Mo Amer
Appearances
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
It was quite the first stop when they left Palestine. When my mom and dad married. Prior to that, my father got his telecommunications engineer in England. The first job offer was actually in Doha in Qatar in the 60s. So he lived there for like a year. That's the reason why they left.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
It was a job just like if you're in Houston and you get a job in Kansas or if you're in LA, you get a gig, you got to go film in Toronto. Same thing. So he was in Doha and then he got a job in Kuwait. And that was where my family settled and we're all born there. He worked for the Kuwaiti oil company. He built one of the first radio stations in Kuwait.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
He was instrumental in creating wireless communication at that time between oil rigs. He was a really brilliant dude, truly ahead of his time. My mom would always tell me like, oh, he had a cell phone in the 60s. That big thing that you put on your shoulder and it's a massive box. Yeah, he was that guy. He always had to have the top tech whenever it comes out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Oh, since the 60s, 25, maybe 30 years there. And they would go back and forth to West Bank where my family lives and grandparents are.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
It was more than just loving Kuwait. It was more the normalcy of the life that we had there. As a great life, my uncle and my cousins lived three houses down. All my aunts, everybody settled in Kuwait. And we had a lot of family there. My grandparents and some of my aunts, of course, a lot of the extended family was still in the West Bank.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
But we had this real unification where we would see each other every weekend. There's a barbecue every weekend. All my uncles would talk and smack and playing all these different games. And whoever loses has to buy the dessert. Was your dad gregarious and loud? Yeah. Are you more mom or dad, I guess? I'm a really solid mix of both. I have the exploratory like my dad had.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
He really wanted to figure out what was going on. He would really travel a lot and want to see the world. So curious in that way. And my mother was very funny, poetic. She still to this day writes poetry and that's her life. She wakes up in the morning. She's inspired by something. She writes it. Sometimes it's super sad, but thoughtful and sweet. Sometimes it's funny.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I feel like I have a great mix of both. But my dad was really outgoing. He was the first guy on the dance floor, get everybody going. He was that guy for sure.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Do you remember living there? Everything. But we also come from the Sham region, which is basically Santa Barbara. It's so gorgeous. The weather is stunning. There's not really any desertous regions unless you go super south or you hit the Jordan Valley. That's where it becomes that way. And there's better ones there, of course. There's tons of sheep herders.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
It's a comfort carol as it turns out. Turns out. It's not really suited for that kind of living, to be honest. You don't go to explore the desert there. But surely in Kuwait, we did that. I mean, I used to ride the bikes as kids. We set up mounds and we just dive off of them. You just bounce off of that shit and just keep going. Just ruthless.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Hop on the back of dirt bikes and fall off going 40 miles an hour. But You're eight. You're just like rubber band. Doesn't even matter.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
People from all over the world. A bunch of expats lived in the neighborhood we resided in. Since my father worked for the Kuwaiti oil company. This is a compound situation. That neighborhood, north and south, is where we lived in Ahmadiyya. Had so many families. Super, super diverse. You're talking about British, Pakistani, Swiss, everybody lived in that neighborhood.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
And most of the people in that neighborhood working for the oil company. Exactly. Everybody had a different job within the company itself. Like a Ramco oil company, you go overseas, that's the biggest oil company in the world, number one, but it's like driving onto a military base. Oh, right, right. Our neighborhood at the end of it, there was like the hospitality palace.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
All the time. Is Michael Jackson going to come out of the palace? Oh, no. We're all over it. We see cars come in. We immediately just pedal over there and talk to the security guy in the front and try to figure out who this wealthy man is that's over here. He's like, trust me, you don't want to know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
President of Malaysia or something like that. Salt in the Brunei. Yeah, Michael Jackson, we used to mimic him. He was the thing back then for sure. Oh, God, yeah. So Gulf War breaks out in 91. August of 90. The reason why I remember exactly the Iraqi invasion was then, and I remember it quite well because I was supposed to have my tonsils removed two days after they came in. So I was like, damn it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Fuck you. Might have been a happy accident. No, it's not, bro. They're miserable. I have enormous tonsils. I bet they're gorgeous. They're massive. They are gorgeous. They are mountainous. You could ski off of those fucking things for sure.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I am so scared. Adults aren't supposed to do it. It's like 50-50 bleed or something crazy, like heavy bleeding.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I went to the top specialist at UCLA and they were like, 50-50, they're going to bleed. But you'll be fine. It's just going to take a lot longer to heal. I was like, you know what? I'll just take antibiotics. Take my big ass tonsils out of here. I do a lot of voices too. Like what if it affects how I do all these accents? What if I just...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Yeah, I had left before that. It was really, really intense because that was the first time I knew that we were stateless, number one. I just knew this happy life. I didn't know anything was wrong. I was like, why don't we just go back to Palestine? And they're like, no, we can't necessarily do that either. It's not the best next step. Let's figure it out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Your parents, you see them and they're your pillars. They're always in control. There's nothing ever wrong. Seemingly know everything. And to see them so worried, and I remember this to this day, that call at 6 a.m. Those days, the phone would I was like, who the hell is calling? And I remember getting up and my mom picking up the phone. It was like Saddam has invaded Kuwait, hangs up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
And now everyone is out to try to get as many resources for the house, food, rice, water, whatever you can get to just store it. That's when everything changed. And they got to our house at one o'clock in the morning. I've slept through the whole breaking of the door, ransacking the home. They were threatening my mom and my dad. Who's in this bedroom? Who's in this bedroom?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
They were pointing at my bedroom and they were threatening they were going to throw a grenade in the bedroom. Tell us, tell us, tell us. They were trying to figure out who works at the Equator Oil Company since the whole reason of their invasion to begin with is the supposed siphoning of Iraqi oil. Was that their premise? They were diagonally drilling in? That's what they were saying.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I don't know. That's a bigger conversation to me now. As a grown ass man, I see what's everything going on living in America. Now I know who's been putting all these people in power.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Let's talk about that. But that was the premise is that Kuwait was stealing from them and he's there to take it back.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Your dad's like, I just do telephones. Well, that's the biggest fucking thing. Communication. Okay. That was probably on their top five list, transferring all communication to it all. So my dad had one choice, either do it or potentially your family is at risk. Might take them all out. You're not going to find out if they're bluffing or not. Yeah, exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
You're just going to say, yeah, that's me. What are you going to do? So he was forced to go in and redirect, from what I've heard, some of it at that time. And he regrets it. Didn't feel good about any of it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
He loved Kuwait, and he loved the people of Kuwait. He loved everything there, and he was just saddened to see it all happen that way, but he was also just protecting our family. Soldiers would show up early in the morning at our house and all throughout the whole street. It was pretty regular, but I felt like our house was a spot, and play soccer with these guys, have me, like, hold them
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
machine i was like i don't hold the machine gun yeah yeah yeah it was that weird different life just everything changed right and trying to evaluate are these guys mean and evil they weren't right but when they first show up the guns they have moments though i remember this guy he had a thick stash huge but i was really fast as a kid and i played tons of soccer so i was killing these older guys he just socks me real hard and i remember being laid out on the ground i look up and i see him and this is how he felt like he was laughing he goes and i was like
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Like a Bond villain. It felt evil. I know he's not. He was just fucking with me, but I can't forget his face. If a sketch artist was sitting here, I could draw him. You never forget that. But yeah, that was a wild experience that I slept through that first initial invasion. They took over the whole neighborhood. My mom and dad are both in a really terrible position.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
position, my dad particularly, and a bunch of other employees or ex-employees. Some people were able to get out before they came in. Really, really difficult situation, especially with us kids. And there's other kids who are studying overseas. What about them? Do you have siblings? And then the money's gone. Yeah, I'm the sixth of six.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
So all the money's gone overnight. Saddam said, oh, the Kuwaiti dinar is equivalent to the Iraqi dinar. Well, the Kuwaiti dinar was like four times. Absolutely insane. Yeah. So how did dad get you guys all out? In the show, I had to tweak it. But in real life, what happened is my mom got myself and my sister out. My brother stayed with my dad. We got on the bus.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
My mom strategically hid the money in the suitcase in a really insanely savvy way. I never saw the side of my mother. You see, your mom's a superhero at this point. How are you coming up with this? Like grabbing the razor, cutting down the zipper, putting equal amounts of money on each side. The things we'll do to survive. It's incredible sewing it together.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I just remember it to this day and going through Ad-Hoc, basically war zone through another war zone to Amman, Jordan, to my mom sending my sister and I to Houston by ourselves. How old was your sister? She was 18. So nine and 18. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
you're so scared i'm assuming miserable i don't want to leave i can give a shit about the guns like it didn't bother me at all i was very fearless i did not care i would go out still on my own scope it out what's happening in the neighborhood i was just kind of crazy that way but i love my friends and i wanted to see them and i didn't necessarily allow that invasion to like change that for me and i knew they weren't gonna hurt me like they're not gonna hurt kids they were very gentle with children actually but i didn't want to leave my mother and thought i could be really helpful you
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Right. It wasn't like, I don't want to leave you with my friends. No, it was more like, hey, I'm a helping hand. This sucks. I have to go. How are you going to do this on your own? And that was the thing that really ripped me apart more than anything. Who did she send you to? My brother. He was studying in Houston. Is this the brother that became a doctor? Yes. He's a PhD in biochemistry.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
That's last on the list. What is it? I just watch you and Seth. Actually, I have something in common with Seth. Edibles fuck me up. I'm terrified of that. I don't really get anxiety. I get anxiety only if something is not settled at home. You know, if something is off. You'll carry that. I'm a very sensitive person. I can feel my family's energy. If something's wrong, I'll know it's wrong. Right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Super brilliant. Amazing human. And then she, by herself, goes back to Kuwait. And that's where all the real hell started. Because there was all this posturing between America and Iraq. And say, Saddam is saying, go back. No, we're not going to go back. This is ours. Oh, yeah. Then the oil fields went on fire. And now it's a completely different world. Literally, noon looks like midnight.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Then, of course, the Iraqis started to retreat. It was a big heist. They were clearing out Mercedes dealerships, the Iraqis were, overnight. He released a bunch of prisoners just to create chaos. That was his strategy of war, I guess. Then there was a massive situation that happened with my mom and my dad. My dad in particular, the Kuwaitis started to regain power, as they should.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
It's their country. They started to form these different militias. They came into our house. This is my story from my mom. They knock on the door. They ask for a car for sale because we're liquidating everything. And she goes, I don't know if it's for sale. Let me ask my husband. She asked him. And as he comes out, they put a hood over him, kidnap him. He's gone. She doesn't know where he is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Nothing. Then the American soldiers come in. So you had the Iraqis come in, burst down the door. You had the Kuwaitis come burst in the door. And then you had the U.S. soldiers come burst in the back door. My brother is neurodivergent, has his own issues. It's chaos. He's trying to get medicine for him. She doesn't know where my dad is, who's diabetic and has his own set of issues.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
It's a whole fucking movie. So my dad was able to call my mom. They were like holding all these people, trying to see who's the actual traitor, who's not the traitor, who stuck for us, who didn't. They're trying to regain their power. I honestly don't hold anything against the Quaid. I totally get why they're doing it. Unfortunately, my dad was an impossible situation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Somebody has to vouch for you. You can't just leave. They got to know it wasn't an inside job for sure. And I genuinely don't hold anything against them. I really love them. The Kuwaitis are some of the gentlest, sweetest people. But in this situation, it was awful. She doesn't know where my dad is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
So they had like all these makeshift prisons and office buildings and stuff that were holding people and torture them to a certain degree to get stuff out of them. And what did they have issues with at the jail? They couldn't get fucking calls out. They couldn't get a dial tone. So my dad goes, I can fix it. Yeah, yeah. He fixed it for him. While he's fixing it, they're not in a room.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
He calls my mom. Uh-huh. Listen, you got to find the prime minister. He's a friend of mine. He loves me. He's the head guy in Kuwait. You got to talk to him. He's the only one that can free me. Just get to him and let's get the hell out of here. And my mom's like, what about the money? We have to get your money. You're owed this. This is your money you worked 25 years for. You got to get it back.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
And my dad's like, fuck the money. Just get me out of this hell hole. And my mom goes, the gangster that she is, I'm going to find this guy and I'm going to get your money. She's driving. Soot is in the air. It's just disgusting. All these oil rigs on fire has caused chaos throughout the roads and the environment and breathing, everything. So now she's just on a journey trying to find him. This is
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Three weeks. Oh, wow. She says it was one time the militia had this checkpoint. They told her, how do we know this car is not stolen? Because people are just stealing so much. He goes, I need to see the title for this car. She goes, I don't know where the title is for the car. Well, you need to find it. You can't get through here. She goes back to the house. She swore to God.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
She said, I don't know how it happened, but I couldn't see anything. It was pitch black. I just reach into a pile of papers and it's the title of the car. Most incredible thing. She goes in. After weeks and weeks trying to trace this guy down, she finds some jail. She hears that he's there, this prime minister. She's talking to the outside security.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I don't know how to describe it. It's like the antenna. Spidey sense. That's the only time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
She's crying to him, saying, my husband's been wrongly imprisoned. He goes, if you don't stop crying, I'm going to put you in jail with him, like kind of threatening her. She goes, listen, I need to talk to the prime minister. He knows my husband. He gets scared. He's like, what? Oh, yeah, he's here. So my mom walks into this building. She can hear guys not having the best time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Let's just say that. Yeah. She's walking down this flickery hallway. She goes and makes a right into the guy's office. She looks around the office. It's pristine. It's gorgeous. The direct opposite of the building she just walked through. But then she looks at all the technology in the room. She recognized it immediately. She goes, this is all my husband's stuff. And he says, who are you?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
She tells him who she is, tells him who her husband is. He freaks out. He's like, where's Mustafa? I love him. Where is he at? He's not a traitor. He's a great man. How many letters you need? I'll sign them all. Sign a letter for her. She went back. She picked him up at the airport. They meet at the airport. My brother and my dad comes in. He's 50 days now, full beard.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
And they go, where's your two other kids? And she goes, oh, they already left. And they go, how do we know they're not here and they're hiding? We imprisoned his father. He's innocent. What if they want revenge or something? He's like, we don't want revenge. We forgive you. Forget it. He's over there. He's like, no, now you got to show proof. So she has to go back another two days of that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Then she collects my dad. They go to Amman. My mom, my brother come like nine months later.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Yeah, I've never told this story. It's crazy that I said this. 92, your dad called? About 92. I got Houston two days before Halloween in 1990. And then Halloween happened, and I've never seen Halloween before.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
and asking for chocolate and candy and i had a british accent i stuck out like a sore thumb nobody really researched the neighborhood we moved into it wasn't like the greatest neighborhood right out the gate my brother he doesn't know he's a young kid too he's a super nerd it was next to a stop and go and that's the only thing we had i would go there and that's when i knew america i'm gonna go back to war
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
What'd your mom and dad do in the States? Once he came to the States, he's an entrepreneur. So he owned electronic stores actually in Kuwait as well, like a side gig. He was like the first best buy there. It was like Radio Shack basically before Radio Shack. So he opened up a place in Houston?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
He opened up a 99 cents store, but then he started with his knowledge, realizing that it's a poor neighborhood. He was like, oh, I can... bring telephones that they don't have access to for a really great price. So he brings them in and he starts showing them. It was a 99 cents plus. That's how they get you is that plus. So he has a wide range of goods.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
He adjusted to American culture pretty quickly. He wore a suit every day. He would call people from the living room and tell them they want a free cruise. He figured it all out. You want a free telephone. It's $200. Guess what? Congratulations.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Yeah, for sure. It's a safe place to pee your suit. It's so easy to talk to. It feels so calming. I'm doing Kimmel tomorrow, actually. I don't know if you knew that. I'm doing it Thursday. Oh. That's funny. It's awesome.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
It's so funny, but he would sell these phones, had a whole display of a wide variety of phones that did different things, whether it was a football phone, whether it was one that you could push a hold button and it plays music of your choosing. And you're like, what? That was like the tag of that time. So he had all of it and we would sell like hotcakes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
So I think that eventually he would have probably gotten back in the telecom and the way that cell phones are today. I mean, I always think about it. I had a discussion yesterday. I was like, I wonder. Probably been very rich, actually. Yeah. I think about it. Certainly. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I think it's the losing everything in your late 50s. I say it's like going from rags to essentially riches and going to rags again after spending your whole life trying to create a future for yourself and your family and your kids and having the ability to provide for them on a level that is going to be really difficult to do at this age. And he never really diversified his funds.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
It was so safe in Kuwait, never really thought something was going to go down like this. And unfortunately, that's what happened. I think all my dad's friends and my uncles, they all died fairly young. The massive, massive stress of the war, carrying that burden, carrying that weight around really took its toll and eventually chipped away at him, unfortunately.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
How scary does life get at 14 with him now out of the picture? Oh, it's terrible. Emotionally, you're gone. I was already checked out because my mom didn't come for like nine months. So I was really angry about being there without my mom. My sister is an absolute saint. God bless her. only knew how to cook one dish.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
One of the things that my mom gave my sister was a recipe book that had all these different pieces of paper from different eras, from my grandmother, my great-grandmother, from my great-great-great-grandma. It went back almost 100 plus years. It's pretty intense. But these are all the recipes. These are gold. But she would only make one dish. And I just come home seven days in a row.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Where's my mom? I want to go home. And meanwhile, cut to my mom. She's like driving through oil fields and trying to find me. You little ungrateful bitch. It was really difficult. And I was always very independent and adventurous. And I wanted to be out. Nobody could really control me, and I didn't know what to do with my emotions. So I was a 14-year-old kid in high school. I was just skipping.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I already knew I was going to be a comedian. Did you make friends easily? Oh, yeah. So you landed on your feet. You were social. It was rough at first. The British English thing did not help. It was a Mexican situation pretty regularly, but then the British accent was like, you're not Mexican, but what the hell are you?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Usually in my class, I was the first Mohammed there. I spoke British English. And at times I did not know that British English, certain words were significantly different meaning than American English. I walked up to my fourth grade teacher. I was like, Mrs. Strand, can I have a rubber, please? I made a mess on my paper, you know? And she's like, what? You came on your paper?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
It's going to be great for him because he's first. Just see you on the show as an Arab growing up in America.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
You came on your paper. My friend Bruce was like, you fucking fourth grade? What? What is fucking? You know, I had no idea. We had a cat. You don't say cat in British. You say pussy. And I walked up to Bruce at recess, the most embarrassing possible spot. I was like, Bruce, kiss what? He was like, what, man? He was like, I have a pussy now. Isn't it fantastic? And he was like, what?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I learned this quickly about black people, they can't hold it in, they have to tell everybody. They're like, come on, everybody, get around, everybody, get around.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
He got everybody around in front of the entire class at recess. He was like, watch this. He's like, Mo, do you have a pussy? And I was like, yeah, I have a pussy, isn't it lovely? Ah! It's small and lovely. He just kept going with it. Jose lost his mind. He was like, what, bro? You have a Pinocchio for real, bro? Like, is that serious, bro? And he was like so confused.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Like, I don't believe you. Yeah, I got punched a lot in the beginning, but I learned quickly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Oh, when I threw a football, everything changed. It was like, oh, this guy can throw the fuck out of a football. Oh, no kidding? You could. I would play ball, play basketball. I was very honest, too. Nobody knew that I could play that well. I wasn't always, like, overweight. I almost died in sixth grade.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I hit my head on the bottom of a pool, and that's when I gained all the weight because I was under neck brace like this the whole time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
It was terrifying. I don't know why I knew exactly what I had to do. I was spitting blood. Again, it was almost Halloween, so everybody thought I had, like, blood capsules and I was joking around at the pool. And I was like, no, guys, I think I'm about to die. I walked right past my mom, grabbed a towel, wrapped it around my neck. I was like, Mom, you need to take me to the hospital. Oh, God.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
So lucky I wasn't paralyzed or dead. I just think about it, not even for that. I think about, like, my mom. She didn't have enough on her plate.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
You just have to fend for yourself. You have to figure it out. So my mom worked at a Mexican restaurant, which turned into Taco Cabana, which is very famous. Everybody goes to Taco Cabana. Oh, okay. It's like the fast food chain of Tex-Mex. Dinner was lots of Mexican food. But also you can negotiate for rides. Hey, man, I'll throw in a quesadilla if you can just bring me here or take me there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
All right, two quesadillas. All right, now you're asking for a lot. We'll do two quesadillas and tacos, but I want four rides. We'll just negotiate. Honestly, it was really dark, but also some of my greatest years and my friends that I've made when I was 11 years old in that particular neighborhood. We're like the Sandlot. We made a pact. We're going to raise our kids together.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
It's going to be downhill from here, guys. But him and Colin. No, these are my guys. They're my friends. Yeah, where they write jokes for each other that they're not allowed to tell.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
We're going to go to college together. I always said I'm going to be a comedian. You guys are going to go to college. I'll visit you guys. And everything really panned out exactly how we all set out to be. And really, truly, that group of friends, that camaraderie, that brotherhood that we created in that beautiful neighborhood got me through everything, that support system.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
No. In the Middle East, it's all about your lineage. So when you go there, actually, when you enter, they say, what is your origin? And you say Palestinian. You either get Palestinian ID cards. It's worthless. It's actually worse. My uncle always taught me, don't get the ID card. If you do, then you're not ever be able to fly into Tel Aviv when you get your U.S. passport.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
You're always going to be subjugated to the cages. You literally have to go through this apartheid system where you go through cages. He says, just don't do it. And even though you were born in Kuwait, you don't have any. That's not how it works. It's all based off of your origin, where your parents come from. So my parents are both Palestinian, so you're Palestinian.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
You don't get Kuwaiti citizenship because in Kuwait, it's all tribal. So if you're an original Kuwaiti from that area, the government takes care of you. You get a stipend. Yeah. So the resources that your country is producing, you actually benefit from those resources. They can't do it for everyone. So it's like you have to be from that land and your right is your right. My right is in Kuwait.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
On Christmas, I think. Whatever the last show is, they do that. That's fun. It's diabolical. It is.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
the West Bank and Palestine. We're in Haifa that was now gone as Israel. So now we go to the West Bank and whatever is there, that's for you. But that's not for you here. So that's not how it works. It's where you're actually from, where your parents are from particularly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
For how long? Took me 20 years before I got my citizenship. But when I turned 18 is when I was able to get a social security card. I was in the system before, but I couldn't get the social.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
You can't work. I still worked. My mom would volunteer me down there, business owners. And I had jobs that I didn't want to do, but I did, where I would sell like fake Rolexes or fake watches through my dad because he would go to the wholesale district. Once he passed away, his friend gave me a job. And then I started learning about wholesale business, import, export.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
And much higher risk for Colin. I would say. Yeah, definitely. Especially because Che was really trying to get him into trouble. He's genuinely trying to put him in the worst possible pickle.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
And I started seeing this guy wearing this nice watch. I'm like, bro, that's crazy. He goes, ah, it's fake. I was like, oh, it looks amazing though. Yeah, yeah. And so I was like, oh, I think I could hustle these in school and on the street here. All I have to do is wear it. And then they're going to ask me where you got it. And I'm going to tell them it's for sale. So that was my shtick.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I would just put on a Versace sunglasses and be working at the cashier or whatever. And people would be like, oh, man, those are dope. I'm like, oh, it's the last pair, bro. I'll sell them to you if you want. It's $125. Yeah. They would leave and I'd take out another pair and put it on. Sure, sure. Your second to last pair.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
And it would be so bad because at the end of the week, they're all wearing the same shit. And it would come in really mad and aggressive. Like, bro, you told me it was the last one. I was like, look, look, look, look, look. For real though, this is one of one. This Movado watch is the only one I have. There's no other design of this. I promise you nobody else is going to have this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
And he'd be like, oh man, that's cool. I was like, yeah, I would sell that one. I was really good at it to the point my dad's friend put his own stand up. And I was like, why are you doing this? You're not going to compete with me? This is crazy. He goes, bro, you're selling at my location. And that's where I learned about business, right? It was like, oh, I'm using your place of business.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I owe you commissions. You got to kick up. I didn't know this. And he goes, it's a valuable lesson. Don't worry. You still sell. Just give me the commission. I was like, okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
He's got like a full truck. It's a very condensed version. I really wanted to do more with it, but I think there's not enough space in the story to figure out. In the first season, it was a whole thing with COVID and civil unrest and George Floyd. It was like a nightmare making season one. It was really, really tough. But season two, I had the whole vision for it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Mrs. Reed and Ms. Broderick, my English teachers, specifically Ms. Reed, she really was noticing that I was losing it because I was a pretty good student before that. And I basically threw away my ninth grade year essentially at that point. And she was trying to salvage whatever she could out of me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
She said, if you go up in front of the class, like at first she said, how would your father feel if you don't graduate? Which I was like, oh, that's a cold shot. Hit me in the hardest way. And then she was like, don't you want to be a comedian? I was like, yes. Look, I'll let you do stand-up in class.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
If you could throw in some Shakespeare that we're working on now, you'll get extra credit, but you don't always have to do it. And I was like, great. Can I do it now? I literally went in front of the class, read out of the book. I don't know if it's by heart. It's a monologue from Macbeth. You know, like, I don't fucking know this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
And so I did just a funny version, the British voice that I used to have. And kids were dying. I was like, I'm hooked. So I was like, can I come in tomorrow and I'll write a set tonight? And she was like, okay. Did it. Killing. I was like, oh my God. And then I would just do it every Friday. And she took me into the theater arts department. It was Ms. Kreisler. I'm still closer to this day.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
My theater teacher from high school. She goes, listen, this kid's been coming to class. He's doing all this original material I've never heard before. He's doing all these accents. It's hilarious. She goes, I think he belongs here. Yeah, I am. And I was like, maybe.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
The next year, did theater, graduated with honors in theater, honorary thespian, had a partial scholarship for the School of Film Intelligence in New York. I passed on that. I didn't even tell a single soul. I don't want them to talk me into it. I didn't want to leave my mother or my brother. I wanted to be close and just build up my stand-up chops and let that define my career.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
And then you enter at 18, this funniest Texan. Jesus funniest person competition. They have this around the country in each city, but that was a big one. If you can get into that. That was my first time on stage at a comedy club. And I get there and I was so excited. And my buddy, Nick, who drove me to the club, he was my guy. He still is. For two quesadillas. Yeah, for two quesadillas.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
That's right. He looks at me, he's trying to be corny. He's like, you ready, Mo? This is the first day of the rest of your life. But he was being serious also. And I went up, caught the bug, made this wild card position. I realized when I signed up, I was like, oh shit, my materials for high school students. These are grown ass adults. I need to fix this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
So I rewrote something till three o'clock in the morning. I go up, I do it and I get into the system that way and I find out what I need to do. I joined it the following year. I made the finals, didn't win the thing, but then I went off and just started doing standup when I was 19, 20 years old. I was already headlining shows and traveling overseas without a passport.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
You got a refugee travel document, and it was a really painful process, very expensive. But that was the only way to go overseas. Because you were doing a lot of stand-up at bases, right? I did some bases. The first tour that I did was April of 2001. It was Italy, Germany, and Sicily. I was a baby, obviously five months before 9-11. It was just a totally different experience.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
And then I went to Japan, Korea, and Guam, all those military bases, in February of 2002. Wow. It was polar opposite from the first time. Now everything is heightened. But I wanted to do those shows and be myself because I was deathly afraid of being myself. I said, if I can go in front of the troops and be myself, talk shit, make them laugh, I could be myself in front of anybody.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
That's why they love me. I went on many, many tours. And my experience was actually that the soldiers themselves had interacted with someone like me many times before. And they were excited to see me. Versus when I was touring in the South, early on in my career, it was their first interaction with someone like me. It was that polar opposite.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I didn't come up with this. I didn't mean to say the N-word.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
They're actually well-traveled human beings and more knowledgeable than you think. And it's not as unsafe as I thought it was. I went back to Iraq. I did shows there, still with a refugee travel document, in war zones. The very place that we left... And I'm doing shows on bases all throughout Iraq in the most desolate of locations where they can fucking kill me and throw me somewhere.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
No one's going to care. I had some of the best sets and one of one experiences in a state in Saddam Hussein's palace, which is converted into a hotel. And I just went there just to see it for myself and collect information and put this thing to rest that's in my heart that was just lingering. And I wanted to see my aunt that I haven't seen in 19 years.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
He made me say it. I have to do it. It's written. I read everything that's on the monger.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
She was the only one that was still living in Kuwait at the time. So it was many different things. I had to sneak into the country, basically. I'm here for the U.S. government, kind of just moving them in that direction. He was like, okay, and he just let me in. And then when I was leaving, I stayed three extra days to see my aunt, and I wasn't supposed to.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
So the military wanted to walk me back to the airplane with the other comedian, Olivia Arrington. And I was like, we're fine. We're adults, bro. We're going to go. And he's like, no, no. In military protocol, I got to escort you all the way to the plane. I was like, God damn it. How the hell am I going to do this? And Olivia's like, maybe you go hide in the fucking bathroom. I was like, okay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
And then he gets a call and he runs to the SUV. See him talking. This is what's going on. He comes back. He's like, sorry, guys. Bradley Cooper just landed from Afghanistan. I got to go get him. We're like, all right. Thank you, Bradley. You want to hear something crazy?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I agree. You know, what gives me not anxiety, but the thing that causes me to go down like a thought process, especially since this is specifically about the show and there's so much to discuss within the series itself. It's like, what clip do you show? What exactly do you talk about? And I'm a stand up as well. It's like, I just want to do jokes. I just want to be a guy on a couch.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Yeah, that was wild. Dude, I remember the fucking flyer. It's all hitting me right now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Bro, I want to like laugh and cry at the same time. Somehow I'm involved in you getting to go into Kuwait. Yes, simulation. I didn't see that coming. Bro, I didn't see it coming either. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm freaking out. That's fucking hilarious. I'm freaking out because I did tell Bradley. Bradley Cooper. That's so wild. Yeah. There I remember the fucking poster.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
It's not about getting kidnapped. It's you really making an ass of yourself, making them look bad because there's literal money at stake that they get every year. Yeah. Last thing they want is that getting fucked up. Bozo. Some guy bozo'd out, you know? Yeah. That's it. Like, thanks a lot, but we're getting half a billion dollars over here and you want to have a good time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I love that, actually. They didn't make us sign shit. We walk in, we're like, come on, get on stage, bitch. Tell us a joke, whore.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
But I'm in this extraordinary position where I'm the only Palestinian on television with his own show created by a Palestinian starring and directed by. But it's like, what are you going to do? What are you going to say? Everybody's like, come on, buddy. Yeah. We all want to hear it. Work this out for us. Exactly. Tell us what to do. I really just want to be a comedian.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
It's different levels that you start to pass. In 2011, Dave was making his comeback, starting to really tour. And then we happened to be in the Bay at the same time. He was in Oakland. I was in the Bay doing stand-up. And it was me and my buddy. I was a respondent, longtime collaborator, worked for years. He was like, Dave's in town. Let's just go over and hang out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
So I would go over, hang out with him. He was like, hey, you want to open? I was like, yeah. I go up. And then he was like, you want to come tomorrow? I was like, yeah, cool. He's like, you know, I'm going to Atlanta. You want to come to Atlanta? I was like, yeah, cool. Next thing you know, it's eight years of just constant touring with him. But 2014 was the big turning point for me with Dave.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
He just gave me the inspiration. After a show at the House of Blues in Dallas, he walks up to me after my set. He's like, Mo, man. He said, it's killer, bro. What if you do a short film? In front of your special, I produce it. I think if you do it right, you could win an Emmy. And it hits me in the shoulder. I was like, oh. Shit, short film. I couldn't sleep to save my life.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
It was like a week or two of me just obsessing on what this short film would be. Must have listened to 100 tracks, some really visual personality music to help me illustrate the entire picture. And it just clicked when I listened to Elvis Presley's That's Alright Mama. That song, that's alright mama, that's alright now.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
that's all right mama you just do as you do oh that's all right you know when he did that i saw my mom putting everything together getting us out of kuwait i just saw the entire thing which is the same scene that's in episode seven now of the first season i wanted it to be the opening but anyway i put it together i was like this is it i was trying to pitch dave on it and dave was like oh god what if this sucks you know i inspired this guy to fucking do it it's a personal story
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I tell him it sucks. It's always a scary thing. I get that. But I knew it didn't suck. I knew it was badass. Yeah. I was on the bus on tour in Austin. I grabbed his speaker. I was like, you're listening to this. And I put it in, put it down, and I mapped the whole thing out for him. He was smoking a cigarette. He goes, shit, Mo. That's genius. Don't do it in a special. You need to do a TV show.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I was like... Fuck a TV show. So that became his whole other obsession. So I started writing down all these really transformative moments in my life, young kid or teenager or an adult, my experience in war, all these significant scenes, or even a moment with my grandmother, how she was teaching me how to eat hummus.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Things that I've never forgotten that I put in season two, I just put them on index cards. Scene by scene, I would work it out. So I'd had a hundred scenes accumulated that I just could mine through. I told Rami about it in 2014, early 15 actually. I was like, yeah, I think I had this idea, but I want to do my standup special first. He goes, no, let's do your TV show. This is great.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
That'd be really great to do that. But I understand that there's an immense responsibility that comes with my position. And you can't just be a clown all the time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I was like, yeah, but I think I should do my special first. I did for Netflix at that point. That explains a lot of the story. And then I can go into the series. And then he was like, well, fuck, if you're not going to do that, I'm going to make my own show. So he goes off and makes his own show. He was like, come do my show. And I was like, I don't know. Because you want to do your own show?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
It's not about the own thing. I'm just very protective of ideas. And once you put ideas out, they're kind of over with. I just didn't know if it was right or not. I really wasn't sure.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Right, right. People would tell me that that was like an argument initially. And I was like, I really don't care.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Nor should you. But I could see that being something you were hung up on. That was something I was totally hung up on. I was thinking about it. It was just like, I was just curious. And then later on, he always jokes. He's like, remember, I begged you to do this. I was like, no, he didn't fucking beg me. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
It was just going through the bullshit, you know, just trying to figure it out and making sure that it's the right thing for you and for me. Like, it's all love. Last thing I want to do is do something bad for you either. It was an awesome thing. But being on Rami is the first on-screen acting.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Yeah. I feel like I was completely born to do it. It felt so good and comfortable. Loved it. I felt like I finally was doing the thing that I was always meant to do. Maybe more than stand-up? It's close. I love stand-up so much. I love stand-up because of the vulnerability and allowing yourself just to speak your mind and the ability just to do three shows at Chicago Theater, man.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
It's its own thing. But we just did 10,000 people. I'm just backstage literally thanking God before I'm introduced. Just remembering sleeping on fucking floors at every spot. You can imagine every airport, every courtyard, anything just to try to make it. So I'm very grateful for that. But this whole experience is like, oh, this is what I'm built for. I'm built to tell stories.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I'm built to do television, built to do movies. Doing Black Adam was huge too. I felt so natural in all that. And I just start reflecting about my life. You know, I didn't create myself. It's okay to talk about it. Like I didn't make me. You're the product of a lot of context. But also, there's certain things, bro, that'll blow your fucking mind.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
The guttural feeling I had when I saw stand-up for the first time and the journey that it was supposed to take me on, that wasn't the first time. I thought it was. But it's not. When I was seven in Egypt, my dad took us to a play. And the lead of that play, his name is Adel Imam. He's an iconic Middle Eastern actor, Egyptian.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
He's like the goat of all goats of all comedic cinema and live performance. I love this man. I watched him. I'm seven. I don't really even know totally what they're saying, but it's a captivating experience. On that trip, there is a photo that literally tells the future. If you look at that photo, I know it sounds crazy to say this, but I'll show it to you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
It literally tells the entire future of what I'm supposed to do. It's absolutely baffling. And then my mom, as much as she was so worried about my future because she's never heard about it. Stand up is a really viable art profession or a career path. So long when it's an arduous one, of course, she has every right to be like, this fucking song.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Yeah, exactly. But she didn't really understand. And then she told me recently, she goes, when you were 18 months, when you barely could start walking, you're running around, you would turn off the TV and you would start entertaining us on front of the television. It's already there. I don't know why it's there, but it's there. But then this picture, bro, it'll freak you out. I got to pull it up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
The guy that has hands on my shoulders... His name is Yusuf Idris. He's literally one of the most legendary screenplay and authors of any generation in the Middle East. OK, I'm wearing a shirt that's basically a U.S. military recruitment shirt that nobody fucking knows I'm wearing. Clearly, we've run out of stuff because we extended our stay.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
It's absurd, right? My mom clearly run out of shit. Right. So it's there. It's gone. She just picked out a bunch of stuff. We ran out of things. You didn't even look at it. I have a camcorder. It's an over the shoulder camcorder. This is the very camcorder that I found 30 years later. That's in the series. If you watch the ending, that's what I'm holding.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
You show footage of your father in Palestine, right? I do. When my aunt told me about this camcorder, I was literally asking about it two days prior. I was on tour in the Middle East. I look at my manager. I'm like, look at this picture. I was reflecting on this photo. And I was like, wait, what does this fucking shirt say? And I started zooming into it. I was like, oh, my God.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
And I look at the camcorder. I was like, I have so many memories with this camcorder. It's insane. I was like, Mustafa, isn't it crazy? The guy who has his hands on my shoulders is crazy. One of the greatest writers of our generation of filmmakers, storytellers. I have a camcorder on my hand. The two main characters after me in my show is my mom and my brother. And the U.S.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
military invades Kuwait two years after this. That is wild. Yeah, that's really fucking wild. It's so insane. And the camcorder itself goes missing. I think it's gone. And bring this up in Kuwait. I'm being really reflective. It's very painful. And also I'm going there. They're building a tent for me to do a show. It's like, oh my God, what's happened? Really in this deep sense of reflection.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
My aunt is going in and out of memory. She's having Alzheimer's. It's starting to really get worse. But she remembers me. She's holding my hand. Don't go, don't go, don't go. I'm just looking at the clock. I was like, aunt, I'm so sorry. I have to go up in like an hour. I have to go. She's like begging me not to go. It was so gut-wrenching. I was sitting there in my hotel room just crying.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Bro, I wonder what happened to this camcorder. I always remember this. I'm just reflecting on how everything is happening. I hear people cheering from outside the room. It's a 2000 seat or whatever they built for me. This is just surreal. Trying to integrate all this. Trying to just make sense of it all. Like, how did this all happen? It's nuts. I was like, everybody, can you please leave?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I just didn't know how to reconcile it. I was having, not like anxiety about going on, but I just didn't know how to channel my feelings anymore. And so I called, actually FaceTimed Dave. He was like, oh shit, man, you're going to have one of the best fucking sets you ever had. I already see it. And I just wiped my tears. I was like, you right. Went up and literally one of the best.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I did 90 minutes just destroying the place, freestyling, integrating Arabic to English. It was like a masterclass. It was like fucking two days later when I'm on Jordan, I'm visiting my other aunt and we're all getting kisses. She's loving on me. She's like another mom to me. We just ate a really dense meal and I was trying not to like pass out. And I hear her say, I have a camcorder.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
That's what it sounded like to me. I was like, what? Oh God, it's so sleepy. say a camcorder? No. And I didn't register it. Then I see her walk back in. She has back problems. She's in her late 70s. This camcorder, I was like, I freaked out. And then my cousin walks in with a bag full of VHS tapes. I was like, what is going on, dude? That night, I'm in the hotel room.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I'm staring at the video camera. I have my opening act, Adi Khalifa, and my management stuff in the room. I can't stop thinking about it. And Adi goes, you want to see if it works, don't you? I was like, yeah. I open it up, plug it in, comes right on. I was like, give me a VHS tape. Give me, give me, give me. I'm watching the little viewfinder. First tape, Michael Jackson.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I was like, oh, take it out. The next tape, Michael Jackson. I was like, guys, next tape, it's a house party. We don't know where. We don't know what it is. I'm watching for about five minutes. I was like, oh, where's my dad? I really want to see my dad. I was like, oh, he's probably filming. Damn it. Right as I say that, he walks under the frame. He's taking pictures of everybody.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
It definitely doesn't feel like a burden. It's funny that book says the burden and the glory.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
He's like dancing. I'm losing it. I'm like laughing, crying, laughing, crying. Meanwhile, my friend Adi, my opening, I didn't know he was filming, but I was for 17 minutes watching. He filmed the entire thing. And I caught footage of me as a little kid in our house in Kuwait. And it was just insane to get footage from my dad that I didn't know existed anymore. Nobody had.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Exactly right. That says it all. I really do feel stand-up itself is an art form, since that's how I started out. Technically, I did theater in high school, and I was doing stand-up at the same time. And once I started educating myself on what stand-up comedy is and the history of stand-up, historically speaking, the greatest stand-up comedians have always made you laugh and made you think.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
No, this is absolutely real. And of course, seeing my mom and young and she's serving fruits. And there was a tape where we're at our house and my dad is very hospitable. He just loves artists as well. He'd have people there. It was the guys reciting poetry, freestyling, and they would get your name, he would go, Dax, Dax, Dax, the Dax. You know, they would play off of it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
And they would go on a rant about you. It was so special. And I'm sitting there wide awake and all the little kids are like sleeping, except me. You can tell I'm loving this. He went in on it. It was super cool. Just having footage of my dad grabbing me like that, it just killed me, man. I was like so happy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
While I'm recreating this scene in the series, I forget that Idy, because I cast him as my cousin in the show, and as we're about to do the scene, he goes... Remember I was with you when that happened. He's like, remember I filmed it. I was like, oh my God, Eddie, that's right. I sent it to my editor. I was like, hey, here's the doc footage of me discovering it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Here's the actual footage that's on there. If you could just hold it for me and then do a rough cut at the end so people know that this is a real story. Yeah. And when I saw it on the cut, I lost my fucking mind, weeping. Like, what did I just do? It was like one of those things. Yeah. That only the divine can facilitate something like that. It's impossible.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
For sure. Malcolm Gladwell. I felt that way about the AFI too. There's just a room and they only pick 10 shows and 10 films and that's it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
And you're just in that room. You're like, oh my God, Sigourney Weaver, fucking Steven Spielberg, James Cameron and I talking about watches. Better Call Saul is honored. So you have everyone there. Bob Odenkirk. I'm like, what's going on, bro? It's nuts. And then they bring in Al Pacino to tell a story like out of nowhere. Yeah. He was like, I hate award shows.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I really hate award shows because there's a bunch of losers, but you guys are all winners. That's nice. That's nice. He really walked in like that. He was like, I got a paper. I got a speech, but I fucking hate papers. I just want to tell you a little story. One of the best stories ever. You know, the first role I did was Godfather. You've heard of it. I can't believe it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I'm fucking doing a Godfather. I just got to tell you before this, though, I did a lot of drugs and alcohol, you know? It got me through a lot of hard times. Oh. It was really worked out well for me. I'm not advocating for it. I'm just saying it was really good for me. Let me tell you something. Did I get nominated for an Oscar? I couldn't believe it. I got nominated for an Oscar.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
So what I did was I took so many fucking Quaaludes and I drank so much I was fucked up out of my mind. My manager at the time had to wash my hair. Couldn't even wash my fucking hair. Takes me to the Oscars, you know, we're at the Oscars and I'm sitting in a chair just fucking losing my mind. High out of my mind, drunk. And then I realized, oh my God, what if I win? I got to walk up to the stage.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Oh no, now I'm panicked. I look over at Major, I was like, is it almost over? He goes, it's only been...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
40 minutes we've still got another three hours to go he goes oh no three hours i can't handle it and he's so paranoid i'm so paranoid about it what if i win i gotta walk on the stack can't walk it's impossible i can't even stand up how am i gonna go give a speech it's not gonna work out and it comes up our category finally comes up and i go the winner is jack lemon and i'm fucking celebrated.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I was so fucking happy. And the next day in the papers, they were like, look how beautiful Al Pacino is. What a great supporter of art, supporter of Jack Lemmon. And I was just happy I didn't fucking win and have to walk up on a goddamn stage. Hysterical. And he goes, okay, I'll read from the paper now. Since the baby was like right there. That was a great experience. Yeah, that's right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Of course, there's like the Dangerfield, who's just silly and amazing one-liners. And that's incredible. One of the funniest guys ever, really. But if you look at it, everybody's top five is someone who really made you think.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Yeah. Yes. Yes. Look, you get as many swings as you can, and you don't know how many you're going to get. So I feel sincerely this second season is like a masterpiece. I feel like the eighth episode is something so unique. Chris Story gave me one of the sweetest compliments, and he was just like, you did something really dangerous, but never inflammatory, which is an enormous feat.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
And it was tender. It was thoughtful. It was sweet. It was heartfelt. It was funny. And kudos to you. When he said that to me, I was like, thank you. I felt really seen because it was almost basically an impossible position to be in. Do you talk about October 7th? Do you have it? Do you get into it?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
No, season one didn't really have a particular date to it, but I decided to date the entire second season. So when it opens up in the first episode of season two, you could see it's September 2022. And then it takes us all the way to October of 23, but then the whole season ends on the 6th of October in Tel Aviv airport before their strip search.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
So I did that very deliberately because every time I started recording, First of all, if we talk about it, then that means the family doesn't get to go back, obviously. They can't go back and visit if there's a war going on. Not going to happen. Secondly, you're making everything seem like it all started at that point, which is also not fair.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
And people need to know contextually what the world looked like before that. Thirdly, every time I started getting into it, it became a full-blown drama, and the base of the show is comedy. And we explored it. I wanted to see what it looked like. I'd do a gut check right away. I was like, uh, it does not feel good. That's not it. You only have two seasons. This is the best foot forward here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
And if there's a scenario where a third comes around or the question comes up, do you want to do it? Do you want to get into it? I'd have to really think about it because I genuinely believe I'm being objective sincerely. The first season was really, really hard. And I'm blessed that we were able to get all the accolades we did for the first season.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
But what I was able to pull off with the second season, I feel so grateful. blessed that I had such a great support system, wife, my having a son at the same time, being so focused on nothing else and just so zoned in about making sure to tell the best possible story. And I feel like we did that. I'm so relieved because it is an impossible position.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Can we agree on Briar just number one? Yeah, for sure. No. It's close. I don't like to put them in any particular order. Yeah, that's fair. Because they each have a fascinating skill set that the other one can't do. Like Pryor and Carlin. Carlin has a particular skill set. He's ahead of the game in the most incredible way where everything he says today is relevant, but he has a certain structure.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Well, also people who have their own projections on the subject matter.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Exactly, which is immigration, Latinos. It's not just the Palestinian family. It represents many different buckets, right? We go into a detention center in episode two. I've never seen that in any show, much less a comedy. But also telling these detailed stories, showing also how privileged I am as a refugee in comparison to other people's experiences.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
And then he tries to make himself feel better. Like, well, you know, in the 90s, we fled the Gulf War, you know. But then we took a flight. I think it was Delta. So just showing how absurd even I am in my own scenario. And I just love that misdirection of like, you think it's going to be a hypersexual comedic situation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
And then it goes into a political conversation, which things do, especially in that environment. I would put the mask on. Yeah, I would. I couldn't do it. If anybody else in the room, I have performance anxiety for sure. Any sexual activity for sure. The ambassador wants him to fuck his wife with a... A luchador mask. A luchador mask. Yeah, he's also a palestino and I do it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
He doesn't want to do it. I can't do it. I was like, oh, that would have been easy. I physically can't do it at all. And so I was genuinely me. I know you had to toe the line between the character and myself, but... I remember having like a girlfriend and she had this dog and he kept looking at me while we're, I was like, dude, stop looking.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I was like, I can't, you got to get this dog out of here, bro. It's making me feel terrible about myself. Our old dog. She loved to watch. I'm so shy, bro. I'm telling you, I'm super shy. Even if it's a pet.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I'm really sad we brought this up now. No, it was fun to play with that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Yeah. And the name of your tour is El Oso Palastino Tour. The Palestinian Bear Tour.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
the palestinian which is a play on the character in the show is just side jobs to make a living in mexico he's a luchador but he's really just there to get his ass kicked doesn't have any skill set whatsoever i did a few of those takes bro that shit is real man it hurt like a motherfucker my back went out a few times like dude what is going on they're like hold on to the rope squeeze your abs and then we're gonna hold you from your ankles but you gotta hold yourself i'm like who
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Planking is an extraordinary plank. I can plank for several minutes. Shockingly, I can do it. I didn't want to offend you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
No, we already know about the athleticism. Everyone knows you're a good planker. Thank you. I appreciate it. Gracias por eso. For real, it's a female. She's like kicking my ass. I'm like, bro, this is it. Where's the stunt guy? Get him in there. I thought this was going to be fun. This was a disaster. Get me out of this suit. It's hot. I'm sweating. I did black Adam. I can do my own stunts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Let's go. No, I can't. I can't do all of them. That's not your lane. Driving a car like a lunatic and getting thrown from the ropes are completely different things, buddy. Completely different things. So how many dates are you doing? I think I've done 45 already. I'm not sure. You can get tickets on my website, moamer.com. M-O-A-M-E-R.com. You can follow me on Instagram.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
He has to write every single thing down. And you have Pryor, which is really freewheeling, which is my style, really. I'm write everything on the fly. I have to do it in front of the audience. I can't sit down and just write it out. I'm inspired by the audience. I need that. So I appreciate those skill sets. So I really don't like to put them in a particular order.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I got to film another special. So I'm just going hard. I want this to be spectacular. I want it to be the best special that I've ever done. And I feel like with getting older, having a son and what's going on in the world, the way you filter things and when you see things, everything is different. I see things really differently.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
As a father, as a man, just coming off of season two itself and how really massive lift that was and relief of seeing people. The reception that I'm getting on the road now, it's one of the most beautiful things. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I try not to look. Number one, I really, really avoid it. I have a team that curates. I approve everything because I really don't want to spend... My days online and social, it was so time consuming and vacuous and everyone's just yelling at each other. No one's really making sense. There's no actual progress being made. It's just people declaring what side of every fight they're on. Exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
And then the worst part of it to me is no one's listening to one another. So you're talking and I'm just thinking about how I'm going to respond. You're not there to learn anything. You're there to broadcast your position.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Exactly. So I've avoided that. And sincerely, I haven't had any issue like with season two. I think that the balance was perfect. And the fact that it was based off of my actual experience in life. And then you can see not all of it. Surely you fictionalize certain things, but a substantial amount of it is copy paste. What the divine has given me on a silver platter.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
You don't want to mess with that. You can't write anything better than that. You're holding the camcorder. Just go with that and build around it and making sure to expand it and make sure it flows into the overall story. And that's it. Stay focused and have the right balance of comedy and drama and emotion tapped into it and take people on this ride and let it do the talking.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I hope the pressure doesn't stop these stories from being told. Yeah. That's the scary part is that a lot of people at my shows were like, how'd they let you do it? One guy said, how are you alive? I was like, bro, pray for me. What the fuck are you talking about? I'm alive. It's a good, sweet, honest.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
That's how shocked people are because that's how extreme the suppression of free speech has become. And if we don't like what you're saying, then we can just literally deport you to another country. Like what the fuck is going on right now?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I don't really worry about it, but I just hope that it doesn't happen. I hope that the artist community, specifically here in L.A. and Hollywood, to understand that we need more of these stories. You can't suppress speech. If you don't like what somebody's saying, you just need more speech, right? Yeah, exactly. You don't need less. Everybody gets to share their stories. You don't have to love it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
But these are the comedians I truly admire and love so much.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I'm so glad you came and did this. Yeah, this was so fun. So good to know both of you. Really, truly, this is so fun. Oh, good. Really, really. What a great experience. I'm going to do this in my garage.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
You got a garage? Just me just sitting there. All you need is a garage. All right, brother. Thank you so much.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Of course. Yeah, we've done thousands of shows together. Pryor, Carlin, Bill Hicks, to me, is up there. Unfortunately, died so young, but he was on that trajectory of being truly ahead of his time and magnificent in his own way. Chappelle is on my top five.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Just because I've seen him personally, thousands of shows together, it's like seeing inside of how a Rolex works, like how the mechanism all flows. It's just really fascinating to see that. And I feel like we're very similar in ways. A lot of things overlap. between us and I'm just grateful to have one of the greatest of all time and to be able to see him. And he's my brother.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
He's my mentor, but also like family. So he's up there, of course. I don't think there's a debate there. Then the fifth is really hard. It's like Eddie Murphy, but he stopped. He got so famous. Once you stop doing standup and want to come back to it, it's almost impossible. Yeah, it's very impressive that Seinfeld was able to come back and do a real show.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
But he never really stopped doing stand-up. He always would show up in his show with stand-up. Murphy became a rock and roll man. A lot of young people wouldn't even know he was a stand-up actor. Yeah, exactly. But those are the albums I used to listen to. But when I first started stand-up, I was only been in the country like five years.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
So I didn't really know anything about the history of stand-up. I would be at open mics and be like, oh, you sound like Kennison. I'm like, who the fuck's Kennison?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
People thought I was full of shit because I didn't have an accent. To them, they feel like, oh, if you're an immigrant, you should have some kind of accent. The fact that you don't is baffling. So we don't really believe it. Yeah. Like I would tell my friends when they first found out, because you don't talk about it. You just walk around like, hey, I don't have citizenship yet.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
You're trying to fit in, not stand out more. Yeah, but it never really comes up. You just want to ball in the neighborhood, have a good time. You're not really thinking about it. It's not like we're going to go travel to Europe together. Yeah. They know the family, but you're too young. You're too naive. You're thinking about too many other things to share your immigration status.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
so many layers that are baked into each experience, whether it is the Gulf War, growing up in America. There's really fun ways and interesting ways to explore that as a storyteller. I am really intrigued by that, and I want to dive into it and capture all the subtleties and bring them out. That is the best part of writing the TV show and creating a show. That is...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
really emotional at times i can't explain to you how many moments in the series while i was filming especially season two where i would have to go off and just weep and then come back and then start over and then direct okay guys so what we're gonna do is you know process co-stars like how the fuck are you doing i saw what happened i saw you were in the corner you weren't getting anything from craft service you were whimpering to yourself in front of it that's
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Fun. I really do enjoy that, whether it's super emotional or just straight up comedic scene that we're shooting. And you're just feeding lines to Hamid, which is one of my favorite characters in the whole season. The thing that I have happening to me right now, especially on tour, is all the people sharing their experiences with me. Sharp. Yeah, you have to hold a lot. And that's...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
a massive thing. That's the most difficult part. I may have people coming up to me talking about they lost 200 family members. I held a kid yesterday. He's three years old. He's from Gaza. He's getting treatment here. He's lost his mother. She was 23 and I'm like holding him and I'm like, You know, just thinking about him. I just had a son. He's 17 months. I can't even imagine it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
That's the stuff that's really, really, really heavy. And that's where the responsibility comes. But literally, there's nobody else speaking about it from an actual Palestinian perspective. Right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Yeah. Well, it's good. People should engage in this conversation. That's the only way to truly have any kind of progress is engage in these talks. But no one is coming from my background talking about it. At least no one has the voice that I do or the platform that I do. So just to engage in that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
And it's also a massive test for me as a comedian because I could always go up and just give me a topic, dissect this, have a blast with it, make it funny. No problem. But to toe that line is dangerous.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
that's horrible i had a similar situation did not last 28 hours that is misery yeah i had a similar situation from sweden to frankfurt catching my connection flight in frankfurt before i boarded the flight i bought i thought it was just a regular sparkling water so i take a drink of it i was like oh my god this tastes god awful it's pear fucking pear sparkling water i'm like god
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
And whatever formula it takes to make the pear taste that flavor. That perfume. Just created the worst possible bubbling sickness. The storm system had to form her. Hurricane was forming. All the blood was leaving my head and going right to try to rescue my gut. I either needed to pass gas or take a poop. I wasn't sure about what was going to happen.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Sweaty brow ridge. Sweaty brow ridge. A full-blown waterfall situation from every area possible. The back of the dome, the front of the dome. I hate to say it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I shoved cocaine up my ass, and now it's backfiring. That's what it looks like. I finally hear the ding to get up. I was like, I got to go to the restroom. We got to figure this out. I felt really faint, and right before I grabbed the door, I just go down. Perfect, right?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I just fainted. And I wake up to three of the hottest Swedish-German flight attendants. It's like a beer commercial.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
I just needed to pass gas. That's all I needed. Just pass gas and it was all gone.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
You just have to tell yourself in those situations. That's horrible. I might jump off the fucking plane. Just hear the pilot. Yeah, he just jumped out of the back of the fucking plane. He's got three rain slickers tied together. Hopefully that'll. I'm such a shy person. I don't even like taking off my shirt in front of people. I can't do it. I do it. I got the pool and stuff. I can't imagine.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Imagine a scenario where I shit my pants on a plane. It's everybody. And they're all looking at you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mo Amer
Smoking a cigarette with shit on his fingertips. Like, you don't care. Yeah, I remember. It was 62. Nam was worse. I shit myself an hour ago. Welcome.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
I come from a highly educated family. This would be a really big black mark on us, like, and myself. And I don't want that. She goes, don't you want to be a stand-up comedian? I was like, yeah, absolutely I do. She goes, I tell you what, if you stop skipping, I'll let you do stand-up in class. I was like, what? Are you sure I can do stand-up in class? She was like, yeah.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
She goes, all you have to do is just sprinkle in something, because it was English class. If you can sprinkle in some Shakespeare or be creative and figure out a way how you can mix in the curriculum, I'll give you extra credit even, and I'll let you do stand-up on Fridays. I was like, this sounds like a great deal. I was like, what's the catch? She goes, you can't skip anymore.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
You skip once, and it's over for you. I'm going to give you, I'm going to fail you. It's over.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
First of all, I'd never heard of stand-up comedy. It's an indigenous art form to America. There's three. It's jazz, hip-hop, and stand-up. So I didn't know anything about it. I went to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo a few months after being in the States to kind of change things up. My family took me just to kind of get my mind off of things and to try to do something fun.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
Yeah, so it was him, he was co-headlining with the band Alabama, and I saw it, and I just, in front of 65,000 plus people, just telling these hilarious stories, and I looked at my brother, I was like, what is this? I was like, this is stand-up comedy. I was like, oh my God, that's what I'm supposed to be doing with my life. And my brother was like, okay, yeah. This kid's having a moment.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
He had no idea how profound of a moment it was for me and how it was just so real that this is exactly what I'm supposed to be doing.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
I was always really funny. I was always telling stories. I never had like a that was just natural to me. And my mom would tell me like when I was when I just started walking, I would walk in front of the television and turn off the TV and start doing gestures and making sounds. But but that's how it worked out. And I did stand up in high school.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
Like I said, I was doing it in classes and and I would do impressions of Chris Farley and I would just like roast kids in class as Chris Farley. And then when I graduated high school, I walked into the Laugh Stop, which is an iconic comedy club. Unfortunately, it's no longer open anymore in Houston.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
I did the Houston's Funniest Person competition, and that's where I learned about the world of stand-up and what it takes in a comedy club, open mics and building a set and everything.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
And that's where I met my mentor, owner of the comedy showcase, Danny Martinez, who ended up teaching me everything I needed to know about stand-up comedy, the art form, getting my wings, and how to become a proficient stand-up comedian.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
If you give me a laissez-passer, I'll donate to your vacation fund. You want to go tubing in San Marcos? Because I can't afford more than San Marcos. You want to bribe me? Who said bribe? Nobody said bribe. I didn't say bribe. I did not. Put your hand down. I didn't say bribe. I said donation. Politicians take donations all the time.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
Oh, I learned that. Yeah, I learned that. It's so important. I think comedians don't understand you have an instrument there with your voice. Man, it brings me so much joy that you recognize that. It takes years to perfect something like that or to hone a skill like that.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
and i think that sounds and again that's something that danny taught me early on in my stand-up career is how you use you know understanding what my technique is and where you put the mic and the inflection in your voice and when you use it where it's not something that i like deliberately try to do is just a natural thing that happens while i'm telling a story that i'm highly conscious of so i just do it naturally in the moment
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
Oh, my God. That pre-getting my U.S. citizenship, it feels like a dream. Like I don't even know how I did it. You had a refugee travel document that's issued. They still do this to this day. It's only valid for a year. which is so difficult, has its own implications, because some countries require at least six months validity, right, to any passport or travel document.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
It takes four months to get, so you're just waiting forever for it. And then nobody knows what it is. Nobody has a clue what it is. The people who should know what it is don't know what it is. Like the people working at the airlines, when you first check in, no idea what it is. When you get to the immigration counter,
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
90 plus percent of the immigration officers from all around the world look at this as an alien landing like what is this thing you know and they just freak out by it how did you get here why are you here the questions start to ensue and then they realize how you know terrible they were to me for hours and hours until they got confirmation that this is a real thing that you can actually travel with
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
Which makes it even more confusing is that it says, this is not a passport the moment you open it, right? On the inside, it's big, bold letters. It says, this is not a U.S. passport. So it's like, well, what is this thing?
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
Yeah, I'm like, yeah, I know it's not a passport. Yeah, exactly. I know exactly this is not a passport, but it's a refugee trial, and I would have to become really knowledgeable about what it is, when it was issued, what rights I have attached to it. It was just a mess, just an absolute mess.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, in some cases, I had to mislead them to enter the country. In some cases, I would have to just like completely mislead them or pretend like I don't know what they're talking about or just create some kind of situation or attempt to big time it.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
Like, you know, you know, just you have to like I had to assess the situation and each one was very different than the other. And then I would assess the person and the immigration officer. And then I had to, you know. come up with a quick plan in that moment to get in.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
And so you have to exude this confidence and tell them exactly what they're doing. And once you tell them you're a comedian, if they understood what stand-up comedy was, it made things lighter naturally. But then you just have to be super direct. And then you guilt them. Like, hey, this is my livelihood. I'm coming to work. This is what I do. And this is where I'm going.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
Would you do this to yourself? Would you do this to people? You know, like, what am I doing here? You would just guilt them into... Like basically let them see how racist this interaction is. And then once they start having that realization and they know that it's legal and they have to let you go through, they eventually let you go.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
I would. No, absolutely I would. I would cite Geneva Conventions. And this is my rights here. This is what it is according to the Articles of 1948. Yeah, absolutely I would. Yeah. I mean, it's been a while, so I need a massive refresher. But it was one of those things that I had to do. And I would also add to it, like, recommendation letters from the respective consulates.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
I would carry those with me as well as references. So if they had any issues, I would get them before I leave, before I left Houston and I would get those recommendation letters, and I would have to work that out, right? I would have to call the consulate general of Jordan at that time, like, hey, can you connect me with the Japanese consulate? Maybe he can write me a letter.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
So when I get there, if I have any issues, I can show that to them, or I would do that with all those countries. It was like a pretty great hustle for a kid that was like 18, 19 years old to think that far ahead. That's pretty insane. Who has those backup plans like that?
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
It's just the asylee process, you know, dealing with the immigration process. And there was a couple of snafus that nobody really saw coming. But the asylee immigrant process is not that easy.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
Absolutely. Absolutely. And more so than my dad passed away at another layer of complexity. So we had to start over because we didn't know who the lawyer was. It was just a whole situation. And then by the time you get another attorney and you get another court date, it takes a lot of time. It's not something that happens overnight. And then when you get there, it has a whole other layers to it.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
Like, oh, what do you need this or this paperwork or that? How can you prove this and that? Like, it takes a while. And then by the time you do get your asylum, if you're lucky enough to get it, you're not deported. It takes you five years to get your green card, another five years to become a citizen. It's just that's the way it is. That's the process. So, yeah, it takes time.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
Well, I mean, it wasn't just a random sitting next to him. It was right after his dad was elected president of the United States and no one from the Trump administration was speaking to the media. And I didn't even know this because I was so engrossed in touring. I just flew in from Australia to New York, New York. I'm going to Scotland, Glasgow, England. And I couldn't think. I didn't even know.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
I was so exhausted. I get there and I sit next to him. I'm like, is this a joke? I thought this was a joke. I'm like, am I being set up? Am I being recruited into the Illuminati and I don't know it? What's happening? What's going on? And I just initially thought that the ticketing agent had a sense of humor. She was just like, oh, Eric Trump is on my flight?
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
Let me see who's on standby here for first class. Oh, Mohammed Mustafa Hammer, upgrade. You know, like I thought that was potentially what was going on. And I joke, you know, I gave him the business. I wasn't holding back. And I just told him, I was like, hey, this Muslim stuff has got to just stop. I don't know why it's happening. You know, you guys need to. Relax on that.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
I took a picture with him and I had a caption. It's been a while now, but something along the lines like, don't worry, guys, there's no Muslim ID cards. And I didn't know it was going to become like a global incident. I landed six hours later in Glasgow and I have emails from every single publication and news outlets on planet Earth. I was like, holy, what did I just do?
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
He was just like, come on, my dad. He was like, the funny thing is, he was just like, you know, we do a lot of business in the Middle East. Come on, nobody's going to do that. Like, I have Arab friends. He did one of those things, which was hilarious. And then I told him, I was like, look, I've got your dad all figured out.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
He knows the trigger words, right, for the media to cover him and create a spectacle, right? He knows those words. So he keeps the things that he can't touch, he keeps touching them and saying them over and over again. And he knows he's going to dominate the news coverage. That's what he does. Without even flinching, he goes, yep, that's exactly what it does.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
Yeah, Middle East, Japan, Korea, Guam, Bahrain, Germany, Italy, Sicily.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
Yeah, no, it was important for me to be myself. This was like the first time I did those shows was pre 9-11. It was April of 2001 was the first time I did those in Italy, Germany and Sicily. I went with another comedian named Carolyn Picard who took me on the road with her. And it was, yeah, it was one of those things of just doing stand-up, right? It wasn't a big deal.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
And then 9-11 happens five months later, and I had these shows booked in Japan, Korea, and Guam. I was like, man, I have to go now. It's a completely different reasoning now. It's not just, I'm not just doing stand-up comedy. I'm giving these guys a face, number one, to people that are essentially faceless in the media, in television, entertainment. And then also for myself.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
I have to see if I can be myself all the time. Because if that's taken away from me in stand-up, then everything is gone. I can't fake and be a different persona and different person. No, I have to be myself. That is the funniest people, the most authentic people, are the best stand-up comedians of all time. I can't not be myself. It was a devastating time for me.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
I was really scared that I might not have a career anymore. And little did I know it was actually empowering for me and for them as well.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
Very few. I mean it wasn't really blowback. It was discomfort. And I leaned into that discomfort because I knew it wasn't me. It wasn't – it has nothing to do with me and it has everything to do with their perception or lack of information. So I never took it –
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
hard i never took it to heart i never was judgmental of them i made sure that that i stand firm in who i am and let that performance let the subject matter on stage and let the the being funny is what's most important like you can't be already have some projections on you and then they and then they like oh this guy sucks too like you You got to be hilarious. That's the number one thing.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
Well, I ripped off the Band-Aid. I just would go up on stage. And when I say stage, I use that loosely because we're performing in war areas in Iraq. And I would just go up on this gravel stage in front of all these troops who are completely strapped and armed and I'd walk out and say, hey, guys, my name is Moe. It's actually short for Mom. And surprise, bitches, today is the day.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
I thought that was a really good way to rip off the bad day. They would just laugh. They loved it, yeah. They ate it up. Oh, my God, they ate it up. And then I went into the storytelling and everything else, and it became such a strong relationship. And I had a lot of very earnest moments with a lot of soldiers, and they would just walk up to me and be very emotional with me, you know? It was...
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
That's really interesting you say that. I mean, I definitely identify as Palestinian-American, but it's one of those things that as a refugee, as I lead America, someone that's trying to fit in and feel like, have some kind of sense of belonging, you kind of become a chameleon and you really start putting yourself in other people's shoes almost immediately to be more relatable and understood.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
incredible experience that I would never take that right. Because I get a lot of judgment from even Muslims and Arabs, like, how dare you go over there and do this and they're killing us and this whole idea of that. I was like, well, you know, obviously I don't agree with war, period. This is all...
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
just devastating and and the reasoning behind it is all false and it's bad and i just don't agree with it and also i think it's important to not shy away from it and be present in their life and to give them a new perspective and all it was like a win win win win win you know and for me as well somebody who fled that region to begin with was really cathartic as well for me yeah it was it was like there's so many pluses to going there that i couldn't imagine not doing it i'm so glad i did
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
It was some remorse. Some of them cried on my shoulders. Some of them had a lot of respectful things to say. And some of them were just acknowledging how wrong they were about the projections they had upon the region and the friends that they made that are local, that are Arab, that are Muslim. They found to be like really profound moments. And
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
Since I came and performed there and we had moments where we could share with each other and have tea and whatever was afforded to us to have a drink together, it was a really potent and hyper-real moment. I mean, it can't get any realer than that.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
And I walk up. I was like, cousin, be next to me because I'm nervous. Make sure I don't mess up. So I do the call for prayer throughout the whole entire village and I'm overcome. I was like, oh my God, this is amazing. What is this thing that's been written for me? I can't believe this happened. Right as I'm thinking this, a man just crashes right into the message.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
Who did the call for prayer like this? And everybody sells me out. This guy, this guy did the call for prayer. This guy did the call for prayer. I was like, yo, forget y'all, man. Y'all forced me to do the call for prayer. He's like, why'd you do it? I was like, I just told you they forced me to do the call for prayer. He goes, well, you just did it 10 minutes early, bro.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
You did it 10 minutes early. I was like, that clock is flashing, man. It's saying it's time. He goes, that clock is 10 minutes ahead. I was like, I don't know. That's a digital clock. Push the little buttons and it'll fix the whole thing, okay? You want me to do it? And then he goes, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I've been in the village my entire life. I know everyone in the village. Who are you?
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
It's very interesting how that works, that naturally and organically it just comes together that way. But... Yeah, I definitely identify as a Texan, Palestinian. I mean, I know this feels like a juxtaposition and kind of like two worlds that should be colliding, but I feel very much at home with those two worlds.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
I've never seen you before. Who is your father? I tell him my father is. He goes, oh my God. He goes, oh my God. Your father is Mustafa? I was like, yes, my father is Mustafa. He goes, you know who installed the sound system in this masjid?
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
It was truly one of the most beautiful things I've ever experienced in my life.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
Yeah, man, it chokes me up. I can't believe that happened, you know? It's crazy. It's absolutely mind-blowing. And I meant it, like, what is this thing that's written for me? It's wild.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
Yeah, and then to find out that that—because my father was a telecommunications engineer, but more so than that, he was really familiar with technology of all sorts, from televisions to radios. And apparently, this is where I learned, like, your father had a shop here in Booneen, and he would teach people what technology was because nobody knew what it was. And he made a joke.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
He's like, ah, before your dad, they used to plant antennas in the ground and pour water on them, hoping they'd get a signal, you know. And I was just making an analogy of what my dad did for the town. And he goes, yeah, your dad's the one who installed the sound system. I was like, are you kidding me? Like, that is just mind-blowing.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
Oh, thank you so much for having me. Thank you so much. I've had a great time.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
Absolutely, absolutely. I can pretty much cover all the dialects in English. I am conversational, completely conversational in Spanish. My grammar is not perfect sometimes, but yeah, I don't have any problems at all having a full-on conversation in Spanish and fluent in Arabic.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
Yeah. And I swear by them, OK? The easy foam runners and they are – I like literally mean everything I say in there.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
How you doing, brother? Beautiful weather, huh? Yeah, it is. Yeah, we're lucky. What do you got, orthopedics? Yes, sir. Slow down, slow down now. Order yourself. What are they, nine and a half? Got it again. Yeah, they're my old trustees. I bet they're doing a number on your lower back.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
Same here. Until I switched over to Yeezys. Then my back pain disappeared. Thank you, Yeezys, is what I say. Come on, let me show you something. Oh, no.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
That don't look like anything I put on my feet. They look like alien shoes. Well, they are from whatever planet Kanye's from. But don't judge them too. Try them on, brother. Come on. Come on in for a moon landing. And take 30 seconds of your time. Here we go. You got to look after your lower back.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
Here you go. Come on. Give them a try. All right. These are genuine recycled algae. Whoa. Yeah. Whoa.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
Aftermarket, these go for about $350,000. Now, I'm going to give them to you for $200. Son, I can't tell my wife I paid $200 for a pair of Algae shoes. Brother, I smell what you're stepping in, OK? So I'm going to sweeten the pot. Now, for $300, I know, whoa, hold on a second. Hear me out. I'm going to throw in this Chanel purse, all right? Now, this will retail well over $1,000.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
You ain't going to find a better replica than this. She won't know the difference.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
Yeah, I think it's one of those things that I actually just connect with in general. I mean, the Palestinian culture is a folksy farmer kind of mentality in life. And when I came to Texas, it's one of the things that was really attractive to me was the country music, the folksy music, the storytelling tradition of that. And I really just attach myself to it because it's in my blood.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
And in the character, in the scene itself, it's meant to be that I'm endearing to him and develop trust.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
No comment. Yeah, no, I did. I absolutely did. I was a teenager. It's just something that I just fell into. Honestly, I was wearing knockoff Versace sunglasses that I thought were cool. And someone was just like, hey, those are really nice. You know, you selling those? I'm like, yeah, it's my last one.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
And it just became my shtick where somebody would walk in where I see someone that might be interested in what I have. I'd put it on. I'd wear it. They'd comment on it. And then I would sell it.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
No, absolutely. Assessment of situations of people is crucial to be not only a great salesman, but a great, you know, stand up comedian. So it did help a lot, you know, and it's one of those things that when you experience such hardships, you become really good at like figuring out what's good and bad and following your gut, more so following your gut. Right.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
Like, you know, this could be a good thing when you tap into that and you realize that you have a high percentage of hit rate where you're right. You start to trust it way more.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
I remember all of it, every bit of it. That's why I recreated it in the flashbacks as much as possible, whenever budget allowed us to do. I think it's one of those things that's glossed over. It's such an important topic, the Gulf War, that really sparked everything.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
Even to this day, we're still dealing with that war, this domino effect of political relations throughout the MENA region, Middle East, North Africa. And I really believe that that was one of the biggest turning points in that area. I mean, if you think about it, there wasn't any American military presence there pre-Gulf War. And since then, we've never left.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
And we've been present in that area ever since. And there's so many people that were affected by that war. You know, particularly a lot of Palestinians were affected by it and had to flee from there. It was like, now it's that they're, you know, think about my mom and my dad's perspective.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
This is the third, second or third time they have to flee because of being stateless and, you know, to have to create a new life again. So this is something that was really important to me to show this, like, generational connection. Trauma, essentially, that you're starting now to see it starting over in Houston, Texas.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
Right, so they were 47. So once Israel became a state and the United Nations was formed, some Palestinians were able to stay in the Israeli quote-unquote territory. So those people are called Israeli Arabs, and they're Palestinians, but they're referred to as Israeli Arabs.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
And my family historically left Haifa and ended up in Burin, which is right outside of Nablus, one of the biggest cities, I think, in the entire area.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
Well, it was before I was born, so I'll just tell you what I know. I know my father was offered a job at the Kuwaiti oil company as a telecommunications engineer, and that's why my family relocated to Kuwait. And so we settled there for a long time.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
My father was actually instrumental in building wireless communication between oil rigs and was one of the first people to build a radio station in Kuwait. He and his team. So we were there for years before that. And they would visit regularly before, you know, everything blew up in Palestine and in Tevada and created the situations became more and more and more tense.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
And it became more and more difficult to go back and visit.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
Sure. I mean, I was a little kid. I was nine years old when that happened. So I was, you know, this was my first time seeing my parents worried about anything, right? Like something as dramatic as this. And I knew it was really, really serious. The conditions became like... not really livable because of what Saddam Hussein was doing.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
He released a bunch of prisoners at that time and instructed them to rob the entire area. And everything just became so incredibly unsafe when it was one of the safest places to be in the world. You know, it became so unpredictable and it was really scary time and turbulent time.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
I don't have a passport. Exactly. Next. No, no next. Wait, wait. Okay. Look, I got an asylum hearing coming up in Houston that I've been waiting for for 22 years. And if I get that asylum granted, I can eventually get a passport. Please, God, I've been begging for the last six months after I was kidnapped and brought to Mexico against my will, and no one's willing to help me.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
So it was at that moment that my father and my mother both made a decision together that we should leave and head to America. And that's why we ended up in Houston, Texas. But that is not something that you just pick up and leave overnight. At that time, we had to leave on a bus. And I remember this...
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
clear as day, that's why I put it in the flashback in the series, is us fleeing on a bus and leaving with whatever we had and my mom having to hide it, hide the money strategically so it doesn't get taken from us through Iraq to Amman, Jordan. Finally, we got our paperwork to leave. My sister and I actually left and ended up in Houston, Texas. My mom actually went back solo.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
It's how much of a gangster and incredible woman she is. She went back to Kuwait and to finish everything up with my father and my brother. And it was a really delicate and difficult situation. Also, politically, it was really different, right? Because at that time, you know, Yasser Arafat gave his blessings or support to Saddam Hussein.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
So it became a really difficult time for Palestinians, even though it had nothing to do with us. You know, it was a political thing. And that's what normally happens, right? Where politicians make decisions that affect the people that have nothing to do with anything. So... We had to leave at that time. We had no other choice.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
It was incredibly potent. I didn't know. So many things changed from 9 to 13 from my age. It's like so many things were already changing so dramatically. And to lose my father was a devastating blow. And, you know, you have all the things going through your head. I didn't have enough time. What did I do? What did I say to him? You have regret. You go through all the motions of that.
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
And I was completely lost, to be honest. I started skipping school, stopped being interested in it at all in high school. I didn't want to participate in anything. And it was really hard to focus. And I just had it in my head. I was going to be a stand-up comedian anyway. Why do I need this? Just forget. It's a joke anyway. I just...
Fresh Air
Texan-Palestinian Comic Mo Amer
I just had zero interest in anything other than being a stand-up comedian and entrepreneur. That's all I wanted. And then my teacher, Mrs. Reed, and Mrs. Broderick in English class changed my life. And she woke me up to it. She was like, how would you feel if you don't graduate? How would your father feel if you don't graduate? And it pierced my heart. I'm like, it would be devastating.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon on Trump’s Trade War, Attacks on DEI & Myth of “Meritocracy” | Mo Amer
I can't sit before you sit. You sit. No, you sit. Hospitality. Hospitality. My man. How's it going?
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon on Trump’s Trade War, Attacks on DEI & Myth of “Meritocracy” | Mo Amer
Is it? What bothers you? I want to know. So. Is it people leaving their windows open on aircrafts? Oh, my God, yes. So frustrating. What are you doing? What are you looking at at 7 a.m. out there?
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon on Trump’s Trade War, Attacks on DEI & Myth of “Meritocracy” | Mo Amer
I've seen Big Daddy.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon on Trump’s Trade War, Attacks on DEI & Myth of “Meritocracy” | Mo Amer
Tremendous. Tremendous.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon on Trump’s Trade War, Attacks on DEI & Myth of “Meritocracy” | Mo Amer
Thank you so much.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon on Trump’s Trade War, Attacks on DEI & Myth of “Meritocracy” | Mo Amer
The crying? Yeah. I mean, you know, it was my first experience of that in the first season in the confessional. But really, it's just, you know, it's such a personal story. Right. And I mean, some of the things that we're doing in the show was like recreating actual memories of mine with my grandmother. I mean, that's, I'm like, Grammy? You know what I mean?
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon on Trump’s Trade War, Attacks on DEI & Myth of “Meritocracy” | Mo Amer
It's a very painful thing to go through, but I also knew that it was the realest way to tell the story. It's the most grounded way to tell the story. And it's very hard, and you have to be as controlled and composed as possible, and sometimes you lose it, and that's okay.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon on Trump’s Trade War, Attacks on DEI & Myth of “Meritocracy” | Mo Amer
Yes. Which is the natural place you land.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon on Trump’s Trade War, Attacks on DEI & Myth of “Meritocracy” | Mo Amer
Right.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon on Trump’s Trade War, Attacks on DEI & Myth of “Meritocracy” | Mo Amer
I don't know. I don't know. It's basically like a pass, a day pass to reenter the country legally. Since I exited illegally. Right. But there's like this, you know, blurred line and my character obviously runs with it. I was kidnapped, you know, the whole thing would play up in the show. But it's about reentering back. And I want to... You know, speak about this.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon on Trump’s Trade War, Attacks on DEI & Myth of “Meritocracy” | Mo Amer
Like, you know, I deliberately wanted him to be stuck in Mexico, and I wanted to show the journey of a refugee, right? Because the first season is he's already there, right? Right.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon on Trump’s Trade War, Attacks on DEI & Myth of “Meritocracy” | Mo Amer
You're in Houston. The show takes place in Houston with some minor flashbacks here and there to show, like, the beginning of their story. But, you know, I wanted people to see what it takes to actually get to America, because most people see, oh, immigrants are coming, asylees are coming, and... They immediately think they're gonna become American citizens, like, overnight. It's a long process.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon on Trump’s Trade War, Attacks on DEI & Myth of “Meritocracy” | Mo Amer
And I also wanted to show how absurd, uh, the system is. And I wanted to see, uh, for people to see, like, also, my character's also very privileged in this scenario. You know, he's crossing the border. He ends up in a... Some spoilers here.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon on Trump’s Trade War, Attacks on DEI & Myth of “Meritocracy” | Mo Amer
Quotes Hank Williams. All the time. And that happened to me, actually, when I would travel overseas to do stand-up, and I would come back in the States, and I would be in the immigration part, because I didn't have a passport. I had a refugee travel document, and I'd be on the side. And they would look at me like, do you speak English? I'm like, yelling and speaking slowly doesn't, fix it.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon on Trump’s Trade War, Attacks on DEI & Myth of “Meritocracy” | Mo Amer
If I don't speak English, I don't speak English. And I would reply and be like, whoa, this is nice.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon on Trump’s Trade War, Attacks on DEI & Myth of “Meritocracy” | Mo Amer
No, but that was the idea, to show the absurdity of the system itself, to show how privileged the character is as well, even though he's an asylee and a refugee. I mean, there's a scene in the detention center where there's a detainee there talking about how he has to, you know, Had to go through mudslides and jungles and snakes and then the cartel and drank the juice of a Vienna sausage can.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon on Trump’s Trade War, Attacks on DEI & Myth of “Meritocracy” | Mo Amer
And he looks at me. He's like, how'd you get here? I'm like, I took a bus. Mexico.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon on Trump’s Trade War, Attacks on DEI & Myth of “Meritocracy” | Mo Amer
Yeah, that's the only way. So I'm stuck in Mexico. I have to get to the ambassadors. Really, the only way I can reenter legally is for him to sign off on a laissez passe, which is extremely hard to get.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon on Trump’s Trade War, Attacks on DEI & Myth of “Meritocracy” | Mo Amer
Occupation, that's right.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon on Trump’s Trade War, Attacks on DEI & Myth of “Meritocracy” | Mo Amer
Yeah. Well, yeah, it's like something you just can't let go of. I mean, he says a peaceful end to the conflict. And, you know, there's so much complexity to it. I mean, so many layers, nuance to it and history to it. And it's just frustrating. I couldn't let it go. I mean, it's really from my own life, really. If I'm sitting there, I will not be able to let it go.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon on Trump’s Trade War, Attacks on DEI & Myth of “Meritocracy” | Mo Amer
And he could have solved everything. I could have said it, but I will never be able to figure it out myself. Right. And I thought, how funny would that be? if he's just a massive in the show. But he's, like, has his morals intact and his ethics intact.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon on Trump’s Trade War, Attacks on DEI & Myth of “Meritocracy” | Mo Amer
Yes. Oh, my brother's older than that now. But yes, in the show, yes.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon on Trump’s Trade War, Attacks on DEI & Myth of “Meritocracy” | Mo Amer
Yes.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon on Trump’s Trade War, Attacks on DEI & Myth of “Meritocracy” | Mo Amer
Great.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon on Trump’s Trade War, Attacks on DEI & Myth of “Meritocracy” | Mo Amer
Oh, so easy. I mean, like... No, no, I'm sorry to cut you off, but it's like the way to just ease the tension because it was excruciating making the show. Right. It was absolutely one of the... And I feel shameful even saying it was excruciating or painful to know what they were going through in Gaza. Right. Like, I really... Oof! You know, it's a hard one to swallow.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon on Trump’s Trade War, Attacks on DEI & Myth of “Meritocracy” | Mo Amer
But, you know, there were so many voices. Like, are you going to talk about October 7th? Do you have to talk about it? You can't not talk about it. And everyone has their own opinions. And I discussed it with you thoroughly. And you were just, like... the best human on Earth.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon on Trump’s Trade War, Attacks on DEI & Myth of “Meritocracy” | Mo Amer
Like, thank you so... No, really, because in a moment where I felt so lonely, you were one of the people that I could call and really talk to about this. And it was very difficult.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon on Trump’s Trade War, Attacks on DEI & Myth of “Meritocracy” | Mo Amer
And it was very easy once, you know, I spoke to you, and I... You know, obviously, the writing room was integral to this process, and I love them so much for having such difficult conversations, because we started on April 1st. We went on strike May 1st. We came back October 1st of 23, six days later, the only Palestinian show on television. You can imagine the conversations that were had.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon on Trump’s Trade War, Attacks on DEI & Myth of “Meritocracy” | Mo Amer
And so I decided, like, absolutely not. We're not going to talk about October 7th. There's several problems with it. Number one is that, you know, it's been a year, you know, since we started production. So you have a whole year that lapsed that, you know, so many things could change and you could write something that wouldn't be correct.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon on Trump’s Trade War, Attacks on DEI & Myth of “Meritocracy” | Mo Amer
Second of all is that now, you know, it needs a lot of context. Everything that you write about October 7th makes it sound like everything started on October 7th. And I felt like it was a trap. It really felt like every time we went down that rabbit hole, the show just became didactic. And we lost everything. It became like a full-blown drama, and this is a comedy show.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon on Trump’s Trade War, Attacks on DEI & Myth of “Meritocracy” | Mo Amer
And it's a massive disservice to the characters. Let the characters tell the story. Let's build off of that. And it'll take us exactly where we need to go. And that's what happened.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon on Trump’s Trade War, Attacks on DEI & Myth of “Meritocracy” | Mo Amer
He passed away in 95, correct.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon on Trump’s Trade War, Attacks on DEI & Myth of “Meritocracy” | Mo Amer
Why you gotta do this to me? I ride motorcycles, okay?
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon on Trump’s Trade War, Attacks on DEI & Myth of “Meritocracy” | Mo Amer
Okay, maybe in Ohio, during the pandemic, I was riding mopeds. But other than that... And then people were making fun of me because I was bigger than the moped. Everyone was like, maybe you should get a motorcycle. I was like, fine. And I was divorced right then and there at that time. So I was like, maybe eight motorcycles. You know what I mean? It just kept buying more motorcycles.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon on Trump’s Trade War, Attacks on DEI & Myth of “Meritocracy” | Mo Amer
It was like so absurd. That's what divorce guys do. But now. That's it. That's it. Now you got a kid. Married and have a kid. He's backstage. He's backstage right now. He's backstage. Yeah.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon on Trump’s Trade War, Attacks on DEI & Myth of “Meritocracy” | Mo Amer
Yeah, I'm touring. I'm doing the El Oso Palastino tour, which is based off of a character in the show, which translates to the Palestinian Bear Comedy Tour. But, yeah, no, I'm doing that. I'm going into the next special. But there's so much more story to tell. I mean, there's so much more to do. But, yeah. And you mentioned, like, the ankle monitor.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon on Trump’s Trade War, Attacks on DEI & Myth of “Meritocracy” | Mo Amer
I do get deported in the... But it also is going to confuse people, because how did you get deported? But there's a thing. It's actually very, very common.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon on Trump’s Trade War, Attacks on DEI & Myth of “Meritocracy” | Mo Amer
It's very, very common. You can get deported and released on your own recognizance, which means you're deported, but you can stay. Right. But you're deported. Yeah.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon on Trump’s Trade War, Attacks on DEI & Myth of “Meritocracy” | Mo Amer
Yeah, because you're stateless. No, but this is apparently a really common thing, whether you're stateless or not. I thought, you know, you don't want Palestinians returning anyway, so stop. You're not going to deport them. We're going to deport you back to where? Oh, you're Palestinian. Stay in Houston. Relax a little bit. We'll give you a work permit, do your thing.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon on Trump’s Trade War, Attacks on DEI & Myth of “Meritocracy” | Mo Amer
But, no, it's apparently, like, really, really common. I forgot what the percentage is, but it's in, like, the 30-plus percentile. Oh, wow. Where people get deported regularly, but they can stay.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon on Trump’s Trade War, Attacks on DEI & Myth of “Meritocracy” | Mo Amer
His brain almost short-circuited.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon on Trump’s Trade War, Attacks on DEI & Myth of “Meritocracy” | Mo Amer
It is a real thing. We had someone consult on the show who actually was in a detention center and was random. It's all at random. You get an ankle device... Just like, hey, you know, you're number seven. Sorry. The first six didn't get it, but... But you got it. And then... Yeah, that's not real to my life, but when I heard about it, I'm like, we got to put that in the show.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon on Trump’s Trade War, Attacks on DEI & Myth of “Meritocracy” | Mo Amer
It's going to be hilarious because the guy could chime in at any moment in time and be like, please tell me your location. Like, that could really... I mean, how embarrassing and horrible is that?
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon on Trump’s Trade War, Attacks on DEI & Myth of “Meritocracy” | Mo Amer
Thank you so much, man.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
TDS Time Machine | Arab American Heritage Month
Correct. From Kuwait, correct? I was born in Kuwait. I left Kuwait after the first Gulf War. Right. So I had to call the prequel. I went to a really nice private British English school in Kuwait, and then we migrated to Houston, Texas. That's a culture shock. That's a culture shock, and they put me in ESL class.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
TDS Time Machine | Arab American Heritage Month
Which is, English is a second language class, and I was the only guy that spoke English in the class. I walk in, all the kids are like, I had a hint of a British accent. I'm like, sorry? What language are you speaking? All of a sudden, this other dude just rolls up out of nowhere. He's like, you're weird, dude. Why do you talk like that, eh? And that was my teacher. It was a very weird situation.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
TDS Time Machine | Arab American Heritage Month
It's really difficult to explain or put into words the excruciating process of getting your citizenship. Right. It took me 20 years. Wow. To get my citizenship. I traveled all over the world doing stand-up comedy without a passport. Wait, how do you travel without a passport?
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
TDS Time Machine | Arab American Heritage Month
They give you a United States travel document that is only good for, like, a year, and then you have to... You know, most countries need more of a year of validity on your passport to even enter the country. Right. It's incredibly complicated. In most cases, I'm not even allowed to go, but I just would go and see what would happen anyway. Uh...
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
TDS Time Machine | Arab American Heritage Month
I would get questioned in a lot of different countries.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
TDS Time Machine | Arab American Heritage Month
No, it was every time. To the point to when I became a citizen and I was reentering America, and he was like, okay, go ahead. And I was like, no, are you sure? I think there's another... There's something else that needs to happen here. I feel awkward. Can we just talk for a little while? I'm serious, it did. I was like, what's going on? I was like, no.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
TDS Time Machine | Arab American Heritage Month
I was like, no, we need to chat a little bit. Like, Japan was my favorite interrogation I ever had. It was just an hour of them trying to figure out what I did for a living. The entire hour, for real, consisted of, so what is your occupation? I was like, oh, I'm a comedian. He's like, comedian? I'm like, yeah, yeah, I do stand-up comedy. Stand-up a comedian? I'm like, yeah. I do comedy. Comedian?
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
TDS Time Machine | Arab American Heritage Month
Yeah, I do. I'm a comedian. Comedian. I'm like, am I being roasted right now? What's happening? Finally, his buddy walks in, his partner. He's like, And he goes, And that's what got me off was Bill Cosby. I mean, not literally. Not literally. That's what I got.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
TDS Time Machine | Arab American Heritage Month
Yeah, um, nah. I mean, look, as an Arab-American, Muslim, Palestinian on top of it, you know, someone who's fled war. I was nine years old, so I didn't really know much. It's not like, hey, Mom, are you sure about Houston? You just had to go. You know what I mean? And I'm a very proud Houstonian, and I grew up in Anglia, which is a really multicultural neighborhood.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
TDS Time Machine | Arab American Heritage Month
But the thing is, is that growing up that way, I was always, you know, told to not talk about politics, not say anything, because they're going to send us back. Wow. That was the whole thing. Shh, don't say anything. They're gonna send you back, you know? Make sure you don't talk about pot.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
TDS Time Machine | Arab American Heritage Month
I was like, you know, all this stuff that's been festering inside for so many years, that's why when I started stand-up comedy, it was the perfect outlet for me to allow me to express everything that was happening to me. And also, you know, releasing the special and seeing...
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
TDS Time Machine | Arab American Heritage Month
the reaction from so many different people that can relate to the same story, that have refugee... that are refugees, that went through a similar process, that are, you know, dealing with the immigration system right now. They talk about extreme vetting. I mean, my God, it took us 20 years. How much more extreme can it be? Well, you want it to take forever. Yeah. That's the point.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
TDS Time Machine | Arab American Heritage Month
And so it's very, very frustrating. But at this point in time, I'm an American citizen, so in your face, bitch, I say whatever I want. You become really confident once you get that passport. Once I have the passport, like, what you gonna do now? They can take it away from you.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
TDS Time Machine | Arab American Heritage Month
That's, yeah. You know, being a frequent flyer helps sometimes. I didn't know this was gonna happen. Like, I was upgrading to first class. Right. And I ended up sitting next to Eric Trump. I didn't even know I was gonna get upgraded, because I put my name on the list way too late. You know, comedians are, you know, the best procrastinators in the business. Yep, yep, yep.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
TDS Time Machine | Arab American Heritage Month
And I didn't know I was gonna get upgraded, much less sit next to Eric. But I do know one thing, the lady that upgraded me, It's probably a Clinton supporter, you know, let's be real. She was probably sitting there like, oh, Eric Trump is on my flight? Okay, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. I don't know why she has a mustache, but okay. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Oh, there's an empty seat next to Eric?
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
TDS Time Machine | Arab American Heritage Month
Let me take a look at this upgrade list, see who's standing by patiently here. Oh, Muhammad Mustafa Ahmed?
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
TDS Time Machine | Arab American Heritage Month
My first name is Mohammed.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
TDS Time Machine | Arab American Heritage Month
Oh, quit playing, baby. No, really. What's your first name? I'm like, that is my first name. She's like, oh, you ain't gonna get your citizenship, baby. Please hold. I was like, what the just happened to me? This lady puts me on hold, and the hold music was never gonna get it, never gonna get it, never. And then she picked up the phone real quick and goes, woo woo woo.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
TDS Time Machine | Arab American Heritage Month
And hangs up and was like, oh shit. Please welcome Mo Amr.