Five Dollar Friday

Posted on 12 October, 2012 by The Champ

Hello VSB Nation. Because I haven’t finished the hour long wall slide I usually do after the Steelers lose, I’m going to keep it short tonight.

On behalf of everyone involved with our TV pilot project, I’d like to thank everyone who has contributed so far. Due to your collective efforts and a very generous donation ($5,000!!!) from VSB vet Derek Bellard — won’t reveal his screename, but trust me when I say that each VSB regular would recognize it if I did — we’re up to $7,500. We’re aware that all donations, even the smaller ones, come from people’s hard earned money, and we greatly appreciate the fact that you all have enough faith in us to support the project.

With that being said, we’re still quite a ways from our goal. We have less than two weeks to raise over $12,000. But, although this may seem like a daunting task, we think we may actually be able to make a substantial dent in that number today.

How? Well, we are asking everyone — yes. everyone — who visits here today to go to our Indiegogo page and donate $5. Not $10. Not $20. Not $100. Just five bucks. That’s it.

With our usual daily traffic, we’d make a pretty nice dent if we received $5 from even 5% of the people who will visit the site today. I think we can do a little better than 5% percent, though.

Also, if you know anyone who may not be aware of VSB but would be interested in seeing a project like ours make it to the screen — and has five bucks to spare — please share Five Dollar Friday with them. Facebook, Twitter (with the #fivedollarfriday hashtag), email, word of mouth, and pigeons all work.

And, as a special perk, everyone who takes part in Five Dollar Friday today and today only will receive a PDF version of “Your Degrees Won’t Keep You Warm At Night.” If you’ve already read the book and don’t need another copy, I’m sure you might know someone who would, so regift it to them and tell them you bought it. They won’t know the difference.

Thank you, and happy Five Dollar Friday!

—Damon Young (aka “The Champ”)

Also, a special thanks to the following people who’ve supported the project.

+100

Patrick Charles

Courtney Bethel

+50

Canaan McCaslin

Ajamu Matthews

Mona Al Jneibi

Kimberly Johnson

+20

Kalimah Vereen

Joe Edwards

LaToryria Matthews

Angela Dugan

Sebastian White

Marissa Joy

Shawn Morrow

Jason Lemon

Joel Penigar

John Porche

Marcus Williams

Adrean Mabry

Chandra Hampton

Yvonne Kennedy

Do You Know What Today Is?

Posted on 31 March, 2010 by Very Smart Brothas

303

It's our Anniversary Bitches

That’s right, folks. Today, March 31, 2010 is our Anniversary. The day that marketh the conclusion of the second year of VSB.com’s birth.

A few words from the VSB Leadership

Panama Jackson: I, Panama Dontavious Jackson, just want to thank you, heavenly father, for shining your light on me. You make me happy, so very ha…waitaminute. Oh. Right. VSB. We just want everybody to know how much we appreciate you all coming thru over the past 2 years. There have been ups and downs. Tears and fears. Sometimes we traded tears for fears but at the end of the day, the fact that I’m a 3 never railroaded me. And since no trains were run during the making of this accomplishment, today was a good day. It is definitely hard to say goodbye to yesterday, but tomorrow will bring, a better you, a better me. To all of you folks who come here everyday and read and comment, or just read, thanks for sleepwalking. We’ve got some bigger and better things on deck and hopefully you all will come along for the ride. We’re going from a 4.0 to a 4.6. And you know the difference between those two. And if you don’t, I’m sure somebody here will tell you. Peace to the Gods, the Earths, and the Seeds. Your friendly neighborhood 3. Thanks for real. For I am nothing, nothing, nothing…if I (we) don’t…haaaaaaaaaaaave yoooooooooooooooou…Word. Life.

The Champ: in the last two years we’ve seen a black president bring back light-skinned black male points, the dumbest thing out of alaska since the last season of “northern exposure”, the births of twitter, facebook lesbians, kanyes shag, and the overuse of the word “vet” as well as the deaths of the king of pop, hip-hop, autotune, gatorade, corey haim, john edwards’ career and kat stacks’ vag1na.

still, all of this pales in comparison to the rise of verysmartbrothas.com, the modern day continuance of riley and springers lonely shanty nights, a deadly culmination of panama jackson, liz burr, liz burr’s boobs, and an eggheaded cat from pittsburgh, and I graciously thank you for allowing us to be the most important thing any of you have ever had in your lives.

Liz: If I went by our email inbox, half of ya’ll don’t know who I am or that I help keep VSB afloat, but that’s alright. I still love you anyway. Thanks for making these past two years freaking awesome, and for putting up with us PJ and the Champ. It’s been fun working on such a large site with such an awesome community. I have enjoyed seeing the site grow and blossom to some wonderful wonderfullness, and I hope you’ll like the cool stuff we have planned in the near future.

Now, for the BIRTHDAY PRESENTS

Some of you may remember for our Centennial post we gave out (virtual) Commenter Awards. To celebrate our Second Birthday, we wanted to give a special thanks to the 10 most commenting-est commenters on VSB for the last two years. That’s right, we’re GIVING AWAY FREE VSB T-SHIRTS to these special folks. And not just any shirt, we have some new shirts coming down the pipeline (designed by a real designer!), and these Chosen Few will be the first to receive our brand spanking new exclusive design. Without further adieu …*drumroll*

The Top 10 Most Commentingest VSB Commenters of ALL TIME!

miss t-lee
Me fail english?
Cheekie
Luvvie
blackberry molasses
shatani
WuDaMan
pgh muse
Gem of the Ocean
Deviant

These super VSBs and VSSs have comment counts into the several thousands. Impressive. We appreciate their time and dedication to never shutting the f*ck up moving conversation here on VSB and would like for everyone to give them a nice VSB soul clap and throw a lil VSB glitter in the air. (If your name is on this list, we will be e-mailing you shortly about t-shirt options and delivery.)

The Best of VSB

10 Most Viewed Posts

10 Most Commented Posts

Time for a group hug

Thanks again for taking the time to visit VSB everyday. This is the part where all the lurkers take the time to de-lurk, and leave their first comment on VSB. Everybody else? You know what to do…

why we appreciate beyonce

Posted on 8 December, 2008 by The Champ

668

“i hate her. whenever i see her i just want to punch her in her stupid face and kick her in her stupid arms.”

—a friend of the champ’s, beginning an unprompted (and by “unprompted” i mean we were literally discussing lettuce a mere 5 seconds before) three minute stream of consciousness diatribe denouncing the “evil beyonce represents” while in line at au bon pain two months ago.

the intense white hatred many women have towards beyonce has always been quite amusing to me. seen as a technicolor, yaki-rockin, imbecilic, antichrist texan puppeteer, the venom and vitriol the presence of bey produces knows no limits and has no bounds…and we love it.

we know that the typical man doesn’t understand the level of animus many women hold towards the thundergoat. for the vast majority of us, beyonce is nothing but a wildly popular singer/entertainer who happens to be married to the best greatest rapper of all-time

***btw, this statement is coming from someone who was such a nas and wu stan during the late 90′s that a fourth of his wardrode consisted of fatigues and wu-wear. point being: if i can finally admit that jigga’s the best ever, you can too. please don’t argue it anymore. you’re wasting our time***

sure, she seems a little boring and a bit vapid, but the typical man already feels that most women are a little boring and a bit vapid anyway, so its really no big deal. its expected and sh*t

these two factors regale us so because, combined, they represent the reason why we appreciate beyonce so. she’s our proof, our evidence, our validation, our most concrete confirmation…

…that women are nuts

you see, the hatred many women feel for beyonce is an actual literal manifestation of the eons-long battle between the idea of “chick logic” and “actually being right“…a perfect metaphor for every guy who’s ever been so frustrated with a woman that he was tempted to shoot a bucket of baby pandas eating bite-sized baby panda snacks.

admittedly, there are myriad reasons (from dislike of her music to general indifference) to not give two sh*ts about bey, but its seems as if the typical beyhater goes past that to the point that they’re more unnerved by the idea of beyonce than the thundergoat herself, and this makes our (read: “men’s”) hearts sing and sh*t.

when we witness many women, in their blind and unsubstantiated fury, using everything from nepotism and birth certificates to talentlessness and america’s infatuation with light-skinned points to discount bey’s success, (conveniently forgetting the fact that each of these “facts” can be laughably refuted, and how eerily similar their claims sound to the ones usually levied against obama) we sigh and nod silently while fist-pumping to ourselves.

sometimes the logic matrix of a woman runs so deep that you begin to question the reality you know is true, but hearing a woman rail about b brings us back to earth, and reminds us that luvvie water is still wet, tony romo is still autistic, and many women are still nucking futs

so, from the vsb’s and every other man inhabiting the planet, thank you beyonce. we love and appreciate you. keep doing what you do. our sanity depends on it

—the champ