MAZ JOBRANI—COMEDIAN, ACTOR
Growing up, there was no Middle Eastern good guys. You know, Omar Sharif, that’s forty to fifty years ago now. For my age group, I loved De Niro and Pacino and all the Italian guys because that was the closest to me. First of all, everybody loves those guys anyway, but furthermore, that was the closest I could get. I was like, “They kind of look like me,” you know? They’re these cool guys, that’s who I’m going to grasp onto.
KUMAIL NANJIANI—COMEDIAN, ACTOR
I was eighteen when I moved here. Most of my formative years were in Pakistan. I came alone. I was eighteen.
It was always the plan. I went to an English-speaking school because the plan was always to get me out of Pakistan. For good.
Marc
Why, because your parents sensed that it was not going well there?
Kumail
The burning cars were a good hint.
I went to Iowa. I left Karachi, and I landed in Des Moines, Iowa. It’s very flat. I loved Iowa. It was great for me because if I’m going from Karachi to New York, nobody is going to give a shit about me, another Pakistani in New York. If you go to Iowa, there’s not that many people around. You can slowly get used to the cultural stuff. It’s a gateway to the States.
The weird thing was there was so much liberal white guilt that people didn’t want to acknowledge race at all. It was almost like people would go out of their way to not ask me about Pakistan.
JOE MANDE—COMEDIAN, WRITER, ACTOR
I was Jewish growing up. I went to Jewish summer camp and youth group stuff and never took that part of it seriously. When you drop a prayer book you’re supposed to kiss it. We would drop it on purpose just to make out with it. Going to second base with our prayer books. We were just terrible.
Then I had this experience a couple Passovers ago. I was doing the Passover thing to see if it meant anything to me. I ended up getting conned by this Israeli guy for like $400 when I had no money. The whole time he was like, “It’s a mitzvah, it’s a mitzvah.” I knew I was getting conned. It was crazy. This guy was awful.
I was waiting for a train, day two or three of Passover. I was following the rules, seeing if it meant anything.
Marc
Joe Mande’s search for meaning.
Joe
Right. I definitely found it. This guy came up to me. He looked like Michael Chiklis. Like a tan Michael Chiklis. He was like, “Excuse me, are you Jewish?” I feel bad, but I usually say no. But I said, “Yeah.” At first he just wanted to know if this was the train to Queens because he had to get to LaGuardia. Then he started telling me this weird story about how his wife and his child were at this house in Astoria and he was trying to get his shekels in order and it just made no sense. He was like, “Can you help me? It’s a mitzvah. I just need you to go to this bank and help me convert shekels into dollars because I don’t have a bank account in America.” I was like, “Okay, sure, whatever.”
Marc
Wow, this is a hustle designed for Jews.
Joe
Yeah, it was. It’s also the worst hustle. It got to the point where he started asking me about my girlfriend and if she’s Jewish. I said no and then he was like, “Better dump her.” I was like, “Who are you?” He’s like, “My grandparents didn’t die in the Holocaust for you to date a Christian girl.” The whole time, I’m like, “They didn’t. You’re clearly a liar.” He keeps nailing home that it’s a mitzvah, it’s a mitzvah I’m helping him, we’re Jewish, this whole thing. We get to the bank and I’m like, “Okay, give me your shekels.” He was like, “No, you misunderstand. I need money to turn into shekels.” I was like, “That’s the opposite of what you said.” He told me he needed $400, he did the conversion rate. He said this many shekels and was like, “It’s about $400.” At the time, also, I had a broken iPod and I was waiting to buy a new iPod.
I don’t know why I did this. I went and I got $400 out of my savings account and was about to hand it to the guy and then I was like, “Wait, I need your information.” Okay. First of all, he said his name was Israel. From Israel. And that he owned the biggest falafel stand in Jerusalem. He was the worst con man in the world.
I don’t know, to this day, I don’t know why I did this. I gave him the money and then he wrote on the deposit slip, it was all in Hebrew script, “Israel from Israel,” a phone number with like thirty digits, and he just walked away with all my money. I was just like, “I just gave that dude my iPod. That’s my iPod.” I don’t know why I did it. It bothers me so much. I was like, “Well, at least I got a story out of it.”
I told that story a few nights later onstage, and in the back of the room I hear someone just freak out. When I get offstage, it was Nick Kroll, and this same dude conned Nick Kroll out of like $250 on Purim. This guy knows how to find insecure twenty-three-year-old Jews going through some sort of spiritual crisis.
It’s a mitzvah.
What I did was when I handed him the money, I said, “I just want you to know if you don’t pay me back, I don’t believe in God, so you’re going to have to deal with that.” Like this is some Cameron Crowe movie. He was like, “Okay,” and then just skipped away. What does he care?
AL MADRIGAL—COMEDIAN, ACTOR
I get asked to do all these Latino comedy jams on a regular basis, and I’m just not that type of comic. You know the Russell Simmons’s Def Comedy Jam? They have the same thing for Mexican comics and it’s like, “You can come to our big local comedy slam and it’s two thousand dollars for twenty minutes each day.” I’m like, “Oh, that’s great, four thousand bucks for a weekend.”
I go to the gig and there’s two thousand Mexicans in this big cafeteria. My wife looks at me and she’s like, “Dude, you’ve got to get the fuck out of here.” She’s supportive like that. The guy before me was doing his entire act in Spanish and just killing. I walked up, I’m like, “What would a Latino Def Jam comedian do in this situation? What would Carlos Mencia do?” That’s one of the rare times you want to ask yourself that question. I go up and I’m like, “What’s up, everybody?!?!? Make some noise!!!!!” They all make some noise. This is like two thousand people. I go, “Where are all the black people at? Black people make some noise!!!!” Nothing. Not one black person there. I go, “All the white people make some noise.” Nothing. Just half of me is the only white guy there.
Then I said, “What’s up, Latinos?!?!?” Screams. Then I do it just by saying “fuckers” and “bro” constantly. That’s the code. Just say “fuckers” and “bro.” “What’s up, fuckers?” “Little fucking fuckers, fuckers, bro, bro, fuckers, fuckers.”