Stop me if you've heard this before... You have... but the punchline is different.

I open with a truck beep.
You know the sound — wide-load reversing.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.

That’s me backing into the spotlight, gripping the mic stand like I’m unloading freight.
It gets a laugh — it always does.
Then I squint at the light and follow with:

“I’m so white for a Saudi, when I put on oud, my DNA screws it up and I smell like vanilla.”

Boom.
I’ve got them.

And I’m not running from anything — not really.
I’m just handing them the headline before they write it themselves.

Because the truth is... I am Saudi.
Half Madini.
My roots run deep in the soil of Medina, and at the same time, I was raised with an American pulse.

I don’t look like the expectation.
And I’ve spent years watching people try to figure me out before I even speak.

So I beat them to it.

I use the laugh not to hide — but to steer.
To say:
“Here, look at this thing I’m handing you. It’s funny, right? It’s safe, isn’t it? Good. Now let’s begin.”

But that laugh is loaded.
It’s not just about identity — it’s about agency.
It’s me saying,
“You don’t get to ask why I look like this. I’ll tell you why.”
And if I tell it well enough,
you won’t even think to question it.

People love that line.
I love it too.
It’s sharp, weird, specific.
But under it is a thread I never tug on.
Because if I do, it leads somewhere quieter...
somewhere that talks about not fitting in
even at home.
Even with your own face.

One time, I tried to pivot after a joke like that.
Tried to say something more serious — about identity, about racism, about how people look at you like you’re a puzzle they didn’t ask to solve.

And the room went cold.
The laugh died in their throats.
And I felt myself reaching…
Grasping for a way back.
Back to the safety of “funny.”

I never did that again.
Not because I was wrong.
But because they weren’t ready to go there with me.
And maybe...
I wasn’t ready to be there alone.

Every comic knows the fear of the silence that doesn’t laugh.
That breathless moment where you wonder:
Was that too real?
Did I go too far?
Do they still like me?

But me?
I don’t fear the silence after a good set.
When the show hits, I ride the high.
I don’t let the shadow follow me home.

It’s off-stage where the real stories live.
The ones I tell with a smirk,
that make people laugh...
but the ones who know me hear something else beneath the rhythm.
They hear mortality.
They hear heartbreak.
They hear the parts of me I’ve stitched into comedy so I don’t have to explain them out loud.

My funniest stories carry panic — not in the telling, but in the weight I’ve trimmed away to make them digestible.
And that’s not dishonest.
It’s survival.

Because when you’ve lived through enough...
you learn to package pain in ways people can clap for.
And if they’re clapping, you get to keep talking.
You get to stay on stage.

And sometimes —
that’s all you really need.