CHAPTER 78

Author: People are making assumptions about you when they look at you.

Hood: And it played off all those assumptions Andrew. I wasn’t a … Most of the terrorism that was happening, even pre-9/11, it’s not really Iranian, and on top of that, I’m not a Muslim, but not only does it not matter on stage, it also … All joking aside, I do get flagged for random searches more often than maybe random signifies. Right? So it’s not just onstage that I get tagged as a potential threat, it’s everywhere, and as soon as I start talking people realise I’m not a terrorist threat, but even as a light-skinned Middle Eastern person, there’s still enough Middle Eastern in my look that …

Author: That was the whole joke to me, or that was part of the joke to me, was that you were getting up on stage and making people think about the way they think about someone who looks like you. It seemed brilliant to me.

Hood: But Andrew, even when I did the bomb thing, you have to realise, I didn’t do things like speak in a thick accent. I spoke exactly as I’m talking to you. And if you haven’t heard the joke, you’ve read about it, it would be … I’d get on stage, I’d thank everyone for coming, I’d tell them I’m originally from Iran. That inevitably, when you say you’re from anywhere you get some kind of applause, but it would usually get no applause. At which point I said, ‘Thank you, I feel the warmth,’ which would get a laugh. But then I say, ‘Well, if you’re going to be that kind of a crowd, I’d like to start off tonight by doing something in the name of Allah.’ I would lift my shirt, show the bomb. That’s when, pre-9/11, the crowd would just explode with laughter. And then I’d go, ‘Wow, thank God you reacted that way. Not all crowds get this kind of humour. I did this joke two weeks ago in Israel and cleared off the entire plane.’ Right, so you can see how pre-9/11 … And Manny, when he first saw me do this, getting back to the Comedy Cellar, Manny was … God, I really miss him. I’m not exaggerating when I say I loved Manny. I really loved Manny. But he would see it, and he was deeply conservative in the opinions he had, but he was also a humanist.