In 2004, I spent my birthday weekend in Baltimore and got a chance to see Def Poetry Jam Live at the Hippodrome. I’m a big fan of Mos Def (who hosted Def Poetry Jam on HBO) and his LP, The New Danger, had just dropped a couple weeks prior. Before I flew back home (I was relocating to Montgomery at the time), I bought the CD and ripped it to my iPod before I got on the plane.
The first track on the album is “The Boogie Man Song” where Mos does a lackadaisical riff alongside this Spanish guitar and funked-out beat. At the end of the hook he said a lyric that just stuck with me:
“Let me be your favorite nitemare/Close your eyes and I’ll be right there.”
By the time we landed, I had made the decision to start a new blog under the name, Favorite Nitemare. I had been blogging since 2002 via Blogger – under some corny name I don’t remember – but for this blog, I got a hosting account and launched my blog with TypePad.
This was pre-Facebook and pre-Twitter, so most bloggers interacted on each other’s blogs via comments. Somewhere along the way, bloggers started commenting and referring to me as Fave and it just stuck. By the time Twitter came along (and all the other fun, social media tools), I created my account under “Fave” because “Favorite Nitemare” was just too long.
This adaptation was the beginning of other derivatives like the Friday Favecast and Fave Media. Somehow my name morphed into a brand and I’m cool with that. Occasionally get asked where did my parents come up with the name “Fave” or the one person who thought it was pronounced “Fah-VAY” *smh*
My blog name/online identity is simply short for “favorite nitemare” which is kind of appropriate because my goal is to wake up and dream.