Category Archives: housecleaning

It Was A Very Good Year

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Welcome, VSB nation, to our final post of 2011 — a year that can be summarized in one word: Wow. 

It might take 5,000 words to list each memorable moment, so I’ll just settle for the highlights.

The release of a long-awaited book that garnered overwhelmingly positive reviews from many, including celebrities (well, celebrities to reading ninjas, at least) Helena Andrews…

 “Written by Damon “the Champ” Young and Panama Jackson, the two “very smart brothas” behind the blog of the same name, Your Degrees isn’t the latest literary money pit for pitiful women looking to “find, keep and understand a man.” Instead, the book, which reads more like a “best of” blog series (in a good way), is a case study in new-millennium mating for like-minded folk who live near a metro. The book is playful without being patronizing.”

…and The Artist Formerly Known As Sister Toldja

“The 250-page book has consistently remained on Amazon’s top-100 for both love/sex and humor titles since its release at the end of January…and for good reason! It’s a genuinely entertaining read. Though they’re both men, Panama and The Champ (the first Pittburgian…Pittsburger(?) that I ever knew outside of an August Wilson play) do a fantastic job at not throwing women under the bus, nor attempting to make too many excuses for guys when it comes to the behaviors that make the dating game a tough one to play.”

(Hint, Hint: “Your Degrees Won’t Keep You Warm At Night” would make for a great stocking stuffer. Humor, wisdom, and rachetness all in one cheap package. What more can you ask for?) 

The first annual National VSB Day — officially recognized now as February 10th of every year — an event where hundreds of fans of VSB gathered in various cites across the nation (Pittsburgh, D.C., Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, New York City, Oakland/Bay Area, Los Angeles, Dallas, and Miami/South Florida) to meet, greet, and celebrate VerySmartness.

“Three Deez” — The VSB Three Year Anniversary Party and Book Signing — an event that took place on April 2nd, drew over 500 folks (Including numerous VSB veterans. Don’t even want to bother naming who all showed up because I don’t want to forget anyone, but lets just be safe and say that every f*cking body was there) and was notable for three reasons.

1. It marked the first time that Panama and I met in person. (Also was the first and only time that all three of us — Panama, Liz, and I — have ever been at the same place at the same time)

2. It managed to get VSB and SBM together for a picture…

…an instance that will surely be our version of the famous “Pac and Biggie when they were still cool” pic when VH1 does their “Behind The Music” special on black male bloggers in 2021. (If I had to guess, the segment will probably start off with a narrator saying “Everything was great…until that one fateful night in 2016 when Panama and Slim Jackson (no relation) decided on a whim to rob that Uni-Mart…”)
3. It produced this totally awesome video.

Panama appeared on The Ed Gordon show, and was a featured panelist at the Princeton University’s Hip-Hop: Arts & Life Symposium.

I had spots on the Michael Baisden Show and The Michael Eric Dyson Show, and was a featured panelist at Blogalicious 2011.

We were featured by The Washington Post, interviewed by The Root, named on The Root’s list of 30 Black Bloggers You Should Know, interviewed by Essence, profiled by Black Enterprise, and spotlighted by Edge Magazine. 

We won a record FIVE Black Weblog Awards — (Blog of The Year, Best Writing In a Blog, Best Humor Blog, Best Dating and Relationship Blog, and Best Blog Duo)

We were named on Ebony Magazine’s Annual Power 100 List

(Also, I haven’t seen it yet, but apparently we’re in this week’s Jet Magazine. Kelly Rowland should be on the cover.)

Panama, Liz, and I also continued to spread our wings to other parts of the internet. Editor gigs, writing contracts, featured columns, and Liz even managed to executive produce a series about women exactly like her.

Now, I can’t speak too much about our plans for 2012 yet, but I will say two things…

1. VSB will open the new year with a few, um, changes. I can’t tell you exactly what’s going to happen, but things will be very different around here. Don’t worry, though. These are good changes. (Well, we think they’re good changes, but that remains to be seen)

2.  You know how jaw-dropping it can be to see your favorite book on screen? Well, if “Your Degrees Won’t Keep You Warm At Night” is your favorite book, prepare to have your jaw-dropped in 2012.

None of this — the book, the awards, the recognition, our plans — would have been possible without VSB nation, and trust me when I say that we’re honored and humbled by your continued support. It’s completely amazing to think of how far we’ve come (and how much further we plan to go), and you’ve been there with us every step of the way. We are forever indebted to you, and we sincerely wish each of you a safe and happy holiday season.

See you in 2012

—The Champ

VSB: Now Slightly Less Janky

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Thanks for always being logged on to VSB.

*taps mic*

Hey guys. Liz here.

Just wanted to give you the heads up that there is no new post today because the site has been on the fritz the past week, as I am sure many of you have noticed.

I wanted to take a minute to apologize for the downtime and the jankyness factor going on here at VSB lately. It’s been a rough week, rougher than usual, but I believe we have fixed most of the problems for now, and we have upgraded our server so the site runs faster.

Yes, that means less 404s, 503s and OPPs.

Sorry if you had problems accessing the site this week. Also, really really sorry for some of you throwback Internet Explorer users who were getting forwarded to a pr0n site when coming to VSB. (Some of you may have actually enjoyed that, I’m not really sure.)

I also wanted to take the time to remind you that you can always subscribe to our RSS feed via your RSS feed reader, or email. That way, you can read our published content in your RSS feed reader or in your email inbox even if the site is down or slow. Click here to subscribe via email or RSS.

If you ever have any technical problems with VSB please email us at contact@verysmartbrothas.com and we can help troubleshoot. And by “us” and “we” I mean “me.” Panama and the Champ can’t help you on tech problems. SMH.

Have a good weekend! Make sure you read P’s very important post from yesterday, since the site was down most of the day.

Thanks for your patience and support!

The Very Smart Takeover

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I spent the entire 4th of July grilling and mixing drinks for a crew of Mexican plankers and n*gger scientists, so I wasn’t able to write last night. And by “I spent the entire 4th of July grilling and mixing drinks for a crew ofMexican plankers and n*gger scientists” I mean “I was drunk between 2:30 pm and (approximately) now.”

But, although we don’t have anything new for VSB today, Panama and I have been quite busy expanding our writing horizons, and I thought I’d take some time today to share a few of the moves we’ve made to help make this VSB takeover complete.

First, I wanted to let you all know that I’ll be writing forThe Good Men Project on a semi-regular basis.My first article there,“Eligible, Black, Male, and Hopelessly Single” — which shed light on the fact that thereare actually “eligible” black men out there who genuinely want to be in a relationship (with a black woman!) but have trouble finding the right match — was their most popular articlelast week and was picked up by several publications, including NPR News and Clutch Magazine.

Panama has a new gig at The Stir, where he’s blogging about being a single dad, being black, dating, actually knowing his daughter’s favorite color, and being a black single dad who’s currently dating and actually knows his daughter’s favorite color.It’s not a game with Panama and the blogging about being a single black male father (who’s not in prison) game.

A new edition of my “Ask A Very Smart Brotha” advice column at Madame Noire posts every Wednesday, and is guaranteed to provide insight, humor, ratchetness, anger, and conspiracy theory (and those are just the comments)

Panama is still holding it down at GuySpeak, a place where (I’ve heard) he’s much, much nicer than he is at VSB. Show the BFF some love.

Also, I’ve been named head editor of The Hill Review, a new literary magazine that’s set to launch in September. Founded and funded by The August Wilson Center, it will offer long-form essays, articles, critiques, fiction, excerpts, and even editorial cartoons.Basically, think The New Yorker with a focus on all things African-American culture.You’ll be hearing more about this in the coming weeks. And yes, we’re unofficially accepting submissions right now. (Btw, I have no idea what “unofficially accepting submissions” even means.)

Lastly, I know we’ve done this a trillion times before, but each of us — Panama, Liz, and I — greatly appreciate all of the support you all have given us. Yes, we’ve put in a ton of work ourselves, but the success we’ve had and the doors this success has opened is largely due to VSB nation, and we’re foreverindebtedto you all and shit.

Thank you.

Anyway, people of VSB.com, does anyone have anyannouncementsto make? Any crazy 4th of July stories? Any planking pictures?

We’re all fam here and shit. Don’t be scared to share.

***1:25 am edit. Liz has a ton of awesomeness going on too, but she’s a bit less comfortable sharing in this space. Plus, she prefers to remain stealth. Easier for her to steal shit that way, I guess. Follow her at@calinative for the full Liz 411.***

—The Champ

The Morning(s) After #threedeez: An Event Recap of the VSB Anniversary Party

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Oh, what a night.

Here’s a little background for all those suckas that don’t know: One day, I was talking on the G-chat with Cheekie. She mentioned that a gaggle of ladies would be descending up on DC in early April for the Cherry Blossom Festival. A segment had been to Miami and decided to hang out again in our nation’s capital. She asked me if we could do some kind of VSB event. I’m sure I said, “sure” and surely, we began formulating the plan to create a happy hour style event that turned into the Three Deez VSB Three Year Anniversary Party and Book Signing (which was also accidentally named by Cheekie).

And it was also the event where The Champ and I met for the first time. Before I get into the random recaps (alcohol was present, dontchaknow), I feel like everybody else was WAY more excited about us finally meeting than we were. Not that it wasn’t due, but when you work with and deal with somebody for so long, the meeting is merely a formality. But yes it still had to happen. Were there jitters? No. Curiousity? No. Illiteracy? No. Racism? No. So, what did happen when we met? How did the first meeting between VSBs The Champ and Panama Jackson go????

Glad you asked.

Liz and I picked him up from his hotel. He got in my car. I noticed he didn’t have a coat and told him he was on his white boy Pittsburgh sh*t rolling around without a jacket in 50 degree weather. Then we talked about how gay the cake was (if you saw the cake, it was pretty gay). It was pretty much how two ninjas who’ve known each other for a very long time would interact. Easy breezy beautiful cover girl. And yes, the cake was gayer than that last sentence I just typed. No real pomp. No real circumstance. Just two real G’s doing real G things.

Going to a restaurant with a cake in hand and a bunch of books to sell. Fern. Gully.

And with that said, maaaaaaaaaaaaaaan was that a good time. There were drinks flying everywhere. Women all over. More men than I thought would show up. Books. Signed books. Old friends. New shoes. And I think Brick killed a guy. We met so many folks who frequent the site and met some new folks who hopefully will begin to do so. Here are some random observations from Three Deez knucka.

- Champ is a basketball head. We all know this. So what does he do for the first half hour that we’re there? Watch the VCU-Butler game? What do I do? Go holler at chicks and do banging re-interpolation of Adele’s “Chasing Pavements” complete with interpretive dance. What does that tell us? Put two ninjas in a room together and one is watching ball and the other is singing and dancing. That’s what it was like in 1811 and it’s like that in 2011. We got to do better.

- Champ is hilarious in person. Of course I didn’t know how much so until Saturday. We signed books for a very long time but we also had some hilarious moments signing those books. If you could read some of the things he signed in folks books? Here’s an example: To Shuuuuuuuga – two wrongs don’t make a right, but loving VSB (and me) means you make good decisions in life. Aw shuga no no no no. Champ?

To Shuuuuuuuuuuga – why did your mother name you that? I don’t know either. Champ.

- Le sigh, the DJ might have been the best terrible DJ in history. Let me explain. See, the upstairs part wasn’t a VSB function…back up. Because we were expecting such a big turnout, we worked out with the club a way to allow folks to go into the upstairs nightclub – which had a party going on – for free. Cool beans. Except it was “deep house” night. Which isn’t a bad thing its just that NOBODY who was up in the club actually wanted to hear that. But the DJ was a dope DJ, if that’s what you wanted to hear. Of course, his party, his rules, but I’m pretty sure a lot of the women wanted to drop it like it was hot but couldn’t find the beat to do so because the average BPM was 287. You’ll kill yourself trying to drop that in time. But it was free, and there was a bar…

- …which means that we took shots. Quite a few actually. At one point, at least 10 people lined up to take kamikaze shots with me. I can’t even remember everybody who participated. But it was dark, and hell is hot. Pretty sure nobody paid for it anyway so praise the lord and pass the panties.

- All of the out of town ladies came thru and represented HARD. Cheekie, Gem of the Ocean, Sane85, Max, Miss Patterson, Nick@Nite, Keisha Brown, LaLaBakir, Starita, and hometown heroes LiveLoveLibra and MsEsquire were the impetus for even doing the party (if I missed somebody, my bad). We all went out on Friday night and I’m pretty sure that I grabbed more derrierre than is recommended by the surgeon general. I can neither confirm nor deny if that last sentence is true.

- Pretty sure I gave SmartFoxGirl a table dance.

- The line for the book signing was insane. It also seemed like it would never end. Must be what the line to hell looks like. Thanks to everybody who bought a book and had us sign it. That felt great to know that anybody gives a sh*t about little ole us. Also, it gave us a great way to check out all of the ladies. Book signings are definitely where it’s at. Sadatay.

- Shoutouts to the SingleBlackMale.org family for falling through and hanging out. One of the most interesting parts of the night was when we all took a picture together and I’m pretty sure I was blinded by the 37 people taking pictures using the brightest flash possible…

…yet nobody seems to have a copy of that picture. Or any of the other ones taken for that matter. We had a photog and videographer there who will send me pictures soon and we’ll post them.

- The topic of what the difference between a Champ fan and a Panama fan came up quite frequently. It’s somewhat of a running joke between us. And no, we still never answered it to anybody who asked. At least not directly. Oh, and Classy6’5″ Diva is really that tall. Wow.

- Much like folks who’ve never seen us before, there’s an interesting feeling when you meet somebody who’s only lived in your life via word form and they look nothing like you thought they might. That sh*t can really throw you off your game. I ain’t saying that happened, but it happened. Not good or bad, I’m just saying I can’t be alone in my thoughts about that.

- I saw some superb fashion WTF moments. Hell, I was one of them. I had on a two Jesus pieces. Rapper game proper.

- We sold a boatload of books. Thank you. Buy some more. Thank you.

- To all the drunk motherf*ckers who were running around, ooooooh that’s a good look baby. Including Liz who at some point I’m pretty sure just went to go sit in a corner and play Angry Birds or something.

I’ll stop there (for now) and just add things over the course of the day. To everybody who came out (there are too many names that I do remember for me to even ATTEMPT to name them all) thank you very much. To all of the new friends we made and the old friends we saw. Oh, special shoutout to Circa1908 who Liz informed left the first comment on the blog of anybody who still comments today. It was really great meeting her and hanging. Pluse she tweeted some of the more outlandish things I said. And I’m pretty sure I said that after the New Testament is the Newer Testament, and the book right after Revelations is Realizations…and that Tupac has a chapter.

The moral? Stop drinking kids.

For those who weren’t there, fret not, we’re travelling soon. For those who were there, thanks…we appreciate the love and support and thank you for celebrating with us.

For those folks who came…what did you remember most? Speak on it. Share. Let’s make this a happy home. Carl Thomas is emotional. But we’re gangsta.

Special shoutouts to DC Tap & Parlour for hosting us with libations, food, and good service. We should all go back again.

Talk to me.

How was your Three Deez experience?

-VSB P aka THE ARSONIST aka TANGLE JIG P aka GIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRL HE A 3

“Very Smart Singles” and more….

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2011: The Year of The Very Smart Takeover

In the 690 posts and 225,000 comments since the first VSB entry (emotional cheating. the ultimate oxymoron), we — Panama, Liz, and I — have been asked dozens upon dozens of questions; queries ranging from the silly (“Does The Champ decorate his deez for Halloween?“), the waaaaay too serious (“When are the VSB’s going to tackle the rampant rapes by American soldiers in Afghanistan?”), and the f*cking stupid (“Even though I’ve never actually left a comment on VSB, didn’t bother to attach any writing samples, and didn’t even make the effort to get your names right in this email, can I guest post on VSB next week?“)

But, one question seems to pop up more than any other; a question we never really gave much serious thought to…until now.

“There seems to be a great community of like-minded and intelligent people here. But, I need to know where and how can I find the Very Smart Brothas and Sistas in my city?”

Enter “Very Smart Singles”, the Verysmartbrothas’ answer to that question. Taking a cue from the popularity of My Single Peeps, Very Smart Singles will pull from the thousands of VerySmart and single fans of VSB, showcasing those who choose to participate.

Here’s how it will work. A person (male or female) submits a picture and a short (150-200 word) and witty (well, as witty as you can be) bio to our email address. Included in the bio should be their general location (i.e.: DMV, Greater Atlanta area, etc) and the name they prefer to have on their profile. (For instance, if your name is Kimberly Johnson, you’d be “Kim J”, “K.J.”, or “Kimmers”)

We’ll then post the pic and the bio on the Very Smart Singles page (which is currently under construction). People interested in possibly meeting the Very Smart Single will email us, and we’ll then contact the Very Smart Single, giving them the contact info of whoever expressed interest. From that point, they’re on their own.

Although the page itself is still under construction, we’re currently accepting submissions so that when the page is ready to go, we can hit the ground running. If you’re interested, email a hi-definition picture, a short bio, and your location to contact@verysmartbrothas.com, under the heading “Very Smart Singles”. You’ll hear more about this in the next few weeks, but we hope to have the page up and running in January.

***About “Your Degrees Won’t Keep You Warm at Night”***

After reading some of the comments here and on Twitter about this book, there’s something I felt the need to clear up. Although this looks, smells, and is titled like a relationship book, it’s not really a relationship book. Well, let me put it this way: it’s as much of a “dating and relationship” book as The 40 Year Old Virgin is a “dating and relationship” movie.

The book involves many of the same types of jokes, pop culture references, and asides regularly featured on Very Smart Brothas. And, to be quite honest, we’re just as concerned with people being entertained by and enjoying the book as we are with the relationship aspect of it.

For instance, the book –which is 250 pages long, and well be sold for $14.99 — contains (at least) 50 footnotes. Here’s two of them:

[5] Admittedly, if shes from Cincinnati, Ohio, this is probably true. Seriously, Ive been to 40 different states, 4 different countries and 2 different continents, but women from Cincinnati are easily the most sexually forward. Just thinking about the things I saw at Club Ritz and Annies a few years ago makes the Bible I keep on my dresser catch fire. Basically, its the most underrated place on Earth to have a bachelor party. T. C.

[7] For those unaware of who is he, Ezekiel Freekey Zekey Jiles is the least talented member of the Dipset, the most ignant and least talented popular rap clique in New York City — a place which has been producing the least talented rappers in Hip-Hop for (at least) the last 10 years. Hes also business partners with second most untalented member of the Dipset, Jim Jones, a man who also happens to be my personal nemesis (even though hes probably completely unaware of this fact) –T.C.

Not exactly what you’d find in your typical “relationship” book.

Anyway, between the book, the Very Smart Singles site, and the nationwide VSB day at satellite locations across the country (oops. I don’t think I was supposed to say anything about that yet), there’s going to be a lot going on here in the first part of 2011. I’d ask you all to bear with us, but we wouldn’t be in the position to do the things we’re planning to do without your ongoing support, so you “bearing with us” is pretty much a given, and I probably would have insulted your collective intelligence if I even asked that question.

Instead, and on behalf of the VSB crew, I’m just going to wish everyone a safe and happy holiday weekend. Be fruitful and multiply and sh*t.

—The Champ