I'm Not a Terrorist, But I've Played One on TV (12 page)

I grew so tired of reading stupid stuff from stupid people online that I came up with an app to cure this epidemic. I am calling it the Twitslap app. It's an app where you can slap somebody for saying something stupid online. I want to have a hand come out of the mobile device where someone is writing something stupid and actually slap him. I haven't perfected the technology, but if an engineer is reading this and knows how to do it, please get in touch with me @MazJobrani. If all goes well we can move to Facebook next to create Faceslap. Then YouTube for Youslap. Then Yahoo for Yahooslap. Okay, fine, that one needs a little work.

Casey Kasem Was Arab

In 2008, I had traveled to Denver to perform, and there was no terrorist activity. Instead there was hope. It was the Democratic National Convention and the Arab American Institute had organized a comedy show with Middle Eastern comedians. This was after eight years of George W. Bush, and we were all sick of being portrayed as bad guys and enemies of America. Barack Obama gave us hope that we could come out of 2008 with a positive change to our image and a more level playing field.

A limousine picked us up from the airport. I assumed we would be driven in a Toyota Prius, which has much lower emissions than a limo, given that the Democrats were going to change
everything that was wrong under Bush. But the limo company was owned by an Arab, so it probably was given to the Arab American Institute for a discount. For some reason Arabs and Persians own a lot of limousine companies. I'm guessing it's so they can make money driving people around and then when they need a car for a fancy party they can just pick one out of the garage and look good pulling up to the valet.

We took our limo ride to the venue and were received with open arms by all the politically active Middle Easterners, Muslims, and liberal white people who had come to see us. We felt like we were part of a big wave of change. We even had a U.S. congressman stop by our show to give a speech of support. It was such a great night that the other comedians and I decided to celebrate between shows with a few drinks.

By the time the second show began, I was feeling loose onstage. I even felt like riffing a bit on my prepared material and had a wonderful time. All was well until a week later. I got an e-mail from a man saying he had been at the second show and was ashamed of me for being on drugs. I had no idea what he was talking about as I don't do drugs, so I e-mailed him back to make sure he was talking about me. He told me that he was an Iranian American who had been in law enforcement and he was adept at telling when people are drugged out. He felt that as a role model in the community, I needed to set a better example.

At this point, most people would tell this guy to go fuck himself. But I'm a peaceful and diplomatic person so I explained to this gentleman that while I'd had a few drinks, I did not use drugs. After a little back and forth he came around and we actually became friends . . . or acquaintances. Okay, we became people who text each other once in a while, although really not that much, and
typically as a mistake. Fine—he's a contact in my phone and I don't know how to delete him.

But through this experience, I realized something. Even scarier and more laden with responsibility than being mistaken for a terrorist—how had I become mistaken for a role model? It occurred to me that our community had not had many people that it could cling to as role models in this country. We've had so much bad press and such a horrible image in the mainstream media that when someone like me shows up, no matter how small my success, the community embraces him as a role model. Whereas Italians had Al Pacino and Joe DiMaggio, Jews had Steven Spielberg and Sandy Koufax, African Americans had Sidney Poitier and Michael Jordan, Middle Easterners had Casey Kasem and the Iron Sheik. I bet you didn't know Casey Kasem was Arab. Ask any Arab and they will tell you, “Oh yes, he was one of us.” Middle Easterners will talk your ear off about how many people in America are undercover Middle Easterners, meaning they don't really talk about their Middle Eastern-ness in the media. Casey Kasem, Salma Hayek, Tony Shalhoub, Danny Thomas, Freddie Mercury, Paul Anka, Shannon Elizabeth, Vince Vaughn, Jerry Seinfeld (whose mother was born in Syria), Andre Agassi, Tom Cruise . . . okay that last one is made up, but you never know, his real name might be Taymour Khoroos. “Khoroos” means “rooster” in Persian, so that could be why he changed his name. I'm just saying.

Back to my point. Maybe I don't want to be a role model. How are role models chosen? One doesn't apply to be a role model. Role models are simply appointed, which isn't really fair. What if you want to pick your nose and drink beer in public? What if you want to pick your nose WHILE drinking beer in public? Can you pick your nose and drink beer at the same time? What if you have fat
fingers and can't get them up your nose while you're drinking in public? If you're a role model, you have to think through all these minute-to-minute decisions.

I have since come to embrace the position, albeit reluctantly. The problem with accepting that you're a role model is that it allows critics within the community to scrutinize your every move. I am a board member of an organization called the Persian American Cancer Institute, which tries to get Iranians to sign up for the bone marrow registry so that when another Iranian needs a bone marrow transplant we have a good resource. One of our projects was to inspire younger people to sign up using a funny video. I proposed we do a video where there is a guy procrastinating and not signing up. Part of this guys' character is that he farts a lot. The reason I chose to have him fart was because I figured that would help young people enjoy the video and get the message to them in a lighthearted way. Look, I'm a comedian—even when the topic is bone cancer, farts make me laugh.

When we posted the video, I got e-mails from people in the Iranian community condemning my use of lowbrow humor. “How dare you put out such a video? You are a role model. I expected more from you.” And that is why I can never
fully
embrace the role model position. I believe that in life you need to stay true to your principles. If you begin to give in to what others expect of you, then you're done, especially as an artist. So let me be clear right now. I am standing by my principles: Farts are funny.

Don't Wear a Backpack at Home Depot

When you're a comedian you travel the world doing your gig for people from America to Canada to Europe to the Middle East.
Some people see my schedule and say, “Man, you are so lucky. You've seen the world.” A lot of the time I fly in the night before, do my set, and leave the next day. Most spare time is spent trying to catch up on sleep. So whereas people think I've seen the world, I've actually seen a lot of nice hotel rooms around the world. With some of the cities I travel to, the clubs are located in the suburbs. So there have been times when I forget which city I'm in. One time when I was in Denver, I looked out my hotel window to see a Home Depot across the freeway. I had to think for a minute whether I was in Denver or Dallas. And if I was looking for a little mindless entertainment to pass the time, the Home Depot constituted all of the options within walking distance.

There's actually a lot to do inside a Home Depot. The stores are like small countries. You can browse the power tools. You can check out all the innovations they've made in kitchen fixtures. You can buy the light bulbs your wife has been asking you to buy for months, although you haven't had the time to actually go to a Home Depot in your hometown. But if there's one thing I've learned as a Middle Eastern American, it's that when you go to Home Depot looking like me, you should not go wearing a backpack. Backpacks on a Middle Easterner or a Muslim in any place—other than a university or a backpack store—are cause for concern. If you don't believe me, ask the two Moroccan guys who were the original suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings. They had their pictures plastered on the front cover of the
New York Post
—and only because they were brown guys wearing backpacks at the site of the bombings. It was later proven that they were innocent, but I guarantee you they learned this lesson: Next time at a public event, fanny packs only.

New York, New York

N
ew York holds a special place in my heart. It was the first city I arrived in when I came to America in late 1978. Whenever I see movies from that era I feel nostalgic for the Big Apple—films like
Saturday Night Fever,
with John Travolta as Tony Manero. Yes, I get emotional when I see John Travolta dance. Don't judge me. This just means I'm in touch with my feminine side. Must be all the soymilk I've been drinking lately. Did you know soymilk increases your estrogen levels? I didn't either until I woke up one morning with breasts—really cute, perky ones, I finally decided, after staring at them in the mirror for a solid three hours. I should've known something was wrong when I began watching
Sex and the City
reruns with my wife and her friends, sipping rosé wine and relaxing in my yoga pants.

But I digress. I didn't actually see
Saturday Night Fever
in 1978.
Back then I had no idea who John Travolta was. My first exposure to his films came a couple years later when we moved to Marin County. The family friends we first stayed with had a heavyset son named Mohammad who loved the movie
Grease
. He and his female cousin, Mahnaz, would reenact the film's final dance scene for me and my sister, who were a few years younger and new to America. I was in awe of how cool these two were when they would turn on Mohammad's record player to the final song—“You're the One That I Want”—flick on a strobe light, and perform the full dance for us. My favorite moment of our private
Grease
show was when Mohammad would drop to his knees like Travolta does at seeing Olivia Newton-John in her digs and looking sexy. The only difference being that Travolta was a lean Italian dude in a cool black outfit and greased-back hair while Mohammad was a plump Iranian ten-year-old in ill-fitting clothes and prescription glasses that would roll down the tip of his nose every time he did the drop. Not to mention that given Mohammad's weight, the whole floor of the house shook whenever he landed on his knees. The first time this happened, I thought we were experiencing one of the famous Californian earthquakes. Even back then I knew my friends' attempt at being cool Americans wasn't really working, but I never let on. After all, I was fresh off the boat. Who was I to judge?

Anyway,
Saturday Night Fever
makes me emotional for the New York City portion of my childhood—FAO Schwarz, fancy hotels, room service that brought strawberries and whipped cream every night. Maybe that's why I miss those days—when I was six, I could eat all the whipped cream I wanted. Now, if I add whipped cream to any food I will spend two days beating myself up for eating unhealthy. I have a weird, middle age, suburban eating disorder. I tend to go through my days eating pretty well—tuna sandwiches,
nuts, fruits—and then at the last minute, messing everything up with a Kit Kat and a glass of wine. Inevitably, that leads to two glasses then three, then
Sex and the City
reruns, then a cheeseburger to get rid of the buzz and an episode of
Deadliest Catch
to nullify the estrogen.

My Dad the King

My New York experience is also where I remember my dad being in his prime. At the time he was in his mid-forties, rich and on top of his game. He was a real manly man and to a six-year-old boy, nothing is cooler than watching someone like that in action. I remember going to restaurants and seeing my dad pay for everyone. It didn't matter how many other families were with us, he would always pick up the tab. That's something Persians have to do. We pay for everyone and will argue to make sure that we get awarded the bill. Whereas in America people split the check, that is unheard of in the Persian culture. You will never hear two Persians getting a check and breaking down the items.

“Let's see, I had the grilled cheese and the iced tea.”

“That'll be eight ninety-seven for you. I had the ham sandwich and a glass of water so I owe six ninety-eight. Plus tip, that's ten dollars for you and eight dollars for me.”

The conversation with Persians goes more like this:

“Here, I pay.”

“No, no. I pay.”

“No! No! No! I insist! I pay!”

“No! No! No! No! You pay last time. I insist, I pay!”

“No! No! No! If you pay you insult me. I pay!”

“If you pay, you insult me, my father, and my father's father!”

“I mean no insult to your ancestors. However, I insist, I pay!”

“If you pay, I will never talk to you again!”

“If you pay, I will be forced to report you and your family to immigration and have you deported so that you will never be able to pay in America again!”

“If you pay, I will have you executed so you will never be able to pay on earth again!”

“That settles it. I will see you in hell! How much tip do I leave on twenty-seven fifty-two?”

My father was constantly going through these battles whenever we were dining with other Persians. When we ate with American friends, it was my dad saying, “I pay!” And the Americans responding, “Okay, sure, that works.”

It was not that our American friends were cheap. It's just a cultural thing with us Persians. I would watch as my dad would pay all the bills and it made me feel proud. I would celebrate most of these meals with my strawberry and whipped cream desserts and I would feel on top of the world. It was great being a six-year-old on a sugar high with a dad who paid for everything.

When we were driving home from one of these New York dinners one night, my dad drank so much that he put his foot out the passenger side window and began to dance. He turned up the music and wiggled his leg at oncoming traffic. He didn't seem to care if anyone noticed. He wasn't even worried that the cops would see him and think he was acting belligerent. To me, a young boy, he looked like he was a king, enjoying life without worrying about repercussions. It was only later that I came to understand my father was a functioning alcoholic. Orange juice and vodka was to him what Starbucks macchiatos are to people today. “I will take a venti vodka orange juice please, no foam. And add a shot.” I was too
young to know the difference, clapping along in the backseat and enjoying the show.

This wasn't the first time I had been in a car with my dad when he'd been drinking. In Tehran years earlier, we were on our way home from a party and came across a pack of wild dogs roaming our neighborhood. For no reason I can recall, my dad, who was driving this time, pulled the car over and got out, wearing a nice suit and dress shoes. He had been hitting the drink that night, so he was in king mode. He grabbed a rock and started chasing the dogs while yelling at them. He didn't consider that these were wild dogs that might rip him apart for a meal. When you're in king mode you can take on anything—even wild animals foaming at the mouth. I, of course, adored it—my brave father taking on a pack of dogs, in dress shoes no less!

In hindsight, it was the vodka that made him so brave. He hadn't thought through what he planned on doing if the dogs attacked him. When you're that drunk you probably don't spend a lot of time thinking about what comes next after they don't run away. Either way, he managed to scare them off and survived that episode. Considering this story years later, it occurs to me there are several things wrong with it.

First—and to point out the obvious—he was driving drunk. But in the early 1970s in Tehran that was not a big deal. I believe the rule then was that as long as you're conscious, then you're okay to drive. If the cops pulled you over they would administer the field sobriety test, which in Iran was basically the ability to stand on your own two feet and dance like you're turning a light bulb. That's the national Iranian dance. Try it. It's a lot of fun. Just hold your hands in the air and act like you're screwing in a light bulb. Now turn your hips as you do that and, voilà, you're proficient at
both dancing Persian and passing an Iranian field sobriety test. If you got out of the car and fell flat on your face, then that was it. They would take your keys from you. Of course, if you could touch your nose with your fingers while you were flat on your back then they would reconsider and give you a second chance at the test. If you could screw the light bulb while you were on the ground, they would turn up the radio and actually buy you a drink.

Second, my dad was driving drunk with his young son and daughter in the backseat NOT buckled into seat belts. Again, in the mid-1970s in Tehran that was par for the course. Why would you put a seat belt on your kids? That would just make it harder to get them out if there was an accident. If you left them loose in the backseat then in case of an accident they would just fly out of the car and land on the sidewalk, or a cushiony crowd of bystanders. Also, back then and even today we didn't have child seats in the Middle East. To us a child seat was grandma's lap.

Last, reflecting on Dad versus Wild Dogs, I realize there's an issue PETA members might have with him chasing the dogs with a rock. For any animal activist planning a case against my father, let me assure you that the dogs were wild and possibly dangerous. Furthermore, I don't think my dad actually threw the rock at them, but I can't be sure of that. I was too busy wrestling with my sister in the back of the car to get a good look. In Iran, for the most part, dogs aren't accepted as pets as they are in America. Pets are roosters and hens, and sometimes they get names, and sometimes they get eaten. This is bad news, of course, for the kids who grow attached to Rahim the rooster but good news for the parents who use Rahim to impregnate all the other hens, then eat the horny bird. Also, Iranians keep their parents and grandparents in their homes until they die, so we're too busy cleaning up after
our relatives to chase dogs. While in America people chase their parents out of the house, in Iran we chase dogs out of the house. Either way, someone has to go.

Later in life, as my dad got older and lost most of his money in bad investments, he told me he had wanted to buy a building in Midtown Manhattan when we first came to America.

“Today dat building is vorth von hundred fifty million dollars. I could have been king of New York, dancing vith my feet out the vindow every night on Fifth Avenue. But your mom vanted to go to California for sunshine. I never should have listened to her. Dat sun cost me a hundred and fifty million dollars.”

When I told my mom this, she had a different take: “You know how cold deh vinters are in New York? He put his foot out deh vindow so much he vould have died from ferostbite. And you vere too eh-skinny to survive dat veather. That's vhy ve fed you so much eh-strawberries and vhipped keream. Ve vere terying to make you pelump for the vinters. Anyvay, your father vould have lost dat money, too. It is a good ting I talked him out of it. At least he got a tan!”

What Would Sofia Vergara Do?

In 2006, I lived in New York during the taping of a short-lived TV show I did for ABC called
The Knights of Prosperity
. This was a show about a group of low-income workers who were down and out on their luck. In order to make some money, they decided to rob Mick Jagger. It starred Donal Logue as a janitor who had come up with the idea and it had a cast of six people. I played Gourishankar Subramaniam, the Indian cab driver who was also a womanizer and served as the driver of the group's getaway car. The
female member of the group was a diner waitress played by Sofia Vergara. It was a very funny show, top-notch writing, great critical reviews, and subsequently canceled by the eighth or ninth episode.

People don't realize how tough it is to get on a hit sitcom. I've had people come up to me and say, “Maz, you should be on that show! You'd be great. You should call the producers and have them put you on it.” I wish it were that easy.

“Hello? Is this the production office of
Louie
? Yes, I would like to submit myself to play the part of Louie. Oh, Louie is playing Louie? How about his brother? Cousin? Neighbor? Those parts don't exist? Hmmm. Can I at least serve coffee at production meetings? Great, see you in the morning!”

Here's how it really works. Each year, from around the end of summer until early fall, the major networks ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX hear pitches for shows. I don't know what the exact number is, but I know it's a lot of pitches, probably in the hundreds. From those pitches they will order a bunch of scripts. From those scripts they will then order pilot episodes for a handful of shows. I think the year I did
Knights of Prosperity
, ABC ordered ten or twelve comedy pilots. A pilot is just one episode of the show that the networks will spend millions to make and then focus-group. From the pilots shot, they will then choose about four or five of those shows to put on the air in the fall. In 2006,
The Knights of Prosperity
had been chosen as one of the shows for ABC. I auditioned and got the part.

The auditioning process is ruthless. You're up against hundreds of people gunning for one part. The closer you get, the more the pressure builds. This culminates in something called a network test, where they will narrow the part down to three or four actors and have you all come in at the same time and audition in front of
the show's producers as well as the heads of the network and the studio. It's especially nerve-wracking because before you go in for the final audition, they've already negotiated your contract, so you know that if you get the part you stand to make tens of thousands of dollars a week. Of course, should you end up blowing it, you're back to making lattes at Starbucks.