Kiki Mercury
Iranica / Opposite Day in Iran

(continued from page 2)

Q: What about just so-so Iranians?

In between “it” and “shit,” there’s a lot. Most Iranians, like all of humanity, I think exist in this region. You decide:

Pierre Omidyar, eBay founder. Kinda cool. But also remember, this man has ruined your life, robbed you, made you sell your Prada-best for bus change, got you chastised at work, who the fuck is he? And an Iranian named Pierre? This is the type of guy who will ask me why my nickname isn’t Patricia. Asshole.

Nude “supermodel” Angylina—I don’t know a lot of about this woman, but anyone who does, please send my way. A real enigma. I can’t tell if she does porn or not. Looks like a lot of unavailable swimsuit calendars. She seems to like wearing bikinis paired with construction hats. Fake tits: 90210 Persian. Kinda hot, I guess? But I find the spelling of her name not only boringly uniranian, but somehow nausea-inducing I don’t know how the hell she gets away with this “nude supermodel” schtick, but it seems psychoculturally explainable and somehow... ballsy.

Yasmin Le Bon—ok, a halfie but let’s just say only a real 80’s strumpet fag hag with some Iranian in her would actually think to wed and then stay married to ol Simon.

Soccer player Mohammed Khakpour—decided to stop making goals for Iran and turned tricks on NJ/NY Metrostars team. How much better would it be if this guy was hot?

Bijan Pakzaf, owner of Bijan apparel and fragrances—almost part of opposite day theory. Almost part of 80’s cool. His yellow convertible is always parked outside his Rodeo store. It’s like remember when you heard Rodeo was ritzy? And then you went there and realized it was just gaudy? That’s Bijan. With a front window that features all the names of his well-known clients permanently engraved, The House of Bijan is apparently the only “appointment only” boutique in America. Persian people give his scent out for gifts all the time, but I have never met a woman of Iran who will wear it. Essentially, it smells like dirty geriatric Eastern European whores—like banging Zsa Zsa must equal being buried in a yellow haze of musky Bijanery. But Americans somehow humor this guy like crazy: his perfume bottle is featured in the permanent exhibit collection of the Smithsonian.

Q: But what’s this I hear about your cultural benefactress... Whoopi?!

I am sure in a matter of a few months with the fall sitcom lineup fully cemented, Iranian ancestors everywhere will be turning over in their graves.

Just when you thought “cool” might win, this week NBC and the producers of bullshit some among you must watch like “3rd Rock from the Sun” and “That 70’s Show”, bring you “Whoopi”, the first show in commercial network history to feature a live fucking hoop-jumping, just-happy-to-be-aired Iranian.

Kewl beans, Whoopi. But when this Iranian’s function is to inspire in an eyebrowless asexual sista named Whoopi witticisms like, “Don’t scare the white people”, “Your people scare me, I see two or three of you on a plane and I’m off,” I have some comments for her. First, interesting, sista, cause some of your people scare me and my people and, um, every people. Secondly Whoopi, you ain’t even takin’ planes, ho! Whoopi makes sure to highlight in every bio that she does not even fly, she takes buses cross country. I guess my people have spooked her permanently—it is a true fact that Iranians, unlike black Americans, do not take buses cross country. You can have the buses, girl, and my people will “take” the planes.

In any case, Whoopi’s dancing monkey is Nasim the handyman, played by Iranian-Brit stand-up comedian Omid Djalili. Omid in Farsi means “hope”—opposite day. Nasim makes me truly hopeless. Apparently with him and an ebonics-spewing white-trash wiggerette character, Whoopi hopes she this show will get people talking about “issues.” Issues? Edification from a “woman” named Whoopi? And what do Iranians have to do with “issues?” Iranians seem to be the only Middle Easterners I know who aren’t shitting bricks to defensively work to de-link themselves from 9/11. Iraqi. Afghani, Arab anything. But Iran? O fellow sandniggers of my Aryan Nation, the real threat is not trigger-happy Dubya—the real threat is... the Whoop.

My family’s verdict, I would wager, will be typical of the Iranian masses at large: I hate this Iranian on Whoopi. Daddy—who loves all Iranians, fat people, and funny things—when presented with Omid, says “ I have no idea who the hell he is. There are no Iranian handymans however.” Mother, who regards Whoopi as the completion of the trinity of her favorite-actors-from-favorite-movie along with Demi, and Swayze, on the other hand, declares, “you prove nothing by being hard on Whoopi.” Still when presented with an image of Djalili she is horrified that “a man with such lack of looks” can “make it so big in America.”

“Whatta country!” Haven’t we learned benevolent ethnic people do not save anything? Do you remember Yakov Smirnoff? What do you remember him for? “Whatta country.” Right. Nothing.

Q: But doesn’t this come at an opportune time? Isn’t this good for the image of Iranians?

Yeah, if you live in the land of Care Bears and Rainbow Brite where Yasser Arafat is Betty Spaghetti and Israel is Narnia. Grow the fuck up.

Iran is dangerous. The US is dangerous. Iran has toys, the US has toys. Even.

The “Axis of Evil” image is a hell of a lot more relevant and workable—and hell, I’ll even wager, preferable—than this Whoopi-slave. Give me machine guns and beards and turbans before an Iranian minstrel show please!

Of course, like those sporadic Jan Brady episodes, Axis-of-Evil-forgotten-child Iran may be prepping for her moment in the spotlight. Currently U.S. Central Command reports some contingency plans for war with Iran, but there is “no active discussion” yet. Word has it that Israel plans to bomb the Bushehr nuclear-power plan that hasn’t even finished construction yet. But Israel is on the ball—routes have been mapped on how to destroy it ala Iraq’s Osriaq plant in 1981, which some analysts believe kept Saddam from acquiring the bomb.

Israelis have to be paranoid to survive, we all know that. But then again, Iran has tested 600-mile-range ballistic missiles that can reach Israel and carry nuclear, biological or chemical warheads.

Here’s a conspiracy theory: Saddam has nuclear weapons. Iran, a country known for churning out more nuclear physicists than you can shake a stick at (including my own Dad), has nuclear weapons. Okay? Pass it on.

The liberals say—opposite day!—no way. Way, oh way. Why not. Remember 9/11? The lesson for the new millennium: think the worst, and even then you probably haven’t got it—someone somewhere is thinking something worse. Such is life.

Q: But are you right?

Yes. No. Yes. No. Perhaps I am just as unfit as fucking Nasim, but my global philosophy comes from the culture I assimilated to most wholeheartedly—that of my undergraduate art school rich-bitch education at Sarah Lawrence, where “designer imposter” described the mass persona of the student body more than a fragrance knockoff...back then the old school lured me and many immigrant Valley Girls with a slogan that screamed “special” and yet “like everyone else,” truly a genius pairing in its simultaneous optimism and pessimism: “You are different and so are we.”

If we can adopt that lil function machine logic to Iranian geo-political-moral-positioning, this is all I can conclude: “You are evil and so are we.”

< [1] [2] [3]

--

Discuss this column in The Modernist's forums.