Sultans of Satire 5
"The comedy show at Club Fais Do-Do last night was a great success. What a fun crowd of sophisticated Middle Eastern folks! And your performers were top notch. Elham Jazab's stand up comedy was brilliant, piercing, and had the audience in belly laughs. I hope to attend future events you organize. Keep up the good work." — Bassel Fares, Boeing 747 pilot
"My initial reaction to attending a two-hour comedy show focused on Middle-Eastern comics was one of skepticism. What would the token white boy get out of a rash of jokes with the punch lines in Arabic?
What I found was that the worst of the comedy was not the comedy that focused on cross-cultural issues and “other” ness. The worst of the comedy were the dick-and-tits jokes. The comics that explored the divisions, imagined or otherwise, between Middle Easterners: Jews and Palestinians, Muslims and Christians, Egyptians and Jordanians, etc… succeeded in both entertaining the primarily Middle Eastern crowd as well as me.
In fact the best of the brood had enough genius in them to begin to cross-over. I mean that in the way that Richard Pryor’s stand-up got black stand-up comedy out from being just black stand-up. He got it out into the “white” community without losing any of its integrity. I mean “cross-over” in the way that George Carlin transcends stand-up and involves even a level of didacticism and epistemology. I mean “cross-over” in the way that Bill Hicks used comedy (“Chomsky with dick jokes”) to ask us to laugh but also to change who we are and why we are…
At the top of the food chain were the comedians Peter "the Persian" Shahriari (http://peterthepersian.com) and Maz Jobrani (http://mazjobrani.com). Both men have enough talent to re-define the way North Americans think about the Middle East. They challenge assumptions and hypocrisies in ways both hilarious and thought-provoking. I adore stand-up comedy of this ilk—if stand-up comedy does have a higher purpose then folks like Lenny Bruce, and Hicks, and Prior were on the front edge of that purpose’s blade. These comedians, Shahriari and Jobrani, understood that.
I imagine someone at a place like Comedy Central is going to figure out, eventually, that a small fortune is to be made on the backs of these mavericks. But that is of no real consequence to me. What interests me are people willing to listen/speak the truth though it may make them wince whilst they laugh. I think it was Hoffer who said that laughter is disguised growling. And while I understand his intent, laughter is also a bit like magic—the prestidigitator calls attention to the funny bone while the wound heals.
I suppose the grandest surprise was how un-angry this LA crowd was with each other and with the world. When the media insists no Jew and no Palestinian could ever break bread—to see a couple of this composite holding hands and laughing reminded me of a lesson I’d already learned. Live true. No one else defines your life for you—not the media, not your friends, no one: live true." — Matthew Schmeer
"My initial reaction to attending a two-hour comedy show focused on Middle-Eastern comics was one of skepticism. What would the token white boy get out of a rash of jokes with the punch lines in Arabic?
What I found was that the worst of the comedy was not the comedy that focused on cross-cultural issues and “other” ness. The worst of the comedy were the dick-and-tits jokes. The comics that explored the divisions, imagined or otherwise, between Middle Easterners: Jews and Palestinians, Muslims and Christians, Egyptians and Jordanians, etc… succeeded in both entertaining the primarily Middle Eastern crowd as well as me.
In fact the best of the brood had enough genius in them to begin to cross-over. I mean that in the way that Richard Pryor’s stand-up got black stand-up comedy out from being just black stand-up. He got it out into the “white” community without losing any of its integrity. I mean “cross-over” in the way that George Carlin transcends stand-up and involves even a level of didacticism and epistemology. I mean “cross-over” in the way that Bill Hicks used comedy (“Chomsky with dick jokes”) to ask us to laugh but also to change who we are and why we are…
At the top of the food chain were the comedians Peter "the Persian" Shahriari (http://peterthepersian.com) and Maz Jobrani (http://mazjobrani.com). Both men have enough talent to re-define the way North Americans think about the Middle East. They challenge assumptions and hypocrisies in ways both hilarious and thought-provoking. I adore stand-up comedy of this ilk—if stand-up comedy does have a higher purpose then folks like Lenny Bruce, and Hicks, and Prior were on the front edge of that purpose’s blade. These comedians, Shahriari and Jobrani, understood that.
I imagine someone at a place like Comedy Central is going to figure out, eventually, that a small fortune is to be made on the backs of these mavericks. But that is of no real consequence to me. What interests me are people willing to listen/speak the truth though it may make them wince whilst they laugh. I think it was Hoffer who said that laughter is disguised growling. And while I understand his intent, laughter is also a bit like magic—the prestidigitator calls attention to the funny bone while the wound heals.
I suppose the grandest surprise was how un-angry this LA crowd was with each other and with the world. When the media insists no Jew and no Palestinian could ever break bread—to see a couple of this composite holding hands and laughing reminded me of a lesson I’d already learned. Live true. No one else defines your life for you—not the media, not your friends, no one: live true." — Matthew Schmeer
1 Comments:
The comments attributed to Matthew Schmeer on this post should be attributed to David Koehn. See here.
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