From the monthly archives:

October 2007

Good Times, Good Friends, And Happy Endings

Sexpot Donna, a beautiful man that I’ll call “Jay”, and I had a great time at the In the Flesh Erotic Reading Series last night. Good times. Good friends. I haven’t seen either of them as much as I would have liked lately. Jay and I are gonna make plans to do a proper dinner together soon. Sexpot Donna promises me that she has a story that will be great for an article that I’m writing. But, enough about my friends and more about this erotic reading series. If you live in New York and you’ve never checked out In the Flesh, you really should. Last night, the lineup included Jasmine Clemente speaking Spanglish, Colette Gale giving out free books, Jane Lockwood speaking with a British accent, Sean Manseau talking about a monkey, Robert W. Cabell making everyone laugh, Steven Padnick showing off his tatoo, and Rachel Kramer Bussel plying everyone with free chocolate and cupcakes all night. I also had a chance to meet a fellow brown blogger named Nichelle. (It’s kind of weird to meet someone for the first time when you already know their name and face, no? Even weirder to do that after drinking.)

After the reading was over, Jay, Sexpot Donna and I left Happy Ending, the venue at which the reading was held, and went home. I’m looking forward to the weekend; it’s my friend Bro’s birthday and other plans are taking place as well. Details and many good things coming soon.

{ 5 folks got down with the Funky Brown }

< I'd Insert Title Here If I Had One >

Hey, folks. Nothing particularly funny, witty, interesting or insightful to say here today. Last night, I received a call from my 12 year-old nephew because he wanted to let me know that he’d just made his junior high basketball team. Honestly? That call made my day. He’s got the sweetest voice ever and I could tell that he was soooo excited. God, I miss my family. I haven’t been home in a long time. Thanksgiving is right around the corner, but it can’t get here soon enough. But, whatever. So, um, that’s it for now. Happy Friday. If you want to read more sappiness about my nephew, check me out over at Nerve magazine today. Be forewarned, it probably won’t be as exciting for you as it was for me. But, trust me, if you knew this kid, you’d be totally fucking excited, too.

(Link: The Guy on the Basketball Team )

{ 8 folks got down with the Funky Brown }

10 Sexiest Free Podcasts on iTunes

I have a new iPod nano. I love the idea of hearing and seeing my favorite radio & TV shows on my iPod during my morning subway commute. So, last night, I scanned the iTunes store for free podcasts. I think I’m a little behind the curve on this. Don’t get me wrong. I knew there were podcasts on iTunes; I just didn’t know that there were so many of them. New York Times. TMZ. NPR. Best Week Ever. It’s all there, and it’s free. Sexy, right? I wanted to subscribe to all of my shows, but it was a bit overwhelming. I didn’t know where to start. I googled around the Internet to find a simple list of “10 Best Free Podcasts on iTunes” or something like that. I found a few lists here and there, but no particular list won my heart. So, I decided to create my own and share it with you:

10 Sexiest Free Podcasts on iTunes

  1. New York Times. Get up to speed on snippets from NY Times front page headlines from around the world every weekday.
  2. Savage Love Podcast. Get the podcast version of this newspaper sex advice column. (Maaan, I would have made him #1 if he wasn’t pro-war.)
  3. This American Life. Get down with Ira Glass, David Sedaris and the rest of the TAL crew.
  4. NPR. Get the quick and dirty NPR news summary or listen to programs like “Car Talk” and “Fresh Air”.
  5. Best of YouTube. Watch the best clips from YouTube on your iPod.
  6. VH1 Best Week Ever. Best podcast ever.
  7. Comedy Central. Sit down while you watch stand up comedy on your iPod.
  8. BBC Global News. Hear British-accented news stories and interviews on your way to work.
  9. National Geographic Video Shorts. Watch animals get it on … and other things.
  10. People.com. Hear the latest celebrity news gossip whispered into your ear.

Subscribe to any of the podcast above (or use the comment section to share links to some of your favorite podcasts with the rest of us). If you’d like to subscribe to audio and video podcasts but you don’t know how, the iTunes Store has a page dedicated to podcating. Their support section has an FAQ for podcasts, too. You can also check out “How do I subscribe to podcasts with iTunes?” over at Ask Dave Taylor.

Related FBC page: Listen to Dating Roadkill podcasts.

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{ 8 folks got down with the Funky Brown }

Who’s Your Favorite “Black and Nerdy” Man?

Welcome to funkybrownchick.com — where the “M” in Monday stands for M-A-N. Yep, it’s time for another Manly Monday. Today’s post is dedicated to all of the black male nerds out there. Why? Well, about a week ago, one of my readers sent me an email to tell me that *I* am a black nerd. You might be thinking, “Oh, no, he didn’t.” But, yes, really, he did. The man that I’ll call “Michael” (because that’s his name), emailed me a link to an article about black nerds. He specifically sent the email to me because, in his own words, he thought I “might like” it. I couldn’t help but wonder: “Did this man just fucking call me a nerd?” ;) All kidding aside, I’d like to think that Michael didn’t send me the article because he thinks I’m a nerd. I think he sent it to me because he thought I’d like to read it. So, I read it. The article, “Black Nerds: The Revolution No One Could Have Predicted” by Raafi Rivero, is actually a really interesting read. It sheds new light on a theme James Hannaham originally brought up in the Village Voice a few years ago in his article “The Rise of the Black Nerd“. In Rivero’s piece, he writes:

Steve Urkel would bring the black nerd character to the forefront of American pop culture during his reign of terror run on ABC’s Family Matters during the 1990s, but the black nerd was yet to rise to the position of misplaced yet ubiquitous appendage that he enjoys today. While the rise of counter-cultures to the mainstream is all too common, their rise within black culture, already a marginal culture with its own mores, has created unexpected hybrids. Hip-Hop producer/artist Pharrell of the Neptunes, who sometimes refers to himself as Little Skateboard P, named his quirky side band N.E.R.D. as if prophesying the coming movement… or maybe Jamal Smith? Witness: Smith, the thugged-out nerdy skateboarder.

Very cute. Hmmm … Who would win the “Coolest Black Male Nerd” contest: Steve Urkel from “Family TiesMatters”, this skateboarding guy Jamal from the YouTube video above, Carlton from “Fresh Prince of Bel Air”, Dwayne Wayne from “A Different World” , or the kid who plays the “Jordan Thomkins” character on The Bernic Mac Show? Feel free to use the comment section to share your thoughts.

{ 15 folks got down with the Funky Brown }

Me? A Dating Columnist? It Could Happen.

I like to put out. Words, that is. I’ve been writing ever since I was a little girl. When I was too young to have a job, I used my allowance to buy hardcover bound writing journals with pretty pictures on the front. I started putting my pen to the pages on a regular basis back then, and I’ve never stopped. At home, all of my journals are lined up in rows on various shelves of my bookcase. My first kiss, the story about how I lost my virginity, and other experiences are all well-documented.

I started putting words online in 1995. One of my many jobs during my years in college was with a campus group that taught students how to create their own “personal homepages”. One of the guys that I worked with at the time eventually became the VP of Napster. At that campus job, we taught people how to hand-code every line of their homepages from <html> to </html>. I had my own personal homepage as well. From those early days, my online presence evolved. I started posting a “web journal” online to document my experiences living and kissing boys abroad, among other things. The pages came up. The pages went down. Some years I was more active online than others. In 2005, I started doing what’s now called “blogging” here at the FBC, and I started blogging for Nerve magazine at the beginning of this year. As silly as it sounds, one of the totally unexpected consequences of my writing has been this: people are actually reading the words that I write. When I started this blog (originally at funkybrownchick.blogspot.com), my monthly readership was about 90 page visits a month. By the end of 2006, it was up to 9,000. I’m curious to know what the number will be at the end of this year. If trends continue as they are, by the end of 2007, I’ll have as many readers in a day as I used to get in an entire month. With the internet, my private writing habit has suddenly become very public.

I write as a form of therapy, and all of my words are personal narrative. I never really expected that I’d have an “audience” for my writing. So, I’m extremely flattered by and appreciative of the folks who continue to read my words on both of my blogs. And, of course, I have extra special love in my heart for the people who pay me for my words. Starting with Nerve and increasing in recent months, I’ve begun pitching article ideas to various websites and print magazines. One of my articles is coming out in print in November, and my next online article goes up very soon. At the moment, one of the things that I’m really excited about is this: I just found out that one of my favorite magazines is sniffing around for a new dating columnist. I recently sent an email to the editor and thereby threw my hat in the ring. Sending out the pitch was a personal pleasure that I can’t quite find the right words to describe. When I started writing and doodling in my journals as a little brown girl in central Illinois, I would have thought you were lying if you told me that, one day, I’d be a freelance writer in New York City. I probably have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting the dating column for the particular magazine that I pitched. Nevertheless, I’m excited about the possibility. Inside I feel like the giddy little girl that I was when I first started writing. Wish me luck! I don’t know where this crazy little train is going, but I’m enjoying the ride. Fingers crossed!

[Photo credit: I want to give thanks to Mike Goldsmith for taking the beautiful photo in this post and giving me permission to use it on my site today. If you're reading this, big drippy kisses go out to the sweet baby toes of your pretty little feet.]

{ 20 folks got down with the Funky Brown }

The “Second-Longest” Relationship

Dating patterns. We all have them. no? Read about mine, the “Second-Longest” / “Bullshit-free” pattern over at Nerve today.

{ 6 folks got down with the Funky Brown }

Sexy vs. Beautiful: Which Would You Rather Be?

Beautiful people are aesthetically pleasing to one or more of the senses by a very high standard. Sexy people physiologically arouse or excite to an extraordinary level. Would you rather be considered sexy or beautiful? I’m called sexy more often than beautiful. As a result, I think it’s a bigger compliment when men call me the latter. For women who are routinely told that they’re beautiful (or cute), I suspect that they would consider it a bigger compliment to be told that they’re sexy. After all, don’t we all sometimes want what we don’t already have? You tell me: Sexy or beautiful? Which would you rather be?

[Photo credit: Jyn Meyer Photography]

{ 39 folks got down with the Funky Brown }

Which Celeb Would You Like to Meet?

They say you’re no one in Manhattan until you’ve fucked a celebrity or a model. “They” must hang out with a different kind of crowd than I do. Because, to my knowledge, neither I nor any of my friends have fucked anyone who could even remotely be considered a celebrity. We’re not starfuckers. (Update: Bro would like the world to know that she’s not against starfucking. “If I knew any stars to fuck,” she says, “I would fuck them.”) Anyway. Yeah, so, even though I’ve never fucked a “celebrity”, I met one yesterday. Ethan Hawke. At 3:00pm, Andy Milonakis’ sister and I walked along the sunny streets of Midtown Manhattan until we arrived at Borders on Columbus Circle for his book signing. Ethan Hawke’s first novel, The Hottest State, seems to be getting a revival now that the movie version [trailer: YouTube] is out in theaters. At Borders, he stood on the stage and read pages from his book while Jessie Harris strummed various chords on an electric guitar. (Jessie Harris is the guy who wrote Norah Jones’ “Don’t Know Why“; among other things, he’s also the composer and producer of The Hottest State’s soundtrack.) I don’t think I’ve ever been to a book signing where they actually accompanied it with live music. That was kind of cool. If you’re interested, you can buy the book or the soundtrack online. DVD comes out in December.

Ah, Ethan Hawke. Although I originally had other plans for today’s Manly Monday, I kinda had to go with Ethan. I was impressed when I found out that he not only wrote the novel and screenplay for The Hottest State, he also directed the film and starred in it, too. Multi-talented little boy, isn’t he? “I think most people are good at more things than the world gives them the opportunity to do,” is a quote that’s often attributed to him. At the book signing, I asked him if he considered himself more creatively authentic as an author or an actor. His answer? “I think they’re all part of the same thing. It’s all different types of storytelling.” Good answer. If I were a starfucker (which I’m not), would I fuck Ethan Hawke? Sure. Why not? What about you? If you could meet (or hook up with) any celebrity right at this very moment, who would you pick? Lenny Kravitz? David Beckham? Paris Hilton? Halle Berry? Feel free to use the comments link below to tell us about your desired celebrity pleasure(s).

(Related FBC posts: Angelina Jolie: Droolworthy or Not? , The Day I Saw Sandra Bullock in Lower Manhattan, My Top 5 Favorite Celeb Sighting Stories, and Dates with the Australian Celebrity in the West Village.)

[Photo credit: NNDB]

{ 20 folks got down with the Funky Brown }

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