Author: Brian

Brian Hickey, Writer in Philadelphia, Community Editor at NewsWorks.org. Contributing Editor at Deadspin.com. Comments welcome here or emailed to brianhickey9 [at] gmail. On Facebook (Brian Hickey, in Philly) and Twitter (@brianphickey).

My Favorite Stories

Back when I’d picked myself up off the brain-surgery ward and started to write again, I’d gotten a few emails asking how to find some stories I’d written before. Strangers wanted to know, which I considered complimentary, not rubbernecky. Initially,…






Hey, get your pants off the ground.

And here I didn’t realize Larry Platt, editor of Philadelphia Magazine, was black with a good voice, creative songwriting ability and a desire to make people pull them drawers up. Oh wait, it’s a different Larry Platt, a general? Say…






Shawn Norman vs Janice Norman

I’ll be honest wit all y’all: Minute I laid eyes on Janice Norman, I thought of that scene in New Jack City when Chris Rock is in an alley with a fellow crackhead who vehemently maintains that she was “the…






This Week’s Metro Column…

… is sure to win me some neighborly goodwill, I’m sure. But hey, I says what I mean and I mean what I says. Guess what, anonymous rat-fink neighbors: In eight decades, you’ll be remembered as classists from a holier-than-thou…






Happy New Year, hit-and-run drivers

Well, I guess I’m talking specifically to the dirtbag that ran me over when I say, “Oh, you must have missed the sarcasm. I actually wish you the worst year imaginable.” I thought of you today, though, when I read…






Tomorrow’s future leaders

Oh man, I really just can’t get enough of Jersey Shore. I guess this has something to do with living in Sea Isle — technically, Townsend’s Inlet — from the ages of 23 to 27 or so. I wasn’t a…