{"id":185,"date":"2010-05-19T10:21:17","date_gmt":"2010-05-19T08:21:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/?p=185"},"modified":"2015-04-27T19:30:22","modified_gmt":"2015-04-27T17:30:22","slug":"america-loves-smirnoff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/america-loves-smirnoff\/","title":{"rendered":"America loves Smirnoff"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Who&#8217;s the person you&#8217;d most like to have dinner with, if you had the chance? There are lots of world leaders, famous actresses and authors who&#8217;d be on the list, I&#8217;m sure. But I&#8217;d choose <a title=\"Yakov bio (Yakov.com)\" href=\"http:\/\/www.yakov.com\/biography\/\" target=\"_blank\">Yakov Smirnoff<\/a>, because he&#8217;d be the most entertaining.<\/p>\n<p>I did finally meet the Russian-American comedian last weekend. Well, not really; it was his double. (<a title=\"Pen\u00e9lope Cruz rides my bus (Mike Pilewski)\" href=\"\/blog\/penelope-cruz-rides-my-bus\" target=\"_blank\">You will recall<\/a> that I often see doubles of famous people.) But this guy, an exchange student from Michigan named Eric, is Yakov <span id=\"tooltip551a68ec79ec4\">to a T<\/span>. He has the same excited <span id=\"tooltip551a68ec7a660\">grin<\/span>, the same ability to say funny things, and the same <span id=\"tooltip551a68ec7aa4c\">appreciation<\/span> of the country to which he has moved.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Yakov sees a <span id=\"tooltip551a68ec7ae32\">billboard ad<\/span> for vodka: &#8220;New York was great. I walked out of the airplane and I saw my name written in big letters: SMIRNOFF. &#8216;America loves Smirnoff.&#8217; I said to myself, \u2018What a country!\u2019&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/5GK8ewRec7c\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Yakov&#8217;s story is the immigrant story that so many Americans (or their grandparents) share. He was asked to leave the Soviet Union because his satire wasn&#8217;t appreciated. He arrived in the US in 1977 not speaking English and with less than $100 in his pocket.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>&#8220;My first stop in America was in Cleveland, Ohio,&#8221; Yakov says. &#8220;They made me feel at home in Cleveland \u2014 so I had to escape again.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Yakov is one of the last family-friendly comedians. He proves that you can be funny without having to <span id=\"tooltip551a68ec7b223\">swear<\/span> or <span id=\"tooltip551a68ec7b602\">dwell on<\/span> things like alcohol and drug <span id=\"tooltip551a68ec7b9e9\">addiction<\/span>. I was about to add &#8220;&#8230;or focus on racial stereotypes,&#8221; but that would have been <span id=\"tooltip551a68ec7bdd2\">misleading<\/span>. Like the more recent racial comedy of African-Americans Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle, Southerner Jeff Foxworthy and Mexican-American Carlos Menc\u00eda, Yakov makes fun of the milieu he came from.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>&#8220;In America, you can always find a party,&#8221; he says. &#8220;In Soviet Russia, the Party always found <i>you<\/i>!&#8221;<br \/>\n&#8220;In Russia now, &#8230; they also have freedom of speech, but in America you have freedom <i>after<\/i> you speak. It&#8217;s a nice little feature.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>He&#8217;s a <span id=\"tooltip551a68ec7c1b9\">savvier<\/span> Borat, always one step ahead of the <span id=\"tooltip551a68ec7c5a0\">audience<\/span> because \u2014 <span id=\"tooltip551a68ec7c989\">let&#8217;s face it<\/span> \u2014 people don&#8217;t usually expect foreigners to be funny. The language ought to get in the way. Yakov, instead, knows how to <span id=\"tooltip551a68ec7cd72\">mine<\/span> it for all the <span id=\"tooltip551a68ec7d15a\">gems<\/span> it contains.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/dywsV8dagRA\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>From his first book, <i>America on Six Rubles a Day<\/i> \u2014 a masterful <span id=\"tooltip551a68ec7d542\">compendium<\/span> of such <span id=\"tooltip551a68ec7d929\">witticisms<\/span> \u2014 Yakov&#8217;s career led to a TV show, then to his own comedy club in Branson, Missouri, where he still performs. He recently earned a <span id=\"tooltip551a68ec7dd12\">master&#8217;s degree<\/span> in psychology and has taught a short university course on &#8220;the business of laughter.&#8221; He&#8217;s writing books and doing TV again, but this time it&#8217;s on the subject of humor in personal relationships.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>&#8220;Laughter is the shortest distance between two people,&#8221; Yakov says.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>He still has that Russian accent and that wild grin, and is as funny as ever.<\/p>\n<p>Eric said lots of quotable things, too. He may have a similar career ahead of him if he stays in Germany.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Who&#8217;s the person you&#8217;d most like to have dinner with, if you had the chance? There are lots of world leaders, famous actresses and authors who&#8217;d be on the list, I&#8217;m sure. But I&#8217;d choose Yakov Smirnoff, because he&#8217;d be the most entertaining. I did finally meet the Russian-American comedian last weekend. Well, not really; it was his double. (You <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/america-loves-smirnoff\/\">&#8230; >><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[117],"tags":[32,89,46,90],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1594,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185\/revisions\/1594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fascinating-america.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}