Nichelle Newsletter

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

Chicks and Giggles is roaring into March like lionesses, like queens of the comedy jungle, or something like that. :) First we have a show on March 1 as part of the Black Comedy Experiment. Abbi Crutchfield is the host for our "Foxy Cleopatra Edition" featuring funny Black chicks.
Coincidentally, March 1 is International Women of Color Day. Show at 7PM at the Tank in Tribeca.

Monday March 3 Chicks and Giggles is kicking off Women's Herstory Month at New York University with a show at the Kimmel Center. FREE!  Check out the Facebook event or email me to RSVP at nichelle AT chicksandgiggles.com  Speaking of Facebook, become a Fan of Chicks and Giggles.

Lastly, we are going to Roanoke, Virginia for a show at Roanoke College on March 14. In the meantime, there are shows every Tuesday at Ochi's Lounge at Comix. Come and get your giggle on!

Woman

March is Women's History Month, so if I can't get my 40 acres and a mule, then I want:

• the glass ceiling shattered
• that 29 cents on the dollar that women don't get as comparable to men's salaries
• the ability to scratch my balls in public

Otherwise I thankful for women like:

• mom, sister, cousins, aunts and my grandma
• my kick-ass friends
• Chicks who make people giggle
• Ladies who launch into success

Meeting in the Ladies' Room

Originally uploaded by Danny Playami.

Just as I finish shedding tears at not getting my forty acres and a mule last month for Black History Month, I will now start shedding my uterus in time for Women History's Month. Hooray!
I am so thankful for the following (starting with my youth up to present);

• The Color PINK
• Barbie Dolls
• Pigtails
• Dresses
• Mary Janes
• Training bras
• MOM
• Slumber parties
• MY TWO SISTERS
• Lip gloss
• Real bras
• MY DAD
  
• Periods
• Crushes
• Make-up
• Tampons
• Madonna
• Dates
• Corsages
• Prom

Xanadu

Elexa Vibrating Ring

Thanks to comic Jess Wood for tipping me off to some good vibrations at Tuesday's Chicks and Giggles show! The Elexa vibrating ring  is part of a line of Trojan products made especially for women's pleasure, and can be found conveniently at CVS or Duane Reade.  However, if you live in Colorado, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, and Virginia---then you are ass out! It cannot be sold in those states. Attention "fly-over states" ladies: please write to your Senator and change this law immediately. This is another reason that I am so happy to live in New York. The girl on the cover looks like a disco queen from the 70's and you can "Xanadu" me any time with this product.

Everything She Wants

A few things:

• The Museum of Television and Radio has kicked off "She Made It", a series of screening and seminars about Women in TV.
• Webgrrls is back! They're having a holiday party on Wednesday.
• A gift for the girl who's on the Pill.
• A gift for the lady who's abundantly bosomed.

White Rabbit

Holiday shopping with crowds, tourists, snobby retail workers can give anyone a headache. Why not seek an alternative and support local small businesses instead?  Every Saturday and Sunday at White Rabbit on East Houston, there are a great group of retailers and emerging designers.

• Jaime Earl. This body and skincare line by Jaime Williams is fantasticly sweet and creamy.  The lemon coconut shea butter is intoxicating.
• Bonbon Oiseau. Beautiful jewelry and sexy belt chains by artist Deborah Stein
• Art Ware NY.  A mother-daughter business where Celine Beitchman and her mom employ vintage glass in their jewelry collection. They also have cute felt pins to accessorize your winter coat or hat.
• New York Couture. Cassie Kogler mixes downtown and vintage fashions in a stylish way.

Rosa Parks

When I was a wee girl, I attended a predominantly African American Catholic school in Birmingham, Alabama.  The cool thing about going there besides wearing green plaid skirts and attending mass every Friday was the fact that the school celebrated Black History Month every February. All the kids would dress up as their favorite historical figure from Black History.  The boys would usually dress up as MLK, Dr. Charles Drew or Frederick Douglas.  Many of the little girls would be Rosa Parks.  She was the one whose story we knew about.  Refusing to give up her seat on a bus is simple heroism that any seven year old can understand.  Rosa was a woman who did something so simple, but what she did changed so much. 

Proud Mary

Is Krucoff on the rag?

I think it may be an oversimplification of both Spiers and Krucoff to sum up the problem of women's magazines. I really enjoyed and agreed with Elizabeth's commentary on the state of women's magazines, but the criticism is reminiscent of Myrna Blyth (without the conservative edge).

It's not that easy to just start up a magazine, as it can be difficult to raise the capital for a venture that may not be profitable for years to come unless your name is Maer.

However, it is also not easy to keep your mouth shut as every month the magazines shove nonsense down our throats.  [For the record, I don't swallow]

Thanks to Krucoff for pointing me in the direction of Bee Magazine, which I will definitely support as long it doesn't dissolve into silly odd-number lists for beauty and sex tips.

I Gotta Beef

People keep breathing...people keep beefing.

• Allison rocks as she covered the Cupcake Bakery Beef. Cupcakes Take the Cake will be on this story like frosting on a cupcake as it develops.
• Jennifer Weiner vs Curtis Sittenfeld  The other day I was browsing in B&N and I saw Sittenfeld's Prep displayed in the "Chick Picks" table.  I laughed so hard because I imagined that Curtis would sh!t if she saw her precious book among the chick lit population.  I guess that's what happens you have a pink and green grosgrain ribbon belt on your cover.  [No pink on the second book, OK?]
• For entertainment purposes only, you can check out Julie Atlas Muz wrestle! From Andy: Writer/Director Tory Vazquez is shooting a digital short film based on her performance piece "Wrestling Ladies" She needs people/fans to watch a lucha libre wrestling match between DD Dorvillier and Julie Atlas Muz and the Battle Royale fight ( 5 girl fight) . She needs ten more people for each time slot. The time slots are these:Saturday 2-5:30 or 6-9:30PM Sunday 12:30-4:30PM

Keep it Real!

The Sweetest Thing

Both Daily Candy and Scoop DuJour have sent me emails praising scented underwear by Melon Fashion, but I'm not buying it.  Are we moving  backwards?!  I thought the women today were supposed to appreciate the natural scent of their sn@tch, but I guess that I am the douche bag.

Anyway...I was so right about the big O when I wrote:   "My mind is so clear about everything for about two minutes" because researchers in Denmark have found that parts of the brain shut off during a female O.

If You Wanna Touch Her, Ask

I am starting to get into county music--only for the song titles, of course.  Shania Twain is a good one. Anyway, you are probably not even reading what I am writing because you maybe distracted by the beautiful picture I took last night at Anne's and Brian's party. 
Campari and cleavage go together like strawberries and cream. 

By the way, I started a "nyc cleavage" group on Flickr and since it's finally summer I expect to snap more pictures of the beautiful divide.

Holding Our For A Hero

Don't be a Desperate Housewife!  Come to BlogSheroes Tonight at Madame X!
Madame X is @94 West Houston St.
7-10PM between Thompson and LaGuardia Place

Liza will be there. I will be leaving on a jet plane for business.

Flesh For Fantasy

Don Lykins, Seks Columnist for the Tampa Bay Times, has a  list the top 5 sexual fantasies for women. [Editor's notes in brackets]

Straight Women

1. Another Partner [Variety is the spice of life]
2. Forced sex with a straight guy [Sometimes we like it a little rough]
3. Watching someone else have sex[not porn]
4. Idyllic encounter with an unknown man [who are you? who cares?]
5. Lesbian encounter [watching the "L" Word with girls doesn't count]

Gay Women

1. Forced sexual encounters [the ladies room @the girls room]
2. Idyllic encounter with an established partner [let's try the nipple clamps, honey]
3. A heterosexual encounter [not just for procreating any more]
4. Recall of a past sexual experience[a dry spell, your nails are really long]
5. Sadistic imagery [The Dungeon]

Get Off

My favorite google news alert is "jilling off". Today I actually read it and there's a show being produced at Columbia University.

Jilling Off is a show for, by and about women and has a distinctly raw and uninhibited  feminist twist. The show is about addressing issues such as the glass ceiling and contraceptives not compensated by health insurance. It's about why there are silicone breasts but not silicone testicles. It's about understanding feminism not as an army boot wearing movement of man-haters,  but as being about "justice, fairness, and access to the broad range of human experience," as writer Katha Pollitt describes it. It's a show that  seeks to empower women and relates to them that there is simply no  legitimate reason why females should be treated differently than males.

               

Big Girls Don't Cry

Friday night when I was hanging out with the lovely Girly and I said that the only things that make me feel really fat is trying on clothes in a store and talking to my mom. Today, I thought of another thing--looking at women's magazines where everyone is tiny.  Real women have curves and are not a size" 2".  Yesterday I met Gwen Devoe and some of her Dangerous Curves models.  It reminded me of my friend Constantine Valhouli's documentary about plus-sized models, Curve.  I met Costa back in 2001 when he was working on the film.  He had several screenings of the film in New York and along the East Coast, and it was well-received but it never got major distribution.  I enjoyed the documentary because it followed the stories of beautiful plus-sized models. Plus,there are interviews by Supermodel Emme, Simon Doonan, Todd Oldham and others in the fashion industry.  See the trailer of the movie here.  The tagline for the movie is excellent:

"You don't have to be a size 2...to be a perfect 10"

 

Pride

“I remember April 4^th… a shot rings out in a Memphis sky” –Bono

I remember hearing “Pride” by U2 and thinking that they were a cool Irish band.

Let us not forget that Martin Luther King died almost 40 years ago with his dream unfulfilled.  The title of the Brown Blog event was inspired by MLK.

not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character...

On a lighter note, It was a treat to read this hilarious story, Please Don't Pet The Negro by Kimberly Clark in this month's Fresh Yarn. She writes about her personal battle with nappy hair.

Approximately 10 years of my childhood were lost to spending marathon hours in a beauty shop under hooded dryers that temporarily made me deaf and forced me to read the lips of gossiping women. Although my hair was ever changing, the curiosities of white people have always remained a constant. No matter what my hair was doing, I could always count on someone asking me the ill-fated question, "Do you mind if I touch?"

Bad Girls

In honor of Women's History Month or just because ... I wanted to put up this picture of Tera Patrick.  Normally I don't like to blog about anything that may bring the smut-seekers to my site, but those damn dirty commenters and disgusting trackbackers find their way here anyway!  The picture above was taken back in November when I spotted Tera at the Penthouse Pet of the Year party.

By the way, Playgirl editor Michele Zipp has come out as a elephant lover.

Buy Her Candy

Tomorrow (March 8) is International Women's Day, and I sense an estrogen uprising. 

• Martha is out of jail.
• No news from Paris Hilton in the past week.
• Chicks and Giggles is tomorrow at 8:30PM
• Cupcake Reading Series is Wednesday at Nolita.
• I was interviewed by New York City Writer's Group.
• Liza and I have started a Blogging Sheroes Meetup.

Thanks to Girly for the excellent picture!