The Funny Indian Newsletter, Vol. 223
April 2025: Down Jones
Welcome
Welcome to The Funny Indian Newsletter!
Two big things this month:
I’ve started posting a lot of videos to my YouTube, my Instagram, and my Facebook. Scoll and enjoy ’em!
I booked a last-minute gig in Tuscany… headed there next week!
Now, the news. Well, first, a plug.
Musings
𝗜'𝗺 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗠𝘆 𝗡𝗮𝗺𝗲
For the second half of my life, please call me "Rajiv."
How's that new? How's that news?
With a Hard J.
For the first half, I said it with a "ZH."
Raw-Zheev.
To sound Middle Eastern-European chic or something.
And the hard J divided up my name; it hit my ears as too syncopated.
However, I'm gonna finally start pronouncing it as intended.
What's driving this? IDK. Maybe good practice in case we have to escape to India?
But yeah. To paraphrase my favorite actor in the 1989 Batman...
"You can call me... Rajiv. And as you can see, I'm a lot happier."
#saymyname #RememberTheName #ICallYourName #mynameisslim #igotaname #meranaamjoker
𝗪𝗲 𝗝𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗚𝗮𝗺𝗲
We're out in NYC. Group of 10 men & women. Just walked into a bar we found thanks to the great mix of pop & hip-hop. Getting more crowded by the minute, music's starting to pick up.
Three of us dudes spot a lounge-like area with two women talking to each other. Offer to buy them drinks, which they take us up on. One of the guys in our crew sits down to talk to them. I was a little skeptical, but from the body language, it's clear the three of them are having a good conversation: they're all leaned-in, laughing, and carrying on. Good for him: he's single, we're not.
Cue to 5 min later. It's gettin' hot in herre, so my friend (let's call him Nelly) and I take off all our... coats... and ask if we can set our coats down on the couches. The two women quickly say, "No, we have a lot of people coming." I go, "Oh, just for a few minutes until they all get here. We'll pick 'em back up." "No."
Nelly and I are quite taken aback by their tone. They could've said, "Oooh... you know... we have some friends joining. Would it be OK if we say no?" We wouldn't have loved it but they would've let us down easy.
Nelly goes, "You know what would be rad? If we take the drinks back."
I laugh: "Dude, that's such a hilarious thought. But if you really do it, you'd send such a clear message. I'd do it, but you know that whole Indian Giver stereotype."
"That's the other Indian."
"But still."
AND SO HE DOES. He walks over, declares, "I guess we'll be taking THESE back," and we down the drinks. And that was that*.
There's a great scene in Moneyball when Brad Pitt says to Jonah Hill:
"Any other team wins the World Series, good for them. They're drinking champagne...they get a ring. But if we win—on our budget, with this team—we'll have changed the game."
That night, Nelly changed the game. He took a stand and made sure that good people don't get taken advantage of. We're living in a society, where it's give-and-take. And if you're a taker: take notice. Love may be unconditional, but kindness isn't.
I'm personally so sick and tired of outright rudeness. Regardless of race, gender, orientation, nationality, or any other factor. And to quote another flick, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!"
What do you think? What would you have done? Got any similar stories?
Change the Name of the Game?
"See, the audience didn't tune in to watch some amazing display of intellectual ability. They just wanted to watch the money."
- Martin Scorsese, 𝗤𝘂𝗶𝘇 𝗦𝗵𝗼𝘄
Quite possibly the most underrated movie since the start of the 1990s, this 1994 classic contains a scene in which Scorsese's character explains why people watch competitions.
As I've been watching both the Men's and Women's NCAA Basketball Tournaments, I had a similar question:
Do we watch sports for the level or the tightness of the competition?
The Women's Tournament has made massive gains in popularity. The delta between what men and women can do on the court is narrowing, but of course, the men are still better. I don't think anybody's arguing that, so let's take gender out of it for a minute and ask the real question:
Would you rather watch an NBA game that's not that close but the players are doing things you clearly can't do or watch a Div III high school game where the players are not THAT much better than you but it's an absolute nail-biter?
Tennis, for me, is a better analog, because I played Div I varsity in high school. It was always cool to watch the qualifiers at the Cincinnati Open play a close match but it paled in comparison to observing the absolutely crazy speed, precision, and shot tolerance (it's all shot tolerance) displayed by the top 10 players.
So, of course, it's both: the level AND the tightness. But if I had to pick one, it's the level. Knowing that you're watching the best in the world.
Then again, I don't know. I've found myself getting into both the men's and the women's. And maybe if I was younger and didn't have decades of experience watching the men's, I'd feel differently.
Sue Bird was the guest on a great 60 Minutes interview when she talked about how men think they can beat her at 1:1, and she bluntly stated, "You can't."
I have no misgivings whatsoever that I could even come close, but growing up, I did have that feeling with women's tennis. Monica Seles and, to a greater extent, Serena Williams changed the game. I don't think any non-professional male watching at home is going, "I could take her." But I did think I could defeat Chris Evert, who plainly admitted her brother (who played college tennis) would beat her 6-0, 6-0. Could I? No. But I had the FEELING that I could. I had no such misconceptions about John McEnroe or Jimmy Connors.
What's the difference? Well, one's logical and one's emotional. That's what was so terrifying about the LA infernos in January. Fire is just so visceral. Every time we watch hurricanes on the news, I think there's a part of every dude, whether we surf or not, that goes, "I could take that wave." No, you couldn't. You'd lose, just like Sue Bird would probably beat you 21-0 in a game of 1:1. But NOBODY looks at fire and goes, "Yep, I could walk through that blazing inferno unscathed."
So, I return to my question: if you FEEL you could play on that court, does it ruin the game for you? It kinda does for me. But maybe we watch sports for different reasons. Is it the level or the tightness?
#NCAA #genderequity #ithinkicanbeatmiketyson
Updates
See
Future:
05/02: Comedy Town LA @ Lyric Hyperion (Los Angeles, CA)
05/08 & 05/09: Private Event (Tuscany, Italy)
05/17: TBD — message me (Chicago, IL)
05/18: ISKCON Temple Fundraiser (Chicago, IL)
06/01: Akshaya Patra (Boston, MA)
Past:
03/07: Rajiv Satyal’s Birthday Show (N. Hollywood, CA)
04/05: Diwaliben Trust Event (Los Angeles, CA)
Like
I'm in the midst of digitizing all of the Satyal Family's VHS tapes.
There are hundreds.
So far, this one's my favorite.
The juxtaposition has me in stitches.
I mean, we truly recorded everything.
The best part of it is this is NOT an April Fools' Day joke*.
Reality will always be funnier than fiction.
Like
Matt Jayson is with Rajiv Satyal at The Museum of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
Television Academy event for Abbott Elementary with the @funnyindian
Like
Our tenant Landyn Zane moved in a year ago and it's inspiring to see how hard he’s working on his career as a musician.
His door and my Mom's face each other: I don't think a 22-year-old farm boy from Iowa and a 76-year-old retired schoolteacher from Jalandhar ever expected to be neighbors in Los Angeles, California. (If this isn't a sitcom, what is?)
He's become a good friend to all of us, with Naveen walking over to give him a hug darn near every night. Maybe we all get along because his musical influences are almost all from the ‘70s and ‘80s.
Would love if you give his new record a listen; he just dropped it on Friday and it's doing well.
I think it's really solid. Here’s to it becoming a hit.
After all, I’m a huge supporter of the arts and of collecting rent.
Hey, my old roommate is Hasan Minhaj. Maybe Landyn becomes the next Harry Styles. Would be appropriate living with an Indian family. #HairyStyles
Listen on Spotify now! Watch the music video on YouTube now!
Ask
Name the 3 musicians who've sold 100 million+ records as part of a band AND solo.
Ask
Who's the 2nd best lead singer ever? My 2 favorite bands are The Beatles and Led Zeppelin. But EVERYONE is playing for second place. Watch.
Laugh
Since this is a FUNNY Indian Newsletter, I present here the 5 funny things that I saw, heard, wrote, or remembered for the last month... otherwise known as FIVE - Funny Indian's V Events. Enjoy.
Nothing funny happened this month.
Close
THANK YOU to all of you for your support. You are my true core of fans — I couldn't do this without you.
Love,
- Rajiv
Always interesting, RaJiv!