a little of this in the middle of the me you're the middle of the hey folks still at home dennis miller here on today's show comedian maz joe bronnie all of that right after this on dennis miller plus one. day folks welcome to dennis miller plus one always happy when i'm joined by a fellow comic today comedian maz jobrani maz is an iranian american comedian the ironic arraigning and as it does it were an actor who's part of the axis of evil comedy group he's appeared in many television shows films you've seen on leno hope bear and his latest stand up special i don't drop recently but i do think it's

his most recent one is on netflix and each time you get that pedigree you know you hit the ball hard it's immigrant and it's available to stream on netflix like you don't have the time right now to watch anything out there folks so do this and he also has a podcast called back to school with maz jobrani which is available on apple pod casts and spotify the estimable mr joe broadening our you much. good dennis thanks for having him in how you do it. i'm groovy man and i like the fact i'm always intrigued when i see people doing everybody's pulling or in the fight against coven 19 and when you do stand up at home do you stand up i guess that's a question i'm so used to standing up you have to stand up at home. you know i was at 1st i was a little hesitant to even try it and i got approached by some people to google and they said listen we'll do a show and we'll ask people to donate money and google will match it so find

a charity that you like to lose a charity i'd like to solicit do it and i will tell you man it was a trip because you know as comedians we're used to performing in front of a live audience in trying to read what's on their mind how they do it what are they thinking well right off the bat i said i don't need to worry i don't need to think about what you're thinking because you can comment in design chat on the side if you hate it or you love it they're there commenting right there you can see their numbers going up and down when people leave the chat and it was a trip in and i did i stood up and i took a mike that doesn't work my daughter has a karaoke mike that we bought and when i just hold the mike to pretend and pretend like and it is amazing dude it's amazing it really has been very cathartic for me to do stand up to a computer for so i can tell you is when you're in the game and i don't do stand up as much as i used to when i was doing it like $300.00 dates a year you start to jones' florida after. it's just

a muscle memory. oh it's crazy i mean ice funny because one of the things i thought was that because people people that are on my social media and whatever they'll send me nice message just thank you so much are you making us laugh thank you for doing this and i'm like i'm not doing it for you i'm doing it for me i got it but i got to get in front of people because i can you just said but i'm just to be united states 5 to 10 times a week twerking everywhere cetera et cetera now what i'll do is you know we've got this little nook that you see that i'm in this like a closet kind of thing that we bought a house we're going to remodel it it was kind of sitting here so i just walked past my wife as you know in the kitchen or something i'm like i'm going to work and i'll come up to my interviews or my instagram lives and it's crazy man anything mr putin for me you know he gets whatever's on my mind that day i could talk about it's been a it's been a cool exercise i got to tell you there are enough. well it's certainly a strange trapped chapter man and when i think about the dr jerry garcia saying

life long strange trip i think about your journey and what i was reading the bio i said boy you talk about. you talking about crossing over some sort of cosmic river to go from one when it hits the fan and iran and then you end up into ploughs a look at out of f.a.o. schwartz as they that's about as wide a chasm as a kid could have that it's trippy tell me about those times was well you know so late 78 protests are starting in iran and it was interesting as i was reflecting on it i realized a lot of iranians didn't think the revolution was going to happen they thought that the shah would quassia it like he had in the past so my father's own business in new york and he was a successful businessman and he's there in the schools closed down early on i think it was also very cold winter the winter of 78 so schools closed down this protest and so my dad tells my mom goes why don't you bring me and my older sister mary out

because why do you bring them for 2 weeks let things cool down in iran you guys go back and we even left my baby brother back in iran at the time and we come to america to stay for 2 weeks and we end up staying for 42 years so you know we simply packed for 2 weeks stay to vent but i haven't arrayed in fred and i always tell him i said listen when the shah was it he was a bad guy but at least you could talk to him because he wanted to go to beirut once a year get his freak with european look it's well and then the thing happened all of a sudden you had guys in charge really thought they might european hookers after they'd act and you couldn't find it. yet did it when i made it you know after bridling for it is that he said you know what there are some. absolutely i mean listen our lives were turned upside down and it's interesting because i listen i sort of

political science in college but if i could go back and study another major i would study psychology because i just like to think about you know as a comedian i think about why am i the way i am and one of the same things that i've learned to come to understand or my parents because my parents are similar to a lot of immigrant parents who left their country of turmoil whatever that's going on in those countries they came to america and they want their kids to be lawyers doctors engineers and what i wanted to be a comedian my parents would be like what are you talking about like that is not in our vocabulary and it was funny because my mom went from wanting me to be i was going to be a lawyer so i said polly's undergrad that i wanted to a p.c. program political science i was going to be professor and already my mom was like no you can't be a professor there's no jobs for professors what are you talking about and then when i dropped out of the p.c. program to pursue my passion of acting in comedy she goes listen you did not become a lawyer you did not become a professor she was at least become a mechanic not just from lawyer and mechanic there's so many things in between and

she goes listen people need mechanics nobody needs a comedian and i realize she's coming from a revolution where her life was flipped upside down so that her mind she goes what in her my sees thinking there's going to be a revolution in america and when that revolution comes you can move to argentina and fix cars and yeah you know that was the mentality so it's exactly we're talking about it's like you know one guy leaves and i go comes and the lives are turned upside down and you know here we are. well when you talk about that i always think of leno was a brilliant i mean listen i know jay when he was doing the tonight show there often times i thought this guy's brilliant enough to know where the mean point is the sweet spot for commerce an arch you know when people would say would you do is one c.j.'s monologue and so savvy that i can't even begin to tell you he's not out there to be ibsen he's out there to kill and he knows how to do it but when you

when when leno has always taken sort of a mechanic approach to it it's soon as he gets off work he's in those overalls out of burbank it is a car collection and it goes under the hood with a joke just like you'll go under the hood with the roll down there is that it's pretty fascinating i see some similarities between your mum wasn't too far off between comedy elicit candidates because i will tinker with a joke because i will take a good joke. dennis listen man it also is the work ethic that comes and it's funny you brought up the mechanic analogy because i was at the comedy store one time when paul mooney was hanging out and he cornered me and he started telling me about this he had these some classic car and he was telling me he goes you know my car broke down and called a mechanic who goes this mechanic and he spent hours in the street to go in with and get in there and he goes he finds a car only and he will sew it he's young comedians you know he got to put in the time you got to put the time and i was like you're totally right man we you know if you put in the time is act when you just said man people talk to me all the time you go how do you write your jokes what do you do i go i get onstage 5 to 10 times

a week and i just keep refining and refining and refining eventually i look up and i got an hour and i'm going to put that on on a special and then i got to move into the next hour or so really is a work at love the feeling love that feeling there was a great comedian a new york sorry folks we talk shop a little air but like i said i don't haven't comics because we have that shared experience there was a great comedian named ronnie shakes in new york press the soul he left the surly but used to have a great joke where he said every time i go to yankee stadium it's bat night or ball night he's i wish they'd go off the grid a little and have an all a truly odd night like pope's hat night which is a funny right off the bat these are you know a guy steps in up to the plate he looks up aziz diggin in and there's 60000 people in yankee stadium and they all have pope's hats on and he steps up the box and looks of and he says wow i hope it's pope sat night and i used to go to.

like why was the joke not it must be pope sat night is or i tried it and he's in his ok but i thought man there's a treasure trove here i'm just not buying the language and he changed that over to the existential take which is so funny where the guy goes i hope it's a pope sad night that always sums up sinker and with jokes to be not so beautiful. isn't it the best thing man i tell and it is funny because people have asked me to do this if you ever written a joke that you couldn't do but then use went to someone to go hey this is a joke you might be able to do and i said that happens a lot we're all do stuff that in a riff on a like it you know the factory or the comedy store and on loose side because i'm not again i don't feel like i'm being judged i'm just riffing off something and for some reason like i you know sometimes i'll cause my act but i'm just i'm not a blue actor overall but somehow i see her looks nice get some guys on a blue on these loose nights i'll come up with something that's a little bluer than i normally would go and instantly i'm like can i give that to

because what you just said you like i can't tinker my way out of this joke this whole premise is something else i have to go somewhere but i love him and i mean we just said i could talk shop like this all day long because it's it's listen you know what we're lucky to have found what we love to do and i tell that to people all the time to someone who was pushed by my parents to go in an opposite direction and coming from a culture this is traditional and i have so many friends of mine who go oh man i became a doctor or whatever because my parents wanted me to do that so when we're lucky to find we love doing it's you know and whatever that thing is you know you could live and breathe it all the time so it's you know i'm totally with my man fellow comedian maz jobrani and as i said he's got a special up you can watch on netflix called immigrant and also a podcast we'll talk about the podcast after the break back to school with maz jobrani i'm interested in that approach it's bailable on apple podcasts and spotify

tell me that i know it's a patriarchal culture over there i assume it is to the degree that i know it which might be betting the movie not without my daughter or something like that but i'm i'm looking at the culture i'm thinking your old man must have been switched on in a way that because some guys would just forbid it when you went to home they might want to curb you the other way but it sounds like at some point the love comes through he just lets you do your thing and. i overreading under what was it like when you said that. no you're absolutely right it's i think what it is is like we came i think a lot of iranians are pretty secular like my family was very secular went religious but it's patriarchal regardless you you you need to are you give respect to your elders you listen to your parents and all that stuff so my father and mom i think they both listen a what's best for you they want security you know they're my security is being a doctor security is being over all that stuff and and my father would try to kind of support us

a little bit with like them because i started doing plays in school and they will come see the play and it was funny because of the other thing they're our culture has very formal so like whereas i grew up a marine county so some of the parents which show up you know casual you know in khaki pants and blue but that sure the guy's a c.e.o. of a bank but he stressed kind of like you know he might be working and j. crew or something that my family didn't leave the house without the 3 my dad in a 3 piece suit my mother got him because this is a play their company you know it's in the hole. but there has been it was still of it was yeah this is out of as i really look over and see your old man and corduroys that spot is player. oh no oh that's not a persian thing no corduroys it get a thread else the word. that good for it. oh it will show up and like the director the director will come up after the show

and say hey your son's got potential to do this and my dad i'm very nice and then to get the car to be like that woman is crazy don't listen to are you going to be a doctor. so they thought your old man a was with c.a.a. was hard up brother you know exactly the muster. and we'll talk to him after the break but part couse back to school with maz jobrani and as i said he's got a special on netflix right now he also performs with an axis of evil comedy troupe and imo i want to talk about that too because i find it such a solo exercise i'd be intrigued to see what it's like working with a group maz jobrani on dennis miller plus one right after this.

you cannot be both with the yeah you want. i don't know if it was government official of president i don't have faith in the system i see god i'm too liberal the system designed for people like me. as long as there are. different people here for different reasons we also job we also have.

most people in philadelphia are only about 2 paychecks away from homelessness. something seemed wrong. just don't call. me. yet to shape out these days to come as a kid and in detroit because the trail. went something find themselves worlds apart we choose to look for common ground. the hate folks welcome back to dennis miller plus one joined today by the chapeau maven that is maz jobrani look in the can all turned his little over there and has

a special on netflix you can watch i think it's around 2 or 3 years old right months. yeah came out 2017 it was called immigrant we shot it at the kennedy center and you know was it was a career highlight man you know how it is you do your specials and you just try to make the next special more special so i had a chance to do specials i shot one in sweden i shot a couple in l.a. but this was d.c. and i love d.c. and you you and i you know i think we're both of the same mind when it comes to where you know we're we're like we like politics and so i wanted to be there in the heart of it and i love d.c. in that sense because you can do any joke you do if you make a reference to the political reference they get it you don't have to go out of your way to explain what you're trying to talk about so it was it was definitely a highlight of my career not happy it brother while hope you have me back when you get your kennedy center honors down the road you'll be back there getting or or you're my why you know or. your lips to god's ears like i had

a last. look but cast tell me about a back to school with maz jobrani what's the premise here brother. so that came about because having kids my loving year old my 9 year old they would always ask the questions that i did happy answers for i had to keep going with it to google you know what was going on and so finally i thought you know what let me bring in experts from different walks of life and let me learn from them in the way we launch every episode is i tell my kids i say this person is coming in for example this next person coming in is someone who works at the jet propulsion laboratory for nasa and i go what questions do you have of this guy and so they'll ask the question we start the we start each episode with a question from the kids and then we go on to learn and of course it's on all things comedy network so we try to also make it fun and funny but it's a learning experience is me get a chance to go back to school and we started this just about

a year ago and the irony of it is like now all school is aligned it's all zoom so we were ahead of the curve we started a year ago so people can tune in and learn about all kinds of stuff that's going on we've had people that were you know entrepreneurs all the way to the guy who helped plan the mars rover on mars so we've run the gamut of yes we have a sort of a lady who was a cave diver she would go under glaciers and dive for life forms i mean it's all kaiser dentist there's so many interesting people out there and when you kind of open your eyes and go let me bring in this eclectic group it's amazing to just keep popping up from different places so i've had a lot of had a lot of fun people on their. listen i've always thought it was a disservice to human beings to say they're like snowflakes because snowflakes look at the mass produced when you step up against human beings every time i try to get a stranglehold on the human condition you go legislated that's a curveball i just got there from that person who i thought i had figured it all

out from their dust jacket then you rip the book open to go i don't know anything about anything god except i should keep my eyes open in my ears open yeah you you know there was a famous saying i think it's i think as a nation persian philosopher abu ali see now who said the more and i'm sure and i'm sure there's an american version in english version as well i can't i got to a place where i learned that the more i know the less i know so i'm still eating what i go by you know because i just i'm amazed at the types of things that people do and where they come from i mean it's the story of these people there's a lady i had a lady and she's got a charity called mary's list where she helps immigrants that have come to america refugees and come to america she helps them find you know clothes and bedding and all that other stuff and she came from she says the 1st story she says is white lady in l.a. she goes the story started someone reached out to her and said hey i've got this

refugee family i know you have some kids that are a little bit older do you by any chance have like a stroller or anything so she goes i go to visit the family and i see like what they're living with and how they have nothing so she just started a list on facebook and she just asked her friends is anybody have any blankets anything we can give to this family to resettle and then she goes from there she creates this 5 a one c. is called mary's list it's amazing and she's a lady with kids like what did you find the time to do this as she goes nothing my heart just let me and here we are so a lot of interesting stories when you open up to these people that are out there and that's that's the back to school is brought to me this is opening my eyes a lot. sometimes you got to pull on that thread folks and that opens up the whole stargate you don't see it at the moment all you gotta do is it's like that thing about a butterfly flaps its wings in a cave in north it's fair at all of a sudden you've got winds in your backyard the the ripple is the ripples like quite frankly the ripple is the line yet back to school with maz jobrani which is built

on apple podcasts and spotify who else is in the axis of evil man how many people you got there i just inspired he went out with a troupe and i remember it was funny it was young not young but unknown at that point sebastian meant to skulk out and vince was had some wild west comedy show i remember watching that and thinking who is that guy his rhythms are so beautiful he was killing me mad a scope i couldn't remember the name oddly because it was so memorable and now he's the state of the argue now along with brian regan a few other guy i mean he's the man but how many guys go out with the axis of evil . well you know it's funny sebastian and i started the comedy store together so it's amazing years from 3 years i mean i got stories of a one time down in i think it was newport or something we lived in l.a. down in an hour drive in newport somebody was running a room to go listen you come down and you get 15 minutes and you get a salmon dinner and i was like sebastian you want to go it's like let's go up with

something we're driving along and i kid man we're driving along and are on the way there a car almost like he runs into us and we like we came close to death like i was almost at the car that sebastian miscalculated died of boat but we made it we got our we got our salmon dinner we got to 15 minutes or more importantly but back then so this axis of evil comedy tour we actually haven't toured since 2008 with that tour that was a tour that missy shore who was the owner of the comedy store she put us together in the year 2000 this is when like they were doing the kings of comedy and all that you know they're all that. you know though those tours with the 4 comics so she put us together because she said you know missy was jewish but was watching the news and there was a latest intifada in 2000 between the palestinians and the israelis and she goes in 2000 she goes i think there's going to be a need for a positive voice of people from the middle east in the bury your future is before

that 11 so she puts a should there with me i met i met aaron cater couple other people to sam tripoli she puts us together she calls it the arabian nights now if you have an iranian friend you know that if you ever go to iran in front of you say i hate your arab they're going to look at you like you just insulted their mother so we kept getting people coming to our show and the iranians would say this i really enjoyed the show but we're not arabs and i was like i know but mr schorr put it together i can't change the name so few years later after bush had given the name axis of evil to those countries we decided to take that name lampooned it called axis of evil comedy tour and we toured with that for a little while and what was amazing about that tour we were one of the 1st group of american based comedians who went to the middle east in end of 2007 we went to the middle east we did 27 shows in 30 days all sold out it was crazy we were like we

became rock stars over the atlantic because nobody listened if you think about it back then there was nobody really voice saying anything for the people of the middle east who are western or who just were like frustrated with being always depicted as the terrorists and so when we came out and were doing jokes and where you know they were like waiting for us so when get in the middle east we went to dubai for the beginning of the tour and the promoter goes listen we have the press . this afternoon about mike prescott going to a press conference will devastate take us to this hotel rooftop there's like 17 different magazines and outlets and they're asking questions and i'm like no. with the beatles of the middle east all of a sudden he saw that it was a it was a quite an experience it been great that i'm getting goosebumps listen and good right in the middle of it and you find out the commonality not everybody wants to be treated every time like exhibit a they're human beings they want to go out they want to eat they want to get lucky

they want to laugh they want to have their short blonde very logically it's the human condition. i hope we get back to that someday because it is balkanized i have to tell you a quick mitzi story i remember jerry seinfeld takes me up i just moved to l.a. jerry takes me up to this store and jerry was not by and large a comedy store comedy he used to work at the improv but i guess he was just being nice to me because we had worked together on the road he takes me up and takes me to missy's booth in the back there and she says. happening and i don't see you as a comedian but you you write some clever stuff but if you are going to insist going on stage you should wear more sweaters. i don't know this. well if i don't see gerri at a mets game on says sorry i don't have the sweater on but it's it's spotty to be those people control the entire process and it sounds like she dug you but it could

be so disheartening if you're standing there with the n.c. says where more sweaters are bugs going to monocle when and he's late in the a thing in my life solver. well listen dennis you have your spider story i was one of the 1st comedians of middle eastern descent to become a regular at the store so when i became a regular she for people that don't know you know you perform in front of her place you said she's sitting in the back it's a dark room you can't see her until you're walking offstage and you have to walk past her to exit and the whole time as you're walking past or you're hoping she grabs your arm because if you grabs your arm that means he's going to make you like the mafia if he doesn't grab your arm let you walk past or you're screwed leave for a year ago come back well i'm walking past and then as she reaches out grabs my arm my mind starts going to go over my god this is it she pulls she's very funny i go thank you missy she goes i'm going to make your regular i go thank you mitzi and then she goes you ever thought about wearing the hat and i go that because you know

that and the gab i swear to god she wanted me to wear a turban if it's. my turn to have my brother. who knew that she was in to have her dasher a simultaneously i did. my god oh my god best job in the world my brother best job in the world and listen man you know as well as i do what you were saying earlier about you know now i mean i don't know if you've had a chance to do it out of the country but i've done shows in australia in the middle east in single poor in jakarta and you realize there's funny people everywhere man i'm a comedy is truly international and it is it's i mean it has taken me around the world it's a blessing man it's a blessing. we're talking to maz jobrani he's a good cat i've never met him before but like i said i always feel like i'm 2 steps

down the road with somebody when i know they do stand up because i kind of know that drill you mix a little father had fatherhood of 2 in and i feel like i have a heavy overlay there's a great bend diagram intersection with the cat mas has a special that you can watch on netflix it's called immigrant and as i said folks that's the that's the show right now netflix if you get on there the quality is high and he has the podcast he was talking do it sounds like an interesting creative bent on that back to school with maz jobrani it's available on apple podcasts and spotify it's nice to talk to you my friend you stay cool and i'll see you down the road thank you dennis i appreciate you and be good best of the kids and we'll see you soon in person of. aloha that's dennis miller plus one.

we go to work. straight home. ergo it never great was founded on a rape in the murder. nothing changed so we said oh response to these situations that we deal with. if he were his shadow.