Are You Not Entertained?? My 100th Post

What more can I say? In December 2008, with my industry in desperate need of triage and a recession threatening to cramp my creative muscle, I endeavored to revive my long-abandoned blog.

Back in 2005, blogger was still a relatively fresh concept, but three or four years on, with once-hot social networking sites like MySpace already overtaken by newer models like Twitter, Digg, and their ilk, it seemed a little quaint to be blogging.

But I wanted a place to work through ideas in long- or short form, to co-sign creative artists, movements, trends, or just keep up the fashion/culture reporting that I'd been doing professionally.

I was reluctant to publicize BGNB at first, seeing it more as a private notepad, but the feedback when I did share it was always encouraging.

So here I am at a milestone of sorts. I mean, TV sitcoms celebrate when they hit their 100th episode; the centenary birthday is considered a feat in longevity. 100 feels special.

Anyway, I want to thank all of you guys who've been both loyal and unique visitors to the blog. I've loved getting your ideas: "You should write an article about _____"

I heard your complaints too about not updating frequently enough, but I find the posts lack something when I chase the clock.

Can't be your (media)takeout, I'm slow food y'all:) So much of pop culture is in the muck right now, deadening; more than ever we need to be Awake.

For all the site meters, analytics, and so forth, technology can't measure how you respond to a particular post. I encourage you to wield the power of your mouse and CLICK on the boxes if you think something is interesting, funny.

If you feel otherwise - have your say in the comments section! I welcome praise and criticism with equal humility.

Going forward, I'll take a short break. And then plan to deliver more focused content, more of my lens, less knee-jerking.

Finally, I've been called a romantic more times than I want to remember. I'll cop to wanting always to be inspired. I hoard images just like on the inspiration wall pictured here. What's that about?

All in service of living out my dreams. I wish you all the same.
-BGNB

More to Love: ABC Reporter Puts Loafer in Mouth During 'Entourage' Q&A

It's something of a double standard in dating: While a girl might have her figure scrutinized by a potential suitor, we typically view guys who carry around extra pounds as cuddly, more to love, hence terms like "love handles." ("Muffin top" doesn't sound quite as endearing.)

So I've been surprised that a storyline on HBO's Entourage had Turtle's character, who's dating ex-Sopranos cast member Jamie-Lynn Sigler, fretting about whether a pretty girl would really date a bigger guy unless it was scripted for a Hollywood flick like Knocked Up.

Now even if you cancelled your HBO or weren't a fan of Entourage to begin with, you might have gleaned that Jerry Ferrara (Turtle) and Jamie-Lynn are actually a couple off-screen as well, dating for nearly a year.

But the ABC news reporter who interviewed the actress clearly overlooked this tidbit in his pre-interview research and proceeds to ask her whether she'd ever date a "fat dude" in real life?! Sigh. (Click below for dude's attempt at redeeming himself.)


ABC Reporter Accuses Jamie-Lynn Sigler of Dating a "Fat Dude"

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What To Wear When Rooting for the Home Team: A (Citi) Field Guide

Went to a Mets game at Citi Field this past Friday and enjoyed amazing field-level seats in the 10th Row. Got to thinking about the perennial question of what not to wear to the ballgame.

There's probably a difference when catching say, a Cubs game at Wrigley Field, where the Midwestern fashion aesthetic is perhaps more relaxed? But in New York, where the fashion stakes are always higher, it seems stricter standards apply-even at the stadium.

While waiting for my game date to arrive at the no. 7 subway exit, I saw a full range of sporty options. But in my section, I loved how the women and the men alike casually pulled together team apparel in a way that flashed support but without going overboard.

Still, for the ladies, dressing can get a little trickier. My personal faux pas include high heels! Opt for open-toe flats, but no $3 flip-flops (I love them but not here). For makeup, all you need is sunscreen, lip gloss, and, if you wear it, your choice of mascara or eye-liner.



Finally, MLB hasn't quite nailed feminine cut on home/road tees and jerseys, so do the work: lop off collars, go a size smaller, etc. Pair with white or black ankle-fit jeans, clam diggers a la Audrey, or cut-offs that don't have fringe suspended from the hem.

If you do leggings, you'll look like you're headed for a fun afternoon at the batting cages. A game-day program, beer and cracker jacks are all the accessories you need.

As irritating as I often find her, I must say A-Rod flame Kate Hudson (top) has terrific game style. You just know all eyes are on her winning look during that 7th inning stretch.

A Love Supreme

Believe it or not, I still have a pile of CDs, and up until a few days ago, they were sitting in their clunky plastic jewel cases.

So I was separating liner notes and tossing plastic, when I came across John Coltrane's A Love Supreme in its artsy cardboard cover.

When I bought that CD I was in the middle of, let's call it "independent research" on the tenor saxophone player (this is how egghead, world-class procrastinator undergrads get down;)

Obsessed with Coltrane (1926-67), I sought out the details of his creative process but learned a lot more about him personally along the way.



Over the course of many months and biographies, I learned that after 8 years, he'd grown apart from and left wife Naima, the namesake for his classic composition. He met pianist Alice McLeod (above) the same year at Birdland.

Alice introduced him to mystical spiritual texts like the Bhagavad Gita and he took her into his quartet and as his wife. It's not a conscious thing, but I was probably looking for proof that this kind of union existed, one that was equal parts attraction, intellectual, spiritual...going behind the music inadvertently offered something up.

They'll Name A City After 'Us'

I've been recommending (500) Days of Summer, one of my favorite flicks this season, and the feedback has been glowing so I figured I should share it here.

Maybe you've seen the trailer and brushed it off as another twee, indie rom-com, but it's so much better than that.

It follows this couple (Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt) in their late 20s and tells the truth with humor and a soundtrack that burns. There's no meet cute (they meet at work), no tired set-ups, and no neat happy ending.

Check it! Bonus: For fashionistas, you'll get a kick out of how the wardrobe director uses vintage wares in a palette of blues on Deschanel to help mark her personal progression.

Love in the Afternoon

Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board.

That's how Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God begins, and I could still hear my Multicultural lit instructor Eisa Nefertari Ulen's voice when I decided to crack it open again this summer.

Zora's work made me walk upright, like in those old V-8 commercials. I've discovered that while some girls gather notions about love from romantic comedies or women's magazine's, mine were coming from books.

Set in Florida (spanning Orlando, Palm Beach, and the muck of the Everglades), Hurston wrote Eyes in 1937 during a prolific seven weeks in Haiti.

Exploding the myth of the "tragic mulatto", Hurston gives us Janie Starks, married off at 17 to a crusty, land-owning older man.

By the time Janie meets 28-yo Tea Cake Woods, she's a 40-yo widow with two loveless marriages behind her. What happens in that final act, including a torrential Hurricane Katrina-like storm, stuck with me like a stubborn kernel in the tooth.

Solo Star

Recognize that girl? That's Solange Knowles, coming into her freshly cropped cut and positively radiating.

Maxwell Covers GIANT

Ummm...speechless.

Carol's Daughter, Meet Angelina's Beautiful Daughter, Zahara

This is just an aside. I always pause when I come across tabloid photos of actress Angelina Jolie with her adorable daughters if only because the adopted, Ethiopia-born Zahara regularly appears with her hair uncombed.

I could swear that I heard her partner, Brad Pitt, had been introduced to the Carol's Daughter line of hair products and was delighted. So either they learn to plait and detangle her hair or enlist someone to do it for them.

Black girls uniquely learn to manage their hair from those childhood experiences with our elders passing hands through it. With my mom, her nieces, five paternal aunts, and a grandmother frequently within braiding distance of my head, I often felt like one of those headless mannequins they use to instruct on at beauty schools. But I learned what I liked and how to care for my mane.

Not to mention discovering the vast array of hair conditioning tools available. Years before Carol's Daughter, there was grease;) Dax, Kuza, Pink Oil Moisturizer, Moisture Max, Optimum...

(Dirty) Money Talks: Diddy Makes a Band for His 'Last Train to Paris'

Diddy, Dawn, late of Danity Kane, and Kalenna (pron. Kuh-lee-na) comprise the rapper-producer's latest project, Dirty Money. Dawn has always been my favorite singer from DK, but I don't know yet how I'm feeling about this set-up. Especially after learning by way of his current MTV reality vehicle, "Making His Band," that he took voice lessons so he could actually sing on the album!

Look, I love a man like Diddy who's adventurous, unafraid of risk, but sometimes knowing your limitations can save you from yourself too. (Rapper extraordinaire Andre Benjamin pulled off crooning on The Love Below because his delivery is already so rich.) Still, I guess studio magic will ensure that it's not unbearable.

Are you hotly anticipating Diddy's next musical offering?

Black Butterfly: Model Muses at the Metropolitan Museum

I've decided that if we get a do-over, I want to come back a supermodel. Not the anonymous coat hangers from places like the Czech Republic or Estonia, but the genetically blessed creatures who by virtue of their abundant pulchritude wound up retired by 30, married to moguls and millionaires, and staring at trunks of the best couture threads, from Azzedine Alaia to vintage Versace.

You know them on a first-name basis: Naomi, Christy, Linda, Cindy...

The "Model as Muse" exhibit closed this past weekend at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute. I swung by for a second time to take a good look at the dizzyingly beautiful show, which included well-curated rooms devoted to decades in fashion and modeling from the 1920s on.

Archival issues of Vogue were flung open to memorable images by lensmen, including Peter Lindbergh, Herb Ritts, Irving Penn, and Richard Avedon. In some instances, looks worn on the page were featured on mannequins arranged on plateaus.

You would have recognized looks from George Michael's "Freedom" video in the '80s room, and pieces from Marc Jacobs's infamous Perry Ellis collection in the grunge room. G.M. and Nirvana pounded from the speakers in the corresponding spaces; it was perfect, if obvious.


But I gravitated to the pioneering black models, some of whom I admittedly had only passing familiarity with: Naomi Sims, who died at 61 just days before the exhibit ended and covered the Oct. 1969 issue of LIFE; Donyale Luna (left), who was cast in William Klein's Qui-Etes Vous, Polly Magoo? (1966) and landed a 1964 cover of British Vogue.

If you missed this show, you can always grab the catalog at the gift shop. Or the souvenir Marc Jacobs lipstick tube pens!

I Hear Your Lyrics, I Feel Your Spirit: O Introduces Jay-Z to Her Book Club

You may have heard that Oprah Winfrey was recently in BK, the Marcy housing projects specifically, to interview the MC cum mogul for an upcoming issue of her eponymous mag.

If you're among the viewers who watched as she nearly disemboweled rapper Ludacris when he appeared on her chatfest promoting the Academy Award-winning Crash, then you were likely shaking your head, as I was, at the news that Winfrey's people had wrangled Hova for an intimate spread.

Umm, could Jay beam any brighter??

What's even more interesting about this image is Winfrey has clearly wasted no time inculcating Jay with her brand of self-help spirituality. Jay is toting a copy of Eckhart Tolle's "A New Earth," a recent Oprah Book Club selection.

In fact, I have to admit that while Oprah was late on this, Tolle is the truth. A certain scribe put me on to him years ago and locked doors began to unlock.

Easy, Breezy

A star of the sci-fi fantasy "Heroes," Dania Ramirez is the most recent bold-face name to sign a cosmetics contract to rep for Cover Girl. The drugstore brand hasn't been shy about embracing diversity among its ranks of spokeswomen (Latifah, Rihanna, Tyra, etc.), and I think Dania is another good choice. Sometimes it seems as if the same handful of Latina starlets get all the shine (see the seemingly reluctant-to-be-ethnic Jessica Alba, Eva Mendes, and Eva Longoria). It's great to have fresh faces.

He Is King?

Whether you're a fan or foe of Diddy, I just think you can't argue the man is clean with a rack. Take this ensemble: I think the same look, with its bold shot of color, on another man could be emasculating, but it's Sean For the Win the way he's rocking it.

A few things are key here imo, among them the well-edited ice cube selection, the perfect fit of his trousers (bonus points for veering from jeans!), and the impeccable grooming.

So he may have Invented the Remix, but he didn't invent great style. Rather, he projects his sartorial influences. There's the Harlem swag. Before his fourth birthday, Diddy lost his father, Melvin - an associate of the drug kingpin immortalized in 2007's American Gangster, Frank Lucas - to a life of crime. Combs's smooth lines feel like a throwback to that controversial era.

There's evidence of his exposure to high fashion too, a little Rat Pack thrown in, and of course his own individual imprint to tie it all up. Nothing about his choices screams trend-spotter, and unlike a Kanye, who can appear costumed, Mr. Sean John just looks effortless.