Welcome, dear readers, to a zone beyond comprehension, where you are so in my thrall that you don’t even realize you’re in my thrall, living in a type of thrall Truman Show as it were, going about your day in my thrall, doing your little tasks in my thrall, eating and sleeping in my thrall, brushing your teeth in my thrall. If you knew how in thrall you were to my specific charms and whims and desires you’d be beating at the walls of your clear thrall prison, attempting to break through the thrall reinforced plexiglass, stamping thrall license plates for thrall ramen packets at the thrall commissary. Receiving thrall letters from well-intentioned progressive thrall citizens in the outside thrall world. Developing a romance with a thrall reporter coming to check on conditions in the thrall prison. Meanwhile I see and control all, your thrall God. But what kind of God would allow such suffering? Thus begins your descent into thrall depression. Thrall part of my grand design.

I’m playing a game that’s totally opaque to you, and even me. This is chess on many dimensions. Chess that expands into a tesseract. Even I can’t keep up with the rules of this chess. In this one, the queen can travel through time to any other previous turn and fuck shit up in that older turn, affecting the future. So that’s the kind of game I’m playing against you. And I have to say: Chessmate. Because I think I just made the winning move. Any questions?

And don’t go thinking about any of this, or what it means. Just let the newsletter flow over you like warm water. Sink gently into its cosseting arms. Sleep, my child. Sleep.

Nabeel’s Footnote

thoughts?

I will now consume every one of these tabs, whether longform article or YouTube video, and come back with the best one.

I’ve just come back. It’s now 11:17 a.m. I’ve taken in so much. It’s so difficult to make a decision on what to share with you all. I guess the truth is that, after all of those longform articles, all of the deeply reported stories searching for some sort of moral center amidst the complexity of human frailty, I liked this YouTube video the most.

Happy Friday, y’all!

Ritam’s Footnote

Happy Friday :)

Oh wow—you came here with masochism in your heart. You want to know so badly about The Public Records Indian, a new theory being developed at Low Lift Ask Laboratories. You’re desperate for some ideas on how rising rents and descending pay for anything that’s not a stupid optimizer job has allowed craven Indian opportunist 26 year olds to colonize NYC cultural life through psyops like “Beli.” You can’t wait to hear about how the rise of TikTok has created a new Frankenstein-like phenomenon of genuinely hot Indian Gen Z folks, leaving millennials in the dust as the newly coiffed and K-skincared line up for Basement. You love it when we identify a subgroup, don’t you? You sick fuck. Well, guess what?

We are taking a stand.

No more derision—even when the Public Records Indian represents the worst of shallow, consumerist, thoughtless, clout-seeking, short-form-video-addled culture. Even then. We will not be derisive. We will not dismiss. We will love and cherish. We will hold in tenderness. We will bark like a dog at those who threaten. We will swaddle Public Records Indians in a small papoose and let them suckle at our teats until our nips chafe and turn red and raw with overuse.

Because we are wise and enlightened.

Life moves on. We get older. New people come in. They are always annoying, and the closer they are to younger versions of ourselves, albeit missing deep internalized racism and self-consciousness and shame, the more annoying they will be. We can see this, at Low Lift Ask. We invite the Public Records Indians in. We ask them about their day. We ask them about locking in and clocking out. We ask them about whether or not they “like their team” at work. We ask them about restaurants they like, and nod along as they reference “Spicy Moon” and “Mala Project.” We ask them about things they like to do, and nod along as they reference “day trips to Red Hook.” We ask them who their idols are, and nod along as they reference “Quiet Light.” These are the small ways we give back. This is our bailiwick in this world.

But what of criticism?

What of it??

Nabeel’s Footnote

Bro loves the word “bailiwick”

In the past 10 years, only two fictional characters have really broken through for the team here at Low Lift Ask.

One, obviously, is Aziz Ansari’s stirring, soulful creation, “Dev Shah.” “Dev Shah” whose dad’s name is “Ramesh” and is, of course, a Tamil Muslim. This makes so much sense. It makes all the sense in the world, so don’t think about it too much. Dev Shah is so curious why his dad, Ramesh—a Tamil Muslim named, again, Ramesh—doesn’t eat pork, and why he’s not allowed to (he being “Dev Shah,” a Muslim guy. Muslim guy named Dev.) And I felt SO seen onscreennnnnnnn. Dev Shah was really giving representation vibes lowkey. Aziz had me gagged in 2015, bro!

The latest has only come to us this week: Vishnu Mohammed, the protagonist of a searing new story from real guy “Jamir Nazir.” I would recommend you all read it. It’s giving authentic lived experience, and it’s also giving boots down the house—and maybe also, just maybe, giving me life?

We found these two duking it out in a parking lot

but convinced them to interview each other. Read on for an illuminating discussion about faith, literature, and art.

Wednesday, May 20, 9:30 AM, 2026, Trinidad and Tobago

Dev Shah: (Aziz Ansari voice) Wazzuuuuuuuuuuup

Vishnu Mohammed: Assalamu-alaikum, brother. Or should I say: Namaste?

Shah: Hm?

Mohammed: No, seriously—which one should I say?

Shah: Don’t know. Don’t really fw that stuff.

Mohammed: And peace be upon you as well, brother.

Shah: Can you shut up for a second? I’m going through my notes.

Mohammed: I don’t know why everyone thinks I’m AI-generated. You know, the novel that Slumdog Millionaire is based off of—the main character in that is named “Ram Mohammed Thomas.”

Shah: Type shit. Type shit.

Mohammed: Indians love doing this kind of thing. “Imagine a guy beholden to no one creed!” Etc. So everyone get off my fucking back.

Shah: Was thinking you could go through and explain some of these metaphors for me. Legit don’t know what you’re talking about—and for me to say that? I mean, I’m one of the most cultured guys alive, bro. I’m going to Four Horsemen. I’m doing such a hilarious bit about Whole Foods at Four Horsemen. My dad, Ramesh, is a Tamil Muslim, and I guess so am I, even though my name is Dev Shah. I went to Italy to like take a pasta class (?) I think. I’m fucking white women on the reg. So for me to not know what these metaphors in Granta are up to? You got some ‘splainin to do!

Mohammed: Why did you say ‘splainin like that? I have no frame of reference

‘Sun on galvanise is a cruel instrument. It beats until the roof talks back in a dry moan.’

Mohammed: This one is kind of a thing we say in Trinidad all the time. You’re basically talking about how the sun—on galvanise, of course, which we all know what that means, sun on galvanise—is beating the brakes off the roof’s back walls and so the roof is moaning in pleasure. Dry moan. The famous dry moan.

Shah: For sure.

‘African in the hips, Spanish in the cheekbone, East Indian in the hair when the rain kinked it, Carib in the way her gaze could bless and warn at once.’

Shah: Talk to me about this one, Vishnu. It seems like Zoongie is bad as hell.

Mohammed: Yup. Zoongie is my paramour, I think, in this story (didn’t actually read it), and basically this is just how horny I am thinking about her (in the close 3rd-person). Our whole thing is combining a bunch of different cultures into one person, right? Me and you? This is just me doing that but in a gross way.

Shah: A couple sentences before this, you (in the close third) said, “She had the kind of walking that made benches become men.” Speak on that.

M’ohammed: To be honest, Dev, I can’t really explain that one. You either get it or you don’t. Benches become men, I guess.

‘Big in the way of women who never apologise to furniture, she had a laugh that shook dust from joists and a voice that could soften to coax a child from a ledge.’

Mohammed: Ya, I don’t know.

Shah: You don’t know?

Mohammed: Not really.

‘Zoongie came; Zoongie always came.’

Shah: So talk to me about Zoongie again. Why is her name Zoongie.

Mohammed: I gotta go, brother. There’s brush (?) that needs “plising” (?). And pigeon peas. There’s a bunch of stuff about pigeon peas in there.

‘Sita returned it and felt as if she’d put down a pan she had no business carrying.’

Shah: Talk about the pan she had no business carrying. Talk about that.

Shah: Because the way I see it? Sometimes, there is a pan you got no business carrying. Like when I spent a whole episode going, “And you, father—what was your immigrant experience like?” That was a pan I had no business carrying. It was pretty great writing, if I do say so myself, to have everything be so explicitly asked. And the episode’s name was Parents. So you kind of had to figure out what we were going to be talking about based on just that word. But, yeah, not really a pan I had any business carrying.

Shah: Cool. Just thinking out loud here.

“‘People does change,’ he says. ‘But grove does remember.’”

Shah: Hmm.

Shah: Gonna sit on this one for a bit.

Ritam’s Footnote

She sun on my galvanise until I dry moan. Are we happy?

Striding through the wreckage, I cannot help but ask myself: What have I wrought?

What misdeeds have I done? What have I plundered and pillaged? How many have I killed? How many atrocities have I committed? Which homesteads have been laid to waste? Whose bodies did my sword cut through like a scythe? Who was the sorry recipient of my bloodthirsty marauder’s rage? Who saw the whites of my eyes before perishing feebly? Whose throat was slit by my cunning blade? Who saw a flash of white as I bared my teeth in intimidation? Who were the casualties of my various raised hackles and their attendant adrenaline-fueled psychological properties? Who died with the ghost of their last laugh etched on their face? Who tried to stand up to the onrushing hordes?

Erm, no, seriously though… 🤔 I lowkirk don’t remember… I don’t remember anything, really. (it’s revealed I’m a goldfish) :3 welp, time to eat more flakes!

Ritam’s Footnote

No… it’s NABEEL’S Footnote this week.

Oh, Sorry.

That’s ok! We all make mistakes.

Random ahh newsletter this week. This what we can expect from you going forward? Randomsauce type humor? Cringe as fuck. Bob Cheese type shit. Why not make fun of some kind of Indian guy or something?

What the hell? Who are you?

It’s just that your last le random newsletter lost Low Lift Ask 9 subscribers. Look at the graph.

You check those metrics? I don’t even look at them even one time, or even care at all. 😎 I’m awesome like that.

Nabeel’s Footnote

Local sports fanatic and media maven has launched a new venture called covering women’s sports in New York. Tap in or you’ll regret it!!!

Ritam (one of the authors of this very newsletter) is hosting a stupid show on 5/13 where a number of NYC’s top comedians will do improv based off of smells that are pumped into the audience, slowly asphyxiating everyone. Link for tickets here.

Something I do every morning is wake up and pray that somewhere, somehow, an Indian guy is having a kickass day. That’s the kind of generosity I lead with (despite what you all might think from reading this every week). And it can be whatever, too. It can be something as small as enjoying a tangy bowl of skyr, or something as mind-blowing as getting your shit rocked by a lovely lady. And I hope for this every day.

Somewhere, a monkey’s paw curled.

Last week, when I opened Substack’s proprietary CMS to see what Ritam had vomited out for our weekly irony slop (something about a caveman?), I was shocked to see that he had avoided the elephant in the room. Not really, of course—who is Ritam but one to shy away from big moments, to crumble when the lights are brightest? I guess the task falls to me now.

It makes me sad for you guys, though. I had actually spent the last couple of weeks finalizing the architecture of a massive, blistering essay, which I was set to have done for today. It was a probing, deeply incisive work of cultural commentary—a piece of writing that, somehow, was able to attend to every hot-button issue and ideology, and even prescribed solutions to modern American ills. I don’t know how I had pulled it off, but really, it was astonishing. It would’ve blown the hinges off Substack’s puny ceiling of discourse; you all would’ve learned something. For once.

And yet, now, I need to write about this fucking guy, all because Ritam chose not to. I need to go line by line through the lawsuit and the woman’s alleged advances, to decide whether or not the lady’s “cannons” and the guy’s supposed “Asian fish head wife” are indicative of some broader point about Indian masculinity.

I’ll need to address the guy claiming she said, “I own you, Brownie,” and “Birthday BJ for the brown boy? My little brown boy,” and decide if that’s something I would even get off to, which obviously I wouldn’t, because that’s so gross honestly, and it’s crazy someone would say that to another person, it’s so dehumanizing and disgusting, and it’s not something I would ever even think about doing (or even hearing, in the context of, like, it happening to someone like me), because it’s just so, so disrespectful, and once I decide if it is or not, I’ll get back to you guys.

And of course, because of Ritam, Low Lift Ask will need to take a serious, 6-month-long hiatus to fully metabolize the severity of this guy’s racial sex slave fantasy, in order to return with fleshed-out ideas about the painfully public, enduring humiliation ritual that is being Indian in America in 2026. All because Ritam didn’t have his finger on the pulse last week and we could’ve just gotten in and gotten out.

I’ve just gotten word that the guy might be Nepali.

It seems the guy might be Nepali.

And guys? It turns out the guy might be Nepali. Which means we don’t have to address. We can ignore. Nepali different vibe. Whole other thing going on. Not me, not us. I’m from Kerala, brother. Not my circus, not—maybe different analogy. Not my beach, not my sand castle. He’s got his own shit to deal with. Can’t even get into it. Lfg.

Ritam’ Footnote

I like being Indian! It’s one of my many facets. Not my whole identity. #healthyrelationship #withmyself

Hello! Me have much say to modern human. Society quite different from when me around and in me heyday. Me halcyon days behind me, but me still have opinions on state of modern world!

First off—me think there too many pronouns these days. For example, “I.” Why say “I” when “me” do trick?

Thank. Thank. Oh—and also, me think there too many letters in LGBTQIA! When me young… there no letters at all.

No, but seriously. Me worried about general society. Students in college campus not learning anything of REAL VALUE these days. They too busy taking classes in “agriculture” “irrigation” “record-keeping.” What happen knowing your roots… and berries?

Thank. Thank. You good audience tonight. Speaking of good, what happen to modern women these days? They tattooed baddie, eat hot chip and lie. When I young, women had no face and were collection of blob made of stone. What happen good old fashion blob?

Nah but you know who could get it? Lucy.

Lucy so bad when me done with her she bout be several hundred pieces of bone. Me want experience Lucy’s Great Rift Valley. Me want Lucy to Dink on my Inesh till I Amharic. Me saying “Addis Ababa” (location of Lucy skeleton) like “humana humana humana” over and over. Me crazy for this chick! What can me say? Me in love!

But me just humble iceman and she international celeb. It never work. Much like “Notting Hill” scenario. Run through caveman filter, and me come up with the idea of “Knotting Reeds” (to make basket). So maybe this “Knotting Reeds” scenario.

Nabeel’s Footnote

I’m in Burlington, Vermont. I don’t need to be reading all this

In honor of this incredible milestone—the famous milestone number, “ SIX ! ”—we have decided to allow you all to meet us in person.

Low Lift Ask will be hosting its first ever Meet and Greet, on May 15, at the following location! Tickets at the link here! We’re so excited to meet all our loyal subscribers.

We will be meeting, initially, at Jean’s in Cooper Square. A large congregation of you will scan your tickets and then have an incredible time at this vaunted clubstaurant. Martinis, buffalo chicken sliders, raclette wheel, ice luge, ample amounts of ketamine—you name it! We will provide.

At this point, you’ll be wondering: where are Ritam and Nabeel? And you would be correct in wondering that. You would be correct in wondering why two lads would host a meet and greet and not be there. Because we won’t be there at that point. We will be making ourselves scarce. We will be hidden, and you must find us.

At this point in the night, you all will have to assemble a makeshift democracy and elect a chosen representative.

Secret ballots, raised hands, whatever—someone will have to take charge. Once elected, this person shall lose any last trace of their identity. They will no longer have a name, nor kin, nor a bloodline from which they descend; they will be a wailing, freshly shorn, brand new babe. They no longer exist as they used to.

This person (presumably an Indian guy, given our audience demographics) will then need to find their way to the bathroom, where I will have placed an encrypted message. The message will be programmed to self-destruct within 10 minutes, and this feckless Indian guy will have to bring it back to the group. You will debate what to do, whether to send this guy to a fate potentially worse than death (meeting us in a private, secure location). Ultimately, the message will reveal itself to be a pair of car keys. The car will be parked outside.

Get in the fucking car.

Drive, bitch. Skeleton is permanently sutured onto passenger seat. Every time you look to check your blind spot he’s there. You have no other recourse. Once you press your foot on the gas pedal, a metal strap will emerge and lock your foot in place. No brakes. All you have to do is navigate.

At this point, it should be clear that no one at Jean’s will be meeting us (let alone s’ing and f’ing our D’s). Everyone probably snagged a ticket at the link above (re-linking here) just so they could S and F our D’s. It makes me sick. Please. I don’t just give this shit out for free. You have to work to S and F my D.

You’re also probably wondering, “Where am I navigating to?” Good question. Your iPhone will automatically hook up to CarPlay and have a pre-loaded address. It will the Angola Service Plaza on I-90. We have also swapped the license plate to be one of the following,

so you will be pursued the entire time. Not necessarily by authorities, but by the hoi polloi—they will see this shit and want to kill you with crossbows as their cars pull up beside you. Hopefully, they can’t line up the shot with precision and absolutely fucking dome you. Hopefully. Good luck avoiding them.

The Meet and Greet party will—now without an elected leader and thus rudderless—soon devolve into anarchy. There will be no one there to herd all you nasty, freaky fucks. I know what you are. I know you need to be sedated and tamped down in polite society. At this point, while the Nameless Man flies up 87 towards Buffalo, all while being pursued by well-meaning protestors who want to drive him off the edge, you will all devolve into unfettered chaos. No one will be there to reign you in. The DJ will be spinning ‘ORIGINAL NUTTAH’ by UK Apache on loop, ad infinitum. I’ve instructed the bouncers at Jean’s to lock the doors: no one else in, no one out. Either you all S and F each other, or no one makes it out alive. Your move, subscribers.

I will have replaced the rearview mirror on the AC/DC truck to be a mini-TV screen, which will be playing a compilation I made of Backstrom’s greatest moments—tentatively titled ‘Backshots from Backstrom.’

My hope is you will go insane. You will be forced to watch sardonic Rainn Wilson clips for four hours on a drive to Western NY, with no access to the brake pedal, and will thus lose your fucking mind. We want you broken when you reach Angola. We want you down bad…

In the women’s bathroom of the Angola, NY Service Plaza, rub the faucet closest to the door with your finger, and then start whispering in Parseltongue.

Descend down the gaping chasm that has now appeared behind you. Stop asking questions. When you reach the bottom, quivering and crying, unable to comprehend what we’ve put you through, you will arrive at two doors. One will be labeled, ‘Nabeel’; the other, of course, will be labeled, ‘The Other One.’

Both of us will be bound and gagged and snatched and serving face behind these doors. We will each be suffering from life-threatening illnesses, and our demise will be imminent. You don’t know it yet, but there’s a reason you were chosen. You are the medicine; you are our savior.

Remember: this is what’s at stake (video below). You have to choose one of us.

We are so thrilled and excited to be able to meet all our fans—see you all there!

Ritam’s Footnote

Buh? The hell did I just read? Yup — that’s it for me, I’m unsubscribing from Low Lift Ask. This newsletter has just gotten too out there.

Well, that’s how I feel about several news stories today. Here, let’s take a look.

Yessss. Yesssss!!!! Yessssssss!!!! The good guys stay winning 😎

Yes. Yesssss. Celebrating with a veritable popped cork right now. Chugging champagne about all this.

Mmmmmhmmmm. You tell ‘em!!! Yessss. Hitting this one with a hard “YAY.”

Oh my god this is so awesome I’m screamingcryingthrowingup.

No stop because I’m legit about to nut you guys, like for serious…

Buh? Who da hell is Ayo Edibiri??

Nabeel’s Footnote

Received this in the mail the other day:

On the surface, it makes sense. There’s a new way they’ve found that gets you to jammy eggs—jammy eggs, of course, being the destination. But given all we know about the NYT Cooking section, I actually think we could be dealing with something much more sinister here. A perversion of the highest order.

I believe they’re using jammy as a verb. “A new way to jammy eggs.” They’re giving us a new way to jammy eggs. And in this case? They want us all to jammy.

I know. I know, gang. Let it all out. It’ll take a while for us all to process.

#Emotional Vulnerability #SereneSpring #SexCrimeSummer #WithArmsWideOpen #InTooDeep #Genesis

[In the voice Samberg uses when he says, “If you didn’t know by now, I’m naming baseball teams”] If you didn’t know by now, we’re ranking the ten feelings.

5. Tfw you’re eating something sweet and drinking something sweet and then one cancels out the other so it’s like not sweet anymore

Lowkey one of the worst feelings. Fuck tastebuds, bro—and while we’re at it, FUCK the glossopharyngeal nerve, too!

4. Being snatched

They say nothing tastes as good as skinny feels. And brother? I have to agree. In the past few years, I have decided to power down my emotional repository and attendant social network, all in favor of hollowing out my nude form. I have become snatched. And for a while, being snatched was amazing. Being snatched made me the man I am today. I am constantly propositioned by sexpots and ditzy harlequins. But a curious thing happened—it all crumbled into dust, hot air, empty calories.

What about the pure joy of being alive, irrespective of the corporeal form? Is life only measured by aesthetics, external beauty? Is there nothing celebratory and joyous? Or is query naive?

3. Lust

Vile stuff. Y’all should never be feeling lust. Lust lowkey makes me feel dysregulated.

2. TFW Olo is acquiring Spendgo

I’ll be honest: one of my oldest friends posted this. It was around the time that Olo acquired Spendgo, I think? But he was right—it was huge news. Olo acquired Spendgo. Let that sink in.

1. Serving C*nt!

I’m of two minds here. Objectively, this would be funnier, and maybe make this entire enterprise marginally worth your time in some minuscule way, if I had typed out the word. You would have been offended—but be honest. You would have respected me a tiny bit more, I think.

On the other hand, I need a new job soon. Maybe it’s time we take this whole thing private, gang! Delete the archives!

Ritam’s Footnote

0. Watching this video and thinking about life

I had a thought earlier today, as in fifteen minutes ago, that’s based on an old email forward, or joke, or something. You’ve probably heard it: X years ago, we used to have Johnny Cash, Bob Hope, and Steve Jobs. Now they’re all dead and we have no cash, no hope, and no jobs. It’s kind of a meme language format thing, though a bit passé. Right, so earlier, I had a thought that remained unfinished along these lines:

A hundred years ago, we had Turkey in the Straw…

Whoa. Mind blowing. A hundred years ago, we had Turkey in the Straw, a rollicking American ballad to that most wattlèd bird that Ben Franklin did himself decree should be our national one.

If you don’t know the song, I beg of you, listen, and you will see that in fact, you do.

Anyway, so the thought about Turkey in the Straw sprung unbidden to mind. And as with all things that spring unbidden to mind, I did not dismiss it as a mere flight of fancy, I began to work it over like an amazing ball of dough, punching it into various configurations in order to see if it would form long glutinous strands of real humor. Let’s examine a few.

A hundred years ago, we had Turkey in the Straw, Strawberry in the Mouth (Roger Doyle ref???), Mouth something something.

Immediately too long. The connection between Turkey in the Straw and Strawberry in the Mouth is tenuous at best. It’s just a “Straw” / “in the” situation.

A hundred years ago, we had Turkey in the Straw, something, a third thing. Now, we have PAPER STRAWS,,,

No, this isn’t working. Paper straws are not a trenchant avenue for jokes anymore. We all know about paper straws and how much they fall apart when you’re tryna sip your awesome iced hojicha latte, steppin’ your way down Tompkins lookin’ like a fly guy.

A hundred years ago, we had Turkey in the Straw, A Bird in the Hand, and Two in the Bush! Now BUSH is bombing TURKEY with METAL BIRDS (planes)

Hmm, this would work if Bush had bombed Turkey in 2026…

A hundred years ago, we had Turkey in the Straw, Turkish March, and Turk from Scrubs. Now we have Straw (flaxen) hair, March Madness, and Scrubs Reboot.

Hmm, no, I think this one is bad for some reason.

A hundred years ago, we had Turkey in the Straw, Needle in a Haystack, and Christian Bale. Now we Bale on Hinge Dates, “Hey” “Stack” on Tinder (stack of baddies you say “hey” to), and say “this is the last Straw.”

I think I’m getting further from God on this one. It’s time to go back to the basics.

A hundred years ago,,, was 1926… Yeeup. Who still thought it was 1900? (whole class raises hands) yeah no because when I do years math I’m still calculating backwards from 2000 who else? (whole class claps)

Forgot to do the turkey in the straw thing.

A hundred years ago, we had Turkey in the Straw, Smirky On the Draw (when you draw your gun and smirk), and Sticky in the Craw! Now we have Turkiyë, Smirkyë, and Stickyë.

At what point is this actually mental illness?

A hundred years ago, we had Turkey in the Straw, Yakety Sax, and In The Hall of the Mountain King. Now we have an authoritarian Turkey, young people aren’t having sax, and #nokings.

Oh wow, I nailed it! Perfect joke.

Bonus Turkey in the Straw Content

Nabeel’s Footnote

I realized a year or two ago that we “publish” on the same schedule as Grub Street Diet, one of the few media properties I’ll still seek out on a Friday. As in, type in the URL, go to a site, etc. Wonder if people do that with us.

In the spirit of March Madness, and tying together that whole thing I just said about how violent it sounds when someone bricks a shot in college basketball—really tortured, convoluted intro (video above unrelated)—I have decided to catalog some of the best things you can hear when watching basketball. One of the worst things you can hear is when the commentators say the phrase “jestergooning.”

“It’s a make-or-miss league”

This is what someone like Vince Carter will say at halftime, usually to signal that, in basketball, the team that makes most of their shots, will, more often than not, win games, while the team that misses most of their shots will usually lose. That’s what they mean by “make-or-miss league”; if you haven’t pieced it together yet, it means that you can win a game by making shots, and lose it by missing them. In the aggregate, that means that if you make a lot of your shots, you can win a lot of your games, and then you’d be a good team, because you won a lot of your games (because you made a lot of your shots). Conversely—well, I don’t need to spell it out for you.

But I might as well anyway: if you miss a lot of your shots, statistically speaking, you will likely lose most of your games. Then, you would not be a very good team. I love when they say shit like this.

“Wisely pulls it back” when a pointguard, for some reason, decides not to engage with a fastbreak

This has long been a favorite of mine. Commentators love to say it’s wise when someone decides a fastbreak isn’t worth committing to, so they slow down and bring it back to the top of the three. Every time, the commentator will say it’s “wise”—even if, honestly, they probably would have scored or drawn a foul if they had just gone to the basket.

Hey…The only time I’m “Wisely Pulling It Back” is when..I Gotta Pee😂😂😂😂 (foreskin)!!!! - Nabeel Chollampat

“Bodies flying everywhere”

My friend Neal (real name Akash 🧐) reminded me of this classic. Just one of those ones you take for granted. I can hear Rece Davis or Mike Breen saying this right now in my head. Usually just what they reflexively say when people are diving for a loose ball.

Saying “gotta make him earn it” when a big man gets fouled

Enemy of the newsletter suggested this one—a great example of the kind of reflexive, machismo, “in-the-90s-Oakley-would’ve-decked-Steph” mentality we still must contend with. A big guy can’t just get an easy bucket. You Gotta Make Him Earn It At The Charity Stripe.

“Getting it done on both ends”

Submitted by recent 30-year-old (unc as fuck). It’s honestly sick when a guy is getting it done on both ends. Translation: he just stuffed a guy at the rim (😳😳😳) and then threw it down on the other end, and also he is getting it done on both ends (both holes being filled, no loads refused).

“Rewarding the big man”

Basically goes hand in hand with the above, but it’s when a big guy, whom you usually would not expect to run the length of the court (despite the fact that he’s a professional athlete), runs the length of the court after making a defensive stop, so then you “reward him” by passing him the ball to score or, even better, yam it in someone’s face. Love this one.

“Makes a business decision”

Edward M.D. suggested this one—it makes sense, because he spends his time writing prescriptions and propping up Big Pharma 🙄

This one seems to have taken off in the last five or six years: all it means is that a guy decided not get dunked on, instead moved out of the way, and in doing so, “made a business decision.” I don’t really follow the logic 100%, but they love saying it these days.

Dishonorable Mention: Anything from Mark Jones

I’m sorry, but I hate Mark Jones’ bullshit. Some people find it funny. I do not. I think it takes you out of the game, and it makes the presentation all about him, and not about the game. I imagine he has a cheat sheet on his person at all times. It is not spontaneous. He is a charlatan. Some of his worst, off the dome:

• “Like the fries are at the bottom of the bag”—hate this one so fucking much.

• “Hotter than fish grease”—fine, I guess. But still. One must wonder: why?

• “Put him in the friend zone”—come on, man. Come on.

• This one is the worst, honestly. The worst part of it all, probably, is that it was about Kevin Huerter, who is from Saratoga Springs and his Basketball Reference nickname is “K’Von”:

Honorable Mention: Mark Jackson Fade-Outs

Something we’ve lost in the cultural revolution: Mark Jackson, on ABC Sundays, confidently saying some shit while the broadcast plays a slo-mo replay and they go to commercial. “The core texts,” some of you would say. This was a master at work. “May I have this dance?”

Ritam’s Footnote

I love accessing various dashboards and analytics. That’s where I can see data streams that give me key, actionable insights. So when I logged onto the Substack Dashboard this morning, I was prepared to see a number—but the number I saw shocked me.

Nah because why am I smiling the widest possible grin rn? 😃

We did it. We have slipped the surly bonds of the vulgar and entered the pantheon of Substack sublime. We’re at the perfect number—one subscriber more and we enter sellout territory, washed hacks who pander pander pander1 to their slavish audiences, doling out buckets of Substack diaryslop and center-right rational looksmaxxing cope to be poured down the gullets and maws2 of an unsuspecting audience. One subscriber less and we’re irrelevant pretenders, down in the chasm with the heaving hordes of the Substack user base.

My happiness rests on one thing: nobody should subscribe or unsubscribe ever again.

Hold. The fucking. Line. Do not attempt to “reduce the clutter in your inbox.” Do not think “ah what the hell, guess I’ll give it a shot” on Recommendations from “” Do not click on “’s” “Note” about “A Beautiful Girl Named Canine Hip-Dysplasia.” Just stay the damn course, keep your ship sailing straight. Do not deviate.

Your rewards for following my instructions shall be thus:

1. Low Lift Ask will end. No more posts or emails in your inbox. Not one musing shall enter your sphere of consumption. No bad short story, no bad writing, no low effort. It will all be over. Just hold the damn line. If anyone subscribes or unsubscribes over the next week, we will be forced to continue this newsletter forever.

2. Indians will dominate the world stage. Self-explanatory. I know half of you are guys in the Bay Area named “Arun Mullapudi” who are desperate to go to “Luma” events where you bandy about “positive externalities of friendship” with someone named “Genevieve Yu” that you secretly have a huge crush on. If you hold the line, I will make sure you make it to the top of the social pecking order, where you will have your choice of mate.

3. You can have my comp ticket to see the second half of Project Hail Mary at BAM. File was corrupted when I went to go see it last night. Actually I kind of want to see the second half, even though it was rather corny. I just need to know: does Ryan Gosling (Dr. Ryland Grace) end up saving the sun? Or does he fail in his mission, doom the human race to extinction, and die? So I’ll probably end up keeping that ticket. Sorry about that one. You can read the Andy Weir Wikia if you want to really know about all that stuff.

Nabeel’s Footnote

That being said, if 101 of you decide to subscribe all at the exact moment, subsequently getting us to 1,000, I will take you all out for a large seafood platter. A huge seafood platter.

It would be kind of like if Jacques Pepin, or Martin Yan—or even Lidia Bastianich—hoarded their collective knowledge of cooking instead of widely disseminating it to the masses through public-access television. That’s what it would be like if I held all this knowledge for myself. For real.

Something that everyone should know is that the first line is lowkey the most important one.

Think about the one I just started with:

“Yo I just realized something.” - Nabeel Chollampat, 2026

In reading that, you probably sat up straight: wait, what did he realize? And is he about to tell me? That’s honestly the power of a fire ass first line. It makes you ask questions and potentially answer them for yourself. That’s the kind of stuff you can’t teach.

Gordon Lish once called it “the consecution and the swerve”—that’s when I keep doing one thing and then one day decide to do a different thing.

Check this out:

Another thing that’s important to learn is that most readers—including you guys—are so fucking stupid. You guys couldn’t even catch on to the fact that I was legit doing the same thing every first line; no one even pointed it out to me via email, Substack DM, or at a crowded bar when I saw them last. It honestly made me laugh, because it was so easy to pull one over on you guys. It made me laugh.

Now, on a day like today, when I switch “thought of” to “realized,” everyone will go crazy.

It’s the easiest trick in the book. And it’s something I recommend you all take home and study.

You can also do stuff where you make the first line hella long and full of #Random stuff.

A cool thing people do now is have a first line of a short story that kind of throws the kitchen sink at you. Some shit like: “It was only mid-blowjob that I realized I left my stepmom’s bong at the abortion clinic.”

“It was only mid-blowjob that I realized I left my stepmom’s bong at the abortion clinic.” - Nabeel Chollampat, 2026

It’s like, the first thing you snag on is, wait, what? This mf is realizing something mid-blowjob?? 😂 He’s thinking about something else halfway down the shaft??? 😂 Who IS this guy?

And then after that you’re like—bro. His STEPMOM’S BONG??????? LMFAO. 😂😂😂 At this point, you’re all in. It’s like: WHO is the type of guy who, halfway through sucking someone off, start’s thinking about their stepmom😂😂—and a stepmom who, at the very least, SMOKES GREEN??!

And I don’t even need to get into that last part. Because at this point, my first line has already done its job. The fact that this mf’s stepmom’s bong—which, honestly, is so fucking insane and random in the first place—is sitting at the abortion clinic??? of all places, is enough to get you to keep reading.

And I just came up with that on the spot.

Most first lines should have an implied, “You’re probably wondering how I get here” framing device. That is lowkey the only thing that makes sense, storytelling-wise.

Because once you start with the most #Random shit you can think of, then you kind of work backwards to figure out how the guy ended up leaving his stepmom’s bong (it’s still making me laugh 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂—like, what????) at the abortion clinic and only realizing it while he’s tonsils deep.

“That’s really the secret to all writing and storytelling—starting at the end and then making someone go, ‘Wait, how did they get there?’” - Nabeel Chollampat, 2026

My Top 10 Movies of 2025

1. Eddington

2. The Secret Agent

3. Marty Supreme

4. One Battle After Another

5. The Mastermind

6. Friendship

7. 28 Years Later

8. The Naked Gun

9. Relay

10. Weapons

Another classic writing move—sneak something in that might have been a better idea as a stand-alone post, and it probably would’ve gotten you more engagement on this fuckass platform, but you got bored of it.

I have a bone to pick with the people who run this leaky ship we call “Substack.”

My headline was literally designed in a lab to mega-platinum on “Notes.” You’re telling me people gave Ritam more likes? Simply because he “promoted it?” And made sure to keep “putting it in front of people”? And because he uses the “Notes” feature “like you’re supposed to?”

I honestly don’t know what else I can do here. I need to start doing weird sex diaries with a “TW” subtitle.

I hate writing. I hate this stupid App. Fk you all!!

I’ve decided to #Gatekeep the rest of my knowledge. Have fun writing your shitty Substacks with awful first lines……

Ritam’s Footnote

Nah I ain’t reading all that 😂 thought this was supposed to be a LOW LIFT ASK

Pleasure always means not to think about anything, to forget suffering even where it is shown. Basically it is helplessness. It is flight; not, as is asserted, flight from a wretched reality, but from the last remaining thought of resistance.

-Theodor W. Adorno

We are living in a miasma. We are steeping in reedy, murky waters. Everything swirls. There is silt. There is muck. Our toes are always touching little gooey spots. There is suction involved. It’s hard to know what is real and what is just eddying into and out of existence very quickly. Paying attention to the firehose feels futile; not paying attention feels irresponsible.

There are many theories for what is happening. We are in a Polycrisis. We are in the Permaweird. We are Retvrning to Orality. Tech is eating the world. Capital has reached its end state. We are already being controlled by a superintelligent AI.

But what if all these theories are wrong? What if there is actually one, amazing theory that could handily explain everything, put it into perspective, and finally integrate it into our minds so that we could just go about our day?

Well, I just may have come to it.

What if, and hear me out:

What if everything is just really stupid?

No, seriously. Not cope. Just—what if the operating principle for stuff is that it’s really all just very stupid? Let’s look at some examples. I’ll deploy some interlocutors to discuss.

Interlocutor A: Hello. Trump just bombed Iran.

Interlocutor B: Why?

A: Some people say it’s to avoid scrutiny over the Epstein stuff, force it out of the news cycle.

B: Seems stupid.

A: Yes, it is.

B: And what of Claude Code?

A: Software engineers, including a fellow named Ritam, are using it to replace themselves.

B: Feels stupid. And I am hearing correctly that some of them think it will eventually become an intelligent type being that will destroy humanity?

A: Yes, a lot of them think that. Maybe that argument has some merit, or maybe it doesn’t. People can bet on it using Polymarket.

B: Wouldn’t that incentivize some people to try and make it happen, thereby Big Shorting humanity itself?

A: Yes; rather stupid IMO.

Wait, hold on, you might be saying at this point. Here, I’ll deploy an interlocutor for you too.

Interlocutor C: You’re strawmanning. Or you’re—whatever the term is for making your opponents seem like they don’t know what they’re doing. Trump bombed Iran because it was strategically a good time, with the protests and such. And the AI race is being pursued to the fullest because we don’t want China to beat us.

A: What kind of threat does China pose to us?

C: Well, they might capture Taiwan, and TSMC’s productive capabilities. Then we wouldn’t be able to—

B: Yes?

C: Well, produce and deploy new chips.

A: For what?

C: AI, I guess.

A: And did I hear right that we’re building tons and tons of new hyperscale AI data centers?

C: Yes.

B: And they’re making electricity more expensive? And hypothetically, if the big AI monster that some people think might happen does come to pass, it could probably stitch the capabilities of those data centers together, so we’re really just building like, Godzilla’s skeleton, and we’re also fighting our cold war with China just to preserve our ability to synthesize Godzilla blood, keeping with the Godzilla metaphor??

C: Yes, it does seem rather stupid.

B: No, I know—and I went to Interlocutor State.

A: You went to Interlocutor State? Lucky. That was my dream school.

B: Well, I ended up with a lot of college debt, so it wasn’t all it was chalked up to be. But I did take advantage of a lot of the awesome resources. Like, we had this sick system called InPrint, and you could print to any printer on campus from anywhere.

A: Wow. Shit. Damn, we didn’t have that at my college: Interlocutor University at St. Louis.

B: No, but I hear your program on dialectics is really good.

A: No, yeah, it’s fine. Dialectics was actually my major. Some of the higher level classes were cool. Like, DLCT302: Containing One’s Own Negation was a really good class, and also it was really bad, somehow.

C: Ugh, Americans are so obsessed with where they went to college.

A: Wow, you’re not American? I couldn’t have told by your accent.

C: Oh yeah, I’m actually a third culture kid. UWC Singapore FTW!

B: No because I literally have a cousin who went there. Wait, do you know Siddharth Ramakrishnan?

C: Which one? We had seven.

B: Siddharth Ramakrishnan who has a big unibrow, a fugly little top lip mustache, dresses like shit, and stinks of curry all the time. He’s a huge nerd.

C: Which one? We had seven.

A: Okay, your internalized racism is showing!!!

B: Kinda feel like wee voibin. Wanna get out of here and get a drink?

A: Wait, I don’t want to get a drink.

C: Nahhh I know bro’s not about to hit us with the—

A: I want to get MANY drinks!!!!

B: 😂

C: 😂

A: 😂

B: I love you guys.

A: What should we call ourselves?

C: Did you just say “What, should we call ourselves?” Did you lose your phone or something?

A: Okay, the riffs are fucking hitting right now. I am wheezing with laughter. I am doubled over. God, I love being alive.

Nabeel’s Footnote

Using Substack’s new in-app Polymarket integration (#ConflictsOfInterest), I can now do annoying things like this:

I can’t wait—and I know you all can’t, either—to see what I come up with.

Last week, I was listening to a podcast, and came across this clip. It stopped me dead in my snowy tracks—the frank truth, the clarifying honesty and rigor with which all of these ideas are said, plainly and out loud. It almost brought me to my knees. Take a listen for yourself:

Wow. What else even needs to be said?

Ritam’s Footnote

Erm, far be it from me to wade into the murky, brackish waters of discourse, but—ow. Just got bit by a mosquito. Oh god, they’re breeding in this still, viscous water. Ow. Ow. They keep biting! Ow!

…………….zzzzzZZZZZZZ🦟ZZZZZZzzzzz………..

Nabeel’s Footnote

I’ve decided to go see ‘Wuthering Heights.’

The marketing for this movie has promised us that, rest assured, this movie will be horny.

I can’t wait to what viscous, creamy fluids Fennell has injected all over her precious film this time. I have been promised copious amounts of oozing, things bursting at the seams, various meniscii forming as a liquid, via surface tension, reaches its upper limit—and there better be discharge.

In preparation, though, I must take defensive measures. Such a horny film requires that I be vigilant, lest I soil my Gap ‘90s Loose Fit jeans and make a fool of myself in the reclining seats. Here’s how I’ll be preparing myself to see this, apparently, soft-core porno in theaters this weekend. I advise you all to do the same.

First, I’ll be fortifying my pants stack.

What I’ve decided for this outing: I will wear the skinniest jeans possible, but underneath, the loosest boxers one can buy.

This combo will feel incredible. The rough interplay between superfluous cloth and unyielding denim will produce a friction the likes of which my poor thighs have never felt before. It will distract me. This way, I’m assuming, I will feel free and unencumbered at the base layer, but ensconced by a sheer, impenetrable fortress to the outside elements. This combination, I hope, will protect me, should something unfortunate happen in the course of watching Margot Robbie jam her fingers in an enriched dough.

Next, I’ll avoid eye contact with any women 24 hours both before and after the film.

Ramadan is on the horizon, and this will be just the practice I need to get my mind right. For years, I was taught to “lower my gaze.” I was built for this. Emerald Fennell can play all her dirty little games, but I’ve got my eye on the ball. I refuse to be titillated. I will not fall prey to her sordid sexual machinery!

A day or two later, I’ll send an email to Warner Bros. detailing where I’m at, hormone-wise.

During the runtime, I’ll be wearing by Whoop! fitness tracker, to track—among other things—my elevated heart rate, hormone levels, cortisol spikes, and general oxygen blood flow. I’ll keep a detailed log of my physiological responses to Fennell’s shocking, transgressive imagery, like a dangling bead of spit or a finger inside of a fish’s mouth. Especially that last one. I’ve literally never even imagined a finger could go inside of a fish, let alone its mouth. The deviant who can conjure such images in their mind must be, at the very least, a nasty little freak. Imagine that. Finger in fish.

Anyway, this email will provide all of my sensitive personal information. It will signal to them that, yes, the film elicited the physical reactions they desired—a nut, a scream, an immediate sob—but I have ample #receipts, as the kids say, to fight them in court. If something happens where someone makes fun of me in the theaters—like, let’s imagine, a group of teens record my visceral shudders and moans (which can be quite jarring, I’ll admit), and then let’s say they post it IG Reels and cook my ass, labeling me #TheWutheringNutter, and then proceed to dismantle my personal life brick by brick—if that happens, I will be very litigious.

Warner Bros. and Emerald? Fennell? Those screams you heard in the theater? Yeah. That won’t be the last of me you hear. It’ll be. It’ll be your screams. You’ll be the ones screaming. And it won’t be from pleasure. Like mine were. Mine were—yeah, they were of a different kind, I guess. But they won’t be the last ones. That you experience—not hear, but experience. Because you’ll be doing the screaming. Because of my lawsuit.

See you at the damn movies.

Ritam’s Footnote

Wuther the wuther be heights, or wuther the wuther be nut…

It’s fine, it totally is, but I realized somewhere along the line that I’ve become VERY unfunny, quite recently. My mind, burdened by everyday chores, tasks, anxieties, has shed its constricting humorous layer in an attempt to lock in so hard that I instantly become undeniable in all industries, a perfect multihyphenate.

Here are some ways I’ve become unfunny:

I actually almost wrote this newsletter as a joke apology for our emails with Jeffrey Epstein

I was gonna post all these fake emails with Epstein, saying that he was a fan of the Stack, and apologize for emailing with him.

But here’s the thing: Jeffrey Epstein humor is key to the domain of being totally unfunny. Aside from the horrifying nature of his crimes and gruesome nature of his death, it’s just a meme. And memes are not funny. Being funny is about being a clever and witty boy, poised at all times with a rapier wit, making jokes sans tired quippy forms.

I saw this guide to pressing tofu and didn’t go “Ah yes, The Four Bases”

I’m thinking about “AI” too much

I lowkirk believe thinking too much about AI is the funny killer. No one deeply involved in the world of AI, sadly, is funny. Nor any of the EA people, or the rationalists. There’s a particular type of nerd humor they like, but it’s more just ingroup signaling than an actual attempt to surprise and delight those around them. Myopic obsessiveness, by design, bends away from the self-awareness and observational capabilities and distance necessary for proper yuk-em-ups.

I am a bitter, washed up old man

Nah. Jus playin. I’m 30!

I never queef anymore!

Yuup. Self-explanatory.

I’m tired of this

Okay, just end it then? Why not just not send a newsletter? Or admit you ran out of ideas?

Nabeel’s Footnote

“Become” 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

The NFL is finally catching up to Low Lift Ask’s remarkable trend forecasting and general ability to keep our fat, stubby fingers firmly on the damn pulse. In other news…THE SKY IS BLUE😤😤😤😤!!!!!!!!!!

I have long said that the one thing the NFL has been desperately in need of is a Chief Kindness Officer, and it’s been five years since we located Dhar Mann as the future of culture. In the interim, the GOAT has been steadily delivering the goods at a nice clip.

Fuck that fucking teacher!!!! FUck u!

Tfw girls can’t speak but they “destory” their own homes…It’s sad, honestly.

Damn, he made one about Ritam!

This victory lap has me thinking: which other current creators can I lay claim to—and, in effect, own as a cultural product by way of claiming their successes as something I predicted and should be applauded for—to set them on the right path to dominion?

Who else wants to be blessed by the Golden Hand of Low Lift Ask?

It seems we have a skill here, for identifying the worst, most culturally poisonous people on the planet and then doing nothing but pointing it out a few years ahead of time. That’s monetizable. That’s bank, baby. Our fingers are easily transferrable from the pulse to the scale. So check out these guys if you get a chance:

Other Indian lifestyle content creators

A big part of this concrete act of largesse is to identify the vanguard of Indian guys online. These are the guys who are pushing boundaries, setting new standards, beckoning us to follow on their bold new paths. What those boundaries, standards, and paths are? I will not say. I will not make a value judgment. I will leave that up to the reader. I’m just saying. I’m literally just pointing them out. I’m keeping my mouth shut.

James Ellroy

I predict an Ellroy-assaince. Not for any particular reason—I like a few of his books a lot—but mostly because he has one the craziest White Boy Wikipedias of all time.

Need to start moving like this fr!

Girl on my flight who was doing this

The other day, on my flight from Chicago to Syracuse, I sat next to a girl who had the flight tracker on the screen + FlightAware open on her iPad. Respect. I would not be surprised should she go on to achieve massive success and amass a fortune.

That one Lil Bald Homie who moves in silence

This is my man from J. Crew at Stanford Shopping Center. On first sight, I could see the vision—we linked and built for hours. Don’t know what he’s got up his sleeve next, but I would bet the house on Tha Lil Bald Homie. Tha Lil Bald Homie is top 2—and he ain’t number 2…

Big Water Jet

Last week, I was in Geneva for roughly 24 hours. I then was put through hell—just one more chapter in the long novel of Nabeel’s International Travel Disasters. I didn’t really have anything funny to say about those this week. Instead, let’s focus on this big-ass jet of water.

No one knows why they have this in Geneva (I didn’t really look it up). It seems like the Genevois collectively agreed it was hella cool to have a massive, high-pressured jet of water for no reason spraying everyone within 50 feet. I agree. Imagine the use cases: a tool to put out the world’s most raging, vicious fires…a bidet for the world’s largest man…a showerhead for the world’s largest man…an prostate stimulant (going off the bidet thing) for a slightly less large man, maybe a normal-sized man, just imagine how it would feel…😳

Keep a close eye on Big Water Jet.

At the end of the day, all of these creators are subject to the capricious whims of the market. We cannot predict where things will go. All we can do is tap them on the shoulder, give them an approving look, and set them forth on their journeys. With the Low Lift Ask bump, anything should be possible. One must simply walk straight in the direction we tell you to, past the flotsam and jetsam of creators past. “Flotsam and jetsam.” That’s a nice one. I like those. “Flotsam and jetsam.” “Warp and weft.” “Hem and haw.” Any other ones? Sound off in the comments.

Ritam’s Footnote

(guy dying in a ditch with no one who loves him voice) Well, I knew about this thing that I actually hate first, so