SOUNDTRACK: hiatus
[READ: December 31, 2021] You Can’t Be Serious
S. and I were wrapping presents for Christmas this year and put on A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas (which I thought was new and didn’t realize was ten years old). I had said something about thinking Kal Penn was really cool and respecting his decision to work for the White House.
And lo and behold but there was this book in my Christmas pile.
Kal Penn, Jersey represent!, has led a fascinating life. And he seems like a very cool (but not scoring you weed on the weekend kinda cool) guy.
Kal starts his book by saying that in kindergarten, the fastest, dumbest boy in his class called him the n-word. He didn’t know what it meant, but he knew it was bad from the way the kids reacted.
A traumatic way to start a book and a school. But things got better from there. He recalls not paying much attention in school and also class trips to Old Sturbridge Village–that’s over three hours away! His class went there–multiple times? He loved the acting that went on there.
He talks about getting picked on for being a nerd. But also about being grateful for living in a diverse New Jersey town–he went to a lot of mitzvahs. His story of being on a boat for someone’s mitzvah is pretty funny. And yet, he also talks about a hate group called Dotbusters based in Jersey City (I am so shocked to hear about this) who harassed assaulted and even killed Indian people. His aunt lived there and his grandmother visited her there.
He was close to his grandparents and family that still lived in India. Both of his grandparents marched with Gandhi against British Colonialism. He saw the scar from when a British soldier beat him. He also talks about going India and using the communal outhouse (with no toilet paper available).
Things got better when he joined drama club–he did a move on stage as the the tin man (totally spontaneously) and became a class hero. The acting bug had bitten him.
Unfortunately his family wasn’t too happy about that. His parents had come from India with degrees in science and they expected him to follow in those footsteps.
He has an interesting aside on why Indians are stereotypically so good at science. In the mid-1960s the US government changed immigration laws to fill labor shortages in much needed fields. So, science shortages led to Indian science workers coming here.
But Kal didn’t do well in school (or not well enough for his parents). He was still interested in acting and was blown away in 1992 when the film Mississippi Masala came out–directed by an actual Indian woman, Mira Nair.
His parents did want him to be happy of course, so they sent him to a New Jersey Summer Arts Institute for acting classes.
But here’s what so interesting about Kal Penn. His grandparents’ activism has always piqued his interest and so in addition to acting, he wanted to volunteer in philanthropic activities. He wanted to go to Kenya, but the cost was very high. So his father suggested he go to India where his aunt and uncle ran a small NGO in Gujarat called Action Research in Community Health and Development. It was hard work and he came home fluent in Gujarat.
Then it was time for college and he went to UCLA. This is where the book gets much funnier because of course college is full of craziness, and crazy friends. It’s also where he started going on action auditions and changed his name from Kalpen Moda to Kal Penn for acting purposes.
He talks some great dirt about his first “jobs” in the business, and the incredibly racist people he had to work for. Including one guy who wouldn’t hire Joseph Gordon-Levitt because the guy thought that Levitt was Chinese. His discussion of racism in the industry is really disheartening–being asked to wear a turban or to do a very heavy accent when neither were called for in the script.
The next few chapters are all about his various attempts (and failures) to get decent (or any) acting jobs. How Indian people don’t go to movies (patently false–the truth was that the industry reports never surveyed Indian people, so they had no information about it).
Finally, he got a call to be the character Taj Mahal in the film Van Wilder. He was offended by the role at first. Taj Mahal? Really? But he was inspired by a mentor who said to try out for the role.
The mentor asked how much made him cringe. He said about 30%. She said pick the ten most cringeworthy things and ask the writers to change them. Don’t say it’s because you find thing offensive, but because you have funnier jokes. He also says that Ryan Reynolds was a wonderful person. Incidentally, Taj Mahal’s last name was Badalandabad which the writers made up. But he says that bada in Hindi means “big” and land (pronounced lund) means “cock.”
He gets asked a lot if he regrets doing Van Wilder because of the stereotyped character. But that was his first co-starring role. It was because of Van Wilder that he met the guys who wrote Harold & Kumar. They were amazed he didn’t have an accent in real life–and very excited because Harold and Kumar were non-stereotypical Asian Americans in leading roles.
He talks about making the movie and about how much fun John Cho is but then says he was in the tough position of making money from his movie (but not a HUGE amount), bit now being too famous to get a job at regular businesses to make rent money because the bosses thought he would be too distracting.
He got called in for a role in The Mask 2. And he trashes the whole experience (and how he couldn’t get out of doing it once he signed the contract). It would be funny if it weren’t so terrible. He encourages everyone not to watch that movie.
He talks about getting the role in The Namesake (with director Mira Nair) and how amazing it was. And then getting cast for House M.D. (which I had forgotten he was on). The game they play HULLLLLL is immature and hilarious.
It was with the cast of House that he became interested in Barack Obama’s campaign.
This second half of the book is a really fascinating look into the world of politics. And at how much Barack Obama did for typically underserved communities.
Kal did a lot of voter turnout (his celebrity helped of course, but he took it very seriously). And soon Barack heard about him and met him and encouraged him to do more. He also talks about college Republicans throwing rocks at him at a college visit.
When Obama won, Kal applied online for a job in the administration. And then didn’t hear back. It wasn’t until a later function that he met Michelle Obama who encouraged him to work for them. When he said he’d applied online but didn’t tell anyone about it,
No longer bemused or pleasantly surprised, she gave me the look you’d give someone who dropped a piece of pizza on the ground and then picked it up and ate it in front of you.
Then she made Kal repeat what he had done to Barack. Barack replied, you applied via change.gov? Why didn’t you just call me?
He then became the President’s Liaison to Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, Young Americans and the Arts Community–three roles that had been combined into one.
He writes a lengthy and funny chapter about what it’s like to work for the White House (with a very funny example of how NOT to reply all to a work email–making a joke about the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). People will laugh in the hallway about it, but that comment is now on the public record.
The only part of the book I was disappointed with was his love of NASCAR (which he came by through a friend). Not because I have anything inherently against NASCAR, but because I Went to an event and found it so mind-numbing that I can’t believe anyone could enjoy it.
He did great work and it really made me long for an administration that made a difference.
He ends the book talking about an indie film he did in India and how he almost didn’t get paid and about the show that he made for NBC called Sunnyside. We DVRd the show and then it seemed to go away. Well, it turns out that whatever NBC promised to the very very diverse cast and crew, they did not support it very much and were very quick to drop it. But you can watch the episodes that didn’t air on his website kalpenn.com.
Kal rather casually mentions that he is gay and engaged to be married to Josh, his partner of 11 years. It was a little surprising how understated this part of his life is. But that wasn’t what he wanted to write about so, he didn’t.
It’s a shame the book doesn’t have a happier ending, but then Kal Penn is only 44 and has a lot of exciting work ahead of him I’m sure.
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