- One quick thing about me is
that I hate taking Ubers so much.
I hate them.
I hate the small talk.
And the last car I had the driver wanted
to do the thing where he wanted
to match the name on the screen
with how I pronounce my name.
So he was like, "Oh, how do you do this?"
and I was like, "Okay...
"It's Mo-ha-nad."
And he was like "Huh, interesting.
"You know actually here in the States
"it's pronounced Mohammad."
I'm like "Oh cool, well that's a great point."
It's just not how names work, yeah.
Yeah, they don't change based on location.
(audience laughs)
You know?
Because if your name is Miles
and you travel and you go to France,
no one's going to come to and be like
"Hmm, actually here, it's pronounced kilometers, yeah."
(audience laughs)
I know some of you are like "Hey man,
"there are worse things in life,
"this here's the driver trying to be nice to you."
and that's very true cause this reminds me of something
that happened to me maybe like six years ago
before I moved here to the States.
I was driving my car back home.
I'm originally from Libya
which is a place that shows up if you Google it.
(audience laughs)
And I was driving my car and got stopped at a check point
and one thing you need to know about Libya
back then that was mostly controlled by like religious,
like extremist militias.
And they searched my car up and down
and one of them looked at me and he was like,
"Well, who the fuck are you and what are you doing here?"
And I was like to be fair I do ask myself
the same question every morning, so I get it bro.
And he was like before we let you go,
"Who do you support, us or them?"
And I was like "Well that definitely depends.
"Are you us or them?"
Yeah, you guys kind of look alike, not to be offensive.
And he was like no I really need an answer,
so I stood there like super afraid.
I didn't know what to say,
I'm like aw man, Jesus Christ,
which obviously I did not say that out loud.
(audience laughs)
'Cause that would of been super awkward,
so instead I replied with "God, I support God."
And he was like "That's really dope."
"Yeah you support us too then, you can go buddy."
Yeah, super easy.
Now some of you are like what is this point of this story?
What are you trying to tell us?
Well the point I'm trying to make is
that I rather deal with all that
than have my Uber driver talk to me.
(audience laughs)
Your point made.
I use social media a lot.
I'm on Twitter a lot and one thing that sucks
about that thing is that people there have opinions.
Have you guys seen opinions lately?
Yeah, they're really bad.
And I also have opinions, but they're like good.
And the last opinion I had was about gun control
and I was like yeah, you know, I'm going to tweet
that to the public, to everyone to see, you know?
No backlash for sure, especially
with a name Mohanad, works every time.
So I put my opinion out there
and I believed in everything I said
until that guy Kevin replied to me.
Do you guys know Kevin from social media?
(audience laughter)
Yeah, he's there.
Yeah, Kevin replied to me and this is was Kevin said.
His reply was amazing, it was like poetry.
He replied and said,
"You fucking Muslim, I eat bacon twenty-four seven."
And I was like what a hateful haiku, that's so cool.
(audience laughs)
Also man, I don't eat bacon
but I think that's super unhealthy.
Also probably the worst argument against gun control.
Just shouting your favorite food at me, yeah.
Then obviously I had to track him down and shoot him
just to prove a point.
(audience laughs)
I grew up in a religious family.
I grew up Muslim.
Anyone here grew up religious,
like Muslim or like any of the other false religions?
(audience laughs)
There can only be one.
No, I grew up religious, but growing up
I use to read the Bible a lot, you know,
because you got to know what your enemies are you up to.
(audience laughs)
And surprisingly they were up to the same thing.
You're just like wow look at this, who wrote this?
Kafka, amazing.
(audience laughs)
I used to work customer service.
I used to do retail.
Anyone here did that or still does that?
A few people, the rest of you are just super, super rich?
That's super cool.
I hated it, I hate customer service and if you have anyone
that in your life that thinks that all lives matter,
probably never did customer service before.
(audience laughs)
Yeah, 'cause if you do customer service
it changes your perspective, you know?
It goes from all lives matter to something more like,
"Oh, some people deserve to die.
"Yeah absolutely, more people actually.
"You know you need to actually and your kids,
"some people need to go, sure."
But one thing that use to happen to me a lot
when I did retail is that people would hear my accent
and they would try to guess where I'm from
because that's a fun game for both of us.
(audience laughs)
I had this lady one time who approached me and was like,
"Oh, you have an accent, where you from?"
I was like I'm from Libya originally
to which she replied, "Oh, hmm hmm."
"Do you mean Lebanon?"
And I was like you know what,
yeah that's exactly what I meant.
Not about now, for 27 years I've called it Libya
and then here you come,
wow look at this walking globe, amazing.
Mm yeah and then shot her too.
She had to go with Kevin.
(audience laughs)
I used to have two roommates and loved them, great people.
Both of my roommates are Jewish
and when I tell people that
people tend to get too excited.
Yeah, 'cause people will do thing where they're like,
"Oh wow, won't you look at that.
"Wow, Arabs and Jews living together in the same place.
"What a concept!"
I'm like sure absolutely, but I feel like you're trying
to make this into an Israel-Palestine thing
and buddy let me tell you at our household
the stakes are way lower.
(audience laughs)
Yeah, none of us or my roommates just woke up one day
just to be like, "Well, this land has been given
"to me by the Lord, yeah!"
And then me having to be like
well I think that's just called the landlord
and you need to stop.
One last thing, I had this really terrible thing happen
to me a few months ago.
I was doing comedy in the city of Spokane, Washington.
(audience member woots)
Yeah, one person knows that place.
The rest of you don't need to, it sucks.
The worst place on Earth.
It should be canceled honestly.
Can you do that?
Yeah, and I was doing comedy in like
a very small city, very white, very Republican
but I did comedy there 'cause why not?
And then as I finished my set I got on the bus,
the Greyhound bus to go back
to Portland where I live 'cause
I believe that the best art comes from torture, you know?
(audience laughs)
And I was on the bus, everything's great.
I'm just looking at my phone, just scrolling down,
I'm like I wonder what Kevin has been up to lately.
(audience laughs)
And then I see people wearing uniforms
and they get on the bus
and they start asking people questions.
And then one of them looks at me and he's like,
"You don't look like you're from here.
"Where are you from?
"Can we see your papers and everything you have?
"Now let's step outside of the bus."
And then I learned these people were border patrol
and it's obviously very disgusting
because they asked me to step outside
of the bus based on the way I looked, you know?
They looked at me and they were like
this guy looks too handsome to be from Spokane.
Like he has most of his face.
(audience laughs)
And then they looked at my papers
and they're like these papers look fake,
they're easily falsified.
And I was like these papers have been given to me by you,
so maybe do a better job, I don't know.
That seems like a you problem at this point.
And then they were like, "Okay buddy one more thing.
"Are you from Oregon or Washington?"
And I was like I...
support God.
(audience laughs)
And the way they looked at me,
I don't know man that's how I talk to militias.
(laughter)
(Comedy Central outro)