I'm Not a Terrorist, But I've Played One on TV (13 page)

I remember other comedians congratulating me for getting the part. “Congrats man! You made it!” I would remind them that TV is very competitive and just because I was on a pilot that didn't mean that I had made it. I didn't really know how competitive it was until our show finally aired. The network premiered it in January 2007. The first night our show came on was during the college football bowl season; we were on at the same time as the Sugar Bowl, which took away a lot of our potential viewers. The second week, President Bush gave a speech just as our show began. That bumped us from our time slot and took away any momentum we might have built from the previous week. (Thanks again, George W., my constant nemesis. First you put Iran into your axis of evil, then you give a speech during my sitcom.) The third week we were on, FOX premiered
American Idol,
which at the time was attracting tens of millions of viewers each week. They killed us in the ratings. It occurred to me that if I had just learned to be a mediocre singer, it would have improved my career in television.

As I watched us sink week by week, I grew more nervous. What was going to be next? I imagined seeing an ad on FOX: “Next week, the TV event of a lifetime. Jesus comes back. One night only!” Great! Now we had to compete with Armageddon? Jesus never came back, but neither did our show. We were canceled shortly after and I went back to auditioning. One step further from a hit show and one step closer to serving lattes at Starbucks.

Back then, Sofia Vergara had not been on
Modern Family,
so she was not as well known as she is now. My experience with her and the whole cast was really great. Besides being beautiful, she was incredibly cool and fun to work with. Being a regular on the show, I had my mother come to visit one time from Los Angeles. She was impressed with the show and thought Sofia was charming and beautiful. Years later, after
The Knights of Prosperity
had been canceled and
Modern Family
became the biggest hit on TV, I got a call from my mother.

“You need to change agents.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your career. It eh-stinks I'm eh-smelling it from vay over here in Vestwood.”

“Mom, why are you being so dramatic? I live fifteen minutes away from you. Besides, I'm doing fine.”

“Just fine? Sofia isn't doing just fine. She do amazing. I saw her on cover of
Elle
magazine. You should be on cover of
Elle
magazine.”

“
Elle
is a woman's magazine.”

“So vhat? You need to tink outside the package. I bet Sofia's agents tink outside the package.”

“You mean outside the box.”

“Box, package . . . same ting. You should be on
Modern Family
. You are modern. You have a family. Call and tell dem to put you on.”

“It doesn't work that way. You have to audition against hundreds of people, land the pilot, get picked up, and hope people watch it. It's really competitive.”

“How about
American Idol
? You are kind of a mediocre singer. Have you thought about getting on dat?”

“No, Mom. I don't want to be a singer.”

“How about a lawyer?”

“What?”

“Plumber?
American Plumber
sounds nice.”

“Mom! Stop giving me career advice.”

“You have to ask yourself, ‘Vhat vould Sofia do?' ”

“So she's Jesus now?”

“Yes, but vith better hair. And a hit show.”

Nearly Killed by a Cod

I almost died in New York while filming
The Knights of Prosperity
. Not from a mugging or nearly getting hit by a cab, but by a fish. In 2006 when I was working on the show, I had a horrible experience one day with a cod. When you are on a film or TV show they provide lunch for you. That day the fish was cod. Later that night as I was being dropped off at my apartment, I began to feel a bit nauseous. I rushed to the bathroom to relieve myself, only to discover the impossible duality of also having to vomit. There is no worse feeling than having food poisoning and the poison insisting on leaving your body through multiple orifices. It's a life-altering moment when you have to decide which end of your body gets to use the toilet first.

As I was caught in this anatomical conundrum, underwear at my knees, I had the added sensation of suffocation. I didn't know it at the time, but I was hyperventilating. Apparently, my lungs didn't want to miss out on all the fun my intestines were having. If you've never hyperventilated, I highly recommend doing it in a crowded space, never alone in your bathroom. First, you get light-headed. Then just as you're about to black out, you think,
Oh hell no!
No way I'm black
ing out from breathing too heavy. Especially with my underwear at my knees. This is NOT gonna happ . . .
And boom, you're out.

Next thing I knew, I awoke in my own crime scene—facedown on the bathroom floor, underwear now at my ankles, blood on the wall. I had hit the towel holder with the back of my head as I fell and it cut a gash. Luckily I had not hit it hard enough to cause serious bleeding. This was a major relief because the last way you want to die would be from eating the wrong fish. I can imagine my funeral.

“Maz died in a fish accident.”

“He was attacked by a shark?”

“No, it was a cod.”

“A cod ate him?”

“No, he ate the cod.”

“So then how did he die?”

“I just told you. The cod killed him.”

“A cop killed Maz?”

“NO! COD! C-O-D!”

“Cash on delivery? It was a drug deal? I knew it. He was always up to something fishy.”

“No! It was a fish. Food poisoning. He died hyperventilating with his underwear at his ankles.”

“Whoa. He was eating fish with his pants off? That's some kinky shit.”

My near-death-by-cod experience during
The Knights of Prosperity
filming may have been a sign from the heavens of how the show was going to do. But such cosmic signals did not land until years later. While driving in Los Angeles, I saw a homeless person wearing an orange T-shirt that we wore in the show with the words “The Knights of Prosperity.” Seeing a homeless woman with a
T-shirt from the show that I had been on just a couple of years earlier reminded me just how fast life can go from promising to unfortunate. Maybe my mom was right. Maybe I did need new agents. “Vhat vould Sofia do?” I asked myself. I was never going to have her hair. Instead, I took mom's advice and fired my agents.

September 11

The morning of September 11, 2001, I was in Los Angeles. Like many people, I could not believe what I was watching on TV. It was heartbreaking to see all the misery and even more heartbreaking because it was happening to New York, which will always hold a special place in my heart. At the time, my younger brother, Kashi, was working near the Twin Towers, so my first instinct was to call and make sure he was okay. Once that had been confirmed I drove around Los Angeles visiting my family, in shock.

As the day went on, I seriously considered never performing comedy again. Not because I was of Middle Eastern descent, but because of the sadness that consumed me. How could anything ever be funny again? Life just seemed very tragic. Just a few days later I was scheduled to do a show at a private residence in Irvine, California. I thought for sure the show would be canceled, but when I called to check in, the host pleaded with me to perform. He told me that his wife was Turkish and that the guests were all very open-minded. He suggested that laughter was needed, now more than ever.

Hesitantly, I confirmed my appearance. America had become so crazy in those days that I honestly feared for my life. What if one of the guests decided to attack me because I was Iranian? Was this some sort of setup? Was the guy's wife really Turkish? Did
Turkey even qualify as a Middle Eastern country? I thought they were trying to join the European Union. That would mean they're European. Everyone knows Europeans hate Iranians. So by default the Turks must hate Iranians. This had to be a setup!

I went onstage—on their patio, actually, as the event was outdoors—and began my set. I don't think I had ever taken so long during a performance to reveal my ethnicity. It was a thirty-minute set. I did the first ten minutes without mentioning my background. I'm sure the guests were suspicious: “Where is this guy from? He looks Middle Eastern, but maybe he's Mexican. Let's give him a few minutes before we lynch him.”

Finally when I got up the nerve to mention ethnicity, I professed it with some regret. “I am an American citizen and have grown up in America,” I began. “I have to tell you, it's been a crazy week. So crazy that I find myself being a fan of George W. Bush. I am fully on board with him and hope we catch these terrorists! Anyway, even though I am American, I was born in Iran.” Being outdoors, you could actually hear the crickets. “I know, I know, I'm not a fan of that either. Before I go any further please join me in singing the Turkish national anthem in honor of our hostess this evening. Also, anyone who is interested can follow me to the maid's quarters where I will allow you to waterboard me to show my allegiance to this great country of ours. USA! USA!”

I didn't actually go that far, but looking out at the guests it sure felt like they were contemplating torturing me, or at the very least calling the FBI. Those were tense times, and just saying you were Middle Eastern was cause for concern. I kept waiting for the Turkish hostess to come up and give me a hug, but she never did. She was probably afraid the guests were there to get her, too. Where the hell was she? Maybe she was hiding in the closet. Either
way, the show had to go on, and my set basically turned into a speech about my allegiance to the United States. If I knew how to play the guitar, I would have started singing Kid Rock songs.

As the weeks went on, I realized there was an important role comedy would play in healing the tragedies of September 11. Comedy can help people cope, and many fans were coming to the clubs to laugh out the stress. My fellow comedians agreed that the crowds were laughing louder than ever after September 11. It was as if they were in therapy at the clubs. Another role that comedy would serve was to bring a voice of reason to an irrational time. It was not too long after the attacks when I began to notice how patriotism was blinding people to basic morality. Individuals were going around shooting anyone wearing a turban. This, unfortunately, caused many Indian Sikhs to be targeted. On a national level, I saw that the Bush administration was using the attacks as an excuse to start a war with Iraq and Afghanistan. More than ever, it was my job to talk about these issues onstage and try to bring them to light in a funny, accessible way.

Easier said than done.

One of our first shows as the Arabian Knights after September 11 was in La Jolla, California. We had not put that name on our show for about six months. When we dared to call it that again—we put it up on the marquee in a town very close to Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton—we actually received a death threat. Someone called the club and said he would be coming to take us out. The club manager brought this to the attention of me, Ahmed Ahmed and Aron Kader (the other Arabian Knights) and asked if we wanted to cancel the show. We all agreed that it was an empty threat and that we would go on with the performance. Fortunately, no one bombed that night, on or off the stage.

A giant pet peeve of mine after September 11 was when morning radio deejays would interview us Axis of Evil comedians and make assumptions: “So September eleventh really helped your careers, no?” This was insulting, ignorant, and racist. I would remind them that as an Iranian I had been dealing with being demonized since the hostage crisis. It wasn't as if I started doing stand-up right after September 11. I had been doing comedy before and I had spoken about many other topics beyond my ethnicity. These deejays were free to say such things to us because attacking Middle Easterners, Muslims, and Arabs was accepted. I doubt they would have asked a black comedian if slavery was what helped his career.

Our perseverance paid off, and one of the highlights of our tour came in New York years later. In the fall of 2007, the Axis of Evil tour arrived to do two sold-out shows at the Nokia Theater on Broadway. This was the coolest thing up to that point in my career. Our names were in bright lights on Broadway. I went down to the theater and took hundreds of pictures as the marquee lit up: “Maz Jobrani.” I didn't care how dorky I looked. I'm pretty sure Bono doesn't stand outside the venues where he performs to snap pictures of his name, but I didn't care. This was huge. We had made it to Broadway. My bigger concern was that a cop would see me and think I was casing the joint as a target for al-Qaeda.

All those years after arriving in America I found my name in lights in the greatest city on earth. As Frank Sinatra said, “If I can make it there, I'll make it anywhere.” In celebration, that night my wife and I went back to our hotel room and conceived our first child. I'm not sure if Frank's words encompassed making babies, but that night in New York they did.

Now you may be asking how I know that was the night when we made our first boy, Dhara. It wasn't that we were making
love every nine months and then waiting to see what happened. (Though that would be one way to do it.) No, we know that was the night because we both left town afterward for business trips. She went to Italy and I to the Middle East. I know where your head is at: “Italy, huh? How do you know he's not the love child of some guy named Giuseppe?” I'm going to defer to my keen eye and say that the kid has my mouth. I've observed it in many ways, doing my own little version of a DNA test, and I have concluded that the tongue, lips, and mouth belong to me. So until I run into a guy named Giuseppe who's got those same lips, mouth, and tongue, I know my theory is in good standing.
Grazie!