True Stories by Rob Corddry: Rob Corddry Rings the Gack

I’ve written before about how much I hate other parents, right? Hold on, let me rifle through my essays past and double check…

…vicodin…lesbian porn…my wife is awesome…vicodin…Guided by Voices…pants shitting…vicodin…

Yup, here it is. I wrote one about how other parents are condescending and shallow and about how I hate spending time with anyone who’s vagina has “passed a human”. Well, I’m about to append that belief as it has recently changed. I also hate spending time with myself, because I’ve become one of those tiresome zombies.

I was starting this week’s column with the sentence, “My daughter has been projectile vomiting all weekend” when I realized that I have become one of those people who have no frame of reference past their own children. Last week I did a show called "Asssscat" at The Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in New York. My job was to create monologues based on an audience suggestion from which other performers would create scenes. I did about eight monologues that night, all of which had something to do with my child.

I have not, thank god, started talking about pre-schools or strollers or Osh-Kosh B’Gosh. I haven’t yet fully gulped the Kool-Aid. I’m still using a sippy cup. But I can’t remember having a conversation that didn’t somehow refer back to my daughter and the always-story-worthy things she does.

So, patient readers, allow me this one last indulgence. Permit me one final Stream of Kidsciousness and I will be done. Two weeks from now I’ll be back, talking about diarrhea and making fun of black people. Thanks in advance.


-Here is a list of words my daughter can say: Mama, Dada, Banana, boat, car, sock, hiya, bye, cup, hot, hat, cookie, apple, back, water, bottle, Nana, book, bike, bag, various animal sounds, no more, burp, diaper, night-night, bubble, pop, cat, buckle, echo, thank-you (sounds like “dada”), boo-boo, pocket and Bukakke. Allow me to back up.

She was trying to say “car-car”, an appropriation that appears in a song we sing to her whenever we are driving in the car and she is crying (which is all of the time). She also loves “B” sounds and, not surprisingly, landed upon “Boo-ca-ca”. “Bukakk-ee” was not far behind. My mom was visiting and heard my wife and me laughing and I soon found myself having to define “Bukakke” for my Christian mother. It went well. I anchored my definition in the ancient Japanese ceremony on which the graphic fetish porn is supposedly based. Regardless of how technical you are in your definition of “Bukakke”, it still ends with, “And they ejaculate all over her face.” My mother is nothing if not a good sport.

By the way, if you Google Bukakke (which I just did) the first site listed is actually the “official” Bukakke site. The author of the site is quoted thusly, “Asian bukakke is as good as Extreme bukakke but I do like UK bukakke, and I do think that American bukakke and Tampa bukakke is great…” I alerted him to his grammatical errors in a concise and well-executed email, hoping they were not just stylish flair. I’ll report back to you when I get his thankful reply.

-One Fish ,Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish is not a good book. It’s supposedly about fish and how they come in varying numbers and colors, but around page 10 it totally jumps the shark. By page 58 kids are playing “Ring the Gack”. I played “Ring the Gack” once in college and once, a few years later, while taking ecstasy. Ringing the Gack, as I know it, is not something kids need to know about until, at least, Junior High. Boo, Dr. Suess, Boo! You should have your medical license revoked!

-My penis. She saw it the other day and went straight for it, smiling and pointing. Luckily my wife was watching and alerted me before she got to there. But I’m wont to travel the house naked and I fear that, someday, her sticky hands will find it. But that story has not yet happened.

-She kisses everything: other kids, boo-boos, the floor, the TV when Elmo is on, other kids’ boo-boos, rocks, books, a fireman the other day, the bottom of her plate, the wheels on her stroller, dogs, her clothes, our fax machine, her diapers (or, more specifically, the picture of Winnie the Pooh on her diapers) the air, a picture of George Bush in the newspaper (no joke – she got newspaper ink on her lips), anyone or anything we tell her to kiss, and probably my penis if my wife hadn’t been quick enough.

-She has started throwing tantrums and I have no idea what to do. Usually my wife knows how to handle every situation, like she was born with a spider sense but for babies. But, for the first time, my wife seems flummoxed as well. My wife thinks we should somehow let her know that we understand she is angry but that a tantrum is not an appropriate way to express it. I think we should drop her into a rusty Saw-like maze of death-traps for ninety minutes and let Jigsaw teach her what’s right and wrong. People always learn their lessons in Saw movies.

-After my second time in rehab, I made the mistake of doing blow behind my fat, black bodyguard. He went on the Today Show and told everyone about it and now my ex-husband has become the honorable one in our custody battle. So what if I give my kids soda, let them stay up past last-call and treat them like they’re nothing more than huge, fleshy action figures? Oh, and I flashed the world my pussy again.

I can’t think of any more stories, isn’t that ironic? Perhaps it’s because I haven’t cornered you at a party. Perhaps the baby-story trigger is watching someone chew their arm off in order to get away from me and my tales. I’m not that worried. I write for SuicideGirls, I have street cred to burn, right?

In case I don’t, I’ve been compensating in other ways. I was walking to the store the other day to buy Gatorade for my dehydrated baby (she was puking, remember? That’s what this story used to be about? I’m like a modern day Dr. Suess.) when I came across some gutter punks outside The Knitting Factory selling Seraphim Slaughter CDs. The most pimpled one told me that the second song, “Stabbed with an AIDS Needle” will cure homosexuality if you listen to it eight times. I asked him which song would make me cool again. He said told me that number six, “Armagedon Raperrampage” may help but that it hasn’t been tested.

I bought two.



Rob Corddry is an actor. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and daughter.

web address: http://suicidegirls.com/news/culture/22360/