I'm Not a Terrorist, But I've Played One on TV by Maz Jobrani Page A

in front of everyone: “You did a good job, Maz. Next time make joke about how you vet your bed until you vere ten.” This woman had a lot of secrets on me. I had to be careful when I took her out in public.
    In a show with a bunch of lousy amateurs, I succeeded in being one of the better lousy amateurs. Afterwards, as people congratulated me, again I found my mom and braced myself for her to blurt out an inappropriate comment.
    â€œYou vere good!”
    â€œAnd?”
    â€œAnd vhat?”
    â€œAren’t you going to say something to deflate the compliment?”
    â€œI vould never do dat!”
    â€œLast time you reminded me it was my turn to clean the bathroom.”
    â€œDat vas just fact! Vhy you so sensitive?”
    â€œI don’t know. Maybe I have mother issues.”
    â€œOr maybe you’re just a pussy.”
    Gigging in Strip Clubs
    People ask me all the time how to become a stand-up comedian. The answer is simple: Get onstage as much as you can and write as much as you can. This sounds easier than it is because if you’re not committed it’s easy to be discouraged. I have done gigs in coffee shops where no one is listening and the barista decides to make the foam for the cappuccino right as you hit your punch line. I’ve done shows in church basements with only eight audience members, all of whom were there to perform their own variety acts as soon as I finished. The most bizarre show I ever did was in a strip club, where the club owners had sold the place the night before and taken the microphone with them.
    The show was at a place called Treasure Island, the treasure being scantily clad girls dancing on greasy poles. The booker was a guy who did old-school jokes like you might hear in the vaudeville days. “Take my wife . . . please!” This guy booked the room so that he could get himself stage time on a weekly basis and work on his jokes, which were atrocious. (This is a common occurrence—guys who no one else will book deciding to get their own venue.) I was new to stand-up, so I took any gig I could get. Truth be told, I was quite atrocious myself.
    The guy told me he would pay me five bucks for every audience member I brought. I was excited that this would be my first paid gig, but I didn’t want to overpromote because I wasn’t ready to perform in front of a large crowd. I told a few friends and asked them to keep it a secret. The opposite happened. In a room with thirty-eight audience members, thirty-one had come to see me. That meant I would make $155 that night, but also that I would bomb in front of enough people to get the word out to thecommunity that I stunk. Furthermore, it wasn’t until I showed up at the venue that I was told that the microphone was missing. It was decided that the show must go on and we would just shout our stand-up at the crowd.
    If you’ve never done stand-up in a strip club, don’t. People who go to strip clubs are not there to laugh. Some might giggle depending on how the girl dances on their laps, but laughter is not the main motivation. We quickly discovered that this was the worst location for a stand-up show when one of the patrons from the main room walked into our back room, stripper in tow. This gentleman, dressed as a gangbanger and looking quite dangerous, proceeded to sit in the center of the room where our microphone-less show took place. He held a loud conversation with the stripper, who was sitting on his lap. The guy didn’t seem to care that there was a desperate comedian onstage shouting horrible jokes so everyone could hear. At one point the comic couldn’t ignore his chatter any longer.
    â€œSir, I’m telling jokes up here. Can you keep it down?”
    â€œYou talking to me?”
    â€œYes, I’m talking to you. Keep it down.”
    â€œMind your own business, asshole!”
    The poor comedian looked to the rest of us for help—other comedians, the