A NETFLIX COMEDY SPECIAL
GAD GONE WILD
- We’re ready. - So we can go on now? We’re good?
Ladies and gentlemen, Gad Elmaleh!
Montreal!
Thank you!
I’m deeply moved. It’s great to be here. This is home.
I’m very happy to be in Montreal.
We have a history together after all.
I lived in Montreal for a few years. Yeah.
I loved my time in Montreal.
I got a Canadian passport.
Yeah, a Canadian passport. It’s great.
I also have a Moroccan passport, my friends.
No, wait.
I don’t use it.
I’m proud of my Moroccan roots,
but obviously, now is not the time...
to go through American customs and show them a large green passport
with large Arabic letters written in a gold font...
and say, “I’m a comedian.”
The first time I entered the US, the guy said, “What are you here for?”
And I said, “I’m a comedian.” And he said...
“But why?” “To prove that you do this for a living.”
Since then, every time they ask me...
I tell them...
The United States is very complicated. I’ve been working there a lot lately.
Getting a visa is very complicated.
In the past, you could get a US visa and do any job you wanted.
Now it’s become specific. For example, I have a...
I am only allowed to do stand-up, standing up, in front of you.
I can tell jokes, but I can’t dance or...
If I ever dance or sing, a guy at Immigration will come say...
It’s getting more and more complicated.
But the Americans are cool. They show an interest in you.
They always ask you where you’re from. But they use a condescending tone.
When they ask...
it’s more like...
“Where are you from, little savage?”
“We’ll help you. We’re Americans.”
It depends. Whenever I say, “From France,”
I always get a very strange reply from the Americans.
That’s a whole other country.
They have a different language and a different organization.
So I won’t even mention Morocco.
The guy has no idea where Morocco is on a map.
Sometimes they’ll say, “Oh, Monaco.”
And I’ll say, “No, that came later.”
But it’s interesting.
Everybody asks me why I went to the US to do stand-up comedy in English.
In France, people say, “Fuck, you don’t need to do that!”
Yes, I know. I love my French audience.
But in the US, I give them an American-style answer:
They’re idiots.
So I performed at comedy clubs every night.
It’s so different from Europe or even Quebec.
At American comedy clubs, people eat right in front of you.
I thought the biggest challenge would be English.
No, it’s performing in front of someone
trying to laugh while downing a cheeseburger.
Because Americans are obsessed with food!
I saw some crazy shit while on tour. They have food contests!
In Europe, food contests are who can make the best food.
There, it’s who can wolf down the most food.
For what reason should a guy eat 19 hot dogs?
“Why are you doing that? You’re going to be sick. Stop!”
It’s interesting though.
To be honest, I think I wanted to live the American dream.
I’ve been dreaming about it since I was a kid.
I remember, growing up in Casablanca,
my dad would take me to the beach and say something hilarious
while pointing at the Atlantic Ocean: “If you take a boat”...
I was five years old. I wasn’t going to take a boat.
“If you take a boat and keep going straight...
you’ll land in America.”
I was fascinated by the poetry of those words
and by the idea of traveling to faraway America.
Somehow he’d planted the American dream in me.
But I kept wondering if, on the other side of the ocean,
there was an American dad...
talking to his son about the Moroccan dream.
I don’t think so.
At the same time, we find America fascinating. Let’s be honest.
But we’re sort of like, “No, not too much.”
Come on, we love it!
Last week in New York, I saw French people buying NYPD T-shirts.
French people don’t like the police in France.
But as soon as they’re in New York: “Bruno, ‘NYPD.’ Isn’t this cool?”
I don’t think Americans ever go to Paris
and ask where they can buy National Police T-shirts.
I doubt that they do.
When Americans go to Paris, they want the clichés they’ve seen in movies.
Like the narrow cobblestone streets...
with an old man playing the accordion in the moonlight...
while a mime is doing stuff... in the background.
A guy even told me...
With a little rat making croque monsieurs.
I’ve lived in Paris 30 years and never seen streets like that.
And of course, they don’t speak French. They don’t want to.
If you ask an English speaker in the US or even in Canada, “Do you speak French?”
The English language is complicated. I'm trying to learn it.
By the way, I don’t speak English.
I just learned how to do a whole show in English.
The show is doing well, except at clubs.
Whenever I speak to the audience, I have problems.
I can’t improvise. If a guy tells me something at a club, I go...
One night, I decided to improvise a bit like the American stand-up comics.
There was a couple in the front row, so I asked...
He said...
English is so hard! It’s really hard for French speakers.
When trying to learn another language, there’s always someone who says,
“Gad, can I ask you a question? It’ll take just a sec.
Do you... Do you ever dream... in English?”
Yes, I dream in English. It’s a nightmare.
I dream in English and tell everybody to speak more slowly. It’s very complicated.
English is complicated! Vocabulary, grammar...
You have to put the emphasis on the right syllable, but you never know which!
I don’t even know where to put the emphasis on the word “emphasis”!
Is it “EM-phasis” or “em-PHA-sis” or “empha-SIS”?
I don’t know.
It’s complicated!
I wanted to buy a baseball cap for my son.
But I said something stupid to the concierge at the hotel.
Yes, that means “coffin” in English. He asked me...
I said...
He asked...
Whenever you ask an American to help you, it gets even more confusing.
They always say...
Because they don’t know.
It’s so difficult, my friends. It’s hard. It’s complex.
You have to learn the idioms. And the accent.
We help them, but they don’t help us if we don’t have it right.
They don’t give a shit.
Once, I got into a cab in New York and told the guy...
“G” instead of “J.”
That’s not such a major mistake.
There’s still a bit of the “djj” sound.
But the guy had no idea what I was asking. I said to him...
I mean, what kind of person can’t figure this out? It’s crazy.
I didn’t say “XFK” or “QFK,” you know?
If I were a cab driver and you asked me to take you to “KFC Airport...”
I’d take you to JFK.
And not because I know there’s a KFC at JFK!
Because I can put two and two together and figure out what you mean!
Imagine if some English speakers came up to me in Paris, made a mistake and said...
I mean, I wouldn’t stop, but just imagine.
No, that’s a Parisian stereotype.
But imagine if they said to you...
And then made a mistake, like...
You wouldn’t tell him, “We don’t know that tower.” You’d understand.
You wouldn’t tell him, “I’ll take you to the Apple store.” No!
You’d figure out the guy wants to go to the Eiffel Tower,
and you’d take him to the Eiffel Tower.
So the cab driver who heard me say “GFK” kept correcting my accent,
and he was from India.
No problem. I just said to him, “Man, we’re both immigrants.
How about we help each other out here?”
And then I said...
But I didn’t say anything.
I respect the Indian cab drivers in New York.
I don’t know what kind of phone plan...
those guys have...
but there must be a specific plan for monologues. I think it’s free.
They’re always on the phone
with another guy who apparently never says anything.
You’re sitting in the back of the car, and you hear...
Poor guy on the other end must be like...
And you don’t realize he’s on the phone. You think he’s talking to you!
You say, “What?” and he goes...
And then he starts making fun of you on the phone with his buddy!
You don’t know, but you can just tell. He’s like...
I don’t care. I’m calling Uber.
But Uber is interesting, you see.
Whenever I call Uber, I’m fascinated, as I watch the screen,
by the creativity of those guys when they come to pick you up. It’s crazy.
They can do things with those little cars that are impossible to do with real cars.
They can jump from one street to another...
spin around and go on water.
And then they call you on your phone. That’s the new thing.
“Hello, where are you?”
Where am I? Is my uncle picking me up? What is this?
“I’m at home, waiting for you.” “Okay, I’m on my way.”
“I know. That’s what the app is for, sir.”
I had a crazy experience with Uber once.
I was supposed to go out to dinner with a woman, and...
What, you’ve never heard of such a thing?
Thank you. And... good evening.
So I called Uber and got in the car, and the guy said to me,
“Sir, please let me open the door for you when we arrive at your destination.”
I said, “No, that won’t be necessary.”
“No, I want to provide you with good service.
That’s my job, and I love my job.” “Okay, no problem.”
We picked up my date and arrived at the restaurant.
He stopped, and I waited for him.
But he had forgotten.
So I was there in the backseat, waiting like an idiot.
The girl said, “What’s going on?”
I’m there like Louis XIV, saying, “He’ll open the door.”
But it all depends on where you are.
What I love about New York is you can hail a cab off the street.
It’s complicated in Montreal.
It’s even crazier in Paris.
The cab is free. The guy sees you.
He doesn’t stop. It’s a concept.
It’s even more insane in Morocco.
The cab isn’t free, but the guy stops anyway.
There are already eight guys in the car!
That’s where they came up with uberPOOL.
You just squeeze into the car...
There are vegetables or whatever.
And he’s the one who decides where you go.
There are so many stops, he has a menu.
“No, leave me alone. My route is already all planned out.
I’ve got eight stops and you get off at the one you think is the closest to”...
No!
And they know everything about your life. This is Morocco.
They’re cab drivers, so they know everything.
The other day, I gave the guy the address, and he said, “Oh, your uncle’s place!”
How did he know?
I love to walk. I enjoy going on walks. It’s cool.
I walked around a bit today. I love to walk.
I also walk a lot in New York. I enjoy asking Americans my way around.
They’re nice. They’re cool.
And they love to use Starbucks as a reference point. They can’t help it.
In Europe, there’s the metric system.
In the US, there’s the Starbucks unit of measurement.
Americans cannot give you directions
without mentioning Starbucks. It’s impossible.
I also enjoy asking my way around in Paris.
Parisians do something you don’t see anywhere else.
When you tell them the street you’re looking for, they sing it back to you.
“Excuse me, sir. I’m looking for the rue de la Paix.”
Rue de la Paix
The guy was with his wife. “Madeleine, do you know?” She did the same thing.
Rue de la Paix
Then he said, “I don’t know it, but I know another one. You want it?”
“No, sir. I’m looking for the rue de la Paix.”
It’s so interesting to see these differences.
And to watch people when you’re in the US.
Americans love to stand in line. I don’t know why.
Wherever you go, there are people standing in line.
I think they just see a line of people and decide to stand in it.
Once I got in a line and asked a guy what he was waiting for. He said, “My turn.”
So I said, “Why?” “I don’t know.
At some point, it’s going to be my turn, and something’s going to happen.”
“But why?” “Because if I leave, somebody is going to take my turn.”
They’re afraid of losing their turn, you see.
And they’re all organized, in straight lines! No problem.
In France, people wait in a...
And in Morocco...
people wait in circles.
Americans are nice, though, especially when you arrive from Paris.
You go to a store in the US. Sometimes, they try too hard.
You become suspicious. “Why is he being so nice?”
In a store in New York, a guy said to me...
I said to him...
But the guy was so eager!
I asked him for something, and he started running in the store!
People would stop him, and he’d go...
“Calm down!” He went to the back to look for it, came back and said...
I said, “That’s okay.”
“Jason, stop it, fuck! Calm down.”
“No, forget about it, Jason!
Don’t get tied up in knots over this!”
And then he said something you’d never hear in France. He said...
In France, they don’t even “single-check”!
The guy will just say, “I don’t have it, unless I start looking for it.”
There’s a store in the US that French people are just crazy about.
It’s Abercrombie.
You know this store?
They’re not in Quebec yet.
I can tell by looking at you. “We don’t have it.
We don’t have it.”
The smell, the darkness.
You know, some of the young men who work at Abercrombie are shirtless.
They’re just... their chest is naked.
I was looking at some shirts, and a guy came over and said,
“Yeah, those shirts are great. They’re my favorite.”
“Then why aren’t you wearing one?”
And those scented candles! It’s all about candles today.
Candles are everywhere. It’s sophisticated. It’s fancy.
People buy candles because they smell nice.
“Did you light some candles?” “Light a candle.”
“There were candles everywhere in that store. It was great!”
“What did he get for you?” “A candle.”
“Really?” “Yeah, a big candle.”
“We went to dinner and they lit a candle.”
“And before going to bed, we blew out the candle.”
It’s all about candles. It’s great.
Candles are everywhere, and they come in increasingly sophisticated scents.
I was in a store in Paris the other day,
and I saw a candle with a scent called “Monday Morning in Alaska.”
But I’ve never been there.
So I took a whiff and said, “Alaska, maybe, but Monday?
It smells like Tuesday, madam.”
It’s a hipster thing, right?
Hipster. It’s a boho thing.
What’s up with all these new stores popping up all over the world
and selling two shirts, a candle, a bike and a leg of lamb?
What’s up with that?
“Hello. Do you have any scooters?” “No, but I have cake.”
It’s just weird.
And it’s becoming very sophisticated.
But it’s cool. It’s different.
Everything is different in the US.
In Quebec and France, it’s in the streets that people ask for things.
People with clipboards and little signs asking for stuff.
Associations and organizations wanting your money and asking you to sign things.
What’s interesting is that all these people asking for things
have one thing in common: their body language.
I tried making sense of it.
Their body wants to go towards you, but their mind tells them they shouldn’t.
They always show some very interesting body language.
Like, “Excuse me, we’re an association, and we’d like two minutes of your time
because what we’re doing for the whales is our way of giving back something”...
Or they’ll come towards you while you’re going in their direction,
and as soon as you meet, bam!
They start walking backwards with you. “Actually, what we’re trying to do”...
Do these people get any training? How does it work?
I’ve just started a new life in New York with this show I’m performing in English.
New York is insane. It’s truly an insane city. Everything moves so fast.
But it’s cool. I’ve made a lot of new friends.
I’ve done some sightseeing. I went to see the Statue of Liberty.
I was very curious to see the gift France had made to the United States.
Why a statue? When did the French decide to give their American friends a statue?
Maybe they met a long time ago
and it was like when your kids are invited to a rich kid’s birthday party:
You don’t know what to give them. You think, “Fuck, they have everything.”
They must have said, “What can we give the Americans?”
“I don’t know...
How about free health care?” “No, they won’t like that.”
Yeah. “I don’t know.” Thank you.
That was a pretty strange clapping pattern.
It was like a wave that started out at the back and moved towards the center.
Then on the balcony they were like, “Are you going to clap?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I don’t feel like it. It’s a good show,
but I want to follow my own rhythm.”
“My ryth’!”
In Quebec, it’s very important to not pronounce the word endings, my friends.
It’s socialiss and professionnaliss.
I’ve always wondered what the Quebecois do
with all those word endings they don’t use.
I figured they probably recycle them.
And they do! For the French word ici,
they take two T’s from another word and say icitte.
So they were at the meeting and somebody said,
“I think a statue would be great.
We’ll make this huge, somewhat androgynous, crowned figure...
holding something like an iPad and a torch.
I think they’re going to be hooked. They’re going to love it.
And we’ll give it a chic Parisian twist. It should look pretty good.”
And then the French shipped it to the Americans.
And the Americans got an e-mail from Amazon saying,
“People who enjoyed this also enjoyed the Eiffel Tower.
Does that interest you?”
I found an apartment in New York, which is very difficult.
Even more so if you’re not an American.
I had a real estate agent who showed me all sorts of places.
One day, I said, “I like this one, but I need to think about it.” She said...
She said...
In New York, there’s always another guy who’s interested.
And in Paris, too. Everywhere. In Montreal.
There’s always a guy. I don’t know who he is.
One day I’d like to sit down with this guy and ask,
“How do you end up taking all those apartments? You’re crazy!”
Then she said to me, “We require six months’ rent in advance.”
You become stupid when you want something. “Okay!”
Then she said, “We also require nine letters of recommendation.”
I didn’t even know nine people there!
I asked her, “Could you be one of those people?
You, the Uber driver...”
And then I remembered that one of my mom’s cousins lived in Brooklyn.
An old Moroccan guy. I asked her if I should call him.
And she said, “No! Please don’t! Oh, dear, not him!”
I asked her, “What is it, Mom?” “He’s old, and he has schizophrenia.”
So I said, “Great! That’s even more people.”
I met with one of my friends at his place this afternoon.
He’s been renovating lately.
You know these people who want to explain the way it was before?
But you don’t care. You just want to enjoy your coffee.
“No, let me tell you, it wasn’t like this at all before.”
“I don’t care. I’ve never seen it before. It looks good now.”
“No, but you need to know...
It’s unbelievable, unbelievable what we did here.
The kitchen was on the other side.
And where you’re sitting now... you’re going to love this...
in that spot, there used to be a wall. Crazy, right?”
“No.
That’s not what ‘crazy’ means.”
And then his wife showed up.
“Have you met Jessica?” I said, “Yeah.”
He said, “She wasn’t like this before.”
I said, “Yeah, I can see she’s had some work done.”
You can’t relate to experiences you’ve never had.
I don’t know if it’s a good comparison,
but you know when someone tells you someone you didn’t know died?
You kind of feel ambivalent about it.
You say you’re sorry, but you actually don’t give a shit.
Especially when they add the person was 98 and died in their sleep.
You just want to say, “Shut up. Leave me alone.”
It’s great to hear the French language spoken again.
Sometimes I miss it when I’m in the US.
I made a little CD to listen to in the car.
Whenever I press play, a guy yells, “Move, you idiot!” in French.
And it calms me down.
It makes me feel good.
There are things I don’t understand about the United States.
My friends, there’s one sport I don’t get at all.
I try. Mediterraneans, French, Europeans.
We all try to get baseball.
Canadians sort of get it. You even have a team.
But you’re pretending. I’m sorry, but you don’t actually get it.
I don’t understand what these guys are doing.
I try, but it’s so boring. The guys don’t do anything.
They hit the ball, then they stop, then they start walking like this.
“What are you doing, guys?”
One of my buddies told me, “But you have to see it live!”
He took me to the Mets’ stadium in New York.
And it’s the same thing: boring, but live.
We were watching the game, and at one point he said to me,
“Let’s go get hot dogs and pizza.”
We were gone for 25 minutes.
When we came back, the guy who was there before was still standing like this.
I said, “Jerry, did they pause the game or what?”
Do you know what can happen when you leave a soccer game for 25 minutes?
Maybe they’ve sold two players!
Or one of them’s died! Maybe the crowd invaded the field.
Maybe four goals have been scored.
The only thing that’s a bit cute is the kiss cams.
Americans are a bit shy, but they’re cute.
Whenever the camera lands on a couple,
they look at each other: “Hey, it’s us! We have to kiss.”
They kiss, and the Americans start screaming.
Can you imagine if they had those in France?
Who knows what the couple would do?
“Honey, it’s on us. We have to do it.”
We were gone for 25 minutes.
I remember when I’d watch soccer with my dad,
and he’d ask me to get him a beer.
I’d walk over to the kitchen like a crab.
I didn’t want to miss a single thing!
But I try to participate in American culture.
My American friends took me to a steak house.
It’s a very basic concept: steak house.
Apparently, they don’t do this for other types of food.
There are no chicken apartments.
I saw something typically American over there:
a guy down on one knee and holding a small box up to a woman,
who was hopefully his fiancée or girlfriend.
He was asking her to marry him.
No, I’m sorry.
Everyone in the restaurant had the same emotional reaction.
I had an emotional reaction, too.
It’s called embarrassment.
I felt like saying, “You don’t do this kind of thing in public.
Especially not in a steak house! What are you doing?
Why do you think she’s crying?”
I asked the Americans,
“Do you get divorced in public, too? How does that work?”
Wouldn’t that be funny? The waiter would bring a cake with the divorce papers.
“Okay!” And then everybody would start crying. The guy would say...
I enjoy seeing all the couples here thinking, “No, that’s not how it works.
It’s not like that at all.”
It was an incredible tour. I went to several cities, including Los Angeles.
The Quebecois rename every city!
And they pronounce them however they want.
They’ll say “Bos-TON,” but not “Washing-TON.”
Who decided this?
Los Angeles is an interesting city.
It’s an intimidating city for a guy.
All the guys there work out. They’re big and muscular.
I don’t “work out.”
Our body type doesn’t exist there.
I can see we all have the same body.
You don’t see that kind over there.
If you see a guy with this kind of body, he’s not from there.
That doesn’t mean he’s French though. Unless he’s wearing a scarf.
I don’t know why the French are so into scarves. They always wear one.
“But it’s warm out, Mathieu!” “I don’t care.”
But it’s cool to see those guys who work out.
They want to look handsome, elegant, strong, muscular on the beach.
I want to look good with my clothes on, not without my clothes.
Because once you’re naked with a girl,
you’ve already scored, you know what I mean?
I find it a bit intimidating.
What I fear most is snoring the first night I sleep over at a girl’s.
So what I do, when I’m spending the first night with a woman,
is sit in front of the TV, wait for her to fall asleep and try to resist.
The problem is that, when you’re a big snorer,
you give sneak previews of what’s going to happen.
All the snorers here are like, “Yeah, it’s true.
I’m also part of the club, yeah.”
But you’re in front of the TV and you go...
And you look at her, like, “What’s going on?”
One time I even asked, “Did I just hear a puppy?”
And I snore big-time, my friends.
I don’t know if anyone snores elegantly, but I snore like a farmer’s boy.
I don’t know how to explain this.
It’s like I’m dying every time. Have you heard that type of snoring?
Every time, it feels like I’m dying. Every time.
Every four minutes, I die, I come back, and then I die again.
People have told me, “I thought I’d have to give you mouth-to-mouth or something!”
One of my buddies asked me, “Why don’t you wear a mask?”
“That’s worse! What if she sees me wearing the mask?”
“Just wait till she falls asleep before putting it on.”
“What if she gets up to pee in the middle of the night
and sees me, a fighter pilot?”
“Hey, I have a surprise for you! We’re going to play pilot!
The Pilot and the Princess. Are you ready, honey?”
I don’t even know why I’m talking about this. It was Los Angeles, then...
This always happens when I’m in Montreal.
The audience always takes me somewhere else.
They decide. It’s crazy, huh?
I remember one time, I was performing in Morocco.
A lady wanted to take a picture of me,
and because of the glare of the spotlight, she did this.
Every audience is different, surprising and fascinating.
In the US, for instance,
what we call a rappel in French is called an “encore” over there.
They borrow a French word, add an English accent
and explain to you what it means.
Well, they don’t do that over there.
Comedians and singers always end their performance with,
“Thank you, good night!” and then they go backstage.
Again, what is the idea behind an encore?
It’s when an artist finishes a show and then hides backstage.
He pretends,
he makes the audience believe that he’s gone home because he’s tired.
The audience pretends they want him to come back onstage.
Everybody pretends.
It’s a contractual agreement between you guys and us, you see?
The artist is backstage and the audience screams, “Encore, encore!”
And the artist thinks, “This is so moving! What to do?
Should I go home or get back onstage?”
So he goes back onstage and the audience says, “Yeah!”
And he says, “Oh, wow! I wasn’t expecting this!”
But I didn’t know it was different in the US.
After my first show in New York, I went to hide backstage.
When I came back, everybody was gone.
So I went home.
So... Los Angeles, right?
Very interesting.
But I find Los Angeles intimidating.
My buddies wanted to take me to this restaurant. “It’s the best.”
Everything is “the best” over there.
They love fusion.
Since they don’t have their own cuisine,
they pick and choose from others and say, “This is ours.”
One guy said to me...
I told him, “I hope it’s the best. It should be the only one you have.”
He took me there, and the waiter came over.
A good-looking 18-year-old guy. He said...
As if he were doing a show.
I said, “What kind of red wine do you have by the glass?” He said...
Who goes to a restaurant to eat somebody else’s favorite food?
Except if you’re married and your wife says,
“You take the fish, I’ll take the chicken, and we’ll share.”
And all you can do is mumble.
“Is it good?” “Of course, since you told me to eat it.”
During the drive back home, “Was your chicken good?”
“Yeah, it tasted a bit like fish, but it was okay.”
Guys can be such idiots.
Anyway, I told the waiter...
I love texting.
I’m a bit shy. Seriously.
I’m okay onstage, but in real life, I like texting.
You can hide, say whatever you want.
I don’t know if it’s because I’m getting old,
but the one thing I don’t get is the new emojis.
I texted a girl: “Want to go out for a drink tomorrow night?”
She wrote: “No problem. Spanish dancer, Spanish dancer,
two fireworks, four glasses of champagne...
a monkey covering his face...
a pair of red heels, some nail polish, two buildings,
a taxi and an eggplant.”
I didn’t know what to do. I called her an ambulance.
One thing that’s unique to North America is dating.
You know, dating.
Every type of relationship has a name and a structure.
What I like about Europe is the seduction, the game.
You don’t know. The unknown, the spontaneity.
Thank you.
That’s great. What’s your name?
I have to admit, I’m feeling a bit horny right now.
What’s your name?
Excuse me? Johanne. Oh, “Jowanne”!
She corrected me! I said “Johanne” and I had it right,
but since she’s from Quebec... “Jowanne.”
Nice to meet you. Is that your guy?
It’s going be a hot night. What do you do for a living?
You work at customs?
Johanne, can I ask you something?
Has anyone ever checked “yes”
on every question about farms and animals and all that?
Seriously, has a guy ever said, “Yes, I went to a farm,
I have meat and cheese...
and I’ve never been vaccinated.
I love your country!”
Does anyone bring stuff in and declare it?
Ah, not everybody declares it. That’s where the dogs come in.
Because cats don’t care.
If a cat smells sausage, it’ll just sneeze.
Do you work at the airport?
Wow, so you work in an office.
You take care of the serious stuff, when they bring guys in.
You’re the one that solves problems. Wow, Johanne.
It’s funny because I have mixed feelings.
I find that both scary and exciting.
I can see you in uniform,
yelling at me because I brought back a tagine, you see?
What’s the most mind-blowing thing you’ve seen?
“Wow, I can’t believe he put this in his suitcase”?
Sandwiches.
Imagine Johanne in a meeting at customs with all those RCMP guys.
“We’ve got a problem. There’s a sandwich in the suitcase.”
“Sir, do you realize you entered Quebec with a sandwich?
With ham and cheese in it?
That’s not very kosher.”
That’s great, Johanne.
And your boyfriend, what does he do?
He’s a heavy metal drummer.
You know, my dear, this show will air in France, so I’ll translate.
He’s a hard rock drummer.
That’s great! Heavy metal, really?
You don’t have a lot of hair for a heavy metal guy.
Oh, you take care of that. This is an incredible couple!
Does she go through your stuff before you leave on tour?
“Honey, do whatever you want, get all the girls you want.
Just don’t put any sandwiches in your suitcase.”
Please give Johanne a round of applause!
The first time I performed in English in New York,
my mother wanted to come and see the show.
She took a plane to come and see it.
My mom doesn’t speak English.
But she commented on my show.
That’s my mom for you. I said, “Mom, you don’t know English.”
She said, “Maybe not, but I know my son.”
That opening night was difficult.
I was performing in English in front of an audience that I didn’t know,
and there were people eating burgers.
After I got offstage, I said, “Mom, I didn’t like the show.”
She said, “No, honey, that was your perception from the stage.
I was sitting in the audience. It was worse.”
My mom is the funniest woman in the world, and she doesn’t even realize it.
Once my sister came over when she was sick. My mom called.
My sister picked up and said, “Hello?” My mom said, “What’s going on?”
She said, “I’m sick.” My mom said, “Quick, go to the kitchen.
Fill a cup with hot water, add lemon, cinnamon and salt,
and give it to your brother before he catches the same shit!”
My dad is also quite the character.
He’s very interesting.
And unknowingly funny, too. There’s no communication.
He’s a typical Moroccan dad. No talking ever.
Just hand gestures and facial expressions.
Anyone know this threatening gesture?
When I tried it in the US, they became upset.
There are two schools. There’s: “You shouldn’t do that.
Daddy needs to talk to you and explain exactly what’s going on.”
And then there’s this.
It means, “I’m going to shove this shoe down your throat, son.”
Typical Moroccan dad. No patience with his kids. Ever.
Whenever we played hide-and-seek, he didn’t look for us.
I swear. He’d say, “Go and hide” and then leave for work.
We’d spend entire days and nights hiding in closets.
The worst part was we’d hear my mom say, “Go look for them!”
And he’d say, “I don’t like this game! Give me a break!”
I had a house built in Marrakech.
It’s still under construction, since 1987.
My electrician installed a system that no one else in the world has.
I’m the only guy in the world who turns on his microwave...
and the garage door opens.
I told my electrician, “Hamid, how did you do that?”
He said, “I do the same as you. I improvise and see what happens.”
That house in Marrakech has given me headaches
caused by things that can only happen in Morocco.
I was working in the US and getting these surreal phone calls,
like, “Mr. Gad, the swimming pool exploded.”
For me, the real problem wasn’t technical or mechanical.
That could be fixed.
But where did this guy get the idea that a pool can explode?
I asked him, “But wasn’t Hamid around?”
He said, “Yes, but he was in the pool.”
Imagine the crazy image that I got.
I have to go there in a few days.
And I hate traveling because I hate airports.
At the airport, either you have five minutes
to catch a flight, so you run,
or you have a five-hour wait and want to kill yourself.
“What am I going to do?” It makes you insane!
What gets on my nerves in airports is watching people with travel pillows.
I don’t know why. As soon as I see one, I just hate it.
And these guys walk around like they weren’t wearing a travel pillow.
Do they put that pillow on right after getting dressed in the morning?
The travel pillow is the only thing you put on before using it.
You don’t do it with a toothbrush. “Okay, I’ll do this later.”
You don’t do it with a condom. “Hey, you never know.”
And I don’t want to go through security.
Johanne.
I don’t want to do the pose they make you do
in the X-ray machine.
You know this pose?
They make you do that in the US. In the X-ray machine.
They do this to make sure you don’t have anything on you that could kill people.
But by using this machine, they’re killing you.
In 15 or 20 years, we’ll be shaking like this when we go in the machine.
“What happened to you?” “I traveled too much
and took in too many rays from the X-ray machines.”
After you’ve gone through the X-ray machine, they still search you.
Since I’m annoyed, I say, “Okay, search me.
But you’ve got to catch me first.”
As soon as he starts, I say...
One guy asked, “Is there something in your pocket?”
I said, “Why don’t you find out?”
The last time I traveled, I was in first class.
That’s North America for you. In France, they would have yelled, “Asshole!”
So I was sitting in first class and dressed casually.
A baseball cap... even if I don’t get it... jeans, running shoes.
And this guy was looking at me like he was judging me.
“This man is definitely not traveling in the appropriate class.”
I don’t know why, maybe I’m paranoid,
but I wanted to defend my right to be there,
and the best I could come up with was to mess with him
so that he’d remember me for the rest of his life.
I started acting like a raging madman who had never seen this before.
I pointed to my seat, the one I paid for and that was on my boarding pass,
and asked him, “Do you think I can take this seat?”
He said, “Certainly not, unless you’re traveling first class.”
I said, “Shh, don’t tell anyone. Who cares if I sit here?”
I sat down and started playing with the buttons.
I said, “This is much better than in the back!”
So the guy called the flight attendant.
He said, “I don’t believe this man is traveling first class.
You will need to...”
And I’m behind the flight attendant, going like this.
She says, “I’m sorry, but I have to ask to see your boarding pass again.”
I said, “No problem. Let’s go over there. I don’t want him to see it.”
I gave it to her and she said, “I’m so sorry, Mr. Al... El”...
“Yes, it’s okay. You’re good.”
She said, “I’m sorry. You can take your seat.”
And she said to him, “Everything’s okay. He’s in first class.”
And then I turned around and told the guy...
“It’s fine. Everything’s okay.
I gave her 20 bucks.”
Thank you, Montreal! Thank you so much!
Thank you! You were great! Thank you!