Aziz Ansari Mows Central Park Lawn, Announces Comedy Tour
"Parks and Recreation" star Anziz Ansari was photographed mowing part of Central Park's massive lawn yesterday. He was participating in the annual gathering to get the park ready for spring.
Ansari was at the helm of a riding lawnmower on the 15-acre Sheep Meadow, along with several other volunteers. Central Park is opening all of its lawns and ballparks on Saturday; with the warm weather, huge crowds are expected. According to the Central Park website, the city's treasure draws in over 250,000 visitors per day.
Ansari is also hard at work preparing for his upcoming comedy tour, which comes on the heels of a new online special, "Dangerously Delicious." The special is available for $5 and already has over 1,200 "likes" on Ansari's Facebook page.
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He credited comic Louis C.K. for starting a new trend of online releases.
"Obviously, it was a tremendous success when [Louis C.K.] released it that way, and I started getting tweets and things saying, 'Can you release your stand-up special this way? I think it'd be great if you did it,'" Ansari told NPR's Terry Gross. "I thought, 'Well, if that really worked and people are really behind it, why try to fight that trend?'"
Louis "clearly hit a nerve with that release strategy. So I did it, and as soon as I did it, the overwhelming response was, 'I'm so glad you did it, too. I hope more comedians do this.'"
Ansari was relatively unknown until he got his start on HBO's "Flight of the Conchords." Now he headlines the NBC series "Parks and Recreation," playing Tom, who has dreams of becoming the next Russell Simmons or Sean "P. Diddy" Combs.
His new comedy tour will riff of events taking place in his peers' lives, namely marriage and parenthood.
"I see a lot of friends are kind of entering serious stages of their lives where they're getting married and having children, and I'm getting to the age where that stuff is expected of me. And it's all very terrifying to me. It still feels like it's so far away," Ansari explained.
The tour, entitled Buried Alive, will kick off in Orlando, and then move to New York. New shows have been added in several U.S. cities, showing the demand for Asari's comedy.
"Parks and Recreation" airs on NBC Thursday at 9:30 p.m. EST.
