Read I'm Not a Terrorist, But I've Played One on TV Online
Authors: Maz Jobrani
I'm Not a Terrorist, But I've Played One on TV (21 page)
If you happen to be Chuck Norris reading this book, I'm sure I just gave you a heart attack. After all, Santa is white and he wouldn't wear a turban. That's sacrilegious. But Chuck, let's not forget, it was you who insisted I wear the turban in the first place.
If you're reading this and you work for Fox News, you're probably thinking I'm trying to infiltrate Christianity and spread Sharia law to the children of America. You might assume I've gone deep undercover as an al-Qaeda operative who has even written a book to fool you. Let me put you at ease, Bill O'Reilly: I'm not a terrorist! But I've played one on TV.
Epilogue
N
ow that I have written this book, I realize that a lot of my issues have been created in my own head. Like I said at the start, writing a book is like doing therapy, and I feel like I've made really good breakthroughs. First of all, I can say without a doubt that I am not a terrorist. I mean, I knew that from the start, but given what the media and movies have been saying about people who look like me over the past thirty years, I was beginning to question myself. If I wasn't a terrorist, why was I playing so many of them on TV? Why was I feeling guilty going through airports? Why was I so good at ululating at weddings?
Furthermore, what I've learned from reflecting on my travels and writing this book is that most people are inherently good. However, there are also people who just don't get it. They are out to hate and judge you just because of the label that you fit.
There are those who will think that just because I'm of Middle Eastern descent that means that I have it in for America and am just waiting for the right opportunity to open up a can of jihad on this country. They won't look at the fact that the majority of Middle Easterners and Muslims really don't hate America as much as Fox News would have you believe. And technically, I'm not even that Middle Eastern, given that I grew up in the United States. If anything, I'm Middle Eastern light. I swear, look at my picture on the cover of this book. I'm not even that hairy! I'm bald, but even worse, I've got receding eyebrows. How the hell do you get receding eyebrows?
I knew I was Middle Eastern light after September 11 when the airport profiling never happened. The only person profiling me turned out to be me! After a while, I started to get offended that they weren't stopping me. I felt like running through the airport just randomly screaming Middle Eastern and Muslim names in hopes they would stop and search me: “MOHAMMAD, ABDULLAH, RAHIM!” But I'm sure that my receding eyebrows would have kept me out of trouble. “You can't be a terrorist. Look at your eyebrows. Come on through, buddy.”
I've come to live my life with this philosophy: Chances are that at some point you will either get hit by a tree or eaten by a bear. I haven't done the scientific research to prove this, but I know that something random will happen at some point in my life. This happened to me between the time I wrote this book and the time I edited it: One Tuesday I awoke to several messages left on my phone by my mother. You know something bad has happened when you see three messages from your mom at seven in the morning. When I called her back she gave me the bad news. My brother Kashi had died.
This was a shock to my family and me and it hit us all very hard. I rushed to my mom's house, where he lived with his seven-year-old son, and found him passed away. This was the hardest thing I had ever experienced in my life, and as we sat in my mother's living room discussing the funeral options I decided to repeat what I had done so much of in my life: travel. I had shows to do in Chicago that weekend; I figured I should stick to my work, since there wasn't much else for me to do. I told my friends I had read once that Brett Favre played in a football game when his father died, and that my brother would have wanted me to stick to my schedule and do the shows.
As I got closer to Thursday, when I would be traveling, I began to have my doubts. Still, I got on a plane from Los Angeles and flew to Chicago. It wasn't until I landed on the tarmac in Chicago at noon on the day of a show that it hit me: How the hell was I going to be funny when my brother had just died? Why was I running, and what was I running from? I guess it was a coping mechanism, trying to convince myself that life goes on and not allowing myself to mourn. I got off the plane, called my manager and asked him to get me out of the gigs. I was coming home. That weekend I was able to be home with my family and I was so happy to be there and mourn and hug and cry and give myself a chance to feel the pain. In the weeks that followed, I leaned on the love of friends, family, and strangers to get me through this hard time, and I also was surprised to see how many other people had lost loved ones unexpectedly. My wife sent me an article claiming that a twenty-second hug has healing qualities, and so I went around hugging people for as long as I could. It took a tragedy like this to remind me how much love is in the world and how petty we can become if we forget it.
So I say to you people who are reading this book, be nice to one another. Why hate someone simply because he has a different belief or different skin color? It's amazing how far out of their way people will go to differentiate themselves from their enemies, when the reality is that we have so much in common. For example, did you know that both Jews and Palestinians eat falafel? Did you know that both Muslims and Christians believe in Jesus? Did you know that Iranians, like Americans, enjoy pizza? If we could stop fighting one another because of color and race and religion, and concentrate on who the real enemies are . . . our children! If we could just get them to go to sleep!
What I'm saying is if we could all concentrate on the things we have in common and celebrate those things together, then we might succeed in making the world a better place and looking up, so that the next time a tree is about to fall on us we could zigzag and survive. Only to later be eaten by a bear.
Acknowledgments
I
would like to begin by thanking the three essential people who made this book possible: Jesus Christ, Elvis Presley, and, of course, Justin Bieber.
Gotcha.
I always read the acknowledgments section of books, looking for famous people's names so I can see if the author has any big-shot friends. I actually don't know any of those people, but now I've got some famous names in my acknowledgments, and anyone thinking of just skimming this section might as well read the entire thing at this point.
Now, for the people whom I actually know and want to thank, let me begin with my manager and business partner, Ray Moheet, who encouraged me to write this book. He has always championed me and been the best partner to have in this world of acting and
stand-up. Thank you, Ray, for pushing me to succeed. By the way, if you have any problems with what I've written, please e-mail Ray because it's all his fault. I also want to thank my agent, David Patterson, who is the most light-skinned Latino I know. David, thank you for being smart, competent, and professional. And thank you even more for getting this book sold. Thanks to Jon Methven, who helped in writing this book. Jon was my sounding board and partner throughout. He acted as my editor before we actually got the book to my editor. Speaking of editors, thanks to Sarah Knight, who took a chance on me. I'd say she's smart just for doing that, but she also went to Harvard, so she's been smart since long before she met me. Because of her I can now call myself an author. (Not sure how good an author, but an author nonetheless.) Thanks to photographer Paul Mobley for taking my cover pictures and making me look goofily unthreatening. Thanks to Mitzi Shore for making me a regular at the Comedy Store and giving me a place to grow as a comedian. Thanks to Jamie Masada for giving me a second home at the Laugh Factory and filling me with wine and love every time I'm there. I love you, buddy! Thanks to Candice Ortiz, Robin Tate, Heidi Feigin, Ali Benmohamed, Josh Katz, Judi Brown, Norman Aladjem, Robert Hartman, Tim Scally, Mitchell K. Stubbs, and Judi Page. Thanks to all my friends and family who have been in my life and given me so much love. If I forget to mention you by name here, I'm sorry. Thanks to my aunts Roxanna, Mandana, and Mahin. Thanks to my cousins Amir, Ali, Shahriar, Mahmoud, Majid, Shiva, Shaheen, Mahtab, Alex, and Salar.
Thanks to my mom, who really isn't as mean as I make her out to be in this book. She's actually a very elegant and sweet woman, and if I could have withstood all those hours of reading fine print
and contracts, I would have become a lawyer just to make her happy. Mom, I love you! Thanks to my grandmother for teaching me how to appreciate what I have. Thanks to my sister, Mariam, for being my other half in life. Thanks to my other sister, Kiana, for coming into my life when I was a young adult and bringing even more love to me. Thanks to my brother Kashi for reminding me to slow down and spend time with the ones I love. I miss you, man! Thanks to my other brother, Joey, for always being there when I need you. Thanks to my nephew, Kamran, for being a wise soul who we all love. Thanks to my kids, Dhara and Mila, for making me love deeper than I've ever loved before. And last, but not least, thanks to my wife, Pretha, for being my partner on this ride and for putting up with my silly jokes and long absences from home. You're the most beautiful woman I've ever known and you get more beautiful every day. I love you, baby!
In loving memory of my younger brother, Kashi Jobrani.
About the Author
MAZ JOBRANI
was born in Iran but grew up in America, which means he has a blue passport so he's okay. He was a founding member of the Axis of Evil Comedy Tour, which was a stand-up tour that premiered on Comedy Central and performed in front of the king of Jordan. So basically, he's better than you. Maz has had two solo Showtime comedy specials and continues to tour internationally. In film, Maz appeared in
Friday after Next, The Interpreter,
and
13 Going On 30
. On TV, he's appeared in ABC's
Better Off Ted
, HBO's
Curb Your Enthusiasm
and Showtime's
Shameless
. He is a regular panelist on NPR's “Wait Wait . . . Don't Tell Me!” and has given two TED Talks. It's a good thing he has no hair or it would've all fallen out from all the traveling he does. He's got Executive Platinum status on American Airlines, which means he gets free sandwiches when he flies.
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