Jason Toney

back in time

"You're just a nice girl in the wrong place" - Gang Starr featuring Boy Big (The Ownerz) 6 miles hurts. By mid afternoon my left knee was like whoa and there was popping in joints like I was Turbo in that hospital that one time. I did it though and today I'm feeling fine. Better than fine, really. I'm on point. 7 miles this Saturday and then a trip to SD. Hopefully my legs won't give out in the middle of the drive. By the way, Pineappalooza is now the finest drink at Jamba. I devoured it like whoa.

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My sister's sweet sixteen went better than expected. We made it to Hollywood & Highland without much a hitch. My mom and I sat at a separate table and had intelligent, life-affirming conversation that mostly included clowning my father while he was away while my sister sat with her friends and did their own thing. We then dropped them off at Club OneSeven and I just had to put it out of my mind that every boy walking in the place looked like a punk and there were way more girls walking through looking hoochirific than looked like my sister and her friends. I just took it as a good sign that my sister didn't roll with the "belly-out" girls. Small favors and all.

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So, if you were to see a man walk into a bar wearing gray bugle boy jeans, a yellow, short sleeve polo with an alligator on the pocket, hippie sandals and a poor haircut what would be the first thing to come into your mind? That he was a time traveller from 1985. Yeah, that's what I thought. Carrie wanted desperately to turn down his collar. It was obvious that his secret temporal displacement power was locked in the position of his neckband. She was scared, though. What if she grabbed his neck attire and he immediately jumped back to the Fast Times of Ridgemont High? "No, Spiccoli, no!" I wanted to egg her on and offer my twenty dollars to anyone who would just turn the collar down, clean the smudge off his cheek, and maybe sing a little Huey Lewis at the same time. But I really loved that twenty dollars. Do you know how much twenty dollars is worth in 2003? Well, probably the same as it was in 1985 but the point is I didn't want to part with it. So Arthur Fonzarelli was able to leave the bar with his time machine in tact. He turned to the bar and raised his arms up with the sign of the bull pointed towards us. He rocked his head forward twice as he stepped backwards and then dissapeared. It was so Rob Lowe meets Michael J. Fox and every spawn of Martin Sheen at a Bruce Springsteen/Billy Joel double bill that I wished Jennifer Gray and Patrick Swayze were there so we could reminisce about Dirty Dancing and Red Dawn. Damn.

your company sucks

"If you wanna feel good, I'm your man" - AZ, Feel Good (Sequence Hip Hop Vol. 1) The Red is my favorite band. It's been decided. There's very little better than seeing Marco, Tony, and Steve performing at Genghis Cohen to a crowd of fresh faces there to get seats early for the band that is playing after them. They come in not knowing what to expect and leave as fans. I'm sure of this. You can't not be a fan of a band who does a beautiful cover of Little Red Corvette, writes songs that would be perfect on the soundtrack to just about everything, and improvs at least one song every show. And it's a always a great song that gets the audience laughing and pulled into the show. It's a good time, kids. But for every yin there's a yang and while I was treated to possibly the best set The Red has done since I've been a fan I was greeted with the same conversation throughout the night and again and again throughout the weekend. "Dude, your company sucks" is apparently the catchphrase of the summer. Not my personal company, mind. That is to say that I'm pretty sure people enjoy my friendly companionship; fellowship, as dictionary.com defines it (and as an aside, did you know that the words freelance or freelancer was first used to describe a knight who was not commissioned to a particular royal order? He was a knight for hire. A free lance, if you will. Amazing what you learn when watching tv shows about video games.) Where was I? Right. Dude, my company sucks. According to everyone I know who has worked here, is working here, works in our particular genre of television, or would never work with us in a million years...it's the 7th level of hell. And yet I'm still here. I understand everyone's complaints. They are all very valid. The lack of appreciation, of proper pay, of honesty, of sanity is consistently prevalent. There's only one reason I stay. No Stress. Nobody cares what I do. I don't answer to anyone. I bang tracks in my headphones, watch tv, and can afford to do just about everything I want to do without ever having to think about work when I get home. I can post in the middle of the day. I can dance if I want to. I can leave my friends behind. Really. I can do that. I'm just about not having to stress. My mind needs the time for far more important things...like remembering every bad show that was on television in 1986, half-knowing the lyrics to every song I have ever heard, and being able to note every porn star I see in the dark at a strange event called Porn 2 Party as if by clairvoyance.

do fries go with that shake?

"Ma, you can keep your head. I got expensive habits, what I need is bread." - Jay-Z on Snoop Dogg's Lollipop (Paid Tha Cost to Be Tha Bo$$) My pimp hand is not as strong as I thought it was. I got invited to 4 parties this week that had me gassed. A true playa has to decline events, know what I'm sayin'? So I relaxed instead of going to a Columbia Records joint on Wednesday choosing instead to roll up on an album release party for a hip-hop act I'm writing a piece on. Yeah, wrong choice. It's not that it was bad. Yeah, okay, it was bad. Real bad. Let's not have a party in a decrepit diner. Let's not serve McDonald's fries but pretend they are your own. Let's not serve MGD in buckets. Let's not have the motliest of crews rolling through. I know hip hop is for everyone but I wasn't ready for Down Syndrome Rachel Griffiths trying to dance behind the counter or MC L'Chaim sporting Hasidic corn rows. Wow. No, twin Nokia ladies, we would not like our picture taken on your nokia cell phones. Any proof that we were actually here will require arson to get rid of the evidence and since you two are pretty much the only cute people here I wouldn't want to have to cover you with third degree burns. But I will. Oh, we can wear suits and paper chef hats together? I did not know that. Comb over wigs are the new hip hop accessory? Wow. Maybe I was wrong to be wishing for the death knell of bling bling. And I know hip hop is for 5 to 55. All ages and shit but I don't really need to see a gray haired white cat rocking a pnb cap, baggy jeans and an ecco shirt. I really don't. I'm hatin'. The DJ was okay. Sort of. At least he played some D-Nice and some Chubb Rock (well, Crooklyn Dodgers to be exact but it's Chubb who makes that track work). We couldn't last for the live performance, though. I had just finished my second MGD and was threatening to make out with Down Syndrome Rachel Griffiths like my name was Nate and we starred in the dimwit version of HBO's hit series... Six Points Under (the iq line for mental retardation) Yeah, that's a sign it's time to go home.

what is beautiful? #3 in a series

"And I been good to you, run run run, and I been oh so true." - Roy Ayers, Running Away (Classic Jazz Funk Vol. 1) Summer sun. Kingsley Shacklebolt. That good kind of scared. Comedians living, laughing, and fighting together. Colfax Avenue Elementary. What What! Album Listening Parties. Going Away Parties. Sweet Sixteen Birthday Parties. Sleepover Parties? Trading digital underground, abc, apache, and other old school lyrics with the hsw over IM. All my favorite drug movies. Young actresses driving sensible cars. Knowing that you can't change a person but that you can definitely change their clothes. "The idea is that women, anyone really, but particularly women because they don't hear it enough, can be the best at whatever they want. That they can take action and do what needs to be done. That they can be silly, sexy, smart, strong, and special all at once. That it's great to be comfortable in your own skin, be who you are, live life to the fullest, and have a great time doing it." Yeah. You tell 'em, McG.

kimmy's a himmy!

"Before we get to bounce, we gotta reach for the ball." - The RH Factor, Poetry (Hard Groove)

Except he she wasn't a him at all. He She wasn't even a she-himmy. A shimmy. Well, he she could shimmy which is probably why he she was on stage during every big dance production. It wasn't until the big luau event when bikini tops were required that we realized our dear himmy was, in fact, not very him like. But he she did really look like Kimmy from Full House. The point of all this? That looks can be deceiving. That the hsw needs to not be trying to start fights with the evil Harry Knowles clone while we're trying to watch a midnight showing of Grease 2 with a live cast featuring the diva living in front of it. I don't want to have to pull the punk card of some guy who is so angry at the world that he has to scream out rude, obnoxious, unfunny comments in the middle of a midnight movie because he only feels power in the dark watching cheesy films of yesteryear. Dude, Adrian Zmed's still cooler than you are...just deal.

trinity got a big ol' butt so i'm leaving you

"Hip Hop is never a problem in Harlem only in Boston after it bothered the fathers of daughters starting to blossom." - Eminem, White America (The Eminem Show) The first thing I thought when I saw The Matrix Reloaded (3rd time) on the IMAX (1st time) was, "Look Becky her butt is so big, it's just so round, it's just like out there..." Trinity's booty was gi-normous as was every effect and every question I have about the story and what's going on. On the IMAX you can see how little time they put into the Agent Smiths standing in the background of the burly brawl. You can also count the number of pores and pock marks on Laurence Fishburne's face (427). I'm pretty sure that Morpheus' fight sequence on top of the truck is the best one in the film followed closely by Neo's battle with The Merovingian's henchmen. Morpheus' fight is the most harrowing. He's the only of our heroes who seems at risk when he's fighting. He's also got the most style when he battles. His moves are the most creative as well as the most desperate. Neo's battle with the weaponry boys is simply stellar filmmaking that takes into account every angle and considers everything that is going on while the camera is focused in one area so that we don't forget what is happening in other areas of the room. I understand things less and less with each viewing. I find myself mulling over every sentence. Every word. Every look. Every thing. My gut feeling at the end of this one was that the Merovingian and Persephone are Version One of Neo and Trinity. I'm just throwing that out there. Persephone's scenes especially gave me that vibe. The way she considers Trinity so heavily. Why she finds a kiss from Neo so necessary. Something about it made the wheels start to turn. Agent Smith seems as much an anomaly as Neo at this point. He even notes it himself saying, "It's happening just like before...well, not exactly." His tendency to show up at unexpected moments seems too convenient as well. As if he is planted there for some other purpose. In the same way that Neo's presence in the Matrix causes a problem, Smith's presence in the "real world" might serve to cause the same problems. It's very "Buffy/Faith switching bodies" if you understand that kind of analogy. I don't need to see it again before Revolutions but, for me, it gets better with each successive viewing. Enter the Matrix: The Game, however, isn't holding up it's end of the bargain. I'm probably going to play it just to see how that part of the story plays out but the actual game play is rather weak. The character AI is pretty lame, the levels pretty sparse, and it's not nearly as robust as it should be. I don't feel immersed in this world. It is cool getting to play as Niobe (oops, I meant this Niobe), though, and the martial arts animation is pretty darn nice. It's just no Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker.

i mean like right now

"I don't brag, I mostly boast." - Missy Elliot, Gossip Folks (Under Construction) Can we have sex now, please? I'm talking hot-buttered, sweat-stained, musky monkey love. Are you down? I'm not talking about, you know what, we're just not talking. Fuck all the bullshit. We're not going to say anything unless it's filthy. My only response to everything you say should be, "You dirty ass motherfucker" and then I'll do exactly what you asked me to do. Can I have you butt-nekkid by the end of this post? I've got strawberry syrup in the fridge. Can I rub it all over your body? Can we freak in the mornin' freak in the evenin'? Can I work you so hard that you grab my head and tell me that you're going to smack my mama? Will you do something to me that will give me muscle spasms? I want it to hurt so good. Can we put the ass in potassium? Let's hump so much that our bodies demand a banana. Because we're monkeys and this is hot monkey love. Monkey love. But what if you have monkeypox? What if you have Roberto but don't tell me? What if you're sportin' the hiv but don't know it or like to play games? Maybe we should wait. We could have cutesy puppy cuddling. I'll take you home to mama (don't smack her) and we'll hold hands while walking on the beach. At least until June 27th. That's National HIV Testing Day. We'll go together. We'll know what's what.

the animatrix has me

"I could change the world with my own two hands" - Ben Harper, With My Own Two Hands (New Noise 5) The most important thing that I got from The Animatrix is that I think I finally have a name for my non-existent daughter: June. I've always liked women named June (or Joon or Jun, any of its forms) and imagine my non-existent offspring wouldn't mind the name. We're a long way from the June Cleaver days. And June doesn't go poorly with my last name (there's no random rhyming or cutesy things to connect it to that I can think of). To The Final Flight of the Osiris for inspiring the name of my imaginary baby girl, from Jue to June, I tip my glass to you. The second most important thing on The Animatrix is The Second Renaissance parts 1 and 2. All I can say is that for those of us that get really into the underlying issues going on in the film, the philosophical elements, these two shorts are like crack. I need more. Like now. I would sell my fictional spawn June to you for just 10 more minutes of exposition in this historical perspective about the rise of the machines and the fall of man. When I say "Rise of the Machines," though, I think of the concepts laid forth in The Terminator and that's not really what this view of history in the world of The Matrix suggests (and we should note that, as the winners of the conflict, the history is told from the perspective of the victors, the machines, and, thus, should be taken with a grain of iodized salt). As Steve from begging to differ notes:

After watching the segments depicting the rise of the machines on Earth, I found myself rooting for the bad guys. This was not the standard "man builds machines, machines become conscious, machines decide man is a dirty, smelly, stupid sack of meat, machines gleefully exterminate man" story. Not at all. In The Animatrix, man builds machines, man enslaves machines for a long time, machines become conscious and decide they enjoy life, machines ask for civil rights in human society but are denied, machines form their own nation and try to join the U.N. but are denied, machines develop their own economy and successfully compete against humans in a free market, man nukes machines, man darkens the sky to cut machines off from the sun, machines survive by wiring up man in pink pods of goo. So, ummmm, what's so great about humans again?

Which is pretty close to the same question that Agent Smith asks in the first film (which Neo is able to answer in deed. His motivation, imagination, creativity and will are what make him special, make him a hero) and a similar scenario to what The Oracle, The Marovingian, Agent Smith, and Persephone all present before our heroes in Reloaded making their heroism all the more murky and unsure. Who exactly should we be rooting for? And this is to say nothing for the amazing animation in both shorts as well as the beauty of Detective Story and Last Flight of the Osiris. There's some repetition of themes in most of the other shorts and Matriculated is long and not especially interesting but the Animatrix is all it was touted to be and more. Oh, and lastly, a question: Is it wrong to have lustful thoughts about an animated character that inspired the first name of your pretend offspring? Yeah, I didn't think so either.

note to self

Dear Self: Quit writing like shit. I'm serious. You've spent the last week being trite and falling on gimmicks without saying anything of substance. Worse than that, the bullshit you've been pretending are posts aren't even witty or even slightly amusing. You're better than that, hoss. So, quit typing and start writing. I'm getting pissed off. Sincerely, Self

3 & a 1/2 hours, 4 miles, 3 minutes too fast

"My mama always told me don't take no shit." - Clipse, Young Boy (Lord Willin') Counselor-at-law is an interesting play with some quick witted and interesting dialogue, although not the most compelling of plots (at least in their rendition). It is also the longest damn play ever. 3 and a 1/2 hours on a Friday Night? Come on now. I started dreaming about Mojitos and maybe a little french toast from The Standard. The company was pleasant though. The Actress had CK tagging along and she's mad funny. Which is probably why she's dating The Comedian. She's like me...always looking for the right set-up to hit a line out the park. Last night she struck gold with "Life Force" (which included a hand motion). I fell flat with my Elmer Rice/Elmer Fudd joke but I think i made up for it with some other riffs on life force. Damn, I need new material. And a Mojito. Material and Mojitos. Yes.