The Snob Is Heading to New York City This Week

Birds gotta fly. Bees gotta sting. And I gotta move around every couple weeks or so or I get bored. Yours truly is heading back to New York City this week both for work and to catch up with old friends. (And to get the rest of my stuff finally out of my roommate's apartment.) So if you barely hear from me this week, that's the reason why. I'm off gallivanting and grinding, getting my job on. And visit on. Amongst other things. 

Three Weeks Down, Still Haven't Run From NYC Screaming

Photo Credit, Danielle Belton, Manhattan 2009

"New York seemed to always trigger the worst of my illness due to the overwhelmingness of the EVERYTHING that makes New York... New York. The noise. Tons of people living on top of each other. The crowds. The subway. The ten-thousand year old, now blackened chewing gum on the sidewalk. How every day seemed like garbage pick up day from the amount of black bags piled on the street corners. The lights. The colors. The concrete. I couldn't turn it off. My OCD is the least strongest feature in my illness, but it comes full force in New York. And because I have the least practical exprience with my OCD, it's the one I handle the worst. It's the sort of thing that makes me fly into a rage because no matter how much you clean you can't get rid of dirt older than you on a NYC pre-war apartment floor short of blowing it all up and starting all over again. It's the sort of thing where I'm so exhausted by the end of the day that if my friends -- first Hopi and later, Jada -- can't come get me I just devolve into tears and dysfunction."

Read the full story after the jump.

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The Snob Is Moving to NYC to Work on TJ Holmes' New Show for BET

Well, it's official! I was hired to do some writing n' such for T.J. Holmes' new show for BET, better known as "Don't Sleep!"

For those of you playing at home, I worked on the pilot last winter and many, many moons ago used to pretend to stalk T.J. for poops n' grins on the Internet. Life is incredibly funny in how a guy I started writing about during this blog's beginnings in 2008 is the same guy I wound up working for in my first scripted TV writing gig. Be sure to check out the show, premiering in October on BET! Along with script writing and blogger duties you just might catch me on as the occasional panelist. I'm already (silently) featured in the show's promos, but I hate those promos because I'm wearing the sweater of doom and I'm about 25 lbs heavier than I am now. 

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The Snob Is Probably Moving to NYC In Two Weeks

As the most loyal Snob readers have probably noticed -- man, I haven't written much original Snob content lately. But there's a reason for that. Some of it is because of my duties for Clutch Magazine Online. Some of it is because I've been doing a lot more writing for other sites like theGrio and Madame Noire lately. Some of it is because I'm doing a lot of freelance work and consulting for entertainment writers and aspiring authors. Some of it is because I've been spending a lot of time helping out my sister and her infant son (Did I mention I became an aunt this summer?), trying to get my parents to eat healthy, going "hard" in the gym and trying to stop walking like a tiny hunchback.

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Tim Okamura Documents "Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens" With Abstract Photo-Realism (Guest Post)

Painting by Tim Okamura / Photo by Jada Prather

In this first entry to CultureSnob, artist/photographer and Friend of Snob, Jada Prather checks out the new "Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens" art show featuring the work of Brooklyn-based, biracial Japanese-European artist Tim Okamura. A mash of photo-realism meets graffitti, street-art, his paintings add a goddess-like mythological granduer to everyday black women and other urbanites.

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The Snob Is In New York City (But Not For Long)

Holly Robinson Peete and Galila Assefa Puck among blown up photographs of themselves at BMW & Essence Magazine's Art of Charity event where they were honorees. (Photo by Jada Prather)Presently The Snob is sneaking around the city, killing time between meetings before I hop back on the Amtrak and return to Washington, D.C. I was in town for Essence Magazine and BMW's charity celebrity art auction event, The Art of Charity, Tuesday night, honoring actress and autism advocate Holly Robinson Peete and Dream for Future Africa Foundation founder, Galila Assefa Puck (wife of celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck). My friend, road dog and surrogate bratty "kid" brother Jada Prather was kind enough to act as the official blacksnob.com photographer for the event. Check it out after the jump! 

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Conservatives Fighting Losing War With Same-Sex Marriage Equality

Late Friday night, 33 Democrats and four key Republicans voted to make same-sex marriage legal in New York state, making New York one of the largest states to sanction gay marriage. Backed and signed into law by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, insiders say the key to swinging those four crucial GOP votes was wealthy Republican donors who promised those vulnerable they would financially back their re-election campaigns.

More after the jump.

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Ethics Committee Finds Charlie Rangel Guilty

CNN is reporting that Harlem-based Rep. Charlie Rangel was found guilty of multiple ethics violations by an eight-member House committee. Rangel tried to postpone the hearing Monday, claiming that he needed more time to secure new legal counsel, but was greeted with a warm response of "nobody cares."

More after the jump.

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The Snob Has Returned to Washington, D.C.!

(Left to right) The Blogger's Panel: Tricia Clarke-Stone of Global Grind, Stacey Ferguson of MamaLaw Media, Danielle Belton aka The Black Snob, Emil Wilbekin of Essence.com and Natasha Eubanks theYBF.com chick! (Photo via Essence)I'm baaaaack! I've returned to Washington, D.C. late Saturday night after my crazy-pants, whirlwind, three-day New York trip and man, I am tired. So while I do have great, big, crazy opinions on everything from Keith Olbermann being suspended by MSNBC, only to have that suspension lifted (he'll be back on the air tomorrow) to Tyler Perry's film version of "For Colored Girls" I'm too exhausted to rub two brain cells together and write something. New York does that to me. For those who wanted to know, the CNN interview was fun, the Essence Women's Conference was fabulous and I met a ton of cool people (and reconnected with a lot of others). I also had a lot of meetings with friends and associates. Ran all over town. Only went the wrong way on the subway one-and-a-half-times. (It would have been two times if my friend Rob hadn't spotted me on one train that I thought was going to Brooklyn that was soooo not going to Brooklyn.)

More after the jump.

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