I'm Not a Terrorist, But I've Played One on TV (6 page)

Years later, while doing stand-up comedy, I began talking about these incidents. It felt like I was opening up an old wound, but it
was good to talk about the childhood troubles I had with Jim. I was telling the Fucking Eye-ranian tale around the world on my Brown and Friendly tour. I would end the story by telling the audience that the kid who teased me back then had no idea I would become a stand-up comedian, performing in front of thousands of people some nights, and that I would tell them, “Ladies and gentlemen, Jim Juvonen is an asshole. Please spread the word on Facebook and Twitter and wherever else you like.” I began outing this kid, now presumably an adult, and the audience loved it because everyone can identify with being bullied at some point in his or her life.

Still, part of me felt bad because I figured this was an incident that happened when we were kids. That's what kids do, pick on each other. Who knows, maybe if there had been a North Korean in our school I would've picked on him, or at least diverted attention to him so that Jim and company would leave me alone. “Hey, Jim, I know I'm a fuckin' eye-Ranian, but did you hear what the North Korean kid said about you? Yeah, plus he's a communist! Get him!” I knew Jim was older now and probably a family man who was just living his life. The last thing he needed was to be hassled by me and my fans. I wondered what he was up to. Then one day, when I was listening to an interview on NPR with another Jim, comedian Jimmy Fallon, my question was answered. The interviewer asked Fallon about his short-lived movie career. He responded that he was in a few flops, but the one good thing that did come out of his movie career was
Fever Pitch,
where he met Drew Barrymore's producing partner and married her. The name of the woman he married was Nancy Juvonen. My jaw dropped. It's an unusual name. Could Fallon have married someone related to Jim Juvonen, who made my year as a fourth grader a living hell? I did what any self-respecting American would do. I googled it.
Turns out that Fallon is now the brother-in-law of Jim, the guy who invented my nickname, Fucking Eye-ranian! What are the chances? If I ever do stand-up on Fallon's talk show, I'll bring up this story and hug it out with Jim—Juvonen, not Fallon; although I'm cool with Fallon hugging us, too. He can be our UN peace negotiator. We'll do a three-way hug out. I can forgive and forget.

“Jim, I've come on this show thirty years later to forgive you.”

“Who are you again?”

“Maz. The kid who lied to you during the hostage crisis.”

“What did you lie to me about?”

“About being Italian.”

“So you're not Italian?”

“No! I'm Iranian.”

“Eye-ranian?”

“EEEE-RONIAN!”

“Okay, take it easy! Fucking Eye-ranian!”

My Loud Dad

Another way my father stood out—he was LOUD. As a kid I'd sometimes speak loudly in the car and he would ask, “Vhy are you yelling? Did you svallow a microphone?” I would ponder whether maybe I had actually swallowed a microphone while sleeping and I just didn't know about it. My father, on the other hand, sounded like he had a built-in microphone in his voice box. He had a deep, operatic voice. Imagine if your father were Luciano Pavarotti and he was always singing. That was my dad, without the beautiful melodies. Again, my efforts at blending in would always be foiled by this man, who knew no other way than to be loud and brown in the middle of a town filled with quiet white people. I remember
one time we went to an ice cream parlor. My mouth was watering for my favorite flavor—strawberry with chocolate sprinkles. The girl behind the counter turned out to be a few years older than me and suddenly, everything changed. My father broke into a deep laugh and—very loudly, extremely embarrassingly—began hitting on the girl on my behalf.

“HELLO, YOUNG LADY. YOU ARE LOOKING FOR HUSBAND, YES? MY SON VIL BE YOUR HUSBAND. HA! HA! HA!”

He sounded like the bald black guy from the 7UP commercials in the eighties. (If you don't know who I'm talking about, just search online for “Bald black guy from 7UP.” He was a classic!) When your father walks into an ice cream parlor and starts arranging your marriage—at the age of ten, mind you—you turn the color of the strawberry ice cream you were planning to order.

“YOU MARRY MY SON, I DRIVE YOU IN MY ROLLS-ROYCE TO HONEYMOON!”

My mother was subtler in her ways, which, given that my dad was so loud and grand, wasn't saying much. The image most Americans have of Iranian women is of gentle, docile, veiled ladies who cook, clean, and raise the kids. My mother was far from that. She was a beautiful, active, and tough lady who did not hesitate to take her hangers and beat the crap out of me, my sister, my brothers, and even my aunt who lived with us. She wasn't as bad as Joan Crawford from
Mommie Dearest
,
but when we messed around she let us have it. This was a reflection of our culture. I thought this was normal in every family until one day when I was at my American friend Jesse's house. His mom yelled at him for something, and Jesse, to my dismay, yelled back. I held my breath, waiting for his mom to whip out her hangers and beat the crap out
of her son, and perhaps me. Instead she just yelled back at Jesse and went about her business.

I was shocked. “That's it? That's all she's going to do?”

“Yep.”

“No beatings with a hanger?”

“Why would she beat me with a hanger?”

“Because she's your mom. That's what moms do, isn't it?”

I'm not sure if this was only an Iranian thing or if it's an immigrant thing, but beatings were a natural part of my upbringing. My father never hit us. He would just raise his voice and, due to the baritone delivery, we would immediately pee in our pants. My mother, on the other hand, had a repertoire of hanger abuse, spankings, and ear pulling. I'm convinced that my ears were naturally much smaller but that she helped shape them to the Spock-like size they are today.

In the modern world that we live in, hitting your kids is a big no-no. I would never hit my kids, but sometimes I can understand why our parents would hit us. You get much quicker results when you come out of your room wielding a hanger in your hand than in the current environment, when you pull your child aside, get down to his level, and try to speak to him with a calm voice: “Do you know why Daddy is upset? Was it a good idea to pee pee on Daddy's computer? Please go to your room and think about what you did. You don't want to go to your room? Okay, let's talk about how going to your room makes you feel.”

As a kid I felt like I was living with a bunch of foreigners. Looking back on it, I was. When you come to a country at the age of six, you adapt quickly to the culture. However, your parents aren't as exposed to the natives as you are. Older immigrants tend to find other immigrants to hang out with. We were always going
to the homes of the other three or four Iranian families in Marin. They also had kids my age, so we could get together and play while our parents indulged in Persian card games. This gave us ample time to bad-mouth them and exchange strategies on how to distance ourselves further.

“The worst part of having an Iranian dad is that he wears too much cologne,” someone would complain. “Whenever he picks me up from soccer, I can smell him a mile away.”

“You think you have it bad? My dad insists on playing backgammon in the park while he waits for me to finish my practice.”

“You want fresh off the boat? My dad drives me around town in a Rolls-Royce and proposes marriage to thirteen-year-old girls on my behalf. He thinks he's the shah.”

Call Me Tony

Kids often turn to film and TV to find people they can relate to. Nowadays, when my kids watch TV there are cartoons with Latino leads (
Dora the Explorer
), Asian leads (
Ni Hao Kai-Lan
) and bear leads (
Little Bear
). Being Iranian in America in the eighties, I didn't find many people on TV who I could relate to. There was the Iron Sheik, who was a wrestling villain from the World Wrestling Federation. He was hard to cheer for because he would come on TV with his Russian counterpart, Nikolai Volkoff, and shout, “Iran number von! Russia number von! America?” Then he would spit on the canvas. The crowd would boo and Hulk Hogan would arrive and distribute ass-whoopings for all the little Hulkamaniacs out there. The only other Iranians on TV or in film were the rich Persian neighbors in
Down and Out in Beverly Hills
and the Iranian husband in
Not Without My Daughter
.

For anyone who hasn't seen
Not Without My Daughter,
let me summarize. It is based on a true story and stars Sally Field, who is married to an Iranian man in America. The Iranian man is played by Alfred Molina, who looks more Persian than I do. (I actually took a Shakespearean acting class with him once and he was so nice that any animosity I felt toward him from being in this movie melted away.)

While they're in the United States, the Molina character, Sayed Bozorg Mahmoody, a.k.a. Moody, is a charming medical school student who seems lovely to Sally. He has romantic picnics with her and treats her like his queen. Then they go for a short trip to Iran and the guy changes on a dime. He becomes misogynistic and abusive. (Which I guess explains why they call him “Moody.”) He won't let Sally out of the house and tells her that he's going to kill her and sacrifice her like a sheep. Furthermore, Moody tells her, he won't let her take their daughter back to the United States. So Sally sets out to find a way to escape with her child, and thus the title,
Not Without My Daughter
.

This was in Sally Field's heyday; it would be like a Middle Eastern man doing this to Reese Witherspoon today. This movie did more to hurt the dating lives of Iranian men in America than the hostage crisis. Many of my friends relinquished any pride they had in their Persian background and just pretended to be Italian. Somehow, they could handle the hostage crisis, they could manage “I Ran (So Far Away),” but
Not Without My Daughter
put them over the edge. They went from being named Shahrokh, Mahmoud, and Farsheed to all being named Tony. I'm not sure why they all chose Tony, but it seemed odd to me that women wouldn't question you when you would introduce your friends this way: “I'm Maz. This is my friend Tony. Over there, next to Tony, is Tony. Over there
next to Tony and Tony is Tony. Yes, they're all Italian. Very Italian. Me? I'm Iranian. Wait, where are you going? Did I say Iranian? I meant Persian, like the cat. Meow!”

Finding Italian heroes on TV was easy. I became a fan of every Italian actor. If their names ended with an “o” I was into them—Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Marlon Brando, Elmo. (Okay, Elmo wasn't around back then, but if he had been, I would've worshipped him!) This love of everything Italian became an obsession for my friends and me. It was so easy, and acceptable, to be Italian. First of all, Italians have a lot in common with Iranians. We both are dark-haired macho types who like to wear gold chains and show off our hairy chests. We both put a lot of emphasis on family and food. And we both live with our parents until we're married. Add the fact that most Americans did not speak Italian and we were set. All we had to do was speak Persian with an Italian accent and women would be so impressed they would practically throw themselves at us. We just added an “a” or an “o” to the end of every word and threw in words like
ciao
and
bella
. We were careful not to use too many Persian words with the guttural “khhhh” sound in them. That would raise suspicion.

“Okay,
bella,
let's stopp-o the talk-o and maka da love. Khhhhh-okay? I mean . . . okay-o?”

All This Time I Was White

When people meet me, they often assume I am fully immersed in the Persian culture and I am more Iranian than American. But when I reflect on my life, I realize I have spent most of it in America—and most of it surrounded by American friends. Their influence on me can be seen in many ways. For example, I have a
401(k). Most Iranians from the old country don't even know what that is. When I talk to my mother about my 401(k), she thinks I'm talking about the new Mercedes.

Another American pastime that I took up as a child was baseball. I don't know if I played this sport because I loved it or if I was trying to fit in. I didn't realize how foreign baseball was to Iranians until I tried to explain the game to my grandfather. He would see me leaving the house with my mitt and bat: “Vhere are you going vith dat shovel?” For some reason he called the bat a shovel. It looks nothing like a shovel, but I guess he figured I was off to dig with it. To him the mitt must've been a gardening glove. I would explain that the bat is used to hit a ball and then you have to run around a diamond and make it back home. This just confused him more. “Vhy do you run around before you come home? Just come home. And if you see diamond, don't run. Pick up. I have friend. He get us good money.”

The American-ness of baseball, and eventually my 401(k), were trumped by the American-ness of my choice to become an actor. This, to my Iranian parents, was the most foreign thing they had ever heard. “You vant to be actor? Vhat the hell does dat mean? Are you gay?” Persian parents, for the most part, don't believe in their children pursuing dreams. To a Persian parent, there are only a few options in life, and those include lawyer, doctor, engineer, or, preferably, an engineering lawyer with a medical degree. Anything else, the community will frown upon. From an early age my dad would encourage me to be a lawyer. “You go to law eh-school. You get your degree. You vork for me.” Just like
The Godfather
. He wasn't so much interested in a son as he was a consigliere.

The idea of becoming an actor came to me when I was twelve. At the time, Eddie Murphy was huge, and I wanted to be just like
him. I participated in my school's musical in the seventh grade and sang and danced my way to the lead the following year, where I got to play Li'l Abner. Whenever I was onstage, I felt alive. It was as fun for me to do plays as it was to play soccer and baseball, which were my other loves. My parents tried to be supportive, but I always felt that they were uncomfortable seeing me act.