I'm Not a Terrorist, But I've Played One On TV: Memoirs of a Middle Eastern Funny Man - Softcover

Jobrani, Maz

Softcover

ISBN 10: 147674999X ISBN 13: 9781476749990

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2016

Synopsis

“A funny, insightful memoir” (Kirkus Reviews) about growing up Iranian in America, and the quest to make it as an actor in Hollywood without having to wear a turban, tote a bomb, or get kicked in the face by Chuck Norris.

After he emigrated with his family to the US during the Iranian Revolution, Maz Jobrani spent most of his youth trying to fit in with his adopted culture—learning to play baseball and religiously watching Dallas. But none of his attempts at assimilation made a difference to casting directors, who only auditioned him for the role of kebab-eating, bomb-toting, extremist psychopath.

When he first started out in show business, Maz endured suggestions that he spice up his stand-up act by wearing “the outfit,” fielded questions about rising gas prices, and was jeered for his supposed involvement in the Iran hostage crisis. In fact, these things happened so often that he began to wonder: Could I be a terrorist without even knowing it? And when all he seemed to be offered were roles that required looking menacingly Arabic, he wondered if he would ever make it in America.

This laugh-out-loud memoir chronicles a lifetime of both killing it and bombing on stage, with “plenty to say about matters of race, assimilation, embarrassing family members, life in America for brown-skinned people before and after 9/11, the vagaries of international pop culture, and making it in big, dumb, fizzy, sometimes beautiful America” (The New York Times).

About this title

About the Author

Maz Jobrani is a founding member of The Axis of Evil Comedy Tour. He performs stand-up comedy around the world, including in Europe, Australia, and the Middle East where he performed in front of the King of Jordan. Maz starred in the films Friday After Next, 13 Going on 30, and The Interpreter. He was a series regular on ABC’s Better Off Ted, and he has guest starred on Curb Your Enthusiasm, 24, True Blood, and Shameless, to name a few. Jobrani is currently a regular panelist on NPR’s “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me.” He has also given two TED talks, which can be viewed at TED.com. He has performed his stand-up on The Tonight Show, Comedy Central, and Showtime and is starring in the indie comedy feature, Jimmy Vestvood: Amerikan Hero, which he cowrote and produced. I’m Not a Terrorist, But I’ve Played One on TV is his first book.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

I'm Not a Terrorist, but I've Played One on TV



Dallas, Texas

I was born in Iran and grew up in America. That makes me a Middle Eastern American. The only thing more intimidating for a Middle Eastern guy than going to Texas is going to Texas to meet Chuck Norris. Talk about the official Heartland of America. When it comes to terrorists, Chuck has a 100 percent kill rate, usually televised at two o’clock in the morning. One of my first big breaks was to star as a terrorist in that Chuck Norris movie I mentioned in the Introduction. Yes, I was blessed with greatness early on. So off I went to Dallas to meet him.

Most of what I knew about Dallas I learned from stereotypes picked up in my childhood. When I first came to America in the late 1970s, I didn’t know much about American sports. I was only six at the time and had played soccer back in Iran. I had never heard of American football. So once I began to settle in I started to learn how this foreign game was played.

“I get the part at the beginning where the guy kicks the ball. Why does the other guy catch it? Is he the goalkeeper? Why is he being chased by all the other guys? Does he owe them money? Why is everyone dressed in tights? These are the biggest and meanest ballerinas I’ve ever seen. Why are they hitting each other so hard? Do they have anger issues? I know why they’re angry. Because their ball isn’t round. Balls are supposed to be round. Who makes an oblong ball? You have no idea which way it’s going to bounce. I’d be pissed, too! Whoa, whoa, whoa—who are the girls dancing on the sidelines? How do they fit in? You mean they get paid just to cheer? What a country!”

Once these concerns had been properly addressed, my friend Sam—another Iranian kid who’d been in the United States for a while—led me to my first favorite sports team: the Dallas Cowboys. This was the late seventies, so the best teams in the NFL were the Dallas Cowboys and the Pittsburgh Steelers. Unaware of what the Cowboys stood for, I became a fan and only later found out that I was rooting for what was known then as “America’s Team.” What better way to become an American, I thought, than to be a fan of the most Americanny American of teams that ever existed. Plus, they have hot cheerleaders!

In recent years, the Cowboys have fallen from this pedestal as they have been afflicted with drug, sex, and violence scandals—which would be okay if they were winning. (Doing coke with a hooker in a motel and shooting people makes you un-American if the squad cannot maintain a winning record and make the playoffs at least every other year.) At any rate, when I was a kid, loving the Cowboys was like loving John Wayne and hot dogs. It made you American even if your papers said you were an alien—a legal alien, but an alien nonetheless. The Cowboys became my first exposure to what I thought represented the heartland of the country.

Iranians Love Soaps

As a result, I became fascinated with Texas, specifically the city of Dallas. My next exposure to the American Southwest came in the form of the television show Dallas, which the women in my family watched every week. Back in Iran, American film and TV were huge. My grandmother had a crush on the Six Million Dollar Man and she knew I loved him, too. She would tell me all the time that he had come over the night before and that I had fallen asleep just before he got there. She called him her “friend.”

“My ferend vas here last night just after you fall asleep.”

“Which friend?”

“Eh-Steve Austin.” Iranians cannot pronounce words that have back-to-back consonants. So Steve becomes Eh-Steve, traffic becomes te-raffic, gangster becomes gang-ester, and so forth. We also pronounce w’s as v’s. Thus my grandmother would say “ve” instead of “we.”

“You mean the Six Million Dollar Man?”

“Yes, I call him Eh-Steve. Ve are on the first name basis.”

“Did you at least take a picture with him?”

“He’s too fast! He make dat sound and run avay before I get chance. Na-na-na-na-na-na! Next time.”

All the women in my family were obsessed with American television. From Dallas to Dynasty, we followed these characters’ lives closely until they became our extended family. As a result, one thing that escaped my parents was the idea of what might be appropriate for a kid to watch. If they were watching the Ewings on Dallas or the Carringtons on Dynasty they never thought: Is all this sex and scandal okay for an eight-year-old to watch?

Whereas my American friends’ parents might not let them watch Dallas because of its mature themes and late time slot, my parents didn’t care. I don’t think immigrant parents really understand the ratings system. They think that PG (Parental Guidance) means that a movie will give “parental guidance” to your kid while you go shopping for gold jewelry, chandeliers, and marble counters at the mall. So you can drop them off for a few hours and they will watch the movie while the movie is watching them. I even remember my aunt turning on The Exorcist and not thinking twice while we sat next to her as Linda Blair’s head did a 360 and puked out green vomit. Who lets their eight-year-old watch The Exorcist? It’s possible they misunderstood and thought the movie was about exercising. When they saw my prepubescent face, all contorted and scared, they developed a callous attitude: “Look at this lazy child of ours. You are big pussy! You are afraid of exercising? You need to vatch that movie again. You’re looking a bit chubby.”

Every week the women in my family would follow the soap opera revolving around the Ewings and their oil empire. I don’t know what drew my family to the Ewings, but I suppose our affluence and coming from a country rich in oil might have had something to do with it. Once Dallas got old they started watching Dynasty—more rich people surrounded by scandal.

My grandmother didn’t speak much English, but she religiously watched and understood all these soap operas better than the rest of us. Sometimes when I was home sick from school, she would take care of me and turn on General Hospital and tell me all the details of every story line.

“Dat guy married to dat girl, but she doesn’t know he not really deh guy, but his evil tvin. Deh real guy kept hostage in basement vhile the evil tvin try to get all of de money ferom deh girl. Dat von der is deh girl’s fader who is a really good guy and a philanthropist. Ve like him, Maz.”

“How do you get all that?”

“Because I’m not idiot.”

“But you barely speak English.”

“Yes, but I understand love. I understand dese people. Ve are the same.”

I would watch these shows and I even became such a Joan Collins fan that I read one of her sister’s books. How an eight-year-old Iranian boy from Marin County got his hands on a Jackie Collins book is a mystery. My parents could barely read the back of a toothpaste tube in English, much less a whole novel. I think one of my aunts or my older sister had picked it up so I decided to give it a read, which made me yearn to be older immediately. I remember thinking, Wow! Adults have so much sex and scandal and money! I can’t wait to grow up!

Buying Dog Food for a Stripper

The Ewings and the Cowboys, Joan Collins and her literary sister—these were the people I thought of when I thought of Texas. My first time going to Dallas was to do the Chuck Norris movie, and I remember asking some of the locals how things worked.

“Where do people go out in Dallas? What’s the thing to do at night?”

“Strip clubs.”

“Okay, but where do the locals go out? Where do J. R. and Bobby Ewing hang out?”

“You mean Larry Hagman and Patrick Duffy?”

“Sure, I guess.”

“They’re actors. They probably hang out in Los Angeles somewhere.”

“I just came from Los Angeles.”

“Maybe you’ll see them when you go back.”

“I guess I’ll go to a strip club then. Just to see if they’re hanging out there.”

Quickly my glamorous image of Dallas dissipated and reality set in. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of cultural stuff to do in Dallas—like going to the Book Depository where Lee Harvey shot JFK. However, when you ask local dudes what a dude from Los Angeles should do to experience authentic Dallas nightlife, four out of five will tell you to go to a strip club.

Middle Eastern men are stereotypically known to be macho—IROC-Z, gold chain, Drakkar Noir, manly men. (Basically like Italians, but using words that have the KHHHHH sound.) Some of these men might still exist with multiple wives they don’t talk to, kids they don’t play catch with, and girlfriends they take to clubs for bottle service. However, in this modern age where women have stepped up to run companies and men have been encouraged to talk to therapists about their feelings, most of the Middle Eastern men I know no longer fit the stereotype. My Middle Eastern friends change diapers, ask permission of their wives to watch a football game with friends, and shuttle kids around in SUVs. And in keeping with the image of the modern Middle Eastern male, I’m going to come right out and say it: I HATE STRIP CLUBS! I know some of the old-school macho Middle Eastern men are dropping this book right now saying, “Okay, dats it. I’ve had enough! Vhat kind of fancy pansy bullshit is dis? KHHHHHHH.” I’m sorry to say, it’s the truth.

I know some men love strip clubs, and even the nineteen hijackers from September 11 were reported to have gone to some on the nights before they attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. As if I didn’t hate these guys enough, hearing that they went to strip clubs gave me even more reason to despise them. Why would they go? I thought their ultimate goal was to obtain seventy-two virgins. I’m going out on a limb here, but my guess is there aren’t a lot of virgins at strip clubs. And while we’re on the topic of the seventy-two virgins as a motivation to kill yourself, which I have a tough time believing, my question is, why would these idiots want virgins in the first place? I’ve been with a few virgins in my life. It’s not fun. I’m not too proud to admit it—I was once a virgin myself. I can tell you I had no idea what I was doing in my virgin days. So why someone would kill themselves to be with seventy-two inexperienced women is beyond me. You’d think they’d want someone who could show them a good time, expose them to questionable rashes, get them to swing on chandeliers, somersault onto the bed into perfect splits, slide down fireman’s poles, that kind of stuff.

Before I ever went to a strip club, I always thought they’d be like Disneyland for adults. I thought you would enter to see the forbidden, experience sensuality, and revel in mystery. I soon came to realize that it was nothing like that, but more like a bus stop with naked women begging you for twenties. Which, by the way, would make taking the bus much more interesting. I think city officials should really consider hiring strippers to work bus stops—could help encourage public transportation. I’m just saying.

I know that some women reading this are rolling their eyes. “Yeah right, you don’t like strip clubs. That’s a bunch of crap.” But I swear, there are a lot of men who feel uncomfortable in these places. Here’s the best way I can explain it. There is a stereotype that women love shopping and the only thing they love more than shopping is shopping for shoes. Now, imagine trying on a bunch of beautiful, hot, sexy shoes but only having them spin around on your feet and then watching them go slip onto someone else’s feet. You don’t get to take them home; you don’t get to keep them. You could, for another twenty bucks, try them on again, but there’s a bouncer standing close by making sure you don’t rub the shoes while you try them on. Yes, in this analogy there are shoe bouncers. Oh, and there’s a two-drink minimum while you’re trying on these shoes, even if you’re not thirsty. As you can see, this could be really frustrating.

One of the tricks of strip clubs you figure out fast is that all of the songs are shortened. So whereas you might get a lap dance with a stripper on a song like Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” which is six minutes long, at a strip club it would last closer to two minutes. The song would finish and you’d turn to your friend:

“Was that six minutes? That didn’t feel like six minutes.”

“I don’t know, bro, I’m drunk.”

“We must be having so much fun that six minutes passed in two minutes. Let’s get another dance.”

“I’m with you, bro.”

“Okay good—this next song is Pink Floyd’s ‘Shine on You Crazy Diamond,’ which fortunately is seventeen minutes long. This is going to be a quality lap dance.”

Two minutes later:

“Was that seventeen minutes? That didn’t feel like seventeen minutes.”

The other thing you experience is a false sense of your own attractiveness. All these hot young women are walking up to you asking if you want to hang out with them.

Wow, I think this new blazer I bought makes me look really hot because all of these scantily clad, beautiful women in lingerie keep staring at me. As Sally Field would say, “I can’t deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me!” Turns out that right then they just really liked my credit card, which at that time in my comic career was maxed out.

I once talked to a stripper for a while and the conversation came around to the fact that she needed a sugar daddy. She was telling me about her rent problems and how she had a little dog she needed to feed and the whole time I was thinking, I wonder how many months’ rent I could cover with my credit card that might have $250 left before it hits the limit. Maybe I could at least pay for a bag of dog food for her dog. I wonder if that gives me a shot with this girl.

I know this is a story about Dallas, but to be completely honest the dog food conundrum occurred at a strip club in Los Angeles. There are so many Persians in Los Angeles and we have a reputation for being well-off financially, so perhaps this girl was thinking that I was a sheikh or a shah or at least a chiropractor—for some reason there’s an inordinate number of Persian chiropractors in Los Angeles. I think it’s because it’s an easy way to consider yourself a doctor and impress people while also being able to charge insurance companies and make the kind of money to be able to afford a Mercedes-Benz, which every self-loving Persian owns—preferably in black with a personalized license plate like CHIRODK which could be read as Chiro Dick but is actually meant to be read as Chiro Doc.

But back to Dallas. My costar on the Chuck Norris film, who was also a Middle Easterner playing a terrorist, talked me into going to a strip club, since that seemed to be the place most recommended by the locals. At the time I was dating a girl who would later become my wife and I felt bad going to the strip club and not telling her even though I honestly didn’t want to go. At some point I gave in to my guilt and decided to call her to tell her where I was.

“Honey, it’s me. I have something very important to tell you.”

“What?”

“I’ve just realized that I really, really love you.”

“That’s nice to hear, Maz. What made you come to this conclusion?”

“Well I’m at a strip club and I was talking to this ...

About this edition

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 147674999X
• ISBN 13: 9781476749990
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240