Tag Archives: Don’t Feed The Animals

March First

Posted on February 28, 2011 by phella| 1 Comment

We live in a day and age of rhetoric. Everyone wants to say that next thing that will be quoted or gain cool points. The thing about rhetoric is that it works better when you know what you’re talking about it. When you feel it. When you live it and will die for it. Short of that, it’s just more rhetoric. No matter the amount of exclamation marks or cool font you put behind it. Same with spoken words — shout it, swag it out, chew extra mints if it makes you feel better — those words still mean very little without true sincerity and action behind them.

I know a lot of people who like to be lied to. They live in a made up world and become uncomfortable around truth. You ever speak to someone for hours and not gain a thing? Like after the conversation you don’t feel like you’ve grown in the slightest way? I’m not about that life. Those conversations can be extremely draining so I try to stay far away from them. It’s like staring at great art that’s been destroyed. Very hard to look at because you know it’s not how it should be. You know it could be better and if you’re like me, you hate being cheated. I want to see my mother at her best. Same with my brother, same with my girlfriend, same with those I work with, same with even my living room. I want everything at it’s greatest or at least on it’s way there.

Let’s joke and have fun, but most importantly, let’s grow. Let’s be better. Tomorrow we enter the third month of 2011 and I just encourage whoever reads this to be 100% about what you speak. Talking is wonderful. Communication is necessary 4 the growth process but not as necessary as action is. Even with the best written speech, Dr. King would have been just another dreamer if he didn’t March first.

**** Like how I tied that all in? Last day of Black History Month? Dr. King? March First? never mind…..

Peace & Luv

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“Vegetarian Lifestyle, Might Don’t Make It”

Posted on January 16, 2011 by phella| 2 Comments

My homegirl Ainslee aka 6S from Ohio can be credited for that line.

I ate great this week. Vegetarian life doesn’t suck. Matter of fact, it’s great. February 12th makes it a year and everyday I’m still discovering new things to keep it fresh.


Monday mornings blueberry wheat waffles with the whipped cream my cousin brought over since Thanksgiving that I’ve been putting on errything. Also some morning star veggie sausages and cheese eggs. Looks like a lot of food but probably less calories than your average breakfast sandwich from a fast food spot.


Garlic naan (I’m a carb addict so things like naan allow me to get my fix without doing too much destruction). Morning star mushroom patties and broccoli overload (my second favorite thing on earth lately). And some tea (my first favorite thing on earth lately — after going 23 and a half years without ever tasting tea, I’m now addicted.)


Mushroom, walnuts, and greens salad at Masa 14.


More tea.


Curry tofu at Masa 14…..crack!


The carb fiend in me is suppressed these days but still is alive and well. Pecan pie after the studio never hurt nobody.

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Hunger For More

Posted on July 11, 2010 by phella| Comments Off

Haha….I can’t even mask the fact that I’ve been dying of hunger up there in Newark. I’ve found an abundance of food these past few days…..be happy for me.

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Indifference

Posted on June 18, 2010 by phella| 1 Comment

“All you’ll get from strangers is surface pleasantry or indifference. Only someone who loves you will criticize you.”

Be very weary of people who never have opinions or thoughts for you. Don’t be weary in the sense that they’re bad people, but understand that they probably don’t care about you too much. I go back to using children as an example. If you see your child, who you love so much, climbing a high place, you’ll probably scream at them to get down. The child may be upset at you for this but at least you weren’t indifferent. An indifferent person would let the child climb, fall, break his neck — then maybe, just maybe, call an ambulance.

I see it all the time in all aspects of my life. People are just too cool or too pre-occupied to care. They have no opinion, no feedback, no nothing.

The sad part about all of this is that most of us tend to seek to surround ourselves with indifferent people. I know I did at one point. “Man I love (so and so) cuz he don’t care about nothing.” Really? Is that a reason to love someone? The problem is that most of us don’t care for the truth. We’d rather seek a comfortable lie to live in and anyone who tries to take us out of it is seen as the enemy. The true enemy, however, is the person who won’t allow you or your career to be the greatest it can be.

Don’t believe me, look back at all the kids you knew growing up. Think of the ones who had no form of guidance and structure in their lives. The ones who ate whatever, drank whatever — stayed out till anytime of night. They were always classified as “cool”. We always envied them and said we wished we had parents like theirs. I don’t know about your neighborhood, but from mine, every last one of those people are either dead, in jail, or even worse: alive with no possibility of a successful future. That’s the outcome of years and years of indifference.

If you want to get in shape, you get a physical trainer that stays on you and makes you eat healthy and workout. You don’t get an indifferent person who allows the occasional triple cheeseburger or the half mile run that was supposed to be four miles; that would be senseless. Same applies to every other aspect of life. Surround yourself with indifferent people and yes it may be convenient, but trust, you’ll end up in very bad shape in the long run.

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F*ck Your Bag Of Chips

Posted on June 9, 2010 by phella| Comments Off

Imagine if you were building a structure as great as the Eiffel Tower. Everyone agrees that they are in it for the long haul to build this wonderful thing. Day after day, they build and things look very promising. Suddenly one day, an important day at that, a few of the builders decide to slow down or stop all together. Everyone’s looking at them like “hey guys, why aren’t you working?”. They say nothing. “Hey guys, this building is very important; it’s going to feed our families and put us in the history books”, they say nothing. It becomes evident that these guys don’t share the same enthusiasm for completion of this structure. Upon further investigation it turns out that 3 weeks before this pseudo-strike, these guys had ordered Doritos during lunch break. The person in charge of food bought them Pringles because that’s all that was available. That’s the cause of the anger and lack of participation. Not only is this selfish act going to set the group back and slow down momentum of the project but it’s also not going to get them Doritos next time around, or even Pringles for that matter. The goal on day one was to build a great structure, not to eat chips.

I say this to say this. I’ve observed an overwhelming amount of people willing to throw away quality building over something so miniscule and irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. They don’t realize they’re throwing it away though; they usually think they’re proving some sort of point. Instead they end up causing the other person/people to adjust and figure out how to do it without them.

I think battles should be chosen wisely and fought even more wisely. Fighting the wrong battle has cost people money, jobs, spouses, and even their lives. I can speak on this because I’ve been through it firsthand. During my short stint at George Mason University I was able to work for a great man, Coach Jim Larranaga. He was the coach of the basketball team and a father figure/teacher to all of us. During practices, road trips, games, and anything pertaining to that seasons goal, the man would be a monster. So intense, so “mean”, “rude”, “disrespectful”, etc. I put those words in quotations because he was none of that. He was a man with a goal and he didn’t care about anyone’s feelings or emotions when it was time to work. He said what had to be said. As a result, that team shocked the nation and made the NCAA Final Four and will forever be in the history books as one of the smallest programs to make it that far. Coach L was also one of the most fun people to be around and he’ll buy you any bag of chips you wanted once the mission was complete.

I recently had two relationships end that had potential for greatness. One because I was thinking about my bag of chips and the other because someone else was focused on a bag of chips. In neither instance was it worth it. Be careful out there my friends.

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Killed For Going To Subway????

Posted on October 8, 2008 by phella| Comments Off


I saw this story on the news last week and finally found the link on youtube.

Basically a bear walks into a Subway and tries to get some service. In typical Subway fashion there is no one there to attend to him so he leaves. Same thing has happened to me on several occassions. The only difference is, he walked out and was gunned down in cold blood by cops.

Question is, should a bear be killed just for trying to get a sandwich? Was the lousy service not punishment enough?

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You Sly FOX…News Network Exposed

Posted on July 29, 2008 by phella| 3 Comments

For those who aren’t hip to this story, I’ll brief you. For years Fox News has been accused of reporting news from a biased perspective despite promoting that they are “fair and balanced”. In this video it is revealed that The White House has fed FOX with talking points that would favor the government, especially on important issues.

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