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

by Maz Jobrani

  “Can we cancel it?” he would ask.

  “No, we can’t cancel it. The kids have been promoting me for months. I can’t flake on them this late.”

  “Maz, it’s fifty grand!”

  “I hate those damn kids! But I can’t do it. I can’t.”

  “Fifty grand, Maz!”

  “Maybe the kids will buy a lot of DVDs.”

  One event I was able to make was the launch of a new real estate development company in the summer of 2008. For anyone who has forgotten or was not yet born in 2008, the real estate bubble did, in fact, burst worldwide right around that time. So launching a real estate company that year was like buying your wife a diamond necklace the night before you catch her in bed with your best friend. These guys went all out and hired me as well as two world-renowned pianists who were flown in from Japan. No expense was spared. I flew out to do the gig with crutches because I had broken my ankle playing soccer the week before. At the time my wife was pregnant with our first child. I remember telling the organizers that if she went into labor, I might have to cancel the show. Everyone was asking why. It’s a seventeen-hour flight from Dubai to Los Angeles, so even if I tried to make it in time, geography was working against me. I was discussing this with a young Jordanian driver on the way to the event. Yes, the driver was Jordanian. This was Dubai, so no locals were to be found.

  “But Maz, why do you have to be there? Do you deliver the baby? This is the woman’s job, not ours. She goes in the room, has the baby, and then you see him afterwards.”

  That’s how a lot of people think of Middle Eastern men—that we are these macho guys with submissive wives—whereas I’m a modern Middle Eastern man who’s grown up in the West and who feels it’s my responsibility to be in the hospital room when my wife goes into labor, mostly because I’m the main reason she’s there to begin with. Also, I want to see the baby the moment he is born because, like other men, I’m curious if he’ll have my eyes, and I must be sure he’s the same color as me. My father missed my birth. He was out of the country with my uncle who was very sick and needed medical attention in England at the time. Given that I was the first boy of the family, my dad often told me how proud and happy he was when he got the news. A good friend who happened to be a colonel in the Iranian army called him and told him that he’d had a son. My father replied, “Take his balls, place them on your shoulders, and consider yourself promoted to a general!” It sounds much more poetic in the Turkish dialect that my father spoke, but the point is that he was very happy to have a boy. And before any testicle rights organizations begin protesting this book, I just want to clarify that he didn’t really mean for his friend to cut off my balls and place them on his shoulders. He was just trying to say that I was so special that by placing my balls on his shoulders his friend would become a general. Okay, that still doesn’t sound right. Let’s forget that story.

  Anyway, I was so into the upcoming birthing experience that I did the un-macho-est thing that a Middle Eastern man can do—I enrolled my wife and me in Lamaze classes. Biggest waste of time and money and macho-ness ever! If your wife asks you to do this, tell her to take your balls, put them . . . No, don’t do that. Just spend that money on a nice dinner when she’s pregnant and enjoy one of the last peaceful moments you will have together. Because once that baby arrives, you won’t see each other for a long time. No sleep, no romance, no breathing together. Just poop, puke, and burping—and that’s just your wife.

  The day my son was born—a day that I was mercifully not a seventeen-hour plane ride away—the only thing my wife used her breathing for was to yell at me before she kicked me out of the hospital room. Women in labor tend to take it out on their husbands and rightfully so. We just sit there staring at them while they’re doing all the work and then when the baby arrives we tell people that “we” had a baby. “We” didn’t do crap. She did it all. In order to help the process, though, we hired a doula. The doula and I played good cop/bad cop with my wife. I was the bad cop because no matter what I said or did, it resulted in my wife yelling at me.

  “Honey, you want some water?”

  “GET OUT!”

  “How about a massage?”

  “GET THE HELL OUT!”

  “Okay, I’m just going to take a walk around the emergency room and see if anyone wants to hear some jokes. Let me know if you want to hear any because I could really cheer you up.”

  “YOU WANT TO CHEER ME UP? GET THE HELL OUT! YOU DID THIS TO ME! YOU’RE LUCKY I CAN’T STAND UP. I WOULD KICK YOUR ASS, JOKEY-MAN!”

  “I love you, too, dear. Keep up the good work.”

  The doula, on the other hand, was the good cop. Anything she said my wife listened to.

  “You want some water?”

  “Yes, Doula.”

  “How about a massage?”

  “Yes, Doula.”

  “You wanna hear some jokes?”

  “You’re a comedian, too? You’re so amazing, Doula! Please, do tell. I could use some cheering up!”

  As I was going in and out of the hospital room trying to appease my wife in the midst of thirty-two hours of labor, it occurred to me that maybe the Jordanian driver knew what he was talking about when he told me to stay out of the room. Ultimately, my wife had a C-section and I was in there to see my son born. It was magical and gross all at the same time, like the first time you French kiss. “Oh, wow! She’s got her tongue in my mouth. It feels like a snake. A wet snake that’s probably still covered in its last meal. And some phlegm. Yuk!”

  Ironically, I returned to Dubai for some shows a year later and ran into a guy who had seen me at the launch for the real estate development company in 2008. He said he had invested two million dollars in the company and within a year it had gone under. He told me that all he got from his investment was the comedy show. He said that was the most expensive comedy show he had ever paid for. I gave him a hug and told him that next time he should just call me directly. I could save him money and do the show for just one million.

  There Are No Lefts in Dubai

  Dubai grows so fast that it often seems like hotels open before they are ready. If you ever see pictures of Dubai from the 1980s, there’s nothing there. Just a lot of sand and a few buildings. Now when you go there it looks like the skyline of Las Vegas, buildings among buildings among more buildings. A few times, the hotels I stayed at were brand new but little things wouldn’t work. The hot water would come out cold; the cold would come out hot; flushing the toilet would start the shower; turning on the shower would call room service; turning on the lights in the bathroom would launch an attack on Bahrain. I wondered if they just clipped the ribbon and figured they’d work out the kinks later. One thing you begin to see in the region is that when it comes to city planning, there aren’t a lot of rules and regulations. People get contracts based on relationships, then they just start building and figuring it out as they go.

  “I’m building a two-bedroom condo, but it might turn out to be a thirty-story hotel, depending on when the bricks run out.” It’s gotten better now, but back in 2007–2008 the kinks were definitely still being worked out.

  On one trip, the hotel we were staying at was built, but there was no road leading to the hotel. Our cab driver kept going in circles trying to get us to the front door. He would get us close and then the road would veer to the right.

  “Turn left!” I would holler, seeing the hotel drift away.

  “Sir, there are no lefts!”

  “You mean it’s a one-way?”

  “No, there is no road to go left. I have been trying to get to this hotel for a year and I can’t get there.”

  I was not fully aware of how lax the rules were until I took my son with me to Dubai in 2010. At the time, he was about a year and a half old. It was one of my favorite trips as he, my wife, and I spent three weeks in the region. I was doing shows, and we had downtime in between to spe
nd together. One day I took him to a playground inside the Dubai mall. He was running around, climbing the play structure, and having a blast. Then he found the slide. When you put your toddler on a slide in the United States, there are rules as to how they’re constructed. There are contractors, foremen, laborers—all who know how to properly install slides. Whoever makes these slides in the United States has to put something on the slide to slow the baby down once it gets to the end. Not in Dubai.

  As I watched my boy slide down and get launched into the air, like a tiny, twenty-pound projectile, my heart sank. I chased after him and ran up to the people in charge.

  “DID YOU SEE MY SON FLY OFF THE SLIDE? WHERE DID HE GO?”

  “He is on the third floor, sir. Just take the elevator up. Once you get there, turn right because there are no lefts.”

  “THIS IS DANGEROUS! IS THIS SLIDE PERMITTED?”

  “Yes sir. But it’s permitted to be a seesaw!”

  Bombing Big in Dubai

  On one of my trips to Dubai in 2013 I arrived during Dubai Art Week. This is a cool gathering of artists and exhibitions from around the world. It allowed me to see a side of Dubai I hadn’t seen in the past. For once I wasn’t in luxury cars going from gigs to fancy after-parties; instead, I was walking around warehouses, checking out cool art and hearing acoustic guitarists play folk music. If you only watched FOX, you would not know that there is, in fact, a lot of art and culture in the Middle East, not just angry bearded dictators and ululating American-flag burners. People from all different backgrounds are exchanging ideas and getting together for festivals and events that we in the United States have no idea are happening. For example, did you know that they have an Arab Idol? Okay, not the best example of something cultural, but still, they have singing competitions.

  I was scheduled to perform at a big fund-raiser during the festival. Always the clown, never the artist. As often happens at these events I went up last—and ate it! At the time, I was still the Eddie Murphy of Dubai—although other American comedians had gone out to perform and the market was beginning to get competitive. So maybe I wasn’t the Eddie Murphy anymore, but rather the Martin Lawrence. The point is that I was still looked at as an international star comedian whom they had brought in to perform at this exclusive event.

  There’s nothing worse than grand expectations when it comes to performing. The best thing for a performer is when you do a set where no one knows you and they don’t know what to expect. That’s when you can kill and they come up to you after saying, “I had never heard of you before. You’re the funniest comedian I’ve ever seen!” You walk out thinking your career is going places. That random person said I’m the funniest person ever. I’ll probably have my own show on ABC next week! The opposite is the worst. When you show up at an event and everyone knows you. “Maz Jobrani! I am a huge fan. I can’t wait to see you. I have seen all your clips on YouTube and I paid two hundred and fifty dollars for tonight’s fund-raiser just to see you. You are my favorite!” That often sets you up for failure, because no matter what you do, you won’t live up to expectations.

  I had been built up as the closing act. I was trying to psych myself up that I would do well and everyone would get his money’s worth. The night began with an amazing dance troupe that had been flown in from another country. These guys were doing Michael Jackson choreography and balancing themselves on lampposts. This one guy would just hold himself up horizontally, almost like he was floating on air. One of the most amazing things I had ever seen, and also one of the most intimidating. Right away I knew I was in trouble. These people had glistening abs. They were dancing around like their legs were made of rubber. The one dude levitated. I’m a comedian. I don’t levitate. If I’m lucky, I might jump up and down onstage at one point to drive home a punch line, but too much jumping might result in a pulled hammy. It was going to be a tough act to follow.

  After the dancers there were speakers, a decadent dinner, an auction, dessert by a German chef and his crew of workers who prepared an amazing display as the German yelled orders with his thick accent. “Now add zhe shoooogah! HURRY UP!” A good five hours of the greatest entertainment I had ever witnessed, and then I heard the deejay nonchalantly summon me for the finale: “Give it up for Maz Jobrani!”

  I got on the stage and I was staring down at two hundred tired, sugar-high, wrecked faces who had just spent hundreds of thousands of dollars buying art. I maintained composure and launched into my jokes. Right away I was flopping left and right, so I decided to do crowd work.

  “I heard there’s Kuwaiti royalty here tonight. Where is he?”

  Everyone looked uncomfortable as they pointed to a lady I recognized. I felt like an idiot because when I met her earlier, no one had said, “Maz, this is Princess So and So from Kuwait.” I guess they figured that I would know she was a princess, but I had no idea. All I could muster up was an, “Oh yes, of course. Hello Your Highness . . . Excellency . . . Holiness.” I never know what to call royalty, so I try to cover all bases.

  My next target was an older Indian gentleman in the back of the room whom the auctioneer had spoken to earlier. This man was very dapper, and I figured he must be an artist of some kind. Since my wife is Indian I have some jokes about Indians and their names. I asked the gentleman his name and he replied. I couldn’t understand a word he said since he was so far back, and I kept asking him to repeat himself. Now the crowd was getting antsy. Finally I did my Indian jokes and got a lukewarm response. I later was told that this guy was one of the biggest stars in Bollywood. Think the Indian Morgan Freeman. So now I had insulted two famous people by not knowing who they were. I was really starting to seem like the stupid American in the room.

  There were a handful of Lebanese in attendance, and they are usually good laughers. So my last attempt at saving myself was my tried and true arsenal of Lebanese jokes. Like how in Lebanon you can actually get a loan from a bank for plastic surgery. They have guys walking into banks saying, “Yes, hello, I am here for a loan. I was going to remodel my house, but I’ve decided to remodel my wife. We were going to add a bathroom, but we’ve decided to add some tits.” This joke would usually kill in front of a Lebanese crowd, but that night, in front of the princess from Kuwait, not a peep. Even the Lebanese had lost their will to laugh. And when the Lebanese aren’t laughing, you’re screwed. You just keep yapping away waiting for a spattering of chuckles to end on and get off. You sweat, you ruin your expensive suit, you question why you ever got into this comedy racket in the first place. Then you rush off, make your way to the bar, and find a few allies who enjoyed watching you squirm. You try to downplay it, but they remind you, “Hey, man, you did it the Dubai way. You didn’t just bomb. You bombed big.”

  Beirut, Lebanon

  Beirut is like no other place in the world. On one of my trips there, the hotel I was staying at had a Sunday afternoon club—drinks, girls in bikinis, guys with nipple rings, techno music blaring out of the speakers. You would have thought you were in South Beach. Just as I got comfortable and forgot I was in what had been a war zone a few years earlier, I saw three armored tanks roll by, and I suddenly remembered—I was in Beirut.

  Things work differently there. The beauty of Beirut is how resilient its people are. The Lebanese would tell us about the civil war they had that lasted for years, followed by the occasional wars and skirmishes and standoffs with Israel. Everyone had stories. One of our promoters was a woman about my age who relayed to me how Bill Cosby once saved her life. Back in the 1980s, in the midst of the civil war, she and her family always made sure to watch The Cosby Show together. One night, when the fighting escalated, they went to an underground bunker near their house to avoid the bombings. At a certain point her father realized that it was time for The Cosby Show to begin. He told the family to leave the bunker so they could all watch together. A few minutes later, a bomb fell on the bunker; her life was saved by the Cos. As a comedian, I had big shoes to fil
l in Beirut.

  Double-O Maz

  The Lebanese are known for partying. In the Middle East and, for that matter, around the world, you will always see them owning nightclubs and restaurants and organizing parties. I think the country has known so much war and strife that the people have just gotten used to it. At some point they decided they could either be dragged down by the conflicts or rise above and celebrate life. The Lebanese have chosen the latter. I was told that during their civil war, they would plan in advance where to set up parties in case fighting broke out in the main part of town—much different priorities than in your amateur war zones. Typically, when the bombs start flying, people go into bunkers and hide until it’s over. Not in Lebanon. Instead of hiding, the Lebanese simply move the party into the mountains.

  The first time I was in Lebanon the Lebanese Parliament was having trouble agreeing on a new president. This was a political emergency, but if war wasn’t going to halt the parties, a minor issue like this wouldn’t either. One night at our show at the Casino du Libon (yes, there are casinos in the Middle East) a former Miss Lebanon was in the audience.

  “In Lebanon you guys say, ‘We have agreed on a Miss Lebanon,’ ” I told the audience in welcoming her. “ ‘Who needs to agree on a president? Let’s party!’ ”

  The crowd erupted in applause. They were proud of their lust for life and not worried about their political situation. After all, when you’ve seen years of war, a little disagreement over who’s going to be in charge of planning future wars is no big deal.

  One of the more politically powerful groups in Lebanon is Hezbollah. Hezbollah, which translated means “the Party of God,” is a Shiite Muslim organization whose main supporter is the country of Iran. I was born in Iran, so to someone who is a member of Hezbollah I would be considered an ally. Being Iranian in Hezbollah territory is a good thing, and even though I have an American passport it still says where I was born in the passport. This came in handy at the airport in Beirut, which is run by Hezbollah.