A vigorous discussion with my cousin about body hair on women and on the men’s swim team at his college.

My cousin and I began speaking about body hair on women. I went to a very liberal arts boarding school and had a girlfriend with both arm and leg hair. We spoke about women having had armpit and hair leg hair. My cousin discussed that he found it bizarre or arbitrary when a woman would have armpit hair but would shave her legs. Stating that “This seemed like an arbitrary line to draw”.

 Lots of women at his college did this.  While this was true, in my experience as well, to me, this line was not so arbitrary.

Armpit hair is less prominent and visible a good amount of the time. I would put it on different tiers of visibility and sacrifice.  I also think women tend to like smooth legs more than smooth armpits but this is beside the point. In the end, the stance to remove body hair is rooted in not allowing a societal norm to dictate your beauty level or what your grooming routine is to look like. I equated this situation with Muslims or members of other religions that must obtain from eating pork.

Many Muslims I know do not eat pork but drink alcohol. 

The reason being, pork is much easier to give up than drinking. In fact, oftentimes not eating pork is the sole thing a Muslim person does “by the book”.  There are many people who don’t pray, go to the mosque, yada yada all the things that I can definitely list by heart… but do not eat pork. It is kind of the one remaining thing they do.

So while hairy legs may have not been as popular as hairy armpits on the Swarthmore campus, this may have to do with the degree to which women enjoyed their own legs to be smooth, the perceived visibility or frequency that hairy legs would come up versus hairy armpits.

The other thing that I noted was that: the presence of hairy legs or armpits didn’t mean the individual couldn’t choose to shave, when they wanted, even for aesthetic reasons. The problem lies in the imposed upkeep as the universal standard norm regardless of particular body hair presence.

This segway-ed nicely into the more heated components of our discussion. 

When we discussed the men’s swim team. A division 3 team (least competitive division in college sports).  My cousin argued that it was ridiculous that  they shaved all of their body hair to shave a paltry .3 seconds off of their time while continuing to drink and party all through college nights

This got into a bit of a philosophical debate.

My cousin called this hypocritical. I understood this stance. Fully. I get it. However I  did not find it to be hypocritical, rather a demonstration of 1)a  lack of sacrifice 2) non-optimization 3) a different degree of priorities 4)  OR ability to execute on their priorities.

1. They didn’t have what it took to not party 2. They didn’t care about swimming enough to not party. 3. They valued partying over not but still valued enhanced swim times over body hair 4) They wanted to be excellent and just couldn’t keep from drinking.  This is an essential number one repeated again.

It’s easier to give up body hair over partying similar to pork being easier to give up than drinking alcohol.

His argument was, do not shave yourself to make your swim times better if you are drinking and smoking. I get it. I really do.  While we both fundamentally agreed that being up all night and partying was a horrible thing to do as an athlete for your performance.

 We differed on the rest. I believed that if you were going to do damage to your peak potential through partying, you should not ALSO leave your body hair create more friction, and slow down your time.

My cousin, however, argued that you should just double down on the negative facets. When asked “what would you do as a swimmer,” he said, He’d stay up all night and party and not shave his body hair, and just lube up for races.

To me, this struck me as two negatives instead of attempting to neutralize with a positive. Which I understand because I’m an all-or-nothing person to a degree. But my strategy on this particular issue is the following.

Even if the partying added .4 seconds to someone’s theoretical race time and shaving only eliminated .3 seconds off… why would you not try to mitigate the impacts of the damage you’d done to your “peak potential” through shaving.

I then discussed how partying is a big part of college and humans in general drink and do drugs for a plethora of reasons. 

 This gets away from swimming and more philosophical but I think its important to trace why it may not be hypocrisy but something else

These are to lower inhibitions, access mindsets unavailable to them through sobriety, self-medicate (misguided or not), or just to cope with pain. This is not to justify the use of anything or to pass judgment. But there is a reason other college kids do it, and it’s appealing to college kids who swim competitively as well.

My argument was, whatever benefit there is to those activities, has some value to the swimmer. This value and the level of their commitment to competitive swimming meant that they weren’t willing to sacrifice partying. Had they been “Jordan-esque” in their commitment and drive towards swimming, They would have NOT partied AND shaved their body hair. 

However, as it stands, they partied because it was worth it and decided that keeping their body hair was not worth it. 

 I am now thinking that this may even have played a role in their identities as swimmers, aesthetically.

I’d have agreed more with my cousin had he said, they shouldn’t party AND should shave their hair. 

Instead, I believe he revealed a disproportionate value placed upon the male retaining their body hair. Which is consistent with the first stance of females and their body hair. It seems arbitrary but there is a different tier of trade-offs and statements. 

women choices in this instance

For the woman, you have hairy legs AND armpits or just one, or neither.

in the swimming example

You’re a straight edge swimmer who doesn’t party. Or you drink a little but are pretty smooth. 

I for one am all or nothing and moderation is my weakness. So I fundamentally believe that it makes more sense to  NOT PARTY and to SHAVE. 

I would still shave if I partied though. But I also understand the stance I’ll keep my body hair AND party because it’s not that serious, and this isn’t the Olympics. 

My cousin spoke about how they weren’t Olympic swimmers and it wasn’t that serious, just Division 3. 

I then brought up my seemingly radical but the fringe of society diet. 

I eat an all raw diet for hydration reasons. I believe you shouldn’t consume foods that have a water content below 70%. This is our make-up. I also smoke weed profusely which is a very dehydrating and damaging act. It is antithetical to many of my beliefs and philosophies and absolutely undermines many components of what I do and seek to do.

However, the emotional pain I experience living in my head, coupled with the social isolation of this year and a plethora of other factors, make it something that I’ve has chosen to do.

Now, very important. this is not a justification for my smoking. I am wrong and it dehydrates me and is against my interests. HOWEVER, I do not think that eating a more dehydrating diet or adding big macs to my life would then be in order since I already smoke. I do however feel that quitting smoking (which is my plan!) would help me optimize the benefits of my hydrating diet. I also insist that as a current weed smoker, my diet helps me substantially with so many things. Undermining does not mean the total negation of progress and benefits.

As of now, the sacrifice (and resulting benefit) and the vice are working against each other. For me, I’ve found much pleasure in certain kinds of sacrifices. This vice, while damaging, has not been exceeded by perceived value. 

I’m now bringing Floyd Mayweather into the mix., I mentioned him during our discussion as an example of dedication to a sport that included forgoing drinking.

He does not drink alcohol and only drinks water. He is immensely disciplined. I brought this up to provide a supporting argument for my cousin’s stance.  

I agree elite athletes should not drink alcohol or party. If their goals are to win and dominate, they should eliminate every obstacle and hindrance. Drugs and alcohol are clear-cut deal breakers for elite athletes. They must be used in extreme moderation or never. 

But I believe there is a whole spectrum of people who aren’t trying to optimize and aren’t capable. I view Conor Mcgregor as an individual with some exceptional talents who is limiting himself substantially because of how he partakes in whiskey and the other distractions wealth and fame have brought.

We have seen him just this past weekend have low cardio and look tremendously out of shape. Khabib, a meticulous and disciplined legend, has previous called him out for drinking too much and warned of the athletic demise such choices often lead to.

Conor has made a lot of money off his whiskey company but it surely brought with it a plethora of alcoholic and financial distractions that weren’t great for his UFC career. If he values his legacy over his wealth, this is a bad move. If he values the money above the fighting, then he’s doing just fine.

In closing, and back to the swimmers, My cousin said that this was not the way the swimmers thought of it and that I’d put far more thought into it than these swimmers. 

I disagreed, stating that their decision to party and to also shave their body hair alone, said it all. While they may not have broken it down into these points intellectually, their actions show these priorities. 

He thought my view on this was stupid and convoluted and that I gave too much credit to the swimmers. My view was that I wasn’t giving credit to the swimmers. I agreed that strategically they are undermining their efforts. I just think there are a different set of values and trade-offs at play and thought I was looking at the matter more holistically. If I looked at it from merely a strategic place, they undermined their efforts and didn’t optimize full stop,

He disagreed, saying it was merely a matter of tradition, passed down, and that they’d not thought about it because they just did it like those before them. 

My stance is that they must have still thought about it and it’s a reflection of their dedication and identities as swimmers, and seen as a measure they take that improves performance, symbolic and slight as it may be, that goes against the grain of traditional masculine American aesthetic expectations.

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I’d like to write about body hair and the implications of gender roles and how it plays into race and even class! Super interesting stuff that has impacted my life in a number of ways!

A post about a favorite job.

One of my favorite jobs I’ve had in my whole life was when I was a delivery person. I’ve been a delivery “guy” a few times in different capacities. I have driven for Dominoes Pizza, Franklin Lakes Pizza, Broadway Pizza. These are the sacred trifecta of my pizza delivery employment history. Or as it says on my resume, a vehicular transportation and logistics coordinator of internationally renown culinary sustenance. Certified and licensed as a nationally recognized non-provisional heavy-machine operator.

I always enjoyed my ability to be on my own schedule (aside from when the orders came in).

The option to control my environment and being able to listen to whatever media pleased me made this an enticing entry-level job. This however is not my favorite job I speak of. This was also a delivery job but one that wasn’t a typical vehicular pizza delivery service. This job would involve delivering juices but on foot, walking!

I worked for a very bougie and elitist juice store. They served only raw foods and advertised themselves as being 100% plant-based, gluten-free, and all the fancy expensive trend words. Juices ranged from 7 dollars to 15. The juice store had several brick and mortar locations in Manhattan, this one was in the fashion district. It was a grab-and-go brick-and-mortar location that utilized a now dominant food delivery app called Seamless.

Seamless let customers order food on their phones. I worked in the brick-and-mortar store, but off to the side, where I’d be able to watch TV (a major life passion of mine, quality only though) until I heard a robotic voice announce. “ New seamless order” This would be my cue to grab the order from the printer, and then assemble the bag with different juices, smoothies., salads, and whatever else was in the order.

Then came the great part. I got to walk all through Manhattan listening to whatever I wanted on my phone. I got to see amazing buildings architecturally and learned many of the nooks and crannies of my Chelsea delivery radius. This gave me the time to explore and exercise to an unprecedented degree. There were many days where I would walk 12 miles. It is rare to have an integrated paid situation where you are able to walk for 12 miles a day. When I was doing so, I was extremely fit and still trace this period of intense walking as a vital component of a leveling up of my resilience.

This job went through the winter which is when the job had the potential to become brutal. however, I had lately ventured into the all-encompassing consumer category of “REI-ish winter gear”. For those of you unfamiliar, this is like camping, wintery, warm, “gear” type stuff. Like real obnoxious stuff. But tactical, efficient, and designed with specs to satisfy those with demanding needs and neurotic mental make-up. Enter Sherif.

Anyway, it was as a result of having to walk many hours in the New York City winter that began my exploration with clothing technology. From Heat-tech to interesting base layers, a sort of winter clothing education began. Seeing as my location was in Chelsea, the wealthy customer base would basically provide a nonstop fashion show.

When I began to notice the impressive and quality build, materials, and aesthetics in the winter coats used, my taste got more expensive. I started to notice details and viewed people in Chelsea as floating coats walking into the stores.

I began to learn a lot of new brand names of jackets and would find myself researching the brands on the work computers when the customer left.

This quickly resulted in a more materialistic relationship to clothing. I developed a bit of an obsession with jackets. I really loved many of the styles and developed an anxiety about being cold ever. So like anything, I went as hard as possible. I went on a non-ending quest to find the best jacket. Which involves tons of research

This is a deep hole. The individuals who write reviews on technical jackets that have specific functionality claims are another level of neurotic entitled demanding human beings. I will probably write a blog post on the reviews written about some of these products alone. I was both simultaneously disgusted by the level of detail obsessiveness, and life-changing-ly impressed.

How can it be both? Well, I admire the tenacity and attention to detail that lots of these reviews demonstrate. What does bother me about this is the degree of care which is shown towards such matters, but the utter negligence, indifference, and lack of investment when it comes to critical issues. While this may seem like a negative take on someone taking jackets seriously, I assure you two things. One, I take jackets seriously and I am thankful for such reviews. Two, there is definitely a disconnect from the level of meticulous research, investment and care people put into minor details of often frivolous or “optimization purposes” that should be somewhat diverted, or at least matched when it comes to critical issues of civil rights or social justice. This contrast is important to me! Both as a warning sign for how I’d like to make myself optimally secure, but not excessively so to the point of indifference, aloofness, callousness, and vanity. This applies to many health attaining measures and such. This is an epidemic in our society, but it is fueled by a plethora of competing for harmful societal traits.

I’m excited to get into all this one day soon.

Anyway, my cold stuff didn’t end there. I learned a lot about jackets, material specs, textile, fashion waste. Eventually, I began to research breathing techniques that would enable me to withstand the cold and optimize my ability to survive the New York Winter.

Suddenly, from being obsessive about winter jackets, I started leaving my house in 20-degree weather with just shorts and a tee-shirt. This came after discovering a now way more famous, Wim Hof. He’s known as the Ice Mean and I urge you to look up some of his crazy feats. The main reason being, human beings have been completely separated from the abilities of our bodies. We have stopped practicing certain abilities and working on certain components of our strength which has led to atrophy. This man is important because he trains people in his expertise and is not a special outlier case.

Wim Hof, doing the seemingly insane, through breath-work

Shockingly, I have digressed. Point is. I got to walk a lot, learn a lot about clothes, listen to interviews with comedians, podcasts, audio courses. I ended up giving myself an informal education. Many of the more prestigious jobs, gigs, and clients I would land would be founded upon discovering concepts and learning about them through this time walking. All the while getting to exercise, be and nature, be paid, and smoke a good amount of weed on the job. Not a terrible option. Sometimes detrimental or a hindrance though.

One last cool feature (there are many I’m not including here) of this job was that I got to enter a lot of fancy office buildings. I’m no strange to fancy office buildings. But it is rare that you would get to enter 30 from different fields of work in one day. I saw the interior designs of fashion houses or studios, tech offices, fancy new york douches. I’d deliver into some extraordinary circumstances, minutes after listening to Howard Stern interview some comedian will hitting the one-y. (Howard Stern is highly problematic but I’m a big fan of his interviewing and I’m excited to dissect Howard in future blog posts) If you don’t know what that means don’t worry about it.

I also met amazing people, customers, co-workers, and one manager who changed my life forever and contributed strongly to making me the person I am today.

This was one of the least prestigious jobs I’ve ever had, but it was one of my favorite. The quality of life was absolutely incredible. I’ll likely never have an opportunity to walk 12 miles a day while having it integrated non-invasively into my lifestyle. The co-workers at this place were actually all remarkable and eclectic people.

Wow. I left out the fact that being in this environment radically transformed my relationship to food, health, consumerism, and the world. My life changed irrevocably (due to my amazing co-workers and especially my life-changing manager!)

I learned a phenomenal amount about my job, myself, and what I wanted. It also taught me a great deal about massive blind spots, my experience, and quality of life in this phase, coupled with what I learned… altered my life trajectory. All the while, my biggest life goals remain the same but have shifted.

PS this is my current jacket. One of the best I’ve ever owned (I have design ideas that would have made it better lol, 4.6/5, incredible jacket)

My favorite Jacket, so meticulously well researched, a 4.6/5.. Logo removed because they’re not paying me and I’m not advertising!

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Thank you for reading. You being here means the world to me. Please comment or share or anything! I can’t wait to make this even better for you. I want to get better at being raw and sharing well. This will be more organized and focused in the future. I’m gonna keep showing up. I always wanna do better. I have a lot to share. … If you wanna hear my take on a specific topic. Leave a comment and I’ll write a blog post within 10 days about it.

My time at the Weinstein Company and interacting with Harvey Weinstein

In my sophomore year of college, I took a leave of absence. At first, this leave of absence was taken in order to balance my grades. This semester break enabled me some GPA-saving opportunities that were very difficult had I stayed.

I also had some issues to deal with at the time. “At the time” lol.

Upon leaving the semester, a move that was highly stressful to my education-obsessed parents, I began to search for some options for what to do with my time. as staying and being unproductive was not going to be an option. This was a time in my life where I began to take a lot of risks and find a new world.

I moved into an apartment with my generous friend who let me stay on his couch rent-free. This was epically large of him and I consider this to be one of the most interesting and important times of my life.

He is a brilliant friend of mine who had left my college a semester (or two?) earlier. He was an extremely dedicated student who literally failed classes because he’d be assigned a 5-page paper, write 35 pages, think it was trash, and never turn it in. Allowing his teachers to think he didn’t care or was negligent. In reality, he would be absolutely pouring his heart and soul into things and doing so tremendous academic merit and vigor . Anyways, he left the school earlier, and I joined him as a guest on his couch.

This pivotal time for me did not begin very optimistically. It seemed like I was in a dangerous place. I was very confident that I was going to be fine, but this sentiment was not widely agreed upon.

My then on - and off-again but very serious long-term girlfriend ended up facilitating a life-changing opportunity. It was absolutely amazing. Through her sister’s boyfriend, she helped me obtain an internship at a company called The Weinstein Company. You’ve probably never heard of it, but at the time it was quite a prestigious position at a respectable company.

I did not even know what Weinstein Company was or the magnitude of what I’d been given. The position would involve being a complete and utter unpaid errand boy who paid his own transportation, but I got to read new scripts and write coverage for them.

Coverage is an industry-standard summary format that enabled production companies to quickly read a page summarizing the script. This would enable them to

I did learn a lot about power dynamics and disgusting office politics and dynamics at that job. My “boss” who I directly reported to, was an absolutely incredible individual who went to both my college and my ridiculously small quaint boarding school. This was undoubtedly a huge factor in my receiving this internship… as well as the recommendation from my ex-girlfriend’s sister’s boyfriend. PRIVILEGE .

I was quite unqualified to be in this position but I was also simultaneously a great candidate to do exceptionally well. My passion for filmmaking and my desire to learn left me with an insatiable desire to impress, do work, and learn.

And I did all those things. I would ask for homework when I went home, and I’d read extra scripts and shock everyone with the degree to which I was delivering work. I’d read 600 pages after my 10-hour workday and have a fully written summary written by work the next day. I loved this job.

I use the word job loosely here because 1) It was unpaid 2) My transportation wasn’t covered 3) My boss would eat handfuls of almonds out of a bag on my desk because he was out of touch with economic hardships. At the time those handfuls of almonds were painful, and he’d grab them while we were shooting the shit, which I greatly enjoyed. That dude is still epic to me and a hero.

In retrospect, I was able to piece together components of how the office ran and how things were.

OK THE PART YOU MAY BE HERE FOR

Harvey Weinstein instilled a tremendous amount of fear throughout the office. He wasn’t there regularly, as he was toggling between LA and New York offices.

His presence would be announced as a possibility before it happened. “Harvey may be stopping in.” or “Harvey will around be busy be working”. This was always instructed to a hilariously diligent and hardworking office.

This was such a focused group of maniacal workaholics- it was absolutely crazy to say this to them. Never was there a peep other than typing keyboards and work calls when such warnings were issues.

Harvey Weinstein, seated next to another predator. I featured this particular photo because the story below is about me as a scared intern. I’m thinking of a young 22 year old named Monica, interning for a man much more powerful than Harvey.

My time there went mediocrely well with some ups and downs due to the aforementioned issues. I would like to talk about the dynamic of Harvey Weinstein and his presence.

I did not interact with him very much but have a couple of iconic moments where I interacted. Firstly, there was undoubtedly a culture of fear surrounding his presence and existence. Grown human beings would act like 3rd graders when the mean principal strolled into the classroom. Mrs. Trunchbull vibes. However, there was simultaneously a great adoration and worship and respect for him that accompanied the palpable feelings of fear he generated.

This is a personal experience story about how I believe Harvey Weinstein “gets off “ on fear. I had the most meager and small errand to run. I had to purchase brads to hold together scripts. I have attached a photo below for context as to what that is. So Harvey was in the office that day and this was a very scary fact for me. So I was happy to be sent off into the Tribeca streets on a mission to Staples. What a delight. Unfortunately, as I arrived at the elevator, and the sole way we exited the building, I was told, hold on Harvey is wrapping up a meeting in his office.

A brad, a small wire nail with a small, often asymmetrical head. I played an indispensable role at the Weinstein company. Without me, the scripts would have been loose pages.

I looked through the glass doors and he was surrounded by a group of doting individuals, laughing and socializing around him. He looked like the life of the party. This illusion was sewn together by fear money and power. Anyway, I was very concerned that I had to wait for Harvey to this impromptu standing chat session. There was an assistant physically holding the elevator door open, to prevent it from descending to any other floor. I waited for Harvey’s meeting to wrap up, standing by the elevator, for no less than 10 minutes. Finally, the glass doors swung open and he and his paid entourage came out of the office.

We all entered the elevator. There was bustling energy that was carried into the elevator. The elevator was jam-packed, probably 8-10 people if I recall correctly. It was not a big elevator. Harvey was surrounded by people kissing his ass, laughing at his joke, being flirty, and giving him reverence, while calling for his attention. I was in the elevator, avoiding eye contact, eager to get out to the New York city streets were I could take a break from office dynamics and the threat of being pathetically inept in front of authority figures. A looming threat.

As the packed elevator began its descent, Harvey picks me of all people, clearly, the only individual in the elevator who wanted no part of speaking to him, to converse with.

“What’re you up to right now, what do we have you doing”

“Um, I’m going to Staples to buy some Brads.” I’ve inserted a video caricaturing what I was like when answering this question.

I don’t remember his exact response but tonally it was something like. “Good. Ok” End of conversation, because the ride was so short. I wish I had been brave enough to say what I should have said.

Anyways, the short elevator ride ended. The elevator door was held open for him, he walked first. The door to the building was already being held open and through its open doors you could see a yellow taxi was waiting. Also with the door also held open. From the elevator, you could see the taxi seat.

Another tidbit..

A lot of times I’d be shuttled all around the city by this amazing lady to do “pick up orders” for cell phone chargers/ sushi and other miscellaneous items that Harvey needed, urgently and fast. This was before the era of pick up orders and every restaurant having electronic take out so normalized. This guy really had it set up in my eyes. He was also clearly monstrous and feared in a way that I did not admire, and did not feel was essential to high level production.

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AS ALWAYS!!!!! Thank you so much for reading, it truly means the world to me. I cannot overemphasize this. If you wanna leave a comment or share. That would be immense as I literally do this everyday just for people to read it and hopefully enjoy or something I don’t even know. I do it for me too. But its nothing without the hope that you will read it. So thank you so much for being here

The “crazy” things about me.

Last week, I wrote an article about Dave Chappelle and why he was not crazy. The article was supposed to be about why I wasn’t crazy but switched into a Dave Chappelle article. This was not a great first step to proving my sanity.

Anyways, as promised, I will now list SOME of the public things that get me labeled as crazy. To me, this is crazy, absolutely.

My diet alone places me in an extreme group of people. But I also think that many of the ways mainstream society operates are normalized extremely. The wastefulness integrated into our society, the forms of abuse and exploitation, the commodification of life and health, the level of inequality. These factors are unbelievably extreme and are basically the foundation of our society at this point. This has led to an unbelievable degradation of many systems.

I think it’s safe to agree that the Standard American Diet is quite an unhealthy one. I do not wish to blame anyone who, by default, lacks choice or other factors that cause reliance or adherence to a standard American diet. There are many financial and environmental reasons for being stuck in this system. I do, however, wish to inform, provide some tools/resources, and remove myself from systems that are damaging and violent. I’d like to talk about the nuances of many of these choices societally and beyond, in a nuanced way, but I would like to merely list them today. Just a simple list of the crazy things I’ve been doing, that I do not regard as crazy. I will not be explaining them in substantial depth until further articles. There are a reason and philosophy to all of these things.

• I do not eat any animal products (because it's best for the environment, my energy).

• I eat exclusively raw food these days. I haven’t eaten cooked food for 2.5 full years out of the last 7.5 years. (I have not in the last 10 months).

• I do not eat any refined sugar (I do not limit fruit sugar intake at all).

• I fast for 23 hours a day.

• I do a brutally hard hot yoga sequence for 90 minutes a day. Lately, this practice has dissipated into nothingness but it is foundational to my routine and I’ve been suffering from its absence.

• I bike everywhere I go and do not wish to own a car (especially not a carbon combustion engine type). I use public transit a lot too.

• I do not shampoo my hair with any traditional shampoos; instead, I make my own. It involves baking soda and apple cider vinegar. The same applies to toothpaste, although my use of mainstream toothpaste.

• I really care about not shopping at major corporations. I try to minimize, but we are stuck in a pretty reliant system.

• I think breathing is a resource 99 percent of people don’t tap into.

• I do not eat any oil. It’s been 11 months since I’ve had any.

• My historically seeming lack of prioritization of money is alien to a lot of people. Money, and more of it, play a significant role in my goals, but the level of emphasis I place upon it is literally bewildering, jarring, and disturbing to many people close to me.

Thanks for reading my list of crazy things. Some of these are eccentricities to a degree and individualized choices, but some are thoughtful life philosophies I find to be potentially useful to all.

The Chocolate Bet of Freshman Year

’m talking about something more extreme. My freshman year of college, I was eating about 1700 calories a day in chocolate. That has nothing to do with the other food I took in. I would regularly eat like 4 Snickers bars, multiple chocolate cakes, Reese cups. It was a lot, it was disgusting. While I was certainly a chocolate connoisseur who enjoyed the finer, more delicate chocolates, I did not discriminate. M&M’s, Reese’s cups, etc.… It was truly an addiction

Me posing with my hero.

One day, I told someone I planned on not eating chocolate until Halloween. This was 8 weeks from the day of my announcement, and already I’d gained the reputation for being a chocolate addict.

Immediately my friend Kiko said, “I’ll bet you 5 bucks.” Ok, I agreed immediately, not backing down from a challenge, but immediately regretting the low financial payout for my abstinence. Another friend of ours joined in. “Yeah, I’ll match that. 5 bucks. Doubled! Yes! So it began.

The first few days were extremely difficult; the novelty and attention I was receiving enabled me to cruise through the bet a little bit. However, there was a palpable void in, a degradation in the quality of life.

I could easily put my finger on it. While I always understood my lifelong love for chocolate, this first week was making me aware of just how deep the love goes. My two friends who bet me would soon make the challenge more difficult.

Weeks earlier, I had been unable to find anyone to bring me food from the dining hall when I was sick. My roommate Karim said he would but arrived empty-handed. During the chocolate bet, I would return to my room to find pieces of chocolate cake, brownies, and all sorts of forbidden desserts covering the entire surface area. Nobody would feed me in times of need, but during my chocolate fast, the cakes and chocolates were flowing.

This was difficult at first, but it provided me with the competitive fire required to overlook my cravings and addiction. I decided to kick it into the next gear of mental discipline. Some days passed, eventually weeks. Suddenly, the chocolate bet became easy.

The roles reversed. I would buy chocolate every day, collecting them into a cardboard box that would be by my bed for motivation. I began to collect, catalog, and smell chocolate, as a display of my discipline and indifference to the sensual temptations that chocolate embodied.

Soon my collection of chocolate became preposterous. I most vividly remember a family-size bag of M&M’s, the kind with the peanut butter filling. The red bag. This was no entry-level M&M flavor; this was decadent rich peanut butter-filled chocolate. The big night rapidly approached. Halloween eve was a day full of excitement. The anticipation of being reunited with my love was in the air all day. Many people congratulated me on Halloween’s upcoming nature. I had no costume.

By now, various friends, family, accomplished members of the business community, and a handful of members who had flown into town to watch the outcome of the bet (jokes). With a few minutes left till midnight, my dorm room began to slowly pack with spectators. A chocolate-eating tornado was going to happen. The quantity of chocolate I possessed was unprecedented. With other addictions of mine, I was able to amass a surplus, never with chocolate. It is quite common for me to go to sleep possessing marijuana (CBD, wink) and wake up and still have some remaining. This was never the case with chocolate.

Chocolate was eaten until completion. Until chocolate ownership was no more. But now, I was in the rare and dangerous position of having a supply that would suffice for weeks.

Anyways, with a little bit of time remaining till midnight. I turned on a most epic scene from American film history. The edible room scene in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The song began to play and the mood was set for chocolate appreciation and worship. As soon as the clock struck midnight, a bean to eat chocolate in a way that started as attention-seeking performance but slowly turned into a lustful session of chocolate consumption.

The room full of people started to slowly dissipate as they sensed they were intruding on quite an intimate moment. I don’t remember very much after that. I woke up to an empty box. The next day I met up with a friend, Eleanore.

Eleanore was well aware of the bet but missed the Willy Wonka watching/chocolate-eating Session. The next day she told me about coming into my room afterward. I’ll never forget how she described the scene…

“Yeah I came into your room and you were passed out, there were chocolate wrappers everywhere and you smelled strongly of chocolate.”

This was before the age of smartphones, but this is one of the photos I’d most like to have of myself.

The last crazy thing is that, during these 8 weeks of my chocolate abstinence bet, my food routine remained the same, minus chocolate. My workout routine remained paltry and close to nonexistent. I ended up losing 22 lbs! Just from eliminating chocolate!

…My name is Sherif and I’m addicted to chocolate.

A CHOCOLATE FACT

One thing I learned which is interesting is that intense chocolate cravings are often the result of magnesium deficiencies.

THE CLASSIC MOVIE IS ABOUT THE CHOCOLATIER WILLY. CHARLIE IS THE REMAKE.

The original is called Willy Wonka and the other remake they made after was called Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Obviously, Gene Wilder’s rendition of Mr. Wonka is the real one.

A tribute to Wonka, Gene, and this magical movie

Willy Wonka’s imagination, deviation from normalcy, and nonnegotiable eccentricity have played a big role in my life. Mr. Wonka looms large around here. His trickery and bewildering demeanor are both endearing and aspirational. Here is an iconic clip of Gene Wilder and one of my favorite moments in the movie.

Thank you for reading. I have many chocolate stories and adventures to share. It’ll be a long while until there is another, but thanks for reading. I’m so happy you are here and I look forward to working hard to bring you more stuff.

Good Riddance! Shitting on Donald Trump, and a bit on Joe, Hillary, and Obama because they are all trash… but none like 45, trash-est.

I looked forward to writing about this current president’s last day in office for quite some time, about the amazing degradation that has occurred in the last four years. I’ve been mostly silent on the tremendous downward spiral that our country has been engaged in.

A complete and utter freefall. This was the year that the curtain was fully pulled back, shredded even, revealing to the world the Wizard running the Oz that is America.

The downward spiral reached terminal velocity with the election of our 45th president, but it cannot be blamed solely on him. This spiral has been one that is long coming and even inevitable. Donald Trump, a symptom not the disease, was elected four years ago, but the conditions and atmosphere in America that enabled his presidency were created long ago, and continue to thrive.

This, however, does not mean that with his ousting the downward spiral has halted. On the contrary, the divide that has been ignited is now more dangerous than ever.

Echo chambers are harmful, and I do not wish for everyone to agree with one another. A difference in opinion is essential. But what we are dealing with here is no difference in opinion. There’s a big difference between disagreeing on how to approach a home’s interior decoration and bulldozing the foundation of that home.

Dismantling democracy and instilling fascism is not a difference in opinion. Neither is dehumanizing minorities, breaking up families, and destroying critical institutional safeguards. While echo chambers are harmful, this divide that has been actively fueled is an unacceptable extreme opposite.

The echo chambers we communicate through, however, do put us out of touch with competing world views and also importantly, shared causes of suffering.

Donald Trump, the fraud, conman, rapist (alleged, cuz he buys his way out of court), and racist (proven), is not an idiot. He has highly neglected components of his development. This occurred through extreme wealth and the ability to outsource any micro-difficulty.

This process leads to atrophy, which happens to the brain like any other muscle. So while there are undeniable dead spots in this man’s brain and areas of complete viciousness and lack of regard, one would be foolish to dismiss this man as stupid.

He is selfish, narcissistic, and a conman, but he is not stupid. He is shortsighted and suffers countless instances of humiliation due to massive glaring ineptitude, but he is not stupid.

Ok, to be fair, he’s also quite stupid.

Donald Trump, stares directly at sun during the solar eclipse of 2017, without any protective measures.

But I would like to point out some things that Donald Trump does brilliantly that are severely underestimated. This underestimation of Donald Trump and anybody who deploys similar tactics has proved to be no small cute oversight, but rather a glaring security risk. One that truly threatens the degree to which the oligarchy we are in can continue to masquerade as a democracy.

We are dealing with a failed state and national security level threats coupled with global embarrassments and a national reckoning. This refers to the attacks on Capitol Hill OR any other week of this last presidency. It has been an abhorrent mess. I am not someone who praises Democrats blindly. I’m actually not someone who praises Democrats.

Barack Obama was a terrible president whose legacy shall be one of drones, corporatism, Monsanto, and acceleration of the dangerous political precedents that enabled the actions of 45 and those beyond. He was also very charming, charismatic, and suave.

He was absolutely a class act in every way. We should realize that this charisma and elegance were used to facilitate war crimes and comfort a complacent populous. All the while politics as usual continued under the guise of hope and new diversity.

Barack Obama’s election was an important one, a historic one, but his impact on the black community in America was kept largely symbolic. I do not wish to diminish the pure excellence that Barack Obama embodies. He’s a remarkable man. But his service to his own and other minority communities left a lot to be desired. Also, his rampant war crimes weren’t that great either.

Don’t kill the messenger should be expanded to include, don’t celebrate the messenger needlessly.

If the message is a corporate political agenda that has been bought by the ultra-wealthy, the identity politics of the messenger should not be heralded as some progressive step. This is where it gets tricky, but essentially very straightforward IF we don’t get distracted by marketing. Which we always do. Representation is essential. But it must go far beyond symbolic and into political action with the ability to radically alter a group’s ability to survive and thrive.

It is critical in a media and political sense (including minorities in films etc), but it cannot be merely public relations moves. Representation is political action in service of that group. This absolutely applies to lip service or public relations-based moves to include racial, gender, or LGBTQIA+ diversity.

However, we must also realize that lack of representation also covers the glaring and unavoidable disconnect between our political representatives and the populous. It is getting downright abusive and completely unsustainable, which it always has been, but shit is hitting the fan as they say. Congress’s approval rating is terrible, and they won’t take action because they are completely isolated from the effects of their vicious neglect. People are hurting, and the corruption and thievery are next level.

Back to talking about 45, his ineptitude, narcissism, and failed performance.

I’m not good at writing about political things, as this is one of my first attempts to do so, but I will put out some raw opinions here. Donald Trump is an extremely dangerous man. A narcissist with no value system over personal enrichment. A fascist for whom extreme loyalty is the deciding factor.

We are in dangerous times. Hillary Clinton was the worst candidate in the history of the Democratic party. Nobody should have lost to Donald Trump, a fascist, rapist (alleged).

What foods I miss most since going plant-based… and HUNGER vs food supply.

Everyone asks, what foods do you most miss since going vegan? There are a few things I miss about being an omnivore. Eating is a fundamental pleasure of life and it’s particularly indulged in during this era.

People are overworked, having less physical contact with one another than ever, and food remains one of the more readily accessible pleasures.

A colorful pasta noodle fruit dish. I made this!

CRUCIAL HUNGER TANGENT 

This is not to undermine the extent to which food insecurity is rampant and at a record high. Food banks are rationing their supplies because of demand.

Yet food abundance and efficiency of food production are not the problems. The intentional waste and selective distribution are the problems. So on one hand, you have a large segment of the population that’s hungry, food-insecure, or starving. On the other hand, you have a culture that throws away 40% of food grown as well as having a propensity towards overeating in the culture.

All this applies globally as well as domestically (save for certain aspects of overeating culture and statistical specificities.) While the emphasis on excessive eating isn’t completely unique to America, we are pretty well known for being trailblazers in the category.

It is really imperative that we fundamentally change the food structure and capture this waste in a systemic fashion. This is absolutely the result of capitalism’s hyper-commodification of life-sustaining elements, and it never stops. So long as the goal is non-stop cumulative growth, squeezing and tightening on life’s pleasures and resources will continue to occur, this occurs until the life-sustaining aspects are challenged.

So yes, change is essential. I hope to write about this topic more later with greater clarity and understanding.

Foods I miss the most:

Delicious pizza! I made this, its all raw!

Transitioning to a plant-based diet, I was really concerned about letting go of calamari and dishes that utilized eggs as a binding agent. Pizza, pasta, muffin cakes, and Snickers bars are what I would frequently quote as the things I would miss the most.

While this list is pretty accurate, there are substitutes and emulations that are incredibly good if not better than the original.

However, what I most miss is the spontaneity and social aspects of eating a mainstream diet. Grabbing a singular slice of pizza on the corner. Not having to have done a Yelp survey of every restaurant in a 4-mile radius to zero in on ideal restaurants.

I miss not being looked at as a nuisance for having certain dietary restrictions. It’s nice that things are slowly shifting but oddly, the things I most miss are all social. It feels unfortunate to have to reject a family member’s lovingly prepared meal.

Not only because they’ve prepared it and wish to experience your enjoyment of the dish. It is also unfortunate the degree to which such a rejection comes off as casting judgment on the person’s way of life.

So In summary, what I miss most is not an edible dish or substance, as all the emulations and replacements I’ve come across have been creativity-inspiring and delicious. I do not feel deprived since transitioning to this diet as there are so many aspects of culinary life and knowledge that have since been activated. I undoubtedly have a richer life since making this fundamental change. The social isolation components which can vary depending on various factors have been the most challenging thing. The lack of THAT is what I most miss.

I do however think as plant-based and more sustainable forms of eating become a bigger priority and take more of the market share, the degree of social isolation will continue to minimize as it becomes normalized and mainstream. I do believe that market forces coupled with environmental factors make this inevitable.

Convenience Culture; an Amendment to an insensitive Instagram post

An amazing friend who calls me out on my shit brought to my attention that my comment about Convenience culture in my last Instagram post came across as an anti-poverty stance.

I’d love to address this because they’re absolutely right... but I did not intend it to mean how it could be taken. I did not wish to shame or degrade anyone who consumes anything out of convenience reasons. Oftentimes, these are absolute necessities and survival is contingent upon them. There is a lot of privilege associated with getting to do things the “inconvenient way." The dedication of time and knowledge are both resources that should not be taken for granted. Also, those aware of that privilege should not just appreciate it. Appreciation or acknowledgment of privilege alone is not enough. It is also vital to not create a tier system that shames the alternative routes. This is important since it’s most often not a choice and instead systemically imposed. Lack of time is a symptom of a highly exploitative system, and I do not hold any time-saving measures against anyone. Packaged foods that are microwavable target individuals who lack time to cook and who may need to venture far for access to fresh produce or ingredients. These facts and discrepancies are widespread structures of oppression and violence. It’s an instance of environmental racism and food apartheid/warfare. The ease of access and cost-effectiveness of these goods versus the obstacles and price associated with the alternative constitutes a rigged and violent system. This is not the convenience culture I meant to address. This lack of time is not their fault but rather the systemic failure of not having a citizenry with ample and equitable options for both quality of food and the leisure time and energy to prepare it. I did wish, however, to describe a very important phenomenon which is how convenience culture has drastically altered our society.

• Saved passwords are convenient. They do, however, radically alter the privacy landscape of the internet and therefore the power structure of human beings on earth.

• Swiping on Tinder or dating apps 100 times in 2 minutes instead of going on one bad date for an hour is convenient. It has also drastically altered the dating landscape of society, and in no small way...how humans interact with one another. As has porn, irrevocably, very convenient as well.

• Amazon is convenient, but it constitutes a maximally dehumanizing business model that separates us from the process. The cheap and quick delivery options mixed with the convenience of it being an endlessly one-stop-shop make Amazon unbelievably efficient.

But separating this otherworldly service from the dreadful working conditions and violence that enables such efficiency creates the sort of consumer entitlement that constitutes an existential threat. (Amazon is so dangerous!) So really, I meant, don’t be a jerk and expect too much because you don’t know what things take and how lucky you are. Appreciate how much went into a home-cooked meal (or any good or service), because nearly none of us grow our own food. Connecting with processes and knowing what feeds you, sustains your way of life, and what you consume is a highly beneficial practice. It is essential for sustainability. I do not wish to place the burden on anyone who has limited/no options. I do, however, wish to call attention to the importance of prioritizing knowledge of our consumption and its impact to whatever degree possible. Not only in the essential environmental, resource/waste production way… but also in ways of spiritual reciprocity. Knowing how hard it is to create, build, or maintain something will help you honor the efforts of those working hard, often invisibly so, to deliver you a good or service.

To complicate the issue sometimes systemic changes do come from individual efforts snowballed. This does unfairly and unjustly place burdens on the oppressed.

Also, the joy of doing or creating something you depend on. I did not mean to shame or place a burden on those who are fighting for survival and battling vicious and sociopathic oppression.

Entitlement as I used it earlier should not be conflated with the way Mitt Romney used it in 2012. Quoted below.

“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. ….. who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it -- that that's an entitlement. And the government should give it to them.”

I firmly believe that everyone should have their basic needs covered (food, shelter, medical, education, etc.) and that production, effectiveness, and joy indexes would skyrocket if this were the case.

I actually think it would even be an amazing thing for capitalism, a system not designed to maximize human joy, connectivity, or progression… Instead, what I meant by this statement is those who have never waited tables at a restaurant, or cooked a meal, or grown food, have less appreciation for the process than those who have directly experienced it. This separation can cause expectations that don’t match up with reality given their lack of awareness. I’ve had a massive growth in appreciation of things I’ve had in my past, that has occurred as a direct result of my “doing”. This is what I’d sought to emphasize the value of. I’d like to equally emphasize in the future, the plight of the proletariat, and the systemic structures that must be undone! I have, as a result of a few complexes, become very verbose, wordy, and intolerable.

I wish to be pithy and eliminate some of that, but here I did so in a way that left room for sweeping generalizations that attacked poverty. The very opposite of what I set out to do. Damn effective communication is hard.

Thank you for reading, and thank you for my dear friend with whom I often disagree about strategy and application, but always spiritually agree in essence. (My stance, not theirs, maybe they disagree and a half) … What an amazing soul. Thank you for challenging me and for your vigor and steadfastness. I always encourage any of you reading to call me out for insensitivities. I am deeply flawed and have been conditioned to be so in critical ways. But I care about growing and am committed to unlearning damaging attributes of my philosophies. Always bring such critiques forward!

And thanks to all other readers and friends for tolerating my flaws, inadequacies as well as witnessing my positive contributions and aspects.

p.s

I think gratitude and gratefulness are underutilized in our society on an individual spiritual. However, gratitude as a concept is often cynically used to continue perpetuating or ignoring inequality without accountability.

Birthday Freebies

There are many things you can get for free from brands on or around your birthday. Did you know that? These offers can vary drastically, but one of the most essential steps to qualifying is to be pre-registered. Do not sign up for birthday discounts on the day of and hope it's gonna work out. It may, but some offers will necessarily be unavailable.

. Instead, you must plan in advance and register your date of birth with these companies ahead of time. First, start a search online to see which companies offer birthday freebies. These can range from meals, gift cards, small trinkets, etcetera. Who wants to eat a free sample on their birthday? That’s birthday meal time! Correct!

However, a lot of these companies will extend their offer for a week or two proceeding as well as the following week. This lets you extend the birthday spirit a little bit and mitigate that birthday come down, the day after.

REGISTER A SPAM EMAIL FOR SPAMMY ACCOUNTS

The last thing we’d ever want to do is actually give these companies our email addresses. So register a SPAM email. I cannot overemphasize this enough. As the great documentary, Social Dilemma taught us, we are in an exploitative attention extraction economy. Your inbox is full of paths and distractions that are created by someone else. They are not what you envisioned for yourself.

This can often be helpful and lead to unknown information, knowledge, and opportunities. However, most of the time your inbox is filled with commercialized drivel trying to commodify your attention or convert you into a customer.

In the age where every time you want to have a sandwich at a store they’re throwing an app offer your way, these spam emails are of critical importance.

Protect your time.

A great starting point is this website. You may recognize the website from providing rather reputable promo codes. I will cover promo codes in a later blog on this series of Basic Consumer tips. Retailmenot does a great job of breaking down the birthday freebies into edible and retail categories. It’s a great jump-off point.

https://www.retailmenot.com/blog/birthday-freebies.html

Closing Thoughts about Birthday Freebies.

Most of these freebies are offered by huge corporations that sell poison. There are some health food brands and companies that offer birthday incentives. It is certainly feasible to create a well-rounded healthful celebration of birthday freebies, but by far, they are mostly unhealthy. Sometimes that’s ok and needed, and sometimes the options one has are minimal or restrictive. If you have the ability, do the research! Don’t just check off of the “birthday freebies list”; consult with companies, brands, and stores that you like and ask if they have any birthday discounts, incentives, or freebies. This is the better strategy for getting something that actually matters to you.

If you’re simply looking to maximize without regard for personalization or specifics, it is quite possible to put the nearest date on every single hyper-corporate company’s birthday incentives list. (I’d be safe and put a few weeks out so you don’t have to wait a few years)

A google search of “McDonald’s birthday free… immediately brought up a link to fill out some information.” There you would enter your birthday (or rapidly approaching date) and repeat for many corporate companies. You could theoretically spread the dates out such that you’re collecting birthday meals year-round* You would need to be sure that ID was not required, which is more plausible than it may seem. The reason being, because your birthday had been registered and your discount could likely come from an automated email.

My favorite birthday freebies I’ve ever cashed in on are Juice Generation, where I got a dessert-y smoothie. The second was Juice Press, which provided me with 20 dollars in spending. I believe they have eliminated this wildly generous discount. However, there are many gems out there. So don’t forget to commodify your birth date.

I would like to end this hyper-commercialistic blog with a corny but true sentiment. All this free shit, and gifts and yada yada. The only thing I care about is attention and love from people I care about on my birthday. That’s all a gift represents anyways… coupled with the thoughtfulness, time, and financial investment and of course the joy a little materialism brings.

This coming birthday, the thing I want most is to talk to my best friends and spend time with them doing things we (I) love. The sun, weather, activity, and motion are playing an increasingly large role in my joy these days. I do not think I am alone.

All That being said, I look forward to helping you save and get scrappy. I really value taking away all we can from corporations and saving what we can for ourselves. This will take the form of more radical (farming! ) steps, but until then, saving money in simple consumer ways is something I’d like to spread.

I love you all thank you so much for your readership.

Swiss Rolls and Chocolate Excess

Ever since I was very young, I felt my addictive personality kick into gear. I could never have just one or two Swiss rolls.

Swiss rolls are a packaged Little Debbie baked goods item. My mom used to get me to pack them as the dessert portion of my school lunch.

The problem was, as soon as she got home from the grocery store, I’d ransack the bag looking for the goods. I'd eat 3-4 twin packs right away. Six twin packs of Swiss rolls came in a package, and I would eat 3-4 twin packs.

This quantity would draw a lot of attention to my gluttony, and my mom would tell me I’d had too many or put them on a harder-to-reach shelf. I learned early that my excess eating of Swiss rolls drew attention.

So I quickly learned the best thing to do would be to eat the entire box. I would take the box of Swiss rolls to the bathroom, where I would take a bath and eat all 8 twin packs of them while bathing. Later in life, I would watch The Simpsons on a small television I’d place on the bathroom countertop.

Chocolate was a big joy of mine, and I have a “freshman year chocolate bet story” that I will be featuring next week. TV and chocolate both continue to play overly prominent roles in my life.

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I have a Freshman Year chocolate bet story that I will be writing about next week! I’m very excited to 1) tell you and 2) have the blog topic already lined up! THANKS FOR READING!!!!

Dave Chappelle is not crazy and neither am I!

A lot of times, people are called crazy for the right reasons. Other times, it’s out of dismissiveness. This dismissiveness can come from a variety of places. One way is defensiveness.

People often feel that other ways of life are direct challenges to theirs. Meaning, when a person does something you do not do, there is often an innate assumption that you should be doing the same thing, or that the ideas are competing.

To be clear, sometimes the ideas are at odds, but a lot of the time it’s just a result of a different perspective, choice, value systems, goals, origin background, history, etcetera.

So, we often jump to calling someone crazy who has made different choices. This does not have to happen on a conscious level. Our natural impulse is to feel that things that are different from us are wrong.

I’d like to quote Dave Chappelle, a sometimes philosopher king, who said, “calling someone crazy is the worst thing you can call them. It’s dismissive.”

This came after he had walked away from his $55 million television contract. Walking away from such vast sums of money is such an alien concept to a society that worships and idolizes money accumulation above most else.

So when we hear about someone voluntarily walking away from a fortune that they’ve been paid to pursue a passion of theirs, and then they’re going to go to Africa of all places, as was widely reported, there is only one explanation: they are crazy.

Dave Chappelle is someone we agree is brilliant and can do things we cannot do. Despite huge respect for his intellect, American society immediately jumped to call him crazy, overnight.

No further investigation is necessary; he didn’t take the money, open and shut case!

In reality, Dave Chappelle had become disillusioned with the process and product he was creating. He feared that the racial commentary he was crafting and popularizing was being enjoyed for the wrong reasons and often taken at face value instead of facetiously or satirically.

Instead of powerful satire, he feared he may be creating minstrel show-like caricatures, to be enjoyed by racists for the wrong reasons.

This is my assessment of what happened based on reading many articles and Dave Chappelle interviews on Inside the Actors Studio.

Dave had, as a Black man in America, risen to the top of his field and felt he’d crossed a line that did a disservice to his mission and people.

His deeper mission (I speculate) was to spread his ideas and racial satire through comedy. Instead, he felt he may be contributing to creating popularized racial caricatures that could be used for minstrel purposes.

This, coming with his peak earnings ever, could certainly prompt a principled and purposeful artist to take a step back. Dave Chappelle had no immediate need for money at that point, but he did have a need to step back, connect with his homeland, and reassess. This was a very sane thing to do. And as you may have noticed, he’s not financially struggling today.

He engaged in the "crazy" behavior of standing for his values.

Not only is that not crazy, it’s possible to look at the “sane” alternative of collecting massive amounts of money, doing a disservice to your life mission and people, as the crazy move.

Dave Chappelle is amazing. Despite being problematic, he is not crazy.

I do a lot of things that seem undeniably extreme or stupid. Sometimes they are, in fact, stupid or needless. This is without a doubt.

However, my history, perspective, and life’s purpose are driving me in an atypical direction. This direction and purpose, coupled with my perspective and way of thinking, make me seem insane. I am not crazy.

This blog post was going to inform y’all about some of the crazy things I do. But I’ll just do that one next week or so. Thanks for reading; I so appreciate you!

Comedy Television

Comedy television is one of my biggest passions. Comedy alone is enough, but comedy television is the TV type I consume the most and the media type I consume as well.

Over the years, I have written out a physical resume of the TV shows I’ve watched. This includes every show I’ve watched as an entire series from start to end. It does not account for random shows, one-offs, or shows I didn’t watch from A to Z. The number of episodes is also cataloged.

For many years, my dedication to watching TV was so incredible that I thought I should at least walk away with a resume for my efforts.

One way I found out about new shows to watch was by Googling the names of previous shows I loved in a series. For instance, Googling TV show 1, TV show 2, TV show, what should I watch, will likely yield a forum where someone has recommended all these shows in a concentrated space.

If you are lucky, buried in those familiar TV show names will be your new gem. The show that you vibe with instantly. The one that inspires binging and the feeling of victory when you know consistency and quality are underway.

People watch TV shows for a plethora of reasons: to unwind, entertain, decompress, laugh, kill time, or distract themselves. Often, televisions are even turned on in the background to generate conversation and a flow of ideas.

Anyway, as we have seen with The Office, Friends, 30 Rock, Parks and Recreation, etc., the market for re-watching content is at its highest ever. I often attribute this to several things. People enjoy background noise for working. They enjoy paying low-level attention and distraction from a familiar set of characters and circumstances. Have you ever been doing work and glanced every once in a while at the screen, when a particular line or moment triggers a memory that makes you not want to miss a line or image? This happens to me for sure!

One reason I think self-imposed re-runs are very popular these days is because of the need for familiarity. My mother (whose birthday it is today and I’d love to wish her a Happy Birthday while thanking her for encouraging me to get my latest certification, which I completed today) and I often discuss a theory about the prominence of celebrity culture and why it may not be as superficial as it seems. The basis is that we like to feel a community, and knowing a cast of characters we can communally discuss makes us feel connected in a sometimes overwhelmingly globalized world of increasing division. Kim and Kanye's headlines may serve an important societal or social function. Anyway, I have a similar theory on why we watch our old characters from favorite TV shows. There are plenty of new shows and new characters, but being introduced, and learning their ways, is an undertaking. A lot of the time we like to settle for the familiar and what we already know. It’s comforting and soothing and requires less emotional labor and focus. Emotional labor and focus are currencies that we guard quite closely these days, as a result, re-watching has met an insatiable demand.

Anyway, I am really excited to contribute some television show recommendations to you. I do this by asking, “What are three shows you love?” I can best answer this if the shows differ. If I get three true crime-style shows, I’m usually useless in my ability to recommend something with a bulletproof success rate. Otherwise, I’m pretty confident that if you give me three shows, I could occupy a good chunk of your future time.

I’d like to have discussions on television and put out some materials, guides, and thoughts on TV shows that have greatly impacted me and changed my life.

The top ways I fear dying!

Death is a very feared concept. Extremely so, one of the most feared, except for public speaking. This reminds me of this Jerry Seinfeld joke below (22 seconds long).

Anyway, death is very feared and much of religion focuses on what will happen to us after we die. The afterlife is such a topical discussion because we are preoccupied with our fates. I think about this often and consider how I think I will die. I think I have it down to a few options. I will do a top 5, by probability and also things that occupy my mind.

1) Climate change is one that has been on the surface of my mind. I learned about the incredibly harmful impacts of global warming/ climate change in my Sophmore year of college. On an “all-school trip” at my boarding school, I was part of the environmental group. We scheduled interviews with environmentally focused individuals and organizations. One lady’s discussion with us changed my perception and life forever. Since then I’ve been concerned about floods, fires, oxygen pollution, soil degradation, biodiversity, antibiotics resistant superbugs and other countless factors and negative outputs of anthropogenic climate change.

2) For some strange reason, ever since I was a little child I thought I was going to be shot! This is not in the culture of the household I live in. It’s not something that I have come even remotely close to. I have had no close calls or any run-ins or anything of the sort. However, I just always understood as a child that I was really annoying and one day someone was going to shoot me. This was at first a baseless fear, save for the innately understood dynamic of supreme gun surplus and the dearth of mental health capacity in America. However, I have felt for the last decade or so that my being shot would be the direct result of me taking some sort of stand or dying in the name of something I care about, love, or am fighting for. This may have been delusions of grandeur but it’s what I thought. I do not any longer feel this will be the case. If I’m shot, there will be no personal aspect to it, people will not do it for a concrete reason of connection-based origin. Instead, I will be shot by an autonomous and or remotely controlled robot that is destroying me in order to minimize the strain on the global resources. This video seems just about right. Watch the first 55 seconds will be more than enough. These videos definitely scare me.

3) A white supremacist terrorist attack (indirect, country’s degradation, political violence, instability failed state stuff etc…). This one is not as new as you may think, but it has certainly peaked. I am concerned about a group of ignorant individuals gaining power through sheer will and a massive disrespect for credentials, meritocracy, democracy. I’m afraid that the identity that many people face is based not in the contributions resulting from their actions nor are its origins from the constitution of their character. Instead, these people are unifying around a mythology-based in faux superiority and violent dominance. These people taking power is very dangerous to us all personally. Anyways, given a plethora of factors, I have become concerned enough about these people’s rise to a prominent news story status. The glaring and indefensible lack of accountability and lawlessness that’s being reinforced and created at the moment is incredibly dangerous. As a result, conditions stemming from these developments are among my greatest death fears.

4) A new way that I fear death is a new one. Recently there have been some concerns about the degree to which I take certain physical risks. Biking by cars, running in the snow, cliff jumping, having some endurance sport-based aspirations that are less than completely safe, all the way to having a desire to skydive.

5) Artificial intelligence. I am worried about robots for a plethora of reasons. This was mentioned earlier but singularity deserves its own spot. There are massive technological advancements that will create a series of relentlessly interesting and potentially nightmarish scenarios. I fear robots! Drone warfare, AI, genetic mutation armies. Lots of threats here. Both supernatural and more mundane and non-climactic.

I have never skydived yet. I am not overly afraid of death. I do think about ways to keep myself safe a lot. I do think my lifestyle will enable me to live a long and fruitful life. The above factors are what I see maybe obstacles. I am not afraid of dying! I am merely afraid of dying before I launch a specific project I’m working on and have been conceiving of since… SOPHOMORE year of high school! This has been a goal of mine for over a decade and I haven’t been doing enough to get where I want with it.

I often envision myself getting into a bad biking accident and bleeding out in the street. My parting thoughts, if I were to die at that moment, would be this… I imagine thinking about everyone in my life recalling the countless ways that I have failed them. The other is complete and utter disappointment in how I have failed myself by not completing and launching this life passion project. This thought, drives me, both to seize the day, and get executing about goals that matter to me. It also keeps me from engaging in needless risks like skydiving, which I fully intend to do as soon as I film/release this project! Thanks for hearing about some of my death fears. Interesting that it ended with me discussing the fear of not finishing a goal.

That is true because, this goal of mine, is my life purpose. Thanks for being here it means so much to me!

Physical and Mental Intelligence Robert Carlos

The physics of the Roberto Carlos kick.

We are all bombarded with so many videos. The media saturation today is staggering. We are all addicted to media, content, and dopamine. We’ve seen countless videos and consume them with a seemingly biological drive.

So…through the years, we’ve seen tremendous amounts of video footage, news, sports, events, and countless TV shows, movies, and creatively applied uses of video.

So which ones stuck? Which ones do you truly remember in this oversaturated landscape? For me, there are plenty of videos I regularly share throughout the day, sending a link to group chats. But a few videos have stood the test of time and today’s blog is about one such video.

This is a physics analysis of one of Roberto Carlos’s goals. This goal is undeniably incredibly difficult to execute by any analysis of any layman watching. You do not need to know anything about soccer or even be a fan, to recognize that the degree of difficulty involved with scoring this goal is next level.

However, one of my favorite videos is this thorough physics explanation of precisely what makes this goal so fabulously improbable. It is “Almost impossible.” Please watch this remarkable breakdown below!

As you can see from the video above, this goal is simply amazing. The video does a good job of breaking down this play into statistics that highlight the degree of difficulty. It is truly almost an impossible shot.

This video resonates with me because it speaks to several topics that are schticks of mine. One is the differing nature of intelligence. Intelligence is very misunderstood, and intellectually rigorous thinking is valued and perceived more than other forms of intelligence.

For instance, one may easily be able to say that this physicist describes Roberto Carlos's goal as smart because these equations resonate with a certain cultural version of intelligence, and by all means, this is an extremely valid and straightforward highly valuable form of intelligence.

I’d like to discuss an oversimplified jock/nerd cliche here. So this guy analyzing the goal is the nerdy math guy and Roberto Carlos is the jock. This does not leave room for an appreciation of sports by the nerd. It also doesn’t allow for the intelligence that Roberto Carlos possesses.

I’d like to make the argument that despite not thinking of his athletic performance as an intellectual feat, there must be forms of mathematical brilliance at play in relation to angles, speed, and a whole slew of factors. An athlete of that caliber must train pretty extensively in order to achieve such heights.

This training often involves lots of metrics, speed, dietary specificity, lots of numbers, and metric-oriented analysis. Anyway, I am making my point a bit sloppily. Roberto Carlos possesses some sort of innate understanding of those laws of physics.

He may not lean towards describing it in the same fashion as this gentleman did, but he undoubtedly had to execute and be the manifestation of the math. He is applying all these factors, with lightning speed and using his body to deploy them.

This is simply sensational. This absolutely requires a great deal of intelligence. The correlation between mind and body intelligence may be at play here. Mind and body connection crudely explained by me would be the ability for your body and mind to affect and interact with one another in symbiotic ways.

I’m also now wondering if there are components of this theory that involved learning through physicality. I, for one, have learned various philosophical theories and life perspectives I find to be invaluable through my practice of yoga. They undoubtedly have aided me in a mental capacity and have increased perspective and understanding. These are all tasks associated with the mind but unlocked via the use of the body.

I’d also like to write in the future about a similar concept I like. I’d like to argue that there is a great deal of art that is not recognized or appreciated by the art world. There are facets of our world that are full of art that would not be identified as art. These are often masculine or jockey. But can be beautiful and artistic.

ONE STUPID THING ABOUT THIS VIDEO

It is kind of hilarious how this guy makes the goalkeeper seem incompetent and inept and then talks about how the goal was otherworldly. The goalkeeper basically had no historical precedent to think that a plausible shot on goal could be occurring from that angle and at that moment. Yet this guy is absolutely ruthless in his criticism.

An Oracle on the Broadway-Lafayette platform

This was a crazy story. I was running late to yoga class. The margin of error on these trips is sometimes insanely thin.

This story takes place in New York City, riding the M/F line, on Broadway-Lafayette heading towards 2nd avenue. There are times where if I’m on one end of the subway cart, I will make the yoga class but if I’m on the other (wrong) end, I will not.

This is due to the detraining process and the congestion that arises. If you are not at a train door that’s located directly next to the stairs used to exit, you will be caught in a traffic jam. This jam will delay you the crucial two to three minutes that are the difference between getting to class on time, or being annoying and or disrespectful.

When you are dealing with narrow margins, it’s important to realize, it’s all your fault, you should have left earlier, the world doesn’t owe you anything and the people who are walking or driving too slowly are not stupid or deserving of any pressure or frustration because of your inability to be prepared and execute.

On this particularly special day, I found myself on the wrong end of the train. So I had to hustle.

Therefore, at every stop, I had to run out of that train and run maximally towards the front of the train.

There I’d stand by the left door in the middle exit. If I stood at the right exit but the middle door, I’d have an awkward turn to make it up the stairs, the left door is a straight line and a crisp natural curve towards the stairs. This subtle difference is surprisingly impactful.

All of a sudden I saw this very big fellow, who seemed like he was a loose cannon. He was bearded and had chaotic energy. He was yelling and nobody seemed concerned with his presence. I kept running while keeping an eye on this man, making sure no sudden moves were made.

Suddenly, he started yelling in Arabic, I look around, understanding his mostly gibberish, and expect to look panicked New Yorkers steeped in racially based fear about this unhinged Arab man screaming in his native language.

My fears subsided when I began to decipher some of the things he was saying as pure gibberish. Despite being the only other Arab who could actually understand this man, I seemed like the most concerned person!

This man noticed that I was looking at him and he turns to me and without missing a beat, or any explanation says, in Arabic, “What are you scared of Sherif.”. I squinted at him, was this someone I knew who had fallen into a life of addiction, drugs, and was now ranting crazily in the subway? Was someone holding a mirror up to me!? Ha! No this really was a different person.

I looked as closely as I could. I had never seen this man! I was sure of it. “My name is Sherif,” I say to him, trying to point out the unbelievable nature of what had just happened.” … utterly unfazed by my response in Arabic or the fact that I’d told him the made-up name he called me was indeed my correct name. “Ahlan Wa Sahlan ye Sherif”…. which means Nice to meet you Sherif... and then he started doing the silliest standing galloping skip dance for about 3 seconds. He’d not moved in this energetic or facially animated fashion the whole time I’d seen him before this. He was not done blowing my mind though.

“Why don’t you want to go to Egypt” … My jaw dropped. I hadn’t been to my homeland of Egypt in 10 years.

Americans think this is what Egypt is. Here to perpetuate the stereotype. It’s just this. Nothing else.

Americans think this is what Egypt is. Here to perpetuate the stereotype. It’s just this. Nothing else.

It had been an entire decade and since then the country had shifted monumentally. For starters, there had the largest human protest in human history, multiple regime changes, and revolutions.

Egypt is now a radically different country than it once was and I have been neglecting to visit, probably for some fear-based reasons. This message hit me like a ton of bricks.

I was told in no uncertain terms that my fear was unfounded and that I had to visit Egypt. At this point, this was probably two full years ago… maybe a year and a half… I have yet to visit but making some plans which may lead me to be there a little longer term than I had imagined. It’s becoming pretty appealing to venture out as the cost of living both financial and psychological are becoming misaligned with the quality of life. American comedy, music, and culture have a special place in my heart.

I’m going to write a lot more about Egypt in the near future and am publicly declaring that I seek and aim to go to Egypt in 2021 and at worst 2022. Thank you for reading. This was the craziest thing that ever happened to me in a random fashion. I was so blown away and I missed the yoga class due to being reflective and blown away. I made the train but just rode way past my stop, texting all my cousins and relatives and parents telling them what had just happened.

A seemingly unrelated but shocking related note for a future post

There is a story relating to my cousin and me. We made up this game in order to “have fun at other people’s expense” we literally phrased it like this. We thought of a huge idea, but the very first turn we took resulted in such a spectacular occurrence that neither of us would ever play this game again. This is a teaser from a future post I will title Psychic Karma haha. Eye roll.

A boarding school Pizza Story

I used to attend a boarding school that's one of the most amazing schools ever!

It was a small school located in the Berkshire mountains. The student body was comprised of merely 80 students ranging from 13 to 19 years of age.

They came from all over the country and even the world. As many as 120 of the students spoke English as a second language. Many of them were barely familiar with English and just beginning their journey of learning.

Another really cool component of the school is the number of different lifestyles you'd be introduced to through the intermingling of people from different walks of life.

Soon, this would result in making friends we'd never make and being exposed to many different elements. Community was a huge part of this school.

As a result, all meals were eaten communally. The teachers at this school were absolutely dedicated to an unbelievable degree and ate every meal with students in our dining hall. The dining hall was comprised of many wooden tables that had been handcrafted by the school's founding groundskeeper, a man of many talents.

Anyways, the food was excellent at this boarding school. The kitchen staff was incredible, dedicated, and wonderful. Our meals were made with wholesome, quality ingredients and created with a palpable sense of care, intentionality, and love. These meals were often incredible and sometimes just slightly better than neutral. This meal life was very good.

The girls lived above the dining hall, which was adjacent to the kitchen. Therefore, the trek to the kitchen to check on the menu for lunch or dinner was a short walk downstairs. The boys had to walk across a long stone path. This was often a pleasant walk but could be brutal in the winter. Brutal as in, your nose hairs are frozen by the time you arrive at the dining hall. Then you'd see a girl roll out of bed and downstairs to grab a bowl of cereal and a bagel in her cozy slippers and pajamas.

As a result, boys would often fall to the kitchen to find out the night's meal. And despite the excellence of the school's cuisine, any rotation or routine has the capacity to get boring. As a result, students sometimes skipped meals and ordered pizza or Chinese food in their dorms. As I mentioned before, in a small community-oriented school, the absence of a few members could have very deep effects on the energy and atmosphere.

This was particularly the case because students had rotating waiter duties where they'd be in charge of bringing out any additionally required foods, setting up, and clearing the table. If you skipped a meal during your week as an assigned waiter, this was a next-level offense as some non-waiter would have to scramble to take care of your duties.

Anyways, the skipping of meals to order delivery food had a negative impact on the spirit of community and the mealtime experience.

As a result, the faculty called the local restaurants and told them not to deliver to the school. Which led to a bit of a scenario.

"Hi, can I order a large cheese and jalapeño onion pizza to blank school?"

"Sorry kid, we're not allowed to deliver to your school anymore."

Wow. This was unbelievable. How could they do this! We would not be stopped. Adopting some mythologized techniques we'd heard about, we went to our school's impressive drama department. There we entered the costume barn and put on our most convincing "uniforms".

Then we would jump the fence to the golf course across the street. The very golf course that is mentioned is against one of the ten-ish rules we are handed as students of this school. We then called the pizza place again!

"Hi!

We are the golf course superintendents and we're just working a late shift right now. We'd like to order a pineapple jalapeño onions pizza please… delivered to the golf course."

"Uh. Ok, alright."

We received the delivery on the golf course. Eventually, the driver let us know that we weren't fooling him at all. Whatsoever, not once. So he gave us his cell phone number and said don't worry about all the dress-up golf course stuff. Call me directly when you want pizza. And just like that, we became the school's pizza suppliers.

This story sequence is one of the most important in my life! I have aspirations to make a show about this, and this has been a vision of mine for over a decade at this point. Here is a video of me performing this scenario with my amazing boarding school teacher.

He was an amazing guy who was taekwondo for a teacher, a video production teacher, a math teacher, a wizard of sorts. Strangely, this guy was initially ridiculed and roasted when I started school as a freshman. By the end of the four years, I'd found him to be laughably amazing and accomplished.

Anyway. Here is a clip of him helping me document me breaking two school rules.

When we shot this scene, he also actually bought me and my video assistant partner pizza for the scene! That we got to eat, to ourselves! Epic man,

I love this story. This school was legendary. Delivering to you the tales, humorous stories, and philosophies of this school is one of my most intense life missions. I believe it to be my purpose!

Not just because I'd love to make a comedy TV show but I think this school, community, and experience embodied something very rare, essential, and maybe even critical. I look forward to discussing this school in many capacities! Stay tuned. Thanks for your viewer and readership.

Free Trials

Ok! So, we’ve all had unprecedented freedom this year to stream and watch and listen to various forms of media. Netflix, Hulu, HBO, Disney+, Showtime, Sirius, Spotify… Etc, etc. There are so many things to watch and many platforms to pay for. But who wants to pay? So here’s a little trick I'd like to share with you. All these platforms offer free trials. We all know this. Of course, the trouble is, the platform wants you to sign up for the free trial, which requires your debit or credit card, and then have you forget to cancel, automatically charging you for the rest of the time.

Here are some simple tips and tricks on how to avoid being charged. The first line of defense is to not forget and cancel properly. This cannot be left up to chance. You must set a timer, alarm, or calendar reminder that tells you to cancel the subscription. You must learn not to mentally dismiss the urgency of such warnings. When you see this reminder, cancel the subscription immediately! Otherwise, you could get charged. But don’t worry, I have a solution in case that happens. Below is an example of how I do not leave free trial cancellations up to chance.

Sometimes life gets busy, and we cannot cancel subscriptions in time. As soon as we see the notice that we have been charged, we feel regret at our underused free trial and our lack of execution. Have no fear! There is a way to be refunded a vast majority of the time. Below is a template that works.

Template for refund when you have failed to cancel a free trial in time:

Hello [Company Name],

I have tried your service and found it clunky and not up to par. I intended on canceling, but there were many technical difficulties and confusion. I sincerely look forward to your canceling and refunding me this charge, which has been a mistake. I thank you in advance for rectifying this issue, and I am sure we won’t run into any difficulties as your business model surely does not hinge upon charging customers who failed to cancel.

I’ve had a 100 percent success rate with this strategy. I hope this helps you stream and expand your media options while saving you money or helping you cancel needless accidental charges. Stay tuned for more tips on how to thrive as a consumer and minimize the degree to which companies take advantage of you! Thanks for reading, and I look forward to providing you with new consumer tips every week!

An overdue Eulogy for my childhood security toy, Mr. Woody Woodpecker

When I was little, I was an only child for about 9 years until my little brother arrived. As a result, I was often by myself or lonely. It didn’t feel lonely; I was always very entertained, felt busy, and had a cool childhood. Nonetheless, there were many activities I took part in that may not have developed if I’d had siblings earlier. One such practice was that every morning when I’d get up to watch TV, I'd set up a row of stuffed animals to sit next to me against the wall. I’d arrange them from smallest to biggest, with this huge-ass bear I had being the biggest.

The star of the show, though, unequivocally, was my stuffed Woody Woodpecker. I did not have a security blanket; I had Woody Woodpecker. He sat wherever the hell he pleased. Arranged by size applied not to Woody.

This guy went everywhere with me. The only problem with a small child transporting a plush toy everywhere they go is that it inevitably gets disgusting.

My default mode of transporting him via biting down and sucking on his beak did not slow down the aging process. I’m not an expert at caring for plush toys, but I’m confident that consistent exposure to human saliva is not in any maintenance guides. Anyways, the thing got filthy.

Young Sherif and an aging Woody Woodpecker . Estimated date of photograph 1992-3.

My parents grew tired of seeing me lug it around everywhere. Each wash brought with it a deterioration in quality: a loose eye, some tattered seams. His bright yellow beak was turning into a darker color even fresh out of the wash. It wasn’t a good look. At the time, I’d started going to my local Boys and Girls Club, which was a pretty cool place for me. It was there that I first found out that billiards, swimming, ping pong, video games, basketball, and other humans existed. That was a lot for a young child to discover in one building.

Anyways, I was exposed to a lot of different elements there and began to grow up a little bit. One activity that really clicked for me was playing Connect Four. This game instantly resonated with me, and I loved playing it.

Soon the filthy nature of Woody Woodpecker had become unavoidable. No amount of washing changed his increasingly unpresentable nature. Elements of parental pressure began to appear. The idea of getting rid of Woody was floated and began to appear with some frequency. Never did it cross my mind that this would happen.

On this particular night, my cousins were visiting, and the evening found us in a mall food court. Suddenly, without my knowing, I’d soon be involved in an iconic and formative moment. My mom began the familiar speech to encourage me to get rid of Woody. I said hell no! My cousins, unaware of the dynamics of being an only child, chimed in. Yeah, you’re too old for stuffed animals. You have so many anyways. We began to huddle; it felt sports-like. I didn’t watch sports at that age, but the sports tension I innately felt. “I’ll get you Connect 4,” my mom chimed in.

Oh shit. Excuse me? Connect 4.? Wow. My own set huh.? This was a new stage. A boys and girls club game designed for two players would now be available to me for home use? Sold! I succumbed to the transactional aspect, being placed atop the peer pressure. I then broke from the huddle, walked to the food court trash bin, and pushed him through the little swinging door. Instant regret. I jumped up and down immediately and went to hug both my cousins, who were energetically disappointing me.

I needed it to look and feel like Jordan had just hit the Championship Winning buzzer beater. Game 7.

Instead, it felt like people celebrating a successful recycling situation. Despite the pain of the car ride home, Connect Four was in my future. I took some solace in that.

The next day, bright and early, I woke up my mom. Let’s go! Where? She asked? “Are you kidding me!?” I thought. Connect Four! She responded… “Oh! We will get it on Monday or after this weekend. Your cousins are here,” I believe this is what she said.

This felt simply unacceptable. I’d thrown my best friend in the garbage. The trash. He should have been sung songs and buried in the woods in a circle of people discussing their favorite memories endearingly reading off of pieces of paper they held with appropriate tender delicacy. The words they’d thoughtfully written, illuminated by the crackling fire and full moon above as they paused from time to time to keep from getting too choked up. He should have been reupholstered, framed, or upcycled and fashioned into a bra for a particularly high-ranking Victorian queen or something. Not shoved into some food court trash bin between a Panda Express and a Wendy’s.

As for the gap in timing after this evening’s iconic life event... We should have been playing Connect Four on the ride home. Anyways, I’m glad my parents made me get rid of things I’d outgrown, but I still have pain when I think of young Woody. I recently looked online for Woody Woodpecker stuffed animals, ignoring how regressive that may be, but could not find any builds or designs that satisfied the original design of the amazing Woody.

I, therefore, decided to leave Woody in my nostalgic past. I will say this though… If you and I were ever to play Connect Four. I’m going to beat the hell out of you with an inexplicable vigor and passion that seems both fantastical and aggressively over the top. Please forgive my overly competitive Connect 4 demeanor. It’s a soft spot for me. I’m playing for Woody.

Pictured above Howard Wexler's 1974 , Connect 4 game, an intellectually stimulating game devoid of softness, notably requiring opponents.

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

Sherif currently resides in Northern New Jersey, where he works as a freelance filmmaker. Sources say he still has ambitions of being a comedian. But he hasn’t yet gotten anywhere in life being a clown. As of the date of this writing, no known photographs exist depicting Sherif playing Connect Four. Some sources even speculate that he no longer plays the game.

Smartphones have changed; an unexpected lost art

Cell phones have radically changed the way we do many things. I think about this a lot and the various implications. People growing up with cell phones from birth are experiencing an entirely different world. It is so ingrained in our new reality that it’s difficult to imagine how we did certain things before them.

Meeting up with people

Back in the day, punctuality and precision of plans were essential. Two friends would set a date, time, place, and actually meet. It was critical that they do so. Flakiness was not achievable through simple thumb movements. You could not stand someone up and simply text and say sorry something came up. Instead, they would wait for a really long time at the location. They would wait until late turned into “I hope everything is ok.” If everything WAS ok, and they're a considerate, inconsiderate friend, you’d come home to a flashing red beep on an answering machine explaining why you’d been canceled on.

Ordering food.

The entire food ordering game is crazy easy now. There are buttons that exist that automatically send your most recent order to the last restaurant so you don’t have to click on the individual menu items again. Scrolling down all the way from apps to desserts. Exhausting. Very 2007. Anyways, we have clearly come a long way from a farmer planting seeds to feed his family. Before cell phones, you at least needed to talk to a human if you were getting delivery. I also feel that the cuisine options for delivery have majorly diversified from the previous market dominance of Pizza and Chinese food being the seemingly exclusive delivery options.

Watching TV, movies, things.

Back in the day, if you missed something on TV, that was it. The Simpsons were on and at 6:30 pm that was it. If you weren’t locked and loaded and ready to go, you missed the episode. There would be trailers all day with teaser elements of that night’s upcoming episodes. I remember missing the episode of the Simpson’s where Homer travels back in time, predating the existence of donuts. This episode was mythological for many years as I was grounded through its airing, after having been tantalized by the teasers all day.

Movies. Blockbuster. You had to walk through a physical place and pick out movies. I get exhausted from scrolling through Netflix feeds and you had to travel to a location where there were finite analog copies of movies. You had to rewind movies before you returned them to the store or incur a fine. You had a deadline for watching the movie. It could get stressful. Late fees. Etc.

Looking up the definition of a word.

You had to have a dictionary, know where it was, sift through every word in the English language in its approximate area, not get a paper cut… and then Siri DOESN’T read it to you in an accent and gender of your choice. Today triple-click and we get that.

One thing, however, that smartphones have really killed, that was near and dear to my heart were prank phone calls. I don’t think the element of boredom is there in the same way when you can access any video, photo, porn video, artwork, etc. The need to produce one’s entertainment by dialing targeting or random numbers has been completely eliminated.

I really enjoyed prank phone calls. I believe they were an interesting craft that dealt with boredom and had various creative applications. Prank phone calls certainly ran the gamut of styles and such… I used to be pretty good. The key to making a good prank phone call was being believable and dealing with a subject that had an incentive to stay on the phone.

Unrecognizable giggles or rudeness can quickly lead to a hang-up. There must be something at stake. I am going to write about a few successful prank phone calls of mine. I’m going to try and think and list the classics here.

PRANK PHONE CALLS

-I told someone selling a Mike Vick Jersey on craigslist that my only reason for wanting the jersey was that my wife had suggested getting a dog and I wanted to send her a message. They laughed. That was it. Short call but I got a big laugh from the seller and from the fine gentlemen in the vehicle with me. Therefore you’re reading about this 8 years later.

-I once had a very long tale occur with someone attempting to sell his Magic Cards, long story short, he threatened my life over the phone multiple times. This was the most intricate and intense prank phone call of my life.

-In boarding school, I used to call several companies and say their answering slogans to them before they could.

-In college, I called the Residential Life office and gave permission for my “daughter” (a friend) to be official roommates with her boyfriend the following year.

I may itemize these as in-depth posts someday. Definitely the magic card one. I would love to talk more at length about prank phone calls and the way.

Anyways, keeping it short but consistent today. Had a busy day but really looking forward to writing to you about various topics. I plan on writing about the immensely historical day that today was. Today was January 6th, 2021, a pivotal day in United States history. A lot has gone on today and I would love to address it. The fact that this has happened, has not been one bit of a surprise to me. In fact, I have been calling it and not resting assured of any outcome, until this moment has been visited and surpassed. We are at a critical and dangerous time, and I look forward to working towards universal needs of peoples that will begin to address the real issues that are widening real problematic divides.

Devon, The Black Air Bender

I vividly remember the day that I met Devon.

I was at a fruit-luck. Which, for those of you who haven’t had the pleasure, is like a potluck, but with fruit.

This event was organized by my dear friend who invited many mutual friends and acquaintances. We all met up on the lawn next to the waterfront in Chelsea, Manhattan.

We all congregated on the grass and unpacked our fruit and began to feast. Suddenly, we were joined by some very cool individuals who did not arrive with our initial group.

This is when Devon and his friend Javi joined our group. We were unaware at the time that they’d been invited by one of our mutual friends, so their arrival felt serendipitous and magical. We suddenly were marched up to by these fruit-loving spirits who seemed to find us as though they knew we were there. They did.

Meeting these two individuals changed my life. I didn’t know it or think much of it at the time, Devon and Javi had very palpable energy. The most memorable and outlandish thing was that Devon was carrying a small portable blender. Without making a big deal out of it, he would accept pieces of fruit offered, and throw them in his little Mini blender and blend them up and drink them. I believe the word liquidarian or liquids only came up. At the time, I wasn’t aware of what I was seeing and didn’t think much of it beyond some weird vegan eccentricity.

I soon found out that Devon participated in long liquid-only fasts. Over periods of time that sounded hard to believe. Hundreds of days. Devon was fit, strong, vibrant, and had a presence in his eyes that can crudely be described as “extreme sobriety”. He seemed very locked in and focused, while also being effortlessly at ease and conscious.

There was certainly something unique about his presence, a calm intensity, and palpable poise to this individual. At the time, I didn’t notice or think too much of any of this… Simply chalking it up to some really cool suave individuals with an eccentric passion for fruit.

Despite finding out that they lived very close to me, I never connected with either of these two until much later.

This year was an extremely difficult one for most of us. A lot of us were able to gain monumental insights as a result of the massive shifts in society.

Introspection was necessary and rampant as everyone had the time and no alternative but to examine their priorities and lifestyles. Quarantine brought lots of changes to society and this reverberated through everyone’s life in a series of personal shifts. At this time, I was going through some massive life changes and one of the most difficult losses I’d ever faced.

I was in a state of tremendous grief. I began to see much of Devon’s content online. He had moved to Miami, Florida, an area that had been drawing me magnetically for a myriad of personal reasons as well as some smaller-scale business plans. It was mostly personal though and it was shaping up to be a very difficult trip.

I needed to go to Florida to deal with a pivotal moment in my life stemming from a heartbreaking loss. My grief was overwhelming and all-encompassing. I knew the trip ahead of me was most likely going to be devastating. And did not know what to do. I ended up calling Devon. Poor Devon! He received my call in such a state of pain and grief.

The way he handled my chaotic and grieving energy was masterful. I’d like to discuss this encounter because I believe it to be so valuable and symbolic of who Devon is and how he operates.

I’m a big believer in talk therapy. I think it’s an amazing process and provides so much value. When I called Devon, he asked me to explain my situation. I told him everything that was going on. My breathing must have been erratic, frantic, and filled with pain and sadness. Devon seemed to understand every micro-nuance of my mood and energy. I’ve seen some really great therapists over the years, who have been skilled, astute, and remarkably intelligent people. I have great reverence and respect for the field and the amount of intellect and energy that goes into effectively connecting with a patient.

All that being said, I must say, the degree to which Devon was able to connect and draw out difficult concepts was superior to any therapy session I’d ever experienced. Within one phone call, he’d made me feel as though he’d seen deep into the core of all my issues. I truly think he had. He cut straight to the source of pain, problems, solutions. And disarmed me of viewing my situation in certain non-helpful terms.

While not feeling it, Devon assured me that this pain was a tremendous opportunity, that the loss and void I was experiencing, had immense potential and capacity for transformation. Despite my difficulties and heartbreak, I reluctantly came to terms with the fact that this was an opportunity, not a tragedy. Merely understanding this did not do much to ease the pain. It was very difficult. But it gave me context to begin a long healing process.

Devon helped me replace many of my thoughts about what I was going through with helpful but brutally difficult yet tremendously beautiful life wisdom. The lessons Devon taught me, I didn’t want to learn. I had to though. I still have to.

Devon’s deep understanding of my pain, grief, and situation, was the result of his fluency in breath.

Chris Rock said that Dave Chappelle is the most fluent person he’s ever met in the language of comedy. This sentence changed my life. I have aspirations to be a comedian and understood early that comedy was a language, with rhythm and timing and tone and breathing and numerical tricks, sounds, thought processes, and patterns, etc.

Devon is the most fluent person I have ever met at the language of breath. And breathing is the essence of life! What I am proposing is that the way Devon interacts with breath gives him abilities that human beings have ceased to regularly tap into. Devon merely helps human beings connect with a natural state of existence.

This is not foofy speculation of supposed healing powers. This is a deeply knowledgeable individual who is having his brain scanned by the University of Miami’s neurological department. The reason being? Devon has continued to grow stronger and gain physical mass, despite consuming an entirely liquid and pranic (breath) diet, for over 400 days. This means that Devon is tapping into human and biological processes that Western metrics are still grappling to understand.

Many Eastern forms of healing or philosophies are dismissed as “new agey” or anti-scientific by Western culture or other ways of thinking. Western science struggles to keep up with and validate many of the neurological truths behind Eastern philosophies. Validating Eastern methodologies through clunky bureaucratic Western processes leads to arrogance. In fact, even within the field of breathwork, Devon is quite vocal about the difference between breathwork as practiced by '“eastern” versus “western “ society.

Stating that “Breathwork done in the west is just people getting high off oxygen”. This differs in principle from what Devon seeks to teach his clients and students, which is to increase the rate of Carbon absorbency. (Devon is quoting a teacher of his here, as this is not his original quote).

Devon has opened up an entire world to me. I have seen such stunning emotional mastery and wisdom from him. It is truly otherworldly. Devon is a very spiritual person, but he is deeply rooted in scientific thinking. He is engaged with the works of Nikola Tesla, a brilliant individual who believed humans could eat electricity. Even creating one of the only audiobooks from one of Tesla’s manuscripts.

As crazy as this may seem, Devon has introduced me to concepts that will have you questioning everything! I’m not done writing about Devon. I have a lot to say about him. I am no expert in breathwork; I’m not even a good student. In fact, my commitment to Devon’s teachings has been sub-par. I am only grasping the tip of the tip of the iceberg. However, I must say that the tip of the tip has been transformative. I will address some of his teachings more specifically in the future, as they are many and varied.

I didn’t know anything about breathwork and still don’t, but I understood through yoga that the capacity for healing and fighting through and coping with difficult emotions resided in the mastery of one’s breath. I was aware of the power of struggling to calmly breathe through physical and mental pain. My intense dedication to Yoga equipped me with some understanding of the power of breath. Devon revolutionized all of these concepts and leads a life I find poetic and masterful.

I started doing yoga because of comedy, which I explained to Devon. He understood this concept immediately, despite its unorthodox nature. The reason being, Devon has taught breathwork to countless high-performance individuals in varying fields who have improved their performances as a result of training with Devon. Training seems like the wrong word to call it. Despite there being a physical element to this, Devon’s teachings are almost a rewiring of how to understand the world and how we maneuver and exist within it. Devon doesn’t talk a lot. Devon’s mastery of his emotions and dedication to his field is similar to incredible and results in seemingly effortless communication on his end.

I cannot overemphasize enough what stands to be gained by exploring some of Devon’s teachings. Regardless of your situation, there is something he can help you optimize and teach you. Every session I had with him was a very poetic, soulful experience. It was both easy and pleasurable and at the same time difficult and growth-inducing.

Happy Solar Return to an epic individual dedicating himself to empowering people to return to various aspects of biological alignment. I owe so much to Devon. “Thank you for sharing the breath”.