I’m Not a Terrorist, But I’ve Played One On TV: Memoirs of a Middle Eastern Funny Man Audiobook (Free)

“A funny, insightful memoir” (Kirkus Reviews) about developing up Iranian in America, and the quest to create it as an actor in Hollywood and never have to put on a turban, tote a bomb, or get kicked in the facial skin by Chuck Norris.

After he emigrated along with his family to the united states through the Iranian Revolution, Maz Jobrani spent most of his youth trying to squeeze in with his adopted culture-learning to play baseball and religiously watching Dallas. But none of his attempts at assimilation made a notable difference to about I’m Not really a Terrorist, But I’ve Played One On Television: Memoirs of the Middle Eastern Crazy Man casting directors, who just auditioned him for the part of kebab-eating, bomb-toting, extremist psychopath.

When he first began in display business, Maz endured suggestions that he add spice to his stand-up act by wearing “the outfit,” fielded queries on the subject of rising gas prices, and was jeered for his supposed involvement in the Iran hostage problems. In fact, these exact things happened frequently that he started to wonder: Could I be considered a terrorist without even knowing it? So when all he seemed to be offered were functions that required searching menacingly Arabic, he considered if he’d ever make it in America.

This laugh-out-loud memoir chronicles a lifetime of both killing it and bombing on stage, with “plenty to say about matters of race, assimilation, embarrassing family members, life in the us for brown-skinned people before and after 9/11, the vagaries of international pop culture, and rendering it in big, dumb, fizzy, sometimes beautiful America” (THE BRAND NEW York Times).