Episode 118 - Maz Jobrani
Marc:Lock the gates!
Guest:Are we doing this?
Guest:Really?
Guest:Wait for it.
Guest:Are we doing this?
Guest:Wait for it.
Guest:Pow!
Guest:What the fuck?
Guest:And it's also... Eh, what the fuck?
Guest:What's wrong with me?
Guest:It's time for WTF!
Guest:What the fuck?
Guest:With Mark Maron.
What the fuck?
Marc:Okay, are we doing this?
Marc:Let's do this.
Marc:How are you?
Marc:What the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fucking ears?
Marc:What the fuck nicks?
Marc:It's me, Mark Maron.
Marc:Welcome to the show.
Marc:This is WTF.
Marc:I am out here in the garage at the cat ranch.
Marc:Quick update on the cats.
Marc:Boomers puking again.
Marc:Don't know why.
Marc:Don't understand it.
Marc:There's no hairball there.
Marc:I give him some medicine, but he's still throwing up.
Marc:And I think part of it has to do with the fact that he goes in for the early free breakfast next door, which I find to be a lesser grade of food than I like to give my cats.
Marc:But having an outdoor cat, that means he's going to go next door and eat the free food, which he vomits.
Marc:And it's multicolored, which I know is not the natural color for cat food.
Marc:I just want to send out a quick and very large thank you to the people of Austin, Dallas, and New York City.
Marc:The tapings for the live WTF tour were great.
Marc:We're going to mix them down and put them together and get them up as soon as possible.
Marc:But great audiences everywhere at a great time.
Marc:And I really appreciate you coming out.
Marc:I would like to extend a thanks to Ira Glass, who was on our last show and who said some very lovely things about me and the show on the This American Life blog.
Marc:Thank you, Ira.
Marc:It was wonderful to talk to you.
Marc:And I really appreciate your feelings about me and my show.
Marc:Uh, I'm very grateful that you feel that way.
Marc:And, and, you know, it's, it's hard for me to accept good things, but that was a very nice thing.
Marc:And thank you for doing the show again.
Marc:Now, another thing, go out and vote in your local elections.
Marc:That's all I'm going to say about that.
Marc:You know what the right thing to do is think about the future, but just do your part and vote.
Marc:Even if you're discouraged, you're cynical, you feel like everything's fucked.
Marc:Nothing's going to help.
Marc:It's all a sham.
Marc:Go out and vote.
Marc:Just vote your heart.
Marc:Vote your mind.
Marc:Vote as your civic duty.
Marc:Just go out and vote in your local elections.
Marc:Vote for your senators.
Marc:Vote for your congresspeople.
Marc:Vote.
Marc:Just do it.
Marc:Will you?
Marc:Please, you disenfranchised cynical motherfuckers, go vote.
Marc:Make the right choice.
Marc:Think about the future.
Marc:Enough said.
Marc:Upcoming gigs.
Marc:I always forget to do this and I need to do it because it's important that I don't piss you off.
Marc:If I come to your town and you don't know where I'm at or I didn't publicize it enough, then you get mad at me and I get the angry emails.
Marc:You know, what the fuck?
Marc:I didn't have anything to do that night.
Marc:I didn't know you were playing in my basement.
Marc:I knew there were cars out front, but I didn't assume that your career is at a point where you'll be playing my basement in my neighborhood.
Marc:Why didn't you mention it on the podcast?
Marc:Well, here I'm doing it now.
Marc:November 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th, I will be in Cincinnati at Go Bananas.
Marc:That's going to be a fun show.
Marc:My buddy Ryan Singer is opening for me, and I'm looking forward to watching Ryan.
Marc:If you want to watch me, you can look forward to that, and come on down.
Marc:4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th of November...
Marc:In Cincinnati at Go Bananas.
Marc:November 11th, 12th, and 13th, I will be at the Punchline in San Francisco.
Marc:As many Bay Area people know, I love San Francisco.
Marc:I love that room.
Marc:I've written a lot of my favorite bits actually happened on stage in that room.
Marc:So that's happening.
Marc:November 11th, 12th, 13th at the Punchline in San Francisco.
Marc:Here in Los Angeles, November 19th, we're having a live What the Fuck at UCB Theater at 8 o'clock.
Marc:That's November 19th here in Los Angeles, live What the Fuck.
Marc:Oh, see, I forgot one.
Marc:Here's an odd one.
Marc:November 15th, Pontiac, Michigan at the Crowfoot Ballroom.
Marc:Come on down for that.
Marc:Me doing stand-up in Pontiac, Michigan.
Marc:I know that they don't make Pontiacs anymore, but Pontiac, Michigan is still there, and I'm happy for that.
Marc:If you're within 300-mile radius of that, come down.
Marc:I guarantee it will be a good show.
Marc:I will be taping my CD at Union Hall December 9th and 10th if you want to plan ahead.
Marc:Small space.
Marc:Come down for that.
Marc:Enough of those kind of plugs.
Marc:Let's move on into some deeper thanks to everybody who sends me stuff.
Marc:It's hard for me to thank everybody individually, but I enjoy the posters.
Marc:I enjoy the magazines.
Marc:I enjoy the letters.
Marc:I'm getting handwritten letters.
Marc:It takes a lot of time.
Marc:I appreciate it.
Marc:It's very nice to get a handwritten letter.
Marc:I should try it.
Marc:I've digressed to the point where I just write short, curt emails that people always interpret as angry, whereas it's just me rushing through it, getting information out.
Marc:But thank you for everything you're sending.
Marc:It makes my day to go to my mailbox and get a large envelope that doesn't have something explosive or dangerous or vile in it.
Marc:I don't mind vile if its heart is in the right place.
Marc:But thank you very much for sending that stuff.
Marc:Cassette tapes.
Marc:I appreciate you sending them.
Marc:I have no way of listening to them.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Again, I would love to listen to them, but I really don't have a cassette player.
Marc:But I appreciate the artwork on them and the thought that goes into them.
Marc:And I read the song lists.
Marc:And they all seem very nice.
Marc:But until I get a cassette player, I can't listen to them.
Marc:But again, I appreciate it.
Marc:And I'm not going to judge.
Marc:If that's where you're at, there's a sort of art and personality that goes into creating an actual mixtape.
Marc:And I appreciate that.
Marc:And I will get those pictures out to people that ask for pictures.
Marc:Now, where the fuck am I at?
Marc:That was a lot of plugging.
Marc:I wrote some stuff down in my notebook that I was able to read about this idea of normalcy, the idea of love, the idea of what's expected of us, of social norms, of career, of all these fucking expectations that are considered normal in relation to the machine that we live in that determines and justifies what a valid existence is.
Marc:I'm beginning to realize that I am not normal.
Marc:I'm trapped in a relatively normal body.
Marc:My life is kind of normal.
Marc:I have a car.
Marc:I have a house.
Marc:I have to clean the pine needles off the top of the roof because if it rains again, I think I'm going to get leaks and the roof is going to rot.
Marc:Those are normal problems.
Marc:They're even luxury problems to some people.
Marc:But I cannot understand the dynamics of my life.
Marc:romantic relationships I cannot understand the dynamics of the life I've chosen for myself in a lot of ways these are not normal things got nothing to complain about other than the fact that I'm trying to not let it consume my life completely and to know also that I'm not a normal person I'm just not I don't even know what the fuck it means and then I go off on this other thought where I'm watching this guy
Marc:a young comic who's very peculiar.
Marc:I don't even want to mention his name, but he's stylistically peculiar.
Marc:He's physically awkward.
Marc:I've seen him around a lot.
Marc:He clearly is, just by nature of who he is, different.
Marc:And life has not been easy for him because of how different he looks, how different he talks, how he is emotionally.
Marc:And I had this moment where I was watching him, and I just realized, and this goes along somewhat with some of the discussions I've had about nerd culture, that...
Marc:There's a difference between being unique and acting unique.
Marc:I see so many fucking people and myself included, and it's not a judgment that are trying their hardest to be weird, to be different in order to stand out.
Marc:And I've watched this happen over and over again in my profession.
Marc:And certainly, you know, people socially that are like this, that there's a lot of affectation going on, you know, to draw attention to oneself and
Marc:I've done it.
Marc:I can look at my history of haircuts, my history of attempts at things where it's like just me trying to be seen somehow.
Marc:But what I see more so than not is people who try to act weird, people who are just like putting on some sort of front so people will pay attention to them.
Marc:And I watch over years these people just slowly, you know, hammer their uniqueness into exactly what is expected of them.
Marc:that the norms are so strong and their uniqueness is so forced and fake that eventually they just succumb to, you know, just normal expectations.
Marc:And I feel better for them once they do that.
Marc:But I also have a certain amount of resentment who try against people who try very hard to be weird because I think it gets in the way of people who are truly weird.
Marc:And one thing I got to tell you is that you cannot fake
Marc:The fury, anger, and just screaming needs that come from being truly unique.
Marc:That means being unable to fit in.
Marc:You're completely disabled to be socially polite.
Marc:You're socially awkward.
Marc:You're physically freakish.
Marc:The way you think is completely whacked.
Marc:The price of that, if you throw talent into the mix, the way that defines your life is a day-to-day struggle.
Marc:And I find myself rooting for these people.
Marc:And you know some of them.
Marc:They've been on the show.
Marc:And when I saw this kid the other night, I'm like, you know, I find you a little grating and a little irritating, but I know you can't help but be what you are and who you are.
Marc:And it takes all your energy just to show up for that and make it public.
Marc:And I wish the best for you because I know the pain and fury that comes from not being able to escape your uniqueness.
Marc:is is is life threatening if you're a freak or a weirdo or a geek or a whack job god damn it please do yourself a favor embrace it accept it or it will eat you from the fucking inside man i don't know where that came from but i don't know what's going on in my heart but it there's nothing easy about any of it
Marc:There just really isn't.
Marc:I'm sitting here in this garage.
Marc:I don't know the difference between hoarding and being nostalgic.
Marc:I have no idea what I'm doing out here.
Marc:Why can't I just get rid of some of these books?
Marc:What does it mean?
Marc:I know I've talked about you this before, but there's part of me that's like, it's time to throw shit away.
Marc:Give it away.
Marc:Give it to a library.
Marc:Give it to a school.
Marc:Give it to Goodwill.
Marc:Get on with it.
Marc:What are you getting from this shit?
Marc:This empire of half-read books.
Marc:What am I getting from it?
Marc:What am I getting from these stacks of memorabilia of me?
Marc:And I know I've talked about this before, but I really think I'm moving towards streamlining it towards almost like a.
Marc:a destructive feng shuiing of my life, which means that I would angrily throw away everything.
Marc:Do you know that moment where you're about to move out of a house or an apartment where you've moved everything out and all that's left is a bed and a lamp and a box and you lay in there and you look around and you think to yourself, why didn't I just have it like this all the time?
Marc:This is perfect.
Marc:There's nothing here.
Marc:There's no burden.
Marc:There's no walls of shit with expectations that I think are defining me, that make me unique.
Marc:Someone walks into this garage.
Marc:Wow, what an interesting guy.
Marc:No, not really.
Marc:I just can't throw shit away.
Marc:And if you watch hoarders, you know, it gets into your fucking craw, man.
Marc:It really does.
Marc:I don't think I'm a hoarder because I'm not adding a lot.
Marc:You know, I don't go out every day and add to this.
Marc:I don't need to because I get, you know, just by virtue of the mailbox stuff starts stacking up.
Marc:So I don't add to it.
Marc:So I'd like to think that if I am a hoarder that I'm done.
Marc:I'm done with the hoarding.
Marc:I talked to a guy from AMC about some things, you know, nothing to get excited about, but it was a nice meeting.
Marc:But, you know, he he actually turned me on to he helped me out because I've been sort of like I didn't have my DVR running or I didn't responsibly do it.
Marc:But I've got the third season of Breaking Bad.
Marc:which takes place in my hometown, which has got to be one of the greatest shows ever created.
Marc:Holy shit.
Marc:And to realize that on some level, it's really a comedy in a lot of ways.
Marc:It's a very dark comedy and an exploration of human morality and what that means and who is good, who is right, what is wrong, what defines a person.
Marc:I'm really enjoying watching that.
Marc:And another thing I enjoy watching for the wrong reasons outside of Hoarders is...
Marc:man versus food that guy adam richmond someone needs you know i wish that the that someone from the other network from a&e would intervene there that adam richmond needs an intervention because i don't know if you watch that show but he's a perfectly pleasant guy the object is he goes to a restaurant a unique restaurant that offers a specific thing usually a large thing and then he sits and tries to defy uh or break a wreck he tries to eat whatever it is that someone could never get to a a
Marc:The biggest burrito, the largest hamburger, you know, more spaghetti than anybody else, whatever it is, you know, because I have my own food issues, which I'm not going to obsess about because I'm feeling pretty good.
Marc:I've I've begun my anorexic regimen where I buy a lot of vegetables, wasa crackers, no real carbs, just meat.
Marc:And I basically, you know, to lose about five or six pounds, I go into this mode where I eat nothing but vegetables.
Marc:And it's horrendous because the gas is daunting.
Marc:Uh, I feel bad for my girl because, you know, she stays over a lot and it's, it's literally, uh, it's, it's not, it's not a proud moment, but I am excited that we've crossed the intimacy line to where I can, uh, I can, you know, feel free to have that gas and, and, and, and, and let it go.
Marc:You know, I had a housemate for a while who I love, but, uh, but what, you know, we were on, you know, fart lockdown and that was uncomfortable for me.
Marc:I think I might've gotten some internal injury from that.
Marc:But that's over.
Marc:And now I think I'm taking advantage of the freedom with this diet.
Marc:But getting back to Adam Richman, there comes a point where he's, you know, against the clock, sticking shit into his face, just shoving shit into his face and and being cute about it and being open about it and saying, like, he can do it.
Marc:He can do it.
Marc:But at some point, if you watch a few of those episodes back to back, you're like, he's killing himself.
Marc:Would somebody please step in?
Marc:We're watching a guy eat himself to death.
Marc:Is this entertainment?
Marc:And really, it is on some level.
Marc:It is the pinnacle of American entertainment.
Marc:Man versus food is really what American television on some level and American culture looks like.
Marc:This guy can go to a restaurant and just sit there and consume himself into almost barfing, probably putting his health in jeopardy.
Marc:And he's surrounded by people with flags and pennants and proud members of whatever state or community or restaurant he's at going, go, go, go, go.
Marc:And I'm just waiting for him to clinch his fucking chest and go face down into the world's largest burrito.
Marc:And what are people going to clap?
Marc:Are they going to say, you know, saw that coming?
Marc:We all saw it coming.
Marc:Stop eating, Adam.
Marc:It's not worth it.
Marc:Unless the next show you're going to go over to another reality show where you're going to lose the weight.
Marc:Are we going to follow you into the hospital where your arteries are clogged with what's the remnants of that massive pulled pork sandwich you shoved down your mouth?
Marc:90 of them in an hour?
Marc:Is it worth it, Adam?
Marc:I'm reaching out to you, Adam.
Marc:I'm concerned this is an intervention.
Marc:Put the pizza down, Adam.
Marc:Today on the show, I'm very excited.
Marc:Maz Jabrani is with us.
Marc:Maz, again, a rare gentleman, a truly sweet guy, an intelligent guy, a Persian-American comic with an interesting story.
Marc:I work with him a lot at the comedy store, and he's always very sweet.
Marc:And when I see him get on stage and do his shit, I'm like, how is he so nice?
Marc:People just like him.
Marc:He's instantly pleasant.
Marc:I envy that.
Marc:But I also am very curious about the Persian American community, about performing also in the Arab communities and here in America and abroad.
Marc:It's a story I've never heard.
Marc:And I'm very excited to talk to Maz.
Marc:My guest in my garage here at the Cat Ranch is Maz Jabrani.
Marc:Maz?
Marc:Maz.
Marc:I say Maz.
Guest:Yeah, sometimes you say Maz, sometimes you say Maz.
Guest:It's a difficult name, I think, but not that difficult.
Guest:Well, if you just remember Mazda or Maserati.
Guest:Do I say Maz sometimes?
Guest:Sometimes you say it.
Marc:I apologize.
Guest:No, that's all right.
Guest:You're in the moment.
Guest:You're on stage.
Guest:The least of your worries should be my name.
Marc:Well, I know, and I do bring you up in a difficult way.
Marc:Sometimes I say this guy is Persian, as if that still exists, Persia.
Marc:But you do identify yourself as Persian.
Guest:Well, I often say, I actually made a point early on to say Iranian.
Guest:And I used to do a whole bit about that, about how the people that were saying Persian were the ones who were trying to distance themselves from the Iranian government.
Guest:Oh, is that what it was?
Guest:That was one of the big reasons.
Guest:Because what happened, if you think about- After Khomeini took over.
Guest:Yeah, if you think about it, a lot of Iranians came from Iran late 70s, right?
Guest:The revolution happens.
Guest:We're here.
Guest:We're trying to blend in.
Guest:Everything's going fine.
Guest:We needed to get out.
Guest:We had to get out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They were executing people.
Guest:So we left.
Guest:That's usually a sign like, okay, I think it's time to go.
Guest:How old were you?
Guest:I was six.
Guest:And your dad took off?
Guest:My dad took off.
Guest:The family took off.
Guest:We all came out to America-
Marc:Now, have you talked to your father about that, though?
Marc:I mean, I can't even imagine what it must have been like for a government.
Marc:I mean, the Shah was the Shah, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then it was like crazy.
Guest:Yeah, actually, it's funny.
Guest:My father's passed away now.
Guest:I asked him a little bit.
Guest:I asked my mom.
Guest:But what I did was actually I was really curious about that time.
Guest:So I would sit in the library sometimes when I was in college, and I would go get those microfiche articles.
Marc:Oh, yeah, microfiche, sure.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:And I'd go through those and I'd look at, I did this one time specifically, I went to the 1978 New York Times.
Guest:I just started looking at a bunch of New York Times from early 78 through the year.
Guest:And if you look at it earlier in the year, any kind of news from Iran, because it kind of crept up.
Guest:Um, even, even Carter had visited like in late 77 or early 78 and there was a famous speech where he's like, you know, Iran is a bastion of, of, uh, stability in this region, you know, you know, a year later.
Guest:Bam.
Guest:So you see, you see like in, in like, on like page like whatever, 20, you know, um, protests in Iran, like very small.
Guest:And then as it gets more and more closer and closer, it starts picking up.
Guest:And the news starts picking up on, oh, my gosh, something big's happening.
Guest:And so that's how it went.
Guest:And it was people really like – I've read a lot about it now.
Guest:People didn't realize it was going to happen.
Guest:Even my family, the way we left was kind of –
Guest:It was kind of in a noncommittal way almost.
Guest:My father was doing business in New York.
Guest:At the time, it was me, my sister, my mom, and we had a baby brother, newborn.
Guest:And my dad was in New York.
Guest:It was around the Christmas break.
Guest:We went to a Western school, so we learned English and Farsi.
Guest:So they were taking the Christmas break.
Guest:And also because protests were starting to break out,
Guest:I think there was like blackouts and stuff.
Guest:So the school let out a little early.
Guest:So my dad told my mom, said, why don't you and the two older kids come to New York for a couple weeks?
Guest:Just come on vacation while I'm here.
Guest:And then you guys can go back.
Marc:You left the baby there?
Guest:We left the baby there.
Guest:With who?
Guest:Your grandparents or something?
Guest:With like the family.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I always say, I always say like, you know, we packed for two weeks and we stayed for 30 years, you know, because we came and just kept getting worse and worse and worse.
Guest:He never went back?
Guest:Never went back.
Guest:He went and got the baby.
Guest:Well, I always joke and I say, well, now he's the president of Iran, Ahmadinejad, right?
Guest:He's running.
Guest:My brother, Mahmoud.
Guest:No, the family, we brought him back.
Guest:We brought him out, obviously, later, and other relatives came out.
Guest:But nobody really knew.
Guest:Because everyone felt, I mean, think about it.
Guest:If you live in a country and you're doing well in that country, monetarily wise, financially.
Guest:Your family was all right.
Guest:My dad was a self-made millionaire.
Guest:He started an electric company.
Guest:And he told me this story about how at some point in the 70s, the Shah's regime decided to nationalize electricity.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But they decided to work with a handful of companies.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And my dad says one of the ministers took a meeting with him and said, congratulations, you're one of the companies we're going to work with.
Marc:So he was connected.
Guest:politically so he was connected politically he was connected financially and he you know my dad like the stories my dad tells uh remind me of the godfather like people needed anything done that come to my dad right they hook it up he knew generals he knew mayors he knew police chiefs and he also came from he was a self he was self-made yeah he actually started in northern iran when he was a kid there's a place called much like the bin laden construction company kind of like the bin laden yeah exactly yeah yeah yeah yeah exactly you know you need a kalishnikov we got it for you yeah
Marc:But, you know, it's weird because there's still this sense that and I think it's a reality that Iran beneath, you know, these these laws, the Sharia laws and whatnot, is still very cosmopolitan.
Marc:It's very progressive.
Marc:There's a lot of there's a lot of art.
Marc:There's a lot of of culture.
Marc:And the big thing is now in America is that there's not an awareness of.
Marc:of just how progressive Iran is that, you know, the picture they're generating is like, this guy's got to go.
Marc:Ahmadinejad is crazy.
Marc:We should just nuke the place.
Marc:And there's definitely a lot of people in Iran who are like, please, we'd love it to be different.
Guest:Yeah, absolutely.
Guest:I mean, that's the thing about Iran is that it's, first of all, Iran was, it became Muslim later.
Guest:It was originally Zerastrian.
Guest:Are you Zerastrian?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm not that religious.
Guest:I always say I was born Muslim, but I'm not that religious.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:But the thing about Zoroastrianism is the mentality, the philosophy is simple.
Guest:Good words, good thoughts, good deeds.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:And I'm like, okay, I do those three.
Guest:I'll stick with that.
Guest:I don't like talking a lot of crap behind people's back.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I try and do good to people.
Guest:And it was the first monotheistic religion.
Guest:So anyway, so Islam comes later.
Guest:And so now a lot of Iranians in Iran have a dislike of Islam because of what's happened.
Guest:And they tend to associate more with the Zoroastrian background.
Guest:But furthermore, a lot of people in Iran, like we saw in the Green Movement a couple years ago, I mean, you saw a lot of women out in the streets, a lot of young guys in jeans and T-shirts.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, they're very, very, very modern, very much cosmopolitan, like you were saying.
Guest:And the unfortunate thing, it would be as if, you know, if the religious right ran this country and the image that we got around the world was just religious right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That happened for a little while.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Well, yeah, exactly.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And something like that.
Guest:And Rove is working on it again.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:So now, but like, do you, do you have family there still?
Guest:My father was there until a few years ago, and then he passed away.
Guest:He was in Iran.
Guest:He went back to Iran.
Guest:So what happened was he was a self-made millionaire there, brought his money to America, lost a lot of it in real estate investments, went back to Iran to get some of his old investments going again, and basically spent the latter part of his life over there, came back a couple times.
Guest:But he was very...
Guest:It would be, you know, he came to America in his, I think he was in his mid-40s.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So imagine, like, he really knew how Iran worked and didn't really know how America works as well.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I think he went back later in his life to try and, you know, feeling that he could do better there financially than he could here.
Guest:Did you visit him?
Guest:Yeah, I visited, I've only been back to Iran once, and that was about, you know, like 12, 13 years ago when I first started doing stand-up.
Guest:um and so i was just like just out of the gates i didn't really um i hadn't been talking much about political stuff or anything yeah um now i've done enough material criticizing the government that i don't even dare go back because i feel that i would show up and they would be like hey no that can happen i mean especially in the in the way the information world is set up now like i know uh
Marc:Kumail Nanjiani, he can't go back to Pakistan.
Marc:I mean, he literally had to stop doing a one man show because of threats to his family in Pakistan.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:Yeah, that's fucking amazing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And now, OK, so you were discussing this idea of the difference between the Persian and Iranian.
Marc:Now, now what's interesting about you and I'm ignorant to a certain degree.
Marc:is that I know you were part of the Axis of Evil.
Marc:I'm not going to talk about whatever problems you three have now, but with you and Ahmed Ahmed, Aaron Cater, and there was another one, too, right?
Marc:We had a fourth guy, Dean Obidala, out of New York.
Marc:Oh, yeah, Dean.
Marc:I love Dean.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:He's a Palestinian-Italian.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:He's a great guy.
Marc:And Aaron's a good guy.
Marc:You're all good guys.
Marc:I don't want to discuss any of you.
Guest:And we had Sam Tripoli was with us when we first started out, too, but then it ended up being just the other four there.
Marc:Well, Sam, does he really identify himself?
Guest:What is he, Egyptian?
Guest:No, Sam is part Armenian.
Guest:What happened was it all came together with Mitzi Shore.
Guest:The owner of the comedy store.
Guest:Yeah, she wanted to do a show called The Arabian Nights, and this was in 2000.
Marc:Ahead of the curve.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:Because she was watching CNN religiously, and she saw it was the latest Intifada with the Palestinians.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And she came and she goes, I feel like there's going to be a need for a positive voice of Middle Easterners out in the world.
Guest:So she wanted to put together Arabian Nights.
Guest:And the only Middle Eastern comic there at the time was me.
Guest:I was Middle Eastern American.
Guest:I was whatever.
Guest:So then she started finding the others.
Guest:And then anybody who had any sort of possible Middle Eastern-ness in them, an Indian guy showed up.
Guest:Everyone showed up.
Guest:It was just mishmash.
Guest:But eventually it evolved to the Arabian Nights.
Guest:I mean, to the Axis of the Evil comedy tour.
Guest:It was me, Ahmed, Aaron, and Dino B. Aaron's Palestinian.
Guest:Aaron's dad is Palestinian.
Guest:His mother is Mormon.
Marc:Yeah, it's interesting.
Marc:But so you're the only real.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Ahmed is fully.
Marc:What is he?
Guest:Ahmed was born in Egypt.
Guest:His parents are Egyptian.
Guest:And then they moved out to the movie.
Guest:They moved when he was like six months or something.
Guest:And you're fully.
Guest:I was born in Iran.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:The axis of evil was Iran, North Korea and Iraq.
Guest:So really, officially, I would be the only axis of evil person.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Well, I just think like because there's so little I know about these communities and I know that you guys toured in the States and also in the Middle East.
Marc:And I'm an ignorant American in that.
Marc:I know that that comedy has become sort of a niche market.
Marc:But I don't think a lot of Americans or even people necessarily listen to this, you know, realize the populations and the communities in this country that are huge and they're powerful and they never had really a comedic voice under them, you know, peculiar dancing clowns and a few different things.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Even as a fairly educated person, most people don't know.
Marc:They're like, there's Iranian Jews.
Guest:And there's a shitload of them.
Guest:Yeah, it's a lot.
Guest:And actually, to this day, there are Jews living in Iran.
Guest:There's Jews in the Iranian parliament.
Guest:I mean, in the Middle East, outside of Israel, the next biggest Jewish population in the Middle East is in Iran because they're not living in the Arab countries.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So there's a lot of Persian Jews that were there.
Marc:That's the distinction that I remember now.
Marc:Persians get very touchy about being mistakenly called Arab.
Marc:I've had that conversation with people, and it's really sort of like we're not Arab.
Guest:Well, see, that goes to two things, I think.
Guest:Are you like that?
Guest:I'm not.
Guest:The only reason I correct people on it is because I just want people to know that they're different countries and different people and they're different.
Guest:It's like when you call it Guatemalan Mexican and they're like, no, I'm Guatemalan.
Guest:I'm not Mexican.
Guest:You know what I'm saying?
Guest:It's kind of like that.
Marc:Is it like that?
Marc:Because you could call it Guatemalan Latin.
Guest:Yeah, you could.
Guest:I mean, yeah.
Guest:I mean, yeah.
Guest:So you can call an Iranian or an Arab Middle Eastern.
Guest:Okay.
Marc:That works.
Marc:Okay, right.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And the thing with the Iranians, here's what's interesting.
Guest:I think part of it is, look, every country in that region, this is one of the reasons I think that the region doesn't do that well.
Marc:That's a very pleasant way of putting it.
Marc:There seems to be some issues.
Guest:Some issues.
Yeah.
Guest:Look, America came and got all these different parts of the country, and they put together the United States of America.
Guest:Now, there's people that have way differing opinions and different types and what have you, but it's the United States of America.
Guest:There's no United States of the Middle East.
Marc:Yeah, and that's a terrifying thought to a lot of Americans.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Because that could not go well in their mind.
Guest:Come together, yeah.
Guest:Well, no, you know what?
Marc:There was that famous, like, the Muslim crescent fear that, you know, that Iran, Iraq, and Lebanon, there was going to be an Egypt.
Guest:Listen, don't worry.
Guest:They would self-implode and, like, it would be, like, this functional family.
Guest:You know what I'm saying?
Guest:Even within the Arab countries, you have, like, when you travel from, like, you know, the United Arab Emirates and you go to Lebanon, the Lebanese are like, oh, you know.
Guest:Screw the, you know, we're, Dubai is, oh my God, I spit on Dubai.
Guest:We are so superior.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:You go to Syria, they're like, oh, the Lebanese, we are Syrian.
Guest:Everyone, everyone, you know, right there, everyone's point, you know.
Marc:But what is the difference, but now would, would the Syrians and the Lebanese,
Marc:And who identifies themselves as Arabs?
Guest:Those guys are all Arabs.
Guest:Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan.
Guest:Those are all Arab countries.
Guest:Iraq.
Guest:They all speak Arabic.
Guest:They have different accents of the sort, but some words are different.
Guest:But they speak Arabic.
Guest:They tend to be Sunni Muslims.
Guest:Although in Lebanon, there's a lot of Shiite Muslims as well, thus Hezbollah.
Guest:So Iranians are very sensitive to the whole Arab thing.
Guest:And just to show you how sensitive they are, I was reading there was a great article in National Geographic about Iran.
Guest:It was very, very well written.
Guest:And this American journalist was there and said, everyone I talked to, they said, I would ask them, what do you want the world to know?
Guest:And he said, the first thing we want the world to know is we're not Arabs.
Guest:The second thing we want the world to know is we're not terrorists.
Guest:So it's better to be a terrorist than an Arab.
Guest:I mean, that's what they, in their mind.
Guest:So anyway, so Iranians are very sensitive to that.
Guest:But like I said, if I see an Iranian and go like...
Guest:We're not Arab, you know, like that.
Guest:I'm like, dude, what do you, you know, your shit doesn't stink?
Guest:It does.
Guest:You know, like, don't give me that.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, so that's the thing with the distinction.
Marc:But it's true.
Marc:Yeah, it's true.
Marc:But you're just saying don't, you know, just handle it in a less aggressive way.
Guest:don't say in a disdainful way like arabs are scum and we're not yeah and just go hey look they're different and just you know i do that all the time like you don't know how many morning radio shows i go on where they're like hey so arab you're you know how is it being arab i'm like well i'm not arab but uh you know i'm and then they're like yeah yeah whatever you're brown same shit man whatever you guys you know hey you know where was your magic carpet you came in oh jesus have you gotten stuff like
Guest:I get stuff like that.
Guest:People are trying to be funny.
Guest:I'm like, all right, that's pretty good.
Guest:I'm like, okay, buddy.
Marc:But I just think it's really interesting because I try not to separate when I talk to people, though I do.
Marc:We're all Americans here.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But nonetheless, in my mind, if you have a distinct background that defines a distinct community from another country, it's a very interesting thing in the sense that there is a difference.
Marc:Yeah, we're all Americans, but one of the great things about being American is that you can live here and build your own community and be an American, but also be true to your community of where your roots are from.
Marc:And that strengthens America on some level.
Marc:And it's just interesting to me with the entire Middle Eastern comedy scene is that
Marc:during vaudeville when the jews couldn't you know go to you know schools and they needed to pass that there were the the jewish community was sort of cloistered and bunkered down and then once comedians started speaking for that community that they were actually helping people integrate yeah into the american uh model yeah and and and when and when other people found the jews funny they're like these jews are pretty funny yeah you know eleni busey's do a bit about about uh about pharaoh and moses
Marc:You know, you bring the Jew in, he's charming.
Marc:But there's something about this is a very new thing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That there's, because the comedy has sort of exploded, and as you said, even in Lebanon, there's people, stand-up is an American mode.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And there are people that, you know, respect it and want to do it and see it, and it works.
Marc:I was in Ireland everywhere.
Marc:But they all say that stand-up is American.
Guest:Yeah, absolutely.
Marc:But what's interesting to me is that you're at the cutting edge of this integration of the Arab community and the Middle Eastern community and Persian community into the American picture at a time where they're incredibly ostracized because of misinformation.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:So that must feel sort of empowering.
Guest:Well, yeah, it's interesting because a big part of it is like, first of all, I'm happy to, you know, I always consider myself, you know, as a kid I used to watch, you know, all the stand-up shows and I would see all these guys, you know, and like I remember being like 10 or something or 12 and Eddie Murphy comes on the scene.
Guest:I'm like, oh, this guy's hilarious.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, and I actually wanted to do stand-up when I was 17.
Guest:And at the time I didn't even associate with my Iranian-ness as much because I knew that we were different and all that stuff.
Guest:But a lot of my friends, I had like a few Iranian friends from Northern California.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I just wanted to be funny guy.
Guest:And the jokes I would write were all sex based.
Guest:I'm 17 years old.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, I'm being inspired by Eddie Murphy.
Guest:What am I going to write about?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so and it wasn't until I finally got serious with it in my mid 20s.
Guest:And actually, I took a stand up comedy class and they were saying, write about what, you know.
Guest:And I was like, well, you know, I know my experience as an Iranian growing up in America.
Guest:And so I started talking about that, you know.
Guest:And then I realized that I studied poli sci in college, so I'm really interested in the political and all that stuff.
Guest:So I started talking about that stuff.
Guest:And then the more things happened with September 11th and the wars and then the Patriot Act and all this other stuff, I go, oh, wow, there's a lot of things to talk about that I want to talk about.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I never felt like, oh, I'm the voice of a community or anything.
Guest:I just felt like my job is to be funny.
Guest:But if I can, like, I love, like, comedy that has a message underneath.
Guest:So if there's something that I can, if I can get a point across to people, whether it's like, you know, hey, let me tell you about this discrimination thing that just happened or our country's doing such and such and I can get it out.
Guest:I love that kind of stuff.
Guest:So that's what we did.
Guest:And what's interesting is what you were saying, this community was waiting.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, like growing up, like I had, I had, there was no Middle Eastern good guys.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, Omar Sharif 30 years ago.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know what I'm saying?
Guest:40, 50 years ago now.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But after, I mean, like for my age group, I loved, I loved De Niro and Pacino and all the Italian guys because that was the closest.
Guest:First of all, everybody loved those guys.
Guest:But furthermore, that was the closest I could get.
Guest:That was like, they kind of look like me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they're these cool guys.
Guest:That's who I'm going to grasp onto.
Guest:And so this whole community was waiting.
Guest:And that's what happened was once we got going, when I first started at the Comedy Store, it was late nights.
Guest:You know how it is?
Guest:Late nights in front of like 10 people.
Guest:They're from all over the world and who knows.
Guest:But once we did this Acts of the Evil thing and then it ended up on YouTube and people started really spreading this out, it was like a whole community going like,
Guest:We've been waiting for this.
Guest:And the support they gave us was amazing.
Guest:They come out in droves and they really support it.
Guest:And I think what you said is true.
Guest:I think that it helps the community be seen in a light way.
Guest:Like a lot of people didn't even know that there's a sense of humor in the Middle East.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, and that's why I grew up with that.
Guest:Like, in the Persian culture, when you do, when there's parties, you'll go, like, there's, like, always, there's, like, a handful of guys in corners just telling the dirtiest jokes.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And they're Persian-based jokes, Iranian jokes.
Guest:But people didn't, like, when we did the Axe Evil comedy special, we really, we went on to see what people were saying.
Guest:We ended up on, I ended up on a Sean Hannity chat room.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And one guy had written it, and the other guy said, I never knew these people laughed.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's true because you never see that.
Guest:You know what I'm saying?
Guest:They're always like, la, la, la, la, la.
Guest:Exactly, yeah.
Guest:I will kill you in the name of Allah.
Guest:But so that's what was amazing.
Guest:And then what got even crazier was when we went to the Middle East,
Guest:um we started like like there hadn't been american style stand-up really happening there and we went and now we went from from being uh you know being on youtube and also being on comedy central and in their minds and you know really have having succeeded in america and we brought it to the middle east i think if we had just been in the middle east and started there yeah they would have been like whatever but because we came from you couldn't even get booked to
Guest:It was a middle.
Guest:Yeah, right?
Guest:But no, because we came from Hollywood and we came there, it exploded and it was like we're celebrities there now.
Guest:It's totally Big Fish, Small Pond.
Guest:I always say I'm like the David Hasselhoff of the Middle East.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And what happened, though, was it influenced then all these young comics, young guys there.
Guest:Because of YouTube and everything, these people want to do it.
Guest:The problem is it's like being in some city like Des Moines or something where you're like, oh, there's only one club.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:there's nowhere for them to get up right you know and then there's also the you put on top of that that there's like sensors in the store so what you have is you have like in some governmental sense governmental so you have you have in some countries depending on where you are like lebanon very open you could say whatever you want about whoever you want and you know it's it's you know they they have and there's a lot of like they're very westernized and there's and lebanon has like you have christians you have muslims you have all kinds of different you have to you run the extremes
Guest:So if you do it in certain quarters, you can put on coffee shops, shows, what have you.
Guest:Great.
Guest:See, I had no idea about Lebanon like that.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Beirut is amazing.
Guest:Beirut has the craziest nightlife you can imagine.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:They go really hardcore.
Guest:I mean, it's crazy.
Guest:It's like the clubs go.
Guest:Like I was saying, I was in Lebanon recently in Beirut, and we were going to be going to New York, and my wife was hanging out with the baby in the hotel room, and she's like,
Guest:And Maz is doing a show and going to a nightclub afterwards.
Guest:I got to be in the hotel room.
Guest:And one of her friends emailed.
Guest:It was a Facebook thing.
Guest:The friend was like, well, you're coming to New York.
Guest:We'll live it up.
Guest:It's New York.
Guest:And I'm like, this guy's got to see Beirut.
Guest:Because Beirut puts New York to shame.
Guest:It's crazy.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Because there's no rules and regulations.
Guest:So you end up with this like a nightclub and it's like, I mean, it goes, it's like, you know, I don't even know if they have a, I don't know if there's a rule for a closing hour.
Guest:I'm not sure.
Guest:I don't know if there is.
Guest:There's definitely no capacity rule.
Guest:They just push people.
Guest:people in and they're going hardcore and it's the and you and it's this beirut is pretty small and you have like you have like the the the mediterranean right there so people go to the beach you know and then they have the hills you can go like when it's when in the winter like hardcore dancing is there drugs is there everything oh yeah everything oh yeah everything like when i the last time i did shows there um because i was doing i did a seven country tour of the middle east and one of the i've never i've never performed in iran like i don't know but i've been to the arab countries right um
Guest:And it's all in English.
Guest:And these are all mostly are either people that have traveled the world.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Or they're going to like American University.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Beirut or whatever.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And last time I did it, since I was on a tour, the guys in Beirut set up, like they said, we'll do a smaller show because you're doing a tour anyway.
Guest:Because usually when we go there, we do like 2,000 seaters.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And it's just crazy.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:This time the guy goes, we're going to do a nightclub and it'll be 150 seats.
Guest:I go, great.
Guest:I show up and they put like a board on top of one of their bars.
Guest:Basically like Coyote Ugly.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:of a bar yeah with a microphone with like booze behind me and I came from now I came from I'd just done shows in Riyadh Saudi Arabia the night before what the fuck is that like oh it's crazy now first of all Riyadh Saudi Arabia it's like it's illegal to have there's no movies anything you can't have movies yeah you can't have Shrek much less you know
Guest:Maz Jobrani, you know what I'm saying?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Or any comedian, you know?
Guest:And so there's an underground movement there of, like, young people that really rebel against that.
Guest:And what it is is the royal family is really big.
Guest:So within the royal family, you have people that support more of this, like, liberal kind of, like, you know, entertainment and stuff.
Guest:And you have people within the royal family who are going, no.
Guest:And I think the royal family is in a very precarious position because they're going, if we go too far, this religious, you know, the Wahhabis are going to revolt and we're done.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:If we don't, you know, but but we got to kind of now we've got this youth movement that that wants like they have like a metal rock scene in Saudi Arabia with young Saudi kids getting together in basements and playing metal rock.
Guest:So they let it happen.
Guest:They let it happen.
Guest:But it's kind of like, you know, the police can't find out about it.
Guest:Blah, blah, blah.
Marc:But the Wahhabis are extremely fanatic.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:They're extremely.
Marc:So they're ultra religious.
Marc:Ultra.
Marc:And the royal family is so large and so rich that they are really, you know, political aristocracy that beyond their Muslimness, they own the country.
Guest:They own the country.
Guest:But they but they realize that if the Wahhabis decide to revolt, they're fucked.
Marc:And they just keep buying American military machinery to keep them frightened.
Guest:Keep buying that.
Guest:And I think at the same time, I think that some of them within the royal family actually funnel money to them.
Guest:You know what I'm saying?
Marc:Sure.
Guest:And I'm sure that some of them in the royal family probably think like them.
Guest:Some of the royal family are going like, no, we need to go more religious.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So they have to accommodate a non-religious sort of youth class.
Marc:Like, I imagine the Wahhabas are relatively poor.
Marc:They're pretty angry.
Marc:And then you must have this other group that would be more middle class and more disenfranchised that want to be more American or more...
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So but where do you perform in that situation?
Marc:How is it legal?
Guest:So you got to do like private.
Guest:So you do like like I've done shows now.
Guest:We've done it at like embassies.
Guest:You know, you'll do some embassies like like the Venezuelan embassy or something will open their doors to an event.
Marc:So it's it's almost like a global political action.
Marc:It's like we need a space that is not under the auspices of the Saudi royal family in order to put on the show.
Marc:Will you host?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:A crazy Middle Eastern comedy show.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So we don't get in trouble.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:And Venezuela's cool.
Marc:Because you're on their turf when you're in their embassy.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:That's hilarious.
Guest:But what happened there actually was they actually did a show there.
Guest:And this was when I wasn't there.
Guest:It was another group of guys were there.
Guest:I guess the police, the Saudi police, saw all these young people coming to this event.
Guest:And sometimes they saw young girls coming without guardians.
Guest:That's the other thing.
Guest:Women can't even drive there.
Guest:So they would be getting dropped off, and they're like, who are you with?
Guest:What are you doing?
Guest:So the police started questioning, and some of the girls weren't able to go in.
Guest:So the Venezuelan embassy then came back and said, you know what?
Guest:We can't do this anymore at our place.
Guest:So that stopped happening there.
Marc:Because of the women.
Guest:No, because of the heat that they were getting from the police going like, what are you guys hosting in there?
Guest:Even though it's your territory, like the person who runs the embassy headquarters or whatever, that area was like, you know, from the Saudi area.
Marc:In another situation, they might have turned a blind eye, but because there were so many people and there were so many women going in.
Guest:Women and young girls and stuff.
Guest:Then the police came in and said, because the police are, you know, the police are.
Guest:Turn this off for a minute.
Guest:The police are, you know, they're there anyway.
Guest:They're policing the embassy area.
Guest:So, you know, I guess they saw this happening and then they started questioning some of these young girls.
Guest:And then the young girls ended up not being able to go and it became a whole thing.
Guest:And then the Venezuelan ambassador was like, we can't do this here anymore.
Guest:So the guy who promotes the shows now has found other places.
Guest:The last time I did a show out there, we did it like an hour outside of Riyadh.
Guest:One of the princes owns a farm that's supposedly the size of Bahrain.
Guest:So the farm is the size of a country.
Marc:And he's got like a- So he can literally say, get off my property and be 20 miles away.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:More than 20.
Guest:I get 100 miles.
Guest:So they have like a race car, a racetrack there.
Guest:And then they have an animal preserve.
Guest:So they set up outside by the animal preserve.
Guest:And that's where I performed.
Guest:Like I was, I mean, it was nice.
Guest:And how many people you draw, something like that?
Guest:There was 1,000 people there.
Guest:And it hadn't rained in two years.
Guest:And that night it rained.
Guest:It was outside.
Guest:So you must have been very special.
Guest:Well, yeah.
Guest:I was the rainmaker.
Guest:Come on, man.
Guest:But it was crazy.
Guest:They set up two tents in case people were getting wet.
Guest:So there's 500 people each going to each tent.
Guest:And we're going, okay, it's raining.
Guest:What are we going to do?
Guest:And I was like, well, at the comedy store, sometimes you can do a show in the original room, then run to the main room.
Guest:So I go, why don't we do two shows?
Guest:So we set up for two shows.
Guest:We're about to get going in a tent, standing on a table without a mic.
Guest:I was going to be screaming.
Guest:And then the rain stopped.
Guest:And we go, okay, is it going to stop permanently or what?
Guest:So we asked one of the Saudis and he's like, in Saudi Arabia, when the rain stops, it stops.
Guest:I was like, all right, and that means we're going outside.
Guest:So we went out and did it there.
Guest:So what's crazy is so the night before I'm in Saudi Arabia where it's completely dry in terms of alcohol and stuff.
Guest:And if you knew people, you can get it.
Guest:But generally speaking, you got to know people.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We're there.
Guest:We do the show in Riyadh.
Guest:Go down to the Sunset Strip of Riyadh, which is packed.
Guest:All these cars are out cruising.
Guest:And I'm looking around.
Guest:I realize, wait a minute.
Guest:It's all guys.
Guest:There aren't any girls.
Guest:I'm like, what is this?
Guest:And they're like, this is what they do.
Guest:The guys come out and they cruise around.
Guest:And they go, once in a while, some girls will get into tinted windows car with a male driver.
Guest:And then they'll switch, exchange numbers and the sort.
Guest:But the guy was pointing out to me, he goes, you can look out of the car and you see American chains.
Guest:You see a Starbucks with a bunch of dudes sitting outside.
Guest:And the guy with the promoter was like, look, I'm married.
Guest:He goes, I can't go with my wife and go sit there right now.
Guest:It's a beautiful night, but he can't go.
Guest:It's illegal for him to be out.
Guest:There's a family section that he would have to go sit in in a family section.
Marc:What is the basis of that law?
Marc:I mean, what is the law exactly?
Marc:Women can't go out, period?
Guest:Yeah, women do not go.
Guest:No, I think it's like we went to like a Kentucky Fried Chicken type thing there, and we were waiting to eat, and I waited for our food, and I go, how do I use the bathroom?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I went to the bathroom, and I looked up, and I was like, I realized there was only a men's room.
Guest:And I came out, and I looked at the line of people waiting for food, and it was just a bunch of dudes.
Guest:And I go, where are the girls?
Guest:And he goes, no, well, the women aren't allowed.
Guest:There's like a men's section.
Guest:And then there's a family section.
Guest:So a man and a wife, his wife or father and his daughter can go into the family section.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But they don't want like girls just, you know, hanging out like at a mall kind of situation.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because we know where that leads.
Guest:Shopping.
Guest:So I went from that kind of extreme to the next day I'm in Beirut.
Guest:I'm doing a show on a bar.
Guest:And the Beirut, to show you the difference now.
Guest:So in Saudi Arabia I'd have to know somebody.
Marc:Everyone's all dressed up.
Marc:Women are screaming.
Guest:Dude, it's crazy.
Guest:It's crazy like that.
Guest:And then I go upstairs before the show and I was like, you want anything to drink?
Guest:I go, you know what?
Guest:Do you have Don Julio tequila?
Guest:And he's like, yeah, I think we got that.
Guest:I go, can I just get a Don Julio on the rocks, maybe double Don Julio rocks, squeeze a lime.
Guest:I'm just going to sip it through my set.
Guest:I'm sitting upstairs.
Guest:The guy shows up with the bottle of the Don.
Guest:He's like, here, have the bottle.
Guest:I'm like, no, I just need one.
Guest:He's like, okay, okay, no problem, no problem.
Guest:So I take my glass up on stage.
Guest:I'm doing my show.
Guest:I'm sipping.
Guest:And another guy shows up.
Guest:One of the bartenders, whoever, shows up with another double, hands it to me.
Guest:He puts it on there.
Guest:I'm like...
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Finish that.
Guest:No, I'm sipping it again.
Guest:I'm sorry.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Another double.
Guest:I ended up with three doubles during the set.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I went from, like, no alcohol to, like, drinking a whole bottle of tequila.
Guest:And this is, I mean, this is Vegas.
Guest:This is frigging Beirut.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And what was crazy about that show was...
Guest:I was on top of a bar.
Guest:It was like Coyote Ugly.
Guest:And they had like 120 people there to see me.
Guest:And 30 girls who came from a bachelorette party who they did not tell there was going to be a comedy show.
Guest:So the girls, you know how it is.
Guest:They're just talking the whole time.
Guest:I'm shutting them up.
Guest:They're talking.
Guest:Shut them up.
Guest:And then finally they had a photographer that was there to take pictures of them.
Guest:The photographer starts giving me attitude.
Guest:He's looking at me from the bottom of the bar like, when are you going to be done?
Guest:and it was him and some dude and I'm like who are you guys and the guy's like are you going to sing and I turn to the manager I'm like did you guys tell these guys it was a comedy show and then the guy's like when you finish I go I'm finishing don't worry and then they had like some peanuts or something with him and I go what do you have in there he's like you know nuts and I go let me have one
Guest:The dude tosses the peanut like 10 feet into the air up to the bar.
Guest:And so it was like slow motion because I'm like the crowd is watching.
Guest:The peanut's being tossed.
Guest:This guy in a cocky way tosses it to me.
Guest:I go, I got to get this.
Guest:So like a seal, I just grab the thing in the air.
Guest:I'm like...
Guest:yeah I'm like sit your ass down motherfucker you know and it was such victory you grabbed it with your mouth oh yeah I grabbed it with my mouth man did you get a big round of applause oh the people went nuts it was great man it was very much like I cannot recreate that scene yeah yeah yeah did they shut up after that
Guest:They shut up for a few minutes.
Guest:Drunk girls.
Guest:What do you expect?
Guest:No matter what country you're in.
Guest:It doesn't matter, man.
Marc:Okay, so that's Riyadh.
Marc:That's Lebanon.
Marc:Now, what were the experiences outside of Riyadh?
Marc:Was all of them more like Lebanon or like, what'd you go, Egypt, Jordan?
Guest:Well, first of all, everywhere we've been, everywhere I've done shows, the crowds are great because the people that come to the shows, like I said, they've traveled around the world.
Guest:They're open-minded.
Guest:And they give you some rules sometimes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I go to Riyadh on another show one time.
Guest:They'd said, you know, everywhere we go, they go, no sex, no religion, no politics.
Guest:Except for Lebanon, they go, say whatever you want.
Guest:But no sex, no religion, no politics.
Guest:And then you go, okay, TV-friendly set.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, kind of, you know.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I was in actually Jeddah.
Marc:And you're doing how long?
Marc:Half hour, 45?
Guest:Half hour, 45 minutes, you know.
Guest:I'm in Jeddah.
Guest:The first time I'm in Saudi Arabia, I'm in Jeddah.
Guest:And I'm backstage.
Guest:And the promoter has lined up a bunch of young Saudi comics that are going to open up.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Actually, Ahmed was with me, too.
Guest:So Ahmed's, like, doing his show.
Guest:And then these young guys start.
Guest:And there's one young guy who was, like, handicapped or something.
Guest:And these guys have only done stand-up, like, you know, three, four times, you know.
Guest:I'm backstage.
Guest:And all of a sudden, I hear from the stage, like,
Guest:fuck that motherfucker, shit, shit, motherfucker, fuck, fuck.
Guest:I'm like, what is going on?
Guest:I was like, this kid's gonna get hung, or hanged, or whatever it is.
Guest:And he comes off stage, and then the promoter comes back and goes, they loved you, mate, you were great.
Guest:So this guy broke the whole thing of cussing and they loved it because the crowd, you know, this like faux pas, like, oh my God, like you can't go there.
Guest:He went there and they loved it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I was like, okay, so they give you the rules, but you can kind of push it a little bit.
Guest:It's like doing a college.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:It is like doing a college.
Guest:Like the kids want you to do it.
Guest:The authorities don't.
Guest:So when I went to Riyadh the first time, I was doing my set, keeping it clean.
Guest:I don't know who's in the front.
Guest:There's a bunch of people dressed up in the traditional garb.
Guest:I'm like, this guy could be the king's son.
Guest:I don't know who it is.
Guest:It turns out a few of them ended up being like grandsons of the king and stuff.
Guest:It was funny because you have relatives, like nephews and grandsons of royalty, and then you had a guy who was like, I think...
Guest:one of the CEOs or something, some leader of Exxon.
Guest:You're like, okay, so you got those two extremes happening in the front row.
Guest:But I was doing my set and I'm trying to keep it clean and they played a game.
Guest:There's a bunch of guys, a bunch of young kids, teenagers playing a game where they whisper a word in each other's ears and the next guy's got to say it louder and louder and louder and louder.
Guest:And the word they'd whispered was vagina.
Guest:So one of them goes vagina, vagina, vagina.
Guest:And suddenly one of the kids has to go vagina.
Guest:And he yells vagina.
Guest:And now as a comedian, you got to deal with that.
Guest:So I'm going, okay, I don't know who's here.
Guest:This is royalty.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Should I say vagina?
Guest:Am I in trouble by saying vagina?
Guest:It's not even a slang.
Guest:Not even a slang.
Guest:So I just started riffing on the term.
Guest:Because what happened was I had been talking about how the cities Jeddah and Riyadh were so hot.
Guest:I was talking about the heat in these cities.
Guest:I've never felt such heat in any place.
Guest:And that's what yelled vagina.
Guest:and then so i just riffed i was like so is that another city i was like you know you're saying it's a real hot dark city you know like you should go to vagina a little dark but it's really hot yeah so i riffed on it i was saying vagina and then i and that and i think this is where you realize you can get away with things because you can cross that path you know cross that line a little bit but i brought it back to like i turned to somebody else i was like sir i don't know who you are but i know i'm gonna i'm getting killed i'm gonna get killed after right yeah
Guest:And the crowd was laughing and the guy was laughing.
Guest:So they realized that I'm breaking the- He's going, yes, you are.
Guest:It's funny.
Guest:It's your last show ever.
Guest:But funny.
Guest:At least you went out on top.
Guest:So you tend to run into that.
Guest:You run into like you can cross the lines, but you got to know where.
Guest:Like I did a show.
Guest:And the other thing you run into is-
Guest:I'm sure you've had this before where you look out in the audience and I did a show in Oman.
Guest:Oman is a great country.
Guest:It's right there.
Guest:It's near Yemen and Saudi Arabia.
Guest:It's just beautiful.
Guest:People go there for vacationing and stuff.
Guest:And I'm looking out in the audience and because it's not like the comedy store where we're open seven days a week, 365 days a year.
Guest:Sure, it's once a year, twice a year.
Guest:Yeah, so it's an event.
Guest:So you look out in the audience and there's people of all ethnicities, a lot of Indians, a lot of Indians live out there.
Guest:You got a lot of Omanis.
Guest:You got these people dressed to the nines, just dressed up, and then they got their kids with them.
Guest:I'm like, well, I'm not going to start doing a thing about masturbation.
Guest:I start editing in my head.
Guest:I'm like, masturbation is out.
Guest:So that becomes another thing that causes you to kind of go in a certain direction.
Marc:And also it's not like because you would have those feelings if you were doing even if because they don't allow kids in to the clubs here, you don't have to deal with that.
Marc:But every once in a while you do a certain show and there's a kid there.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you really got to choose here, too.
Marc:But the pressure is not really as cultural.
Marc:Like, you know, there's really a fear that you will truly insult.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:you know the the cultural norm yeah we're here like you know i'll definitely be dirty in front of a kid because they brought the kid they know what comedy is but they are yeah that there's that but there's also the fact that like you know you may be you know you may be shunned yeah yeah absolutely absolutely by the entire audience yeah and you offended the family and this and this well that's an interesting topic as well is that i can't imagine yeah i mean you're playing for people that have more money than can ever be imagined
Marc:Right.
Marc:I mean, especially in Saudi Arabia.
Marc:I mean, if they're if they're there and they're dressed up, you know, whether it's, you know, the the traditional garb or or just dressed up.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You're dealing with billionaires.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Who don't even wipe their ass with money.
Marc:They don't even give a fuck.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Now, was there any experience where you ever like hosted by a family go to someone's house for you?
Marc:Like, oh, my God.
Marc:Outside of the farm where there's a racetrack and a nature preserve.
Marc:Was there ever this idea that you're like, these people run the world?
Guest:Yeah, we had a young prince in his early 20s, really cool guy.
Guest:He wanted to know if we could do a show for him, a private show for his cousins.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, sure.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So we show up, this door opens to this like, it's like off one of these roads, this normal looking road, but the door opens to this compound.
Guest:You know that poster where it's got like,
Guest:a Lamborghini, you know, a Bentley.
Guest:It's all in the garage.
Guest:It's like, you know, life is good or whatever.
Guest:That guy had that in his house.
Guest:Not the poster.
Guest:He had those cars.
Guest:He had that garage.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Lined up like that.
Guest:And then he's like, and then there was like on the property, there was like three houses.
Guest:He's like, I designed this house because I got, you know, I studied architecture.
Guest:So I designed this house.
Guest:And then he's like, my mom designed that house.
Guest:And we've got this other house.
Guest:And he's like taking us on a tour.
Guest:He had, first of all, the house he designed had like a game.
Guest:It was totally designed by a young guy for his friends.
Guest:It had like a game room with like big TVs and video game stuff.
Guest:It had another room where like they would watch soccer games.
Guest:It had a gym, like a place you'd get a membership to.
Guest:It had a gym.
Guest:And then in the gym, there was a DJ area.
Guest:So he has people DJ, I guess.
Guest:While he's playing basketball?
Guest:No, while he's like lifting weights.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I have no idea.
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then he's like, oh, here's my pool.
Guest:The pool looked kind of, you know, I was like, oh, that's a decent pool.
Guest:That's a good pool.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then there was like a fence with ivy on it, and I didn't realize there was a door like at the end of the fence.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:He's like, yeah, let's go over this way.
Guest:So he opens the fence, the gate, basically.
Guest:And we walk past the gate, and then there's a soccer field.
Nice.
Guest:No.
Guest:He's got a soccer field with lights, you know, if he wants to play at night.
Guest:With her bleachers?
Guest:No bleachers.
Guest:No bleachers.
Guest:But then he also had a concrete soccer court in case he decides not to play on the grass.
Guest:So you walk around, and the guy was the coolest guy in the world.
Guest:He was very nice.
Guest:Why wouldn't he be?
Guest:Yeah, why wouldn't he?
Guest:Exactly, right?
Guest:But you're walking around and everything is like gold on the wall.
Guest:And then he took us to this one room he's showing us and he's like, there's this carpet tapestry with three Saudi men on it.
Guest:And he's like, yeah, that one right there, the one in the center top.
Guest:He's like, that was my grandfather, King Saud.
Guest:So the guy who the country was named after was his grandfather.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Exactly what he said.
Guest:I was like, huh, can I borrow a couple dollars?
Marc:Just give me the money.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Where's the... Like when you walk out, you just get like a brick of money.
Marc:Yeah, exactly, right?
Marc:Thanks for coming.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Let me see if I got some change on me.
Guest:Oh, here's a brick of gold.
Guest:Here you go.
Guest:So where did you do the show in that situation?
Guest:We did the show.
Guest:It was actually kind of an awkward setup.
Guest:It was funny because he was doing it for like his younger cousins.
Guest:Like there's a very...
Guest:there's this feeling of like patriarchal, kind of like fatherly.
Guest:I mean, he's a 23-year-old guy, but he's like, my young cousins who are like these teenage girls and boys, there's like 15 of them that are like 12 years old.
Guest:He's like, well, they couldn't come to the show, so let me have the show come to them.
Guest:So he's got them sitting in the middle.
Guest:And to them, again, we're celebrities because they've seen us on YouTube and on television.
Guest:So it would be like having...
Guest:You know, Tom Cruise is going to stop by.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:But that's the problem.
Guest:Tom Cruise never goes there.
Guest:So we're the best they can do.
Marc:That's amazing.
Marc:Now, did you ever do shows that you really felt were for regular people?
Marc:I mean, because, I mean, and I don't know what I mean by that, because it sounds like the shows in-
Marc:in Lebanon were just party people, but did you ever, because sometimes you do shows, is there a working class, is there just, I mean.
Guest:Oh, absolutely, look, first of all, a lot of these places, whether it's Lebanon or even in Saudi Arabia, you got people that are like, obviously you have a lot of rich people, but you also have people that are like,
Guest:students or their father's like an engineer or what have you.
Guest:They're okay.
Guest:And they all come.
Guest:Yeah, they come.
Guest:They come to the shows.
Guest:Egypt is an interesting place.
Guest:Egypt's a poorer country, and so you do shows and you got a lot of... I mean, ticket prices are a lot less there, and you have to do it.
Guest:But you have like... Cairo is the most densely populated city in the world, or at least it was when I looked it up, and it was...
Guest:and you end up with show, we would do like two 2,000 seaters, and it would be packed, and it was, again, families would show up, and they love it, and they're very supportive.
Guest:Polite audiences?
Guest:Very, oh, my God, the nicest, politest, like, it's like- No heckling outside of a bachelor party.
Marc:That's funny that bachelor parties are universally shitty.
Guest:Oh, yeah, oh, absolutely, yeah.
Marc:A bachelorette party.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah.
Guest:With a girl, she had like a penis on her head or something.
Guest:Of course.
Guest:I was like, really, I don't-
Guest:I was like, what's wrong with you people?
Guest:That could happen anywhere.
Guest:Yeah, she had a milk bottle.
Guest:They gave her a milk bottle to drink out of.
Guest:I was like, why are you doing this to this girl?
Guest:Anyway, yeah, bachelor parties suck everywhere.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, the people are always – because, again, like I said, it's like this is an event.
Guest:It's new to them.
Guest:People are paid.
Guest:And also they paid money.
Guest:They want to come see this.
Guest:It's like this doesn't happen all the time.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And they're always – and we've taken a lot of non-Middle Eastern comics out there with us, and they've done great.
Guest:and the key again is to just like keep it clean and you know it was interesting to see like we did a we did a show at um in in abu dhabi for a an all-girls school in abu dhabi and they were and they were dressed kind of you know in abu dhabi they wear they don't wear like a full veil the girls they wear like this like black kind of veil that goes like over their hair yeah but underneath underneath they have like the latest like louis vuitton you see the bling coming out yeah
Guest:They love the bling, but they just got to cover it up.
Guest:It's kind of weird.
Guest:But we did the show there.
Guest:And again, they're very nice.
Guest:But we had Sebastian Maniscalco with us.
Guest:And he does a lot of like, you know, some of the stuff about dating and stuff.
Guest:And these girls, like one of the girls like emailed us going like, really enjoyed the show.
Guest:It was great.
Guest:But, you know, some of the dating stuff, it's a little pushy and risque.
Guest:There's nothing risque about it at all.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was just that in her mind.
Guest:They just don't date like that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's just like, I don't know.
Guest:You shouldn't talk about that stuff.
Guest:I'm like, come on.
Marc:I can't even imagine what the culture of courting is in that situation.
Guest:What they were doing for the longest time, we learned, is that a lot of young people in these countries that are more strict, they would go to malls.
Guest:This is before.
Guest:They would go to malls.
Guest:And they would, first of all, there was a time when they would crumble up their phone numbers and like just as they're walking past each other, like throw it to the other person.
Guest:To the guy.
Guest:To the guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So then, oh, call me and we'll figure out a way to hook up or something.
Guest:Then it became BlackBerrys.
Guest:You could do this thing where you Bluetooth.
Guest:So with your phone, you like send a button or like you pass by each other, you do something and they get your number.
Guest:right then the thing i learned last time i was in um saudi arabia the reason facebook is so pop facebook is huge over there it's because that is their cafe they can't go sit at a cafe and talk and get to know each other so they got to know each other on this cafe which is facebook right which they sit there and they chat no one's over their shoulders you know what are you doing what are your interests all that stuff that's why it's so popular over there so whenever i and also the older generation doesn't know about
Guest:They don't know.
Guest:They don't know how to do it.
Guest:What is this login?
Guest:I have no idea.
Guest:So whenever I do shows in some of these places, there's nowhere to put ads.
Guest:In Saudi Arabia, you can't run an ad in the Riyadh Examiner.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:So you have to do- Comedy tonight.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Riyadh Weekly.
Guest:So you have to do it through Facebook, and it's amazing.
Guest:They are all on there, and it works.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, that's interesting, because now that you know this stuff now, at some point, I imagine that if they're actually going to be indigenous comedy scenes coming up, that the comics that live in that cultural situation will start making jokes about that.
Marc:Or the next time you go back, you could maybe, but they might not want to be revealed.
Guest:Well, that's what's funny.
Guest:First of all, the audiences that are there know all about this.
Guest:So I've actually watched a lot of the comics that go up talk about that stuff.
Marc:These guys are local.
Marc:All the local guys.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:You know, what's with the Blackberry, blah, blah, blah, blah, all that stuff.
Guest:Now, me, every time I've gone to these places, one of the reasons I've done well in these places, and this is something that I think as comedians we learn as we go.
Guest:I remember watching, there was a Richard Pryor special, I think it was in New Orleans.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The last one, yeah, I remember that.
Marc:Towards the last one.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, it was older.
Guest:And I think the first five minutes he talks about being in New Orleans.
Guest:He's like, I spent a week here, you guys say this, you guys say that, and the crowd's going nuts.
Guest:And they love it because he's talking about them.
Guest:And I realized early, I was like, wherever I go, I try and find what I can observe right off the bat and talk about that.
Marc:But that's like an old road comic device that, you know, people, you've taken to an international level, like a road comic would be like, all right, where's a bad neighborhood?
Marc:You know, what's the shitty restaurant?
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Who are the idiots, you know, in this town?
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:So now you just do a little research and they think you're like, oh my God.
Marc:He knows about us.
Guest:Yeah, and they love that.
Guest:And the thing, though, that's been amazing is in some of these places, you can't avoid talking about these things.
Guest:Like when I was in Egypt, every time I've been in Egypt, whenever I'm in Beirut, when you just drive around, the crazy driving, the crazy things that you see, you go, I got to talk about this.
Guest:It's ridiculous.
Marc:Now, do you bring any of this back to American audiences?
Marc:No.
Guest:Some of it I do.
Guest:Whenever I come back, I have material.
Marc:Because I have to assume that American Middle Easterners are completely unfamiliar.
Marc:And also Americans in general.
Guest:I do bits now at the clubs, and it'll be a mixed crowd.
Guest:And I've been doing a bit about, if I get to this part of my show, I'll talk about being in Lebanon.
Guest:And I found out last time I was in Lebanon that
Guest:you can get a loan because Lebanese and Iranians love plastic surgery.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we have some of the hottest women are Persian and Lebanese.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But a lot of them also have nose jobs and they love plastic surgery.
Guest:And so in Lebanon, you can get a loan from the bank for your plastic surgery.
Guest:And I was like, I've never heard of that.
Guest:Like, you know, I've heard people put on a credit card or something, but you can't get a loan for anything here anymore.
Guest:Yeah, exactly, right?
Guest:It's Wells Fargo.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So the joke I was doing, I was like, I don't know how that works.
Guest:I don't know if guys are walking in going like, yes, hi, I was going to remodel my house, but I've decided to remodel my wife.
Guest:We were going to add a bathroom, but we're adding tits.
Marc:Much better.
Guest:So I do that, and I think audience is obvious.
Guest:I think it's universal.
Guest:People get it.
Guest:Okay.
Marc:Well, of course, how could they not get that?
Marc:But I just think it's a great service you're doing in the sense that even somebody like me, who is relatively sophisticated, but maybe a little ignorant of things.
Marc:I mean, Christ, you say Beirut to most Americans.
Marc:It still represents chaos and bombs and everything.
Marc:I remember using it in a joke in the late 80s, in reference to New York.
Marc:It's like Beirut was this, in the American mindset, it was just a chaotic disaster.
Guest:Like Detroit, when you say Detroit.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Have you ever performed for the troops?
Guest:I've never.
Guest:I've wanted to.
Guest:And it's funny.
Guest:When we were doing the Axis of Evil, we got approached to perform for the troops.
Guest:And it didn't go that far because we started talking about it.
Guest:And then I think one of the things they were saying was like, don't do any Bush jokes and blah, blah, blah.
Guest:And we're like, well, half the material at this point is about Bush and the policy.
Guest:So I think that whoever was trying to book us was kind of turned off by that.
Guest:So we said, all right, well, if we're going to have to- Would have been an interesting challenge.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:To represent Middle Eastern comedy to the people that were fighting in the Middle East.
Guest:Well, it's interesting, actually.
Guest:It's interesting because we've done shows.
Guest:The closer I've come to performing for troops is we used to go to La Jolla at the heart of all this.
Marc:They got a bass there?
Guest:They got the Camp Pendleton.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we get Marines that would show up.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I'll tell you, you're going to run into the Marine, the guy who's just like...
Guest:USA, what the hell's wrong with you?
Guest:You're going to run into that guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But most of the guys I ran into were guys, especially guys that had gone there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Would come up and be like, hey, man, I really enjoyed it.
Guest:Thanks for making that funny.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You're totally right.
Guest:The whole, you know, whatever, blah, blah, blah.
Guest:I've seen all the stuff you're talking about firsthand.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They're really, like, good people that kind of got it and they did get it.
Guest:And you go, okay, this guy's fighting the fight, but he gets it, you know?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, no, a lot of them know what's up.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And they didn't sign on out of necessarily a patriotic duty.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:They signed on because they were capable of doing it and needed to do it and made a choice to be part of this military.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I think some of them are a lot more aware of why they're there.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And who the people they are dealing with are.
Marc:Yeah, it's kind of interesting.
Guest:It's almost interesting because you almost think that the people here that give that rah-rah patriotic support the troops, it's almost like they're the crazy fan and the troops are like the players who are like, I get it.
Guest:I know it's not really that rah-rah.
Guest:It's not that black and white.
Guest:It's a job.
Guest:It's a job, and they know that they're trying to help people out, whatever, but I don't think that they see it as blindly as some of the rah-rah patriotic people.
Guest:Have you played in Dearborn?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's what I'm saying about the cosmopolitan thing.
Guest:I do a lot better.
Guest:First of all, Dearborn has the biggest Arab-American population in America, as far as I know.
Guest:Dearborn, Michigan.
Guest:Dearborn, Michigan, yeah.
Guest:And I've tried to do Dearborn and also parts of Michigan a few times, and the turnout has been fine, but it hasn't been as great as some other places.
Guest:And I attribute that to a few things.
Guest:First of all, I don't think it's not a really cosmopolitan city.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's specifically Arab Muslim.
Guest:Arab Muslim, I think that you do run into a lot of people that are, like if I were a famous Egyptian singer who'd come into town, probably sell it out.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But because I'm Middle Eastern American, I guess there's people that are more...
Guest:It's like Orthodox Jewish community.
Marc:Just because they're Arabs, they are holding on to their roots in a way that is almost at odds with American living.
Marc:They just want to be reminded of home and for them to honor the community of what they came from as opposed to be part of the larger community.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And I think that they may have a lot more relatives and stuff that are maybe, they're just tied into the listen to that music and they're not into this at all.
Marc:You know what I'm saying?
Marc:Right.
Guest:I did Ann Arbor, which was fun.
Guest:Ann Arbor.
Marc:Ann Arbor's a good club.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Did you do the club or did you do it?
Guest:I did the club.
Guest:I did a little theater there, but I think I'm going to do the club next time.
Guest:I'm pretty sure.
Guest:But the city is great.
Guest:It reminded me of, I went to Berkeley, so it reminded me of Cal a little bit.
Guest:Yeah, it's a college town.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So what did you study at Berkeley?
Guest:I studied poli sci, and I did a minor in Italian.
Guest:You can speak Italian?
Guest:Yeah, I spent a year in Italy when I was a junior in college, and I had an Italian girlfriend that didn't speak any English, and so I was writing papers in Italian.
Guest:It was great.
Marc:Fucking amazing, and you also speak, what is it, Farsi?
Guest:Farsi, yeah.
Marc:Now, could you do jokes in Farsi?
Marc:Have you tried?
Guest:Never.
Guest:I mean, you know, people have asked me to come do shows in Farsi, and I go, I don't do that.
Guest:I go, first of all, one of my goals is to expose the Iranian Middle Eastern culture and community to Americans and Westerners.
Guest:But secondly, I go, it's what you were saying earlier, a stand-up comedy that I know is an American art form with a rhythm.
Guest:It's got its own rhythm.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I go, you know, there's jokes in Farsi with, you know, like these two guys there, you know, they- Do it in Farsi.
Guest:You know.
Guest:Say it in Farsi.
Guest:Well, I mean, like a joke in Farsi that I know.
Guest:Funny because there's a thousand of them and I only remember one.
Guest:Pretty good, huh?
Guest:Yeah, I know you love that one.
Marc:I heard where the punchline was.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, you did.
Guest:Yeah, the rhythm of it.
Guest:What is the joke?
Guest:Well, the joke is, see, that's the thing.
Guest:It's funny because in Iran, it's all regional.
Guest:Like even within Iran, there's like, you know, you got the northern, like north.
Guest:My father was from North Tabriz, which is near the Russian border.
Guest:They're called Turk.
Guest:because they're also between like right in that area.
Guest:And the stereotype is that they're stupid.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There's another one called Rasht, another city called Rasht.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They're supposed to be stupid and also the women, their wives are supposed to cheat on them a lot.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So this joke is that a Rashti guy comes home and he sees a man sleeping with his wife.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he goes, so they're stupid and their wife sees it.
Guest:So he goes,
Guest:oh, you son of a bitch, are you trying to mimic me or impersonate me?
Guest:He doesn't see the sex part as much as he's being offended that the guys make fun of him.
Guest:Why fucking his wife?
Guest:Because he's like, oh, what are you trying to impersonate me?
Guest:That's interesting.
Marc:It's taken for granted that the wife will fuck anybody.
Marc:So this guy's like, how dare you try to be me in my house?
Guest:Yeah, and also this guy's stupid.
Guest:They're supposed to be dumb, so he doesn't go like, get off my wife and beat his ass.
Guest:He's like, oh, you're impersonating me?
Guest:I got you.
Guest:And that's the joke?
Guest:That's the joke.
Guest:Does it do well?
Guest:I guess.
Guest:I mean, that's the thing, though.
Guest:There's like a million of these.
Guest:There's a million of these.
Guest:And that's the problem.
Guest:I don't do that kind of stuff anyway.
Guest:I think Iranians think, oh, you're going to go up there and tell jokes, as opposed to stand-up, which is, let me tell you about my life.
Guest:That's interesting.
Marc:Now, what are you working on?
Marc:Anything we should talk about, Maz?
Guest:I'm pitching shows to the networks right now.
Guest:I got a movie I'm trying to get made.
Guest:It's called Jimmy Vestwood, American Hero.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:And it's just the word Westwood, but with Vs. And people can go to JimmyVestwood.com.
Guest:It's about an Iranian living in America.
Guest:He's always wanted to be an American hero because he's a big fan of Steve McQueen when he was a kid.
Guest:And he works at a rug store and lives with his mother.
Guest:And then he ends up in this Hitchcockian kind of... Because he ends up delivering a rug to this femme fatale blonde lady in Beverly Hills and ends up in a Hitchcockian story through her...
Guest:So it's kind of like, and the idea is, and the tagline is, you don't have to be American to be an American hero.
Guest:Oh, that's good.
Guest:And that's what it comes from.
Guest:And it's a comedy.
Guest:It's kind of like Pink Panther-y and what have you.
Marc:Are you trying to raise money?
Guest:Trying to raise money.
Guest:We've written a script with my friend, and we've got the website.
Guest:He's got a Facebook page for Jimmy Vestwood.
Marc:Maybe it's time to call the grandson of Saad.
Guest:I know a lot of people with a lot of money.
Guest:But you know what it is?
Guest:It's about approaching these people.
Guest:the right way at the right time and also like finding somebody who's really into it because you know ultimately people that have money maybe not the grandson of the king Assad but a lot of the people that I know like in the Persian community they're good businessmen who kind of made the money well no a lot of in the 80s there was a lot of movie production going on from Arab money yeah Persian money I don't know yeah maybe you can start a new trend I should yeah bring it back here we go thanks Maz thanks Mark music music music
Marc:Thank you, Maz Jobrani.
Marc:That was interesting.
Marc:Those were stories I would never have heard.
Marc:What an amazing global community we've got going with this comedy thing.
Marc:Anyways, I love Maz.
Marc:He's a good guy.
Marc:Now let's just rehash a little bit, okay?
Marc:Let's do this because I don't want people to miss me if you want to see me.
Marc:Cincinnati, Go Bananas, November 4th, 5th, and 6th.
Marc:San Francisco, Punchline.
Marc:November 11th, 12th, and 13th.
Marc:Crowfoot Ballroom, Pontiac, Michigan, November 15th.
Marc:One night.
Marc:One night only.
Marc:Live WTF, Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, Los Angeles, November 20th.
Marc:December 9th and 10th, Union Hall for my CD taping.
Marc:I think we're going to do four shows there.
Marc:It's a small room.
Marc:Book in advance.
Marc:You can do that at the Union Hall website.
Marc:Please go to WTFpod.com.
Marc:Get on the mailing list.
Marc:I enjoy writing you every week and getting you up to speed with the guests and giving you a little more of a window into my life in the text form.
Marc:I appreciate you listening.
Marc:And please go to WTFpodshop.com for our premium episodes.
Marc:The Attell episode is getting rave reviews.
Marc:I was right next to it happening and I have not recovered yet.
Marc:My face still hurts a little bit.
Marc:Thank you for listening.
Marc:Love, Mark.
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