IN the heart of Berlin this summer I walked on stage at the Babylon Theater and began telling stories.

I was nervous. I’m a practicing Muslim, and I didn’t know how a German audience would react to an awkward, hairy brown kid.

I talked. I talked about my life, and how as a child I’d bring home a report card with a 95 percent on it, and my father would say, “Why isn’t this 100 percent? If you weren’t slacking off, you’d have 100 percent.”

An old story, perhaps, but one that gets laughs.

It still drives me nuts because he still does it.

I did a TV interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour after I had launched “30 Mosques in 30 Days” — a blog on which a friend and I chronicled the Muslims we met during a road trip to all 50 states. My dad e-mailed me afterwards: “Very good, I’m proud of you. But why didn’t you wear a tie? Your haircut already makes you look like a drug dealer, at least look like a drug dealer that knows how to dress.”