The 234 Apartment

On a humid July night , the Nuyorican Poets Caf é reeked of must and marijuana. An age-old music venue tucked away on a tree-lined street in New York’s Alphabet City, the small space was packed tightly with twentysomethings dressed in baggy pants and skate T-shirts, fanny packs slung across their torsos. They were gathered to see the night’s main act, Wiki, the rapper best known as one-third of the hip- hop crew Ratking . When Wiki emerged, all five feet seven of him, the crowd exploded. “Let’s get it,” he said, his grin exposing a wide gap on the top row of his teeth — the result of an unfortunate punch to the face that has become something of a trademark for the 23-year-old. And then he started rhyming: “ I like Sunday dinner lounging/Kids in the crib clowning/City park kids running through the fountains, man/I like the mountain.” Everything about Wiki is straight New York. Born Patrick Morales , he’s a half-Irish, half–Puerto Rican self-described mutt from the city’s Upper West Si...

We make no presumptions about why you’re seeking our help today: maybe you’re here because you accidentally followed Mike Pence on Twitter for a few minutes and you’re feeling unclean. Maybe your uncle Ralph shared a misspelled update on your Facebook wall last week warning about contamination at a fishing hole back home in Indiana and a couple of your friends liked it. Maybe you’re just feeling generally insecure about your life ever since you found out that the exposed brick in your new apartment wasn’t original to the building. Whatever the circumstances, you’re here because you’re an urban professional below forty with an income north of six figures and a STOP KEYSTONE XL bumper sticker on your rarely-used road bike, you’re insecure about your social status, and you want to remind your family, friend, and coworkers of your place in the world. With that in mind, may we humbly suggest that you use social media to share a short, wryly funny humor piece from a respected national...