If you haven’t already guessed from the blog entry’s title, this post is about how a fat, homosexual man swindled the $#!t out of me during my first weekend in New York City. It’s also about how comedian Aziz Ansari (or Raaaaaaaandy, his ridiculously named alter-ego with whom you may be more familiar) came through in the clutch for me, which is why his picture headlines this post. This isn’t a short post. In fact, it’s rather long, and quite unfortunate, to be honest. If you’re up for a read, then continue.

Jam this.

So I moved here with the help of my buddies Amina and Marcel on the last day of January. The ride took 7 hours from DC because there was a fire (I mean a f*cking huge ass fire. I’m actually gonna upload a video of this fire after I write this post, so check back in a little bit and you’ll see what I’m talking about. Ridiculous.) on the New Jersey Turnpike, and we were like the third car behind it. If I didn’t go back in the house and get some last minute things I didn’t need, we wouldn’t have been in this position.

Anyway, so my buddies moved me in that weekend, and helped me make critical runs to places like Ikea and Sam’s Club. (And I know this isn’t Xanga or Live Journal, but let me say this: shout out to all the real fucking friends out there who sacrifice time and energy to help other people. The way they offered to help me move in to my spot was something that good friends do. If you don’t have people like that on your team, find some. Let’s get back to the story.) I start interning on Monday. All goes well in the office; all the interns are great, the editors and writers in the building are some of the smartest people I’ve ever been around, and I’m immediately getting involved in important things with the company. Awesome experience, and I’m very happy.

By Wednesday, I’m feeling myself a little. Not too much, but enough to think that I deserve a little fun in my life, even during my first week in the city. I thought, “why don’t I get a couple of friends together to catch this last Aziz Ansari comedy show on Saturday? He’s been here for a while, and it’d be a great ‘Welcome to NYC’ present to myself.” I look for the tickets online, but it turns out that his show has been sold out for weeks. So I do what any self-respecting man with an achievable goal in mind would do in my situation: check Craigslist.

And my ninja Craig came through. Or at least, I thought he did. In no time I found a great deal on 4 tickets to Aziz’ show for $40 a pop. A quick and desperate e-mail to the seller (“dude! i really need those tickets, and i can get up with you tomorrow any time to get them off your hands! call me or e-mail me back asap, i appreciate it!”) on Wednesday night translated into an early morning e-mail. Now if you’re me, a seasoned Craigslist veteran, then everything checks out. The prices of the tickets straight. The tickets were $35 originally, so $5 over face value isn’t horrible in my eyes. And the number of tickets didn’t seem weird to me, either. The guy could have been a professional scalper and this could be his side-hustle. I can’t be mad at that.

The only thing that was somewhat suspicious was this brother’s e-mail situation. The e-mail sender was Hsin-Shen Kuo, but he signed the e-mail as “David”. I have enough international friends to know that an English name isn’t uncommon by any means (sidenote: I even tried to fake like I had one, replacing Modele with Michael. But eventually, I realized that I had just given myself that name because nobody could pronounce my actual name. I was like 7 then. Give me a break.), so I didn’t really hesitate there.

Now, you normally weed out fake Craiglisters when they don’t call after you tell them to. But I e-mailed him back and gave him a time to hit me, and low and behold (I hope I used that phrase right), he hit me. He was very jovial, very flamboyant, and very excited about comedy. He was speaking to me about actual comics and even said that there was a Jewish comic named Modi and that he had thought I was him after receiving the e-mail. I was more interested in the tickets, so I cut down all small talk and focused on how the transaction would take place. I told him to meet me in the Best Buy lobby during my lunch break, and he agreed. For those not hip to Craigslist deals, they’re very much like drug deals (I don’t do any drugs but I sure as hell can imagine what a drug deal is like), and you’re either all for it, or it’s not for you. Clearly, you know the kind of guy I am.

A rotund, balding Caucasian man dressed in all black (“I’m just on my way to theatre practice!“) walks through the automatic doors of Best Buy, four passes to Aziz Ansari in hand. He’s holding them as if he’s Willy Wonka, and I’m fixated on them like they’re one of the golden tickets that Charlie and the rest of the kids in the book (or movie. The original is better than the Johnny Depp one, I think. I actually haven’t seen that version yet. So I’m just talking. But still, I prefer OG Charlie and his gramps. Nobody can top them.) won to gain entrance to the factory. He shakes my hand. “Hi, I’m David,” his voice sweeter than the strawberry jam I put on my toast earlier that morning. The names (and the flamboyance) match, but the Asian heritage? None whatsoever. And  I have best friends from Korea and Japan, so best believe I can tell. For some reason, I still think everything is kosher, and that this deal is too legit to quit. More small talk before he leaves, although I’m barely listening. He rambles on about how he checked out DC to BC (I sent my request for the tickets from my DC to BC e-mail address, so he does some snooping on my site I guess) and that he enjoyed it earlier in the day. He even extends an invitation to dinner before the concert (him and his friends, because they were apparently going, and me and mine. At least, I’m assuming that’s what he met. I don’t even know this guy, but he was literally all for it.), which I immediately sidestep as kindly as possible. Was it an advance? I didn’t even think about thinking about it. I coughed up the cash to the faux Asian man, and those golden tickets were finally in my possession. I had ended a fantastic first week and was about to enter the ultimate first weekend.

Fast forward to Saturday evening. I do nothing all day, in anticipation of this concert, which I believe is going to be the most hilarious show I’ve ever seen. And it probably would have been, too;  my comedy show tally is at three or four shows, none of which were insanely popular comics. I invited my man Jordan, who decided to take a date (sidenote: this girl of the Caucasian persuasion hollered at him at a McDonalds at 3am the weekend prior. She’s like 27, he’s 23. He saved her in his phone as “McNuggets”. Somehow, someway, they end up actually going on a real date a week later. I’m not lying, everything I just typed really happened, just as I typed it.), and I had a couple other friends in mind but they all ended up flaking on me, partially because of my poor planning, and partially because they probably just didn’t really understand how funny the show was going to be. I found somebody to take the ticket last minute, but I eventually had to tell them to forget about it for reasons you’re about to read about.

Let’s switch up the jams to something more fitting.

I show up about 30 minutes early, just to make sure everything runs smoothly. It’s freezing and there’s a long line outside, winding around the building. The venue’s bouncer tells me you can only get inside if you already have your tickets. I flash all four of my golden goodies and he waves me in. The authorities in there tell me I need to use my tickets to get a wristband, so again, I flash my golden goodies, this time to the two hostesses.

Let’s stop for a second, and step into my shoes. Imagine how happy I was. I couldn’t even tell you the last time I was this pumped for anything. I just moved to a city in the snap of a finger – up and left. My parents are probably still confused as to how I’m surviving. My support group in NY Do or Die isn’t nearly as strong as it is at home, albeit a few good friends. Not to get all Panic! At the Disco emo on you guys or anything, but it’s a little lonely, and these early nights and harsh weather conditions don’t help much. From Wednesday to that Saturday evening, my mind was only concerned about how hard I would laugh when all the opening acts finished performing and Aziz took the stage. It was the one thing that helped me get through my week.

Back to reality. The girls take one look at my tickets and frown. “Oh no,” one of them says. I’m perplexed as sh!t. “What’s wrong,” I ask her. The other one chimes in. “These tickets…they’re counterfeits. I’m so sorry.”

What? Did that guy I had had a legitimate 5 minute conversation with right in front of Best Buy hit me with a serious okeydoke? Long story short, yeah. And he deserves a pat on the back for getting me. What a harsh way to be welcomed to NYC. I probably deserve it, and this is just payback for something I did a while back. Maybe it was stealing those Pokemon cards from that card store in Cabin John Mall. Or maybe it was habitually punishing the leftovers in the fridge from my college roommates because I was too broke to get my own food. Whatever it was, my crimes obviously caught up to me. All I really could do is complain to the manager of the venue. He was very apologetic, and even bought me my company drinks from the bar. Jordan was pissed, and his girl was a little perturbed too. I apologized to them, and told them to go on with the night while I sorted things out. In the end, nothing could really be done. I was assed out, and this fat, homosexual man named David handily won the battle.

So what happened next? The unthinkable.

I had to let my man know that I tried to support him but got rocked like the AggroCrag, so I tweeted him.

About an hour or so later, I have a direct message. It’s Aziz. The famous comedian with over 100,000 followers who worship the ground he walks on decided to hit me up. The odds of him seeing that tweet (because of the rate at which his name is mentioned in Twitter conversations around the world) is equivalent to me becoming the next Donald Trump. But somehow, someway, he sees it, and reaches out.

I needn’t say anymore. Aziz Ansari is the man. What person with this much going on in their lives has the chance to listen to a whiny chump such as myself who purchased scalped tickets above face value when he shouldn’t have? Aziz, that’s who. I thanked him profusely for his act of kindness, and supplied him with my address. I’m assuming a DVD is coming soon, but even if it doesn’t, I don’t really care. The fact of the matter is the thought. He wins for that one, and he just got a lifetime fan, and probably a couple more after they read this post.

The moral of this story? Stay away from Craigslist, because it’s creepier than that giant Venus Flytrap in Little Shop of Horrors. Support Aziz and grab his comedy album and DVD here.

P.S.: If you made it all the way down to here, you deserve some kind of prize. Leave a comment so I know you did, and I’ll figure out something to hook you up with.

P.P.S.: This story is really only for me to read to look back upon, and I’m posting it here so that people can enjoy it with me. I have no problem with homosexual people, but since I don’t know that many, it only made sense in my head to refer to the guy as the fat, homosexual man who sold me those fake tickets. If you take offense, I don’t know what to tell you. Thanks for reading.

Clearly, that’s me. not in 5th grade though. More like when i was a toddler. but that’s not the point.

The point is, puppy love is something serious. Around valentine’s day, I got an email from an old friend. Her name? Christina Vittas. She was my first official girlfriend from back in 5th grade, and the e-mail was titled “5th grade love letters”. I already knew what was inside.

First thing’s first. Jam this while you read.

I need everybody to realize Tina was baaad. I was doing pretty big things with this fine young lady as my girl. I know this was 5th grade, but she was the baddest chick in the middle school. If anybody went to Sidwell for middle school (shout out to my Quaker school bredren across the globe), or matter fact, if you ever went to Sidwell, you knew how beautiful this girl was. This was before the secondary sex characteristics developed; a female’s body wasn’t even an afterthought for me, so her skinny self was perfect for me. Half korean, half greek. A smile that perfect, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear Crest and Colgate fighting over her for their latest ad campaign. Could solve some of the hardest math problems in her sleep. Very quiet and unassuming, but that was okay back then. I was a goofy looking kid (and arguably, still am), but I was funny enough to still get girls to engage in conversation and laugh a little bit. I don’t really remember how I pulled it off, but one day, after some recess and some note passing and whispering, I walked out of the building with tina as my boo slice.

Do you know how happy it was? I felt like Lupe Fiasco after he got the girl. I felt like NBC4 just reported a third straight consecutive snow day on Friday, and an unexpected 5-day weekend was created. I felt like a young Michael Jordan after winning his first championship, tears fist pumps and all. My problem was, I was the ultimate shy guy. You know how you can talk to people normally, but when it’s your crush that you have to speak to, you get as nervous as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs!? Well, that’s how it was with me when I got around tina. Remember, this relationship was probably solidified over a few saltine crackers and a quick “do you like me?” poll scribbled on some notebook paper before break time. At this point, face-to-face time was almost scary. I preferred everything but that. So what did I do? Wrote tina some crucial love letters. 12 years later, and she still had these! She typed them up and threw them my way. Let’s read these joints, shall we? I’ll warn you now – these are copied verbatim, and I’ve done no altering to the letters themselves.

LOVE LETTER #1:

Dear Tina,
Waz’ up?  I just finished my piano lesson and I decided to write again.  So… I can’t do the movie thing this Friday, but maybe on the weekend.  Ask Genevieve and Daisy if they can come.  I’ll ask Andy and Andrew.  Do you think Ariana can come?  If she can go let me know.  Andy and I can do it on Saturday, but it has to be before 515-30, because we have a basketball game at 645 and we’ve got to get there early.  I want to know if we are going to sit next to the person we like.  Tell me tomorrow, okay?  Also, Andrew Wallace is daring me to ask you if you wanna go out alone.  I’m taking the dare, but I will only do it if you want to. I wanna know are you going to Genevieve’s party?  I am.  Do you know what we are going to do there?  Well, there’s nothing else to talk about so I guess I’ll talk to you later.  Well, see ya!
Sincerely,
Modi

Damn. I was a young Cassanova. A little nerdy, and super sprung, but that was okay. Besides, do you see how considerate I was? Only taking the dare if she was ready for it. You gotta admit, although my writing style wasn’t the smoothest, I was trying. And trying damn hard.

LOVE LETTER #2 (BIRTHDAY CARD, COMPLETE W/ AWESOME PICTURES):

front:
Dear Tina,
Since I’m not gonna be here for your real birthday, I decided to give you half of your birthday present.  I have more stuff to get for you, though.  So be prepared!  Here is your card, along with this gift certificate!  I hope you like it!

middle:
I’ll give you the other part of the present sometime.  Maybe we could go to the mall together.  Write me a letter back.  Please?  With 500,909,333 cherries on top?  Okay, see ya!
Modi
P.S. If you wanna know where I’m going, I’m going to Antigua.  It’s in the Caribbean.

back: (and TINA’s personal favorite, as noted in her e-mail):
Created just for you (and I mean JUST for you) by your boyfriend, Modele

Tina says: The gift certificate that accompanied Letter #2 has pictures from the computer of cartoon-ish dogs and then in the top center there is a heart and on each side of the heart there is a dog holding the number 10 (I guess it was my 10th birthday).  Then the certificate says:
A certificate for a “date” at Montgomery Mall with Modele, valid for the rest of 1998!  Can be used anytime!
(and then your signature at the bottom)

Please, hold your applause. I’d like to change my name to Rico Suave. I was so damn creative. How many 5th grades were so determined to make their girl happy, making birthday cards on the computer at age 10!? You bammas weren’t even on the internet around then. I was ahead of the curve.

LOVE LETTER #3 (VALENTINE’S DAY CARD THAT I MADE ON MY COMPUTER):

front: (where there is a picture of a guy with his arms spread wide open):
Tina, I know it’s not V-day yet, but I still have a card.  Why do I love (or should I say like) you?

middle:
I guess I just have a lot of patience and a good sense of humor.  Oh, and if you’re wondering why I didn’t draw this, it’s because I can’t draw well all the time.
Happy almost Valentine’s Day!

Such honesty at age 10? Stunning. Admitting their flaws like lack of artistic creativity so effortlessly? I was giving the girl love before Love Day even came around yet.

Funny thing is, a week after that, Tina broke up with me. I remember it like it was yesterday. I felt some ill vibes coming from her and her crew. Only way I knew how to deal with that was to chase her and her best friend, Haley, all the way down the stairs from the classrooms until we spilled out by the basketball courts. I was fast, and they didn’t want me to catch them, because I was a rough kid on the playground. Who knows what would have happened. Haley finally turned around, her chubby self huffing and puffing, out of breath. “Modi, she doesn’t like you anymore!” she screamed, with an evil, twisted grin on her face. “Don’t you get it?” It probably made her day saying that nine word combination. “Shucks,” I thought. All that time and effort into ol’ girl, and she had to get her henchwoman to shake me off!? I sulked all the way to the car, holding back tears.

Tina was the third girl I had ever really liked in my life. After reading these letters I wrote, it’s apparent that I would have given her the world if she wanted it. I guess she didn’t want it.

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