protect their daughter.
You're afraid of me, she's afraid of them,
everybody's afraid of everybody, but Hasan,
(speaking Hindi)
Hasan, you have to be brave,
and your courage to do what's right
has to be greater than your fear of getting hurt.
So, Hasan, be brave. Hasan, be brave."
(melancholy music)