Kalpen Modi Directly Involved in NEA Stumping : insignificant thoughts

Former actor and present White House associate director of public engagement Kalpen Modi was directly involved in planning the controversial conference call hosted by a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) flack to encourage …

Q & A With Kalpen Modi

You asked. He answered. JACL youth members asked about job duties and health care. He says his job at the White House is a ‘challenge, but a welcomed one.’

Kalpen Modi – JammieWearingFool | Digital form

Kalpen Modi – JammieWearingFool tinyurl.com News Results: Judicial Watch Obtains Documents Regarding NEA’s Controversial 8/10 Conference August 10, 2009, 10:29 am: Email from Kalpen Modi to Yosi Sergant: “Oy. This would be awesome to be …

Why Youre Searching for Kellie Pickler, Kalpen Modi,

and Gloria …

Wondering why’Chaz Bono Pictures,’ ‘Kalpen Modi,’ and ‘Kellie Pickler’ are surging in Google Trends? We can shed some light on the mystery. Google Trends provides the hottest keywords of the hour. Though the results.

Libertarian Republican: Kalpen Modi: Dude, you’re now like …

August 10, 2009, 10:23 am: Email from Yosi Sergant to Kalpen Modi: “[The call is] organized by me…I’d ask you to come on and give the exact spiel you gave on Saturday. Walk them through the WH Arts Policy. They won’t know it. …

Slant Eye For The Round Eye: Pacific Citizen’s Q & A With Kalpen …

Just wanted to post up a quick link to the Q & A With Kalpen Modi down at Pacific Citizen where JACL members asked about a typical day, his biggest challenge, the benefits of health care reform for APAs – and more. …

Kalpen Modi and Obama?

Kalpen Modi works as an associate director in the Office of Public Liaison, with a focus on connecting President Barack Obama with the Asian-American and Pacific Islander communities, as well as arts groups. …

Kalpen Modi in the White House?

Kalpen Modi was directly involved in planning the controversial conference call hosted by a National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) flack to encourage tax-supported artists to create propaganda for President Obama, according to emails …

Psychiatry prof McLellan, Kalpen Modi selected to join Obama …

McLellan’s appointment follows the announcement that actor and former adjunct professor in the Asian American Studies Department Kalpen Modi – screen name Kal Penn – will serve as associate director of the Office of Public Liaison. …

0Kalpen Suresh Modi (Gujarati: ?????? ????? ????, born April 23, 1977), best-known by his stage name Kal Penn, is an American film actor and politician who is serving as the Associate Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement in the Barack Obama administration.

1On April 8, 2009, it was announced that he would join the Obama White House as Associate Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement. This necessitated that his character Lawrence Kutner be written out of the TV series House.

2Prior to his political engagement, Modi taught at the University of Pennsylvania as an adjunct member in the Cinema Studies Program.

3Modi was born as Kalpen Suresh Modi in Montclair, New Jersey, to a father who worked as an engineer and a mother who worked as a fragrance evaluator for a perfume company. Both of his parents are Gujarati Hindu immigrants from India. He has stated that stories of his grandparents marching with Mohandas Gandhi for Indian independence were a significant influence on his interest in politics.

4He attended middle school at Marlboro Middle School in Marlboro, NJ and played baritone saxophone in the jazz band there. Modi attended The Fine and Performing Arts Academy (a magnet program) at Howell High School for freshman, sophomore, and junior years; he transferred to Freehold Township High School for senior year; both schools are part of the Freehold Regional High School District. He was active in the schools’ theater productions. He attended UCLA, where he double majored in film and sociology.

5Modi’s feature film debut came in 1998 in Express: Aisle to Glory. He has since appeared in American Desi, National Lampoon’s Van Wilder, Malibu’s Most Wanted, A Lot Like Love, Dude, Where’s the Party?, Love Don’t Cost a Thing, Superman Returns, National Lampoon’s Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj, Epic Movie, The Namesake, and the Harold and Kumar series, and an uncredited appearance in Deck the Halls. Penn was featured in the The Lonely Island’s rejected MTV comedy pilot for Awesometown.

6Modi says that he derived his acting name, Kal Penn, as a lark: “Almost as a joke to prove friends wrong, and half as an attempt to see if what I was told would work (that anglicized names appeal more to a white-dominated industry), I put ‘Kal Penn’ on my resume and photos.” His audition callbacks rose by 50 percent. Modi has stated that he prefers his birth name and uses “Kal Penn” only for professional purposes.

7In January 2007, Modi appeared in the first four episodes of the sixth season of 24 as Ahmed Amar, a teenage terrorist. Modi says he nearly turned down the role due to personal ethics, stating, “I have a huge political problem with the role. It was essentially accepting a form of racial profiling. I think it’s repulsive. But it was the first time I had a chance to blow stuff up and take a family hostage. As an actor, why shouldn’t I have that opportunity? Because I’m brown and I should be scared about the connection between media images and people’s thought processes?”

8Also in January 2007, he appeared in the spoof comedy Epic Movie as well as the television show Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. In May 2007, Modi received the Asian Excellence Award for Outstanding Actor for his performance in The Namesake.

9In fall 2007, Modi joined the cast of the Fox medical drama House as a fellowship applicant. E! reported that Penn had signed on as a regular on the show along with Olivia Wilde and Peter Jacobson and this was confirmed in the plot of the episode “Games”. Modi continued with the series through to the episode “Simple Explanation”, which aired April 6, 2009. He made an additional appearance as Kutner on the fifth season finale, “Both Sides Now”, that aired on May 11, 2009. However, due to his new job at the White House, Kal Modi could not be present for the filming of this episode. The clip of him saying “Too bad it wasn’t true” was taken from a previous filming.

10Modi was an advocate for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign in 2008 and a member of Obama’s National Arts Policy Committee. He appears in the Barack Obama video “S? Se Puede Cambiar” by Andres Useche and appeared with comedian George Lopez on January 18, 2009, at “We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial”.

11In early 2009, Modi was offered the position of Associate Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement in the Obama administration, which he accepted. This necessitated his character Lawrence Kutner being written out of the TV series House. In his new role with the Obama administration, Penn serves as a liaison with the Asian-American and Pacific Islander communities. He has gone back to using his birth name, Kalpen Modi.

13Modi was implicated in emails obatained by Judicial Watch on October 29th, 2009 for knowingly aiding and abetting in a government implicated propaganda campaign with Yosi Sergant, former NEA Communications director. These emails were discovered through FOIA inquiries, in an attempt to ascertain the depth of possible corruption within the NEA.

14Modi is a vegetarian and ate soy patties instead of hamburgers during the filming of Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle.

15In spring 2008, Modi served as a visiting lecturer in Asian American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He taught two courses, “Images of Asian Americans in the Media” and “Contemporary American Teen Films.”

16Modi is currently working on a graduate certificate in international security from Stanford University.

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