The other night at the Upright Citizens' Brigade Theatre, 22-year-old pint-sized comedian Aziz Ansari welcomed a girl onstage. As she sat awkwardly in a chair, he related to the audience how he had recently (and drunkenly) confessed to said girl that he like-liked her. (As is often the case in Ansari's stories, the girl already had a boyfriend.)
The story had been part of his act for sometime, but this was the first time the story's main character had heard it. After he told the story, Ansari asked the girl about her boyfriend. He mocked his major (English) and his name (Bosco, like the syrup), and reminded her that, "Aziz means precious."
The moment may have been pathetic or noble, but it was undoubtedly hilarious. Ansari's act blends the personal and the political, giving a comic voice to all socially awkward, downtown feys and the girls who love them. The Bennettsville, SC-native has been honing his act since making his debut at the Comic Strip as a 19-year-old NYU freshman. Since then, he has risen through New York's alt-comedy ranks to host his own weekly shows at UCBT (Aziz Ansari Punched a Wall and Crash Test, which features a rotating co-host). He's appeared alongside members of New York's established cool comedy clique on VH-1's Best Week Ever and will make his Comedy Central debut this month on Premium Blend. PAPERMAG recently caught up with Ansari, and here is what we learned.
1. Aziz Ansaris is a ladies' man.
100 percent of respondents polled -- including PAPERMAG's S.O. --would describe Ansari as "cute." "He puts himself down," one lady-friend told us, "and girls just want to take care of him, make him feel better." It's exactly this kind of sentiment that frustrates Ansari. "None of these people fucking find me," Ansari says, only half joking. When a friend told him comics are the new rock stars, he corrected her: "Yeah, rock stars that get no ladies."
Part of the cuteness stems from the persona Ansari cultivates on stage. Like a less neurotic Woody Allen, Ansari plays the guy who makes the wrong moves, loses the girl and thereby wins the hearts of his audience. He doesn't use the observational comedy of mainstream comics ("Did you ever notice …"), and avoids the absurd non-sequiturs of many alt-comics (such as the late Mitch Hedberg). Instead, he tells often heartbreaking stories culled from his own life. "It's all true," Ansari says. "It's all dangerously true. It'd be nice if something worked out for me, and then I'd have to get material out of that."
Over the past year, Ansari's act has gone from making jokes about the president masturbating to punching a wall over losing a girl. When we suggest that Ansari uses his act to vent frustration over things he can't control, he doesn't disagree. "That's so sad," Ansari says. "I'm in a situation with this girl that's as hopeless as overthrowing the Bush administration."
RSS