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

by Maz Jobrani

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  Dedicated to Joe Rein, the man who reminded me to pursue my dream

  Contents

  Introduction

  Part One: Fighting Chuck Norris and Stereotypes, in That Order

  Dallas, Texas

  Tehran, Iran

  Tiburon, California

  Los Angeles, California

  Part Two: Stand-Up and Pat-Downs: Life on the Road

  Hollywood, California

  Washington, D.C.

  Denver, Colorado

  New York, New York

  Part Three: The Persian Elvis (a.k.a. Pelvis)

  Dubai, UAE

  Beirut, Lebanon

  Amman, Jordan

  Home, Sweet Home

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Introduction

  Hello there! Thank you for picking up my book. Maybe you picked it up because you recognize me from a television show. “Isn’t that the guy from Better Off Ted and Knights of Prosperity and Life on a Stick? Whatever happened to those shows? What happens to actors when their shows get canceled?”

  Well, reader, we write books. That’s what happens when our shows get canceled. Maybe you’ve picked up this book because you saw the word “terrorist” on the cover and thought: I always knew this guy was a terrorist! Always trying to convince the American public that he’s a stand-up comedian. What a dirty piece of scum! He was never that funny anyway! Or maybe you’re related to me, and you thought: What the hell—Maz wrote a book? I wonder if he mentions me. I better buy a copy and check it out.

  Whatever the reason, thank you.

  Writing a book isn’t easy. I’m a comedian, so I’m used to writing a few lines of comedy each day, but when I was faced with writing two hundred pages I was intimidated. I immediately began to think of ways to cheat. What if I double-spaced everything? Or maybe I could add a hundred pages of pictures. That would really help move this baby along.

  However, once I began writing, it started to flow. After all, this is a story about my life. Who’s more qualified to write about me than me? I’ve been studying me for forty-two years. I’m an expert on me. I’ve got a Ph.D. in me. I wrote the book on me. Literally! And what a life it’s been! A classic immigrant story. A kid from the streets of Tehran moving to the streets of Los Angeles. (Which nowadays is packed with so many Iranians that it’s basically like living back on the streets of Tehran.) Along the way I’ve experienced a revolution, a hostage crisis, and male-pattern baldness.

  Writing a book is like going through a therapy session. It’s amazing how much you forget about your past until you’re forced to sit at a desk and put it down on paper. If you want to go through therapy but can’t afford the payments, try writing a book. When you’ve got a busy life filled with work, family, car payments, Twitter feeds, and Facebook photos, you don’t have as much time to reflect on your past. But when you have an editor with deadlines, you’re forced to dig, and you find that you have stories to tell. Like the one about how I was made to wear a turban on a Chuck Norris movie of the week. Yes, I know, you’re jealous. Don’t hate—we can’t all be friends (or, in my case, enemies) with Chuck.

  In imitation of the therapeutic process, I tell my story as I remember it. Some of the dialogue you will read wasn’t said word for word but what it actually sounded like when I heard it. My mother, whom you will read a lot about in this book, is a prime example. Anyone who has reflected on a parental relationship knows that when a mother says one thing, her kid can read a million other things into it. For example, when my mom would say, “Why can’t you go to medical school like Mina’s son?” I would hear “You’re a bum loser, and you’re a disgrace to our entire race! I never should have had you in the first place!” In fairness to my mom, she was no Joan Crawford from Mommie Dearest. She was always a loving mother who did what she thought was best. Sometimes that included hitting us with clothes hangers when we were young, but I’m sure we had it coming. To this day I have flashbacks when the dry cleaner asks me if I want my shirts folded or on hangers. I love my mom dearly, and thanks to her all my shirts now come home from the dry cleaner’s folded.

  Since my life as a comedian involves so much traveling, you could call this a travel book as well. You will read about my experiences in bars in Lebanon with Christian Lebanese (yes, there’s alcohol in the Middle East, and Christians, too!). You will read about my visit to one of the Wonders of the World, Petra in Jordan, where not only did I see the historical city built thousands of years ago, but I was peddled Indiana Jones merchandise. American capitalism at its best! There’s also my trip to the White House, where President Obama groped my wife. You want scandal? I’ve got scandal! The point is, I’ve traveled a lot. You know you’re flying too much when you consistently hit more than a hundred thousand miles per year. I’ve gotten to know the shuttle bus drivers at the parking lot, the flight attendants, and even some sure-handed TSA agents. In fact, just the other day a TSA agent fist-bumped me as I went through the metal detector—that’s how close we’ve become. Since I’m of Middle Eastern descent, the first time a TSA agent recognized me I was worried she was profiling me. Turns out she was a fan of my stand-up and just wanted to say hello. As usual, I was the one profiling myself. Much more on that later in this book.

  I hope you will enjoy reading about this Middle Eastern–American comedian’s life, because I’ve certainly enjoyed writing it. Once you read my story, I think you will see we have more in common than you anticipated when you picked up the book thinking you were grabbing the memoir of a terrorist. If you do finish the book and are still scared of me and people of my ilk, then I recommend you schedule an appointment with a therapist. Either that, or try writing your own book.

  Part One

  Fighting Chuck Norris and Stereotypes, in That Order

  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 fi
t 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.