Jason Toney

steady on the grind

"Your pop culture needs a diaper change." - De La Soul, Declaration (AOI: Mosaic Thump) Cobb writes...

Folks in the grip of The Gripe are mostly well-meaning and sensitive, intelligent and hopeful. But there is a difference between hope and optimism. Optimism is the belief, based on evidence, that things will get better. Hope persists in spite of evidence to the contrary. Those who Gripe about hiphop are hopeful, because hiphop ain't going anywhere. This is why Gripers get on my nerves, because in the end they are just pissing and moaning about market share. [...] Ultimately Gripers grow up. We finally decide that there ain't no public worth reforming and grow comfortable in our own little nasty worlds. We take time and read books, and then get our Vladimir Horowitz on. We dig on Terrance Blanchard and Countee Cullen. We decline backstage passes to Black Eyed Peas and everyone else who's trying to make the Crowd say 'Ho!'. And best of all, we don't miss it. Post-Gripers don't say 'Ho!', and there's not a party over here and we don't really care any longer. The sooner you know it, the better off you'll be.

To which I respectfully say...Bullshit.

mandatory physical evacuation

"All you do is bring me pain/boy, you're crazy" - Dream, Pain (It Was All A Dream) 5:20pm yesterday: Dad calls from Norfolk, Virginia telling me that my mom is currently packing up the things in the house so they can evacuate if it comes to that. He says that he's concerned and that it's an emergency situation (Yeah, duh, Pops!) and that I should go over there and help them get out. 5:24pm yesterday: I call home and my sister answers the phone cheerily. "What's up," I inquire. "Nothin' much," she responds. "Do you guys need any help?" "I don't know, let me ask mom." Mom picks up the phone, "I told him not to call you." "He sounded concerned." "Yeah, he's concerned about his keyboards, Jay." I start laughing uncontrollably. "Jay, there's ash falling everywhere and it smells like a barbecue pit but the evacuation center is practically across the street. The fire's not going to get here. He's not concerned about me and your sister inhaling all this ash. He's not concerned about you driving over here, to a place that might be evacuated, and inhaling all this ash. He wants to make sure his keyboards make it out alive." Still laughing. "You can come over here if you want to rescue some insured music equipment. I already packed up the papers and took pictures of all of our stuff for insurance purposes. We might pack the car with clothes so we have something to wear in the morning if we go to the hotel. I told him not to call you." Still laughing. "I'll call you if some shit goes down." "Okay, Ma." My mother is so hardcore.

Mandatory Mental Evacuation

"Can't think of anything to do/my left brain knows that love is fleeting" - Joss Stone, Fell in Love with a Boy (The Soul Sessions) So, a funny thing happened on the way to the cool out...work, life, and running snuck in the back door. I did take off a little time last Thursday (a day earlier than Take Back Your Time Day but, hey, it was October 24th already in New Zealand so it counts) to see Matrix Reloaded on the IMAX once more before Revolutions takes over all my focus in a week and a half but I didn't get as much me time as I would have liked. Digital Music Revolution took a hiatus for the most part at the end of the week so the stats are as follows: Digital Music Revolution: 216 albums 862 artists 21 genres 3124 songs 8.8 days of music 11.95 GBs Best CD ripped today? Joss Stone - The Soul Sessions The HSW has been keeping Joss Stone to herself for a few weeks and then mentions in passing last week that she loves the album. Who is she, I ask. A 16 year old, White, British, soul singer produced by Betty Wright. Well, hell's bells, HSW, you're talking to the man who owns every Brand New Heavies and Soul II Soul album, loves two-step and garage music, and has crushed on Lisa Stansfield and Anastasia for much of his pubescent life. How can you treat a brotha like that? So, I scooped up Joss last night along with Comfort Woman, Kish Kash, and The Beginning Stages of...The Polyphonic Spree. I'm going to be spending most of my music dollars in November on improving my Classic Soul Records collection which means I'll be in the used record section more than the new record section. I think those 4 albums are a good end to my contemporary music spending frenzy.

olly olly oxen free

"Can't fake it, let's take it to the ol' skool." - Isaac 2 Isaac, Ol' Skool (The Show Soundtrack) So, yeah, I need a new crush. You know, a crush that's like the amalgam of two perfect but different pieces. I imagine she's like Janeane Garofalo meets Erykah Badu or Lucy Liu meets Zadie Smith or Sanaa Latham in Brown Sugar (which is better with time, smarter writing than I initially gave it credit for) sprinkled with Eliza Dushku as Faith. She doesn't even have to have a big ol' ass. Just something well proportioned to her body. You know, a nice little tail. I'm about to start dating women who only love me for my money and my muscles. If only I had more money and bigger muscles. Anyway, suggestions for new obsessions are encouraged and appreciated. Damn.

the art of saying no

"We must begin to tell our young that there's a world waiting for you." - Bob & Marcia, Young, Gifted & Black (Trojan Box Set - UK Hits) Digital Music Revolution, Day 5: 154 albums 720 artists 18 genres 2374 songs 6.7 days of music 9.07 GBs Best CD ripped today? Beastie Boys - Check Your Head I'm trying to go on a cool-out. Nothing major, just some sit down, shut down, be alone with myself time. The past two weeks, I've spread myself too thin and two somebodys were hurt in the process. That's lame on my part. My problem? I have trouble with the "no." It's hard. I don't want to say, "Hey there friend, I like you but I'd much rather sit down than go to lunch with you right now." But, you know what, that's exactly what I need sometimes. That's what I need right now. Can somebody please order me a glass of "sitthefuckdown?" I want to be in my apartment cataloging music and playing Buffy The Vampire Slayer - Chaos Bleeds and working out and cleaning and doing laundry and watching all the DVDs that have come with CDs that I've never watched. I want to sleep. I love hanging out with everyone. I want to see it all. Right now, though, I just really want to see the insides of my eyelids. So, if you don't see me. I'm on a cool out. I'm not just saying No to you. I'm saying No to the world.

3.7 days of funk

"I get paid when my record is played, to put it short, I got it made" - Special Ed, I Got It Made (60 Minutes of Funk, Volume One) With Itunes being the only music management software I've loved on any system, I'm just ecstatic about it being on windows. After playing with it for a little while on Thursday and finding it as nice as I like it on my Mac (although it's a bigger drain on the computer resources in Windows 2000 service pack 3 than it ever is on Jaguar) I decided to do the project I've always wanted to do. I've dumped all the music that was on this system and have begun ripping my entire music collection. It's a two-fold purpose. One - Itunes hooks directly to the CDDB-Gracenote library and does the most accurate job tagging music of all the programs I've tried (Musicmatch's supertagging is a great feature but I don't like that you have to pay for most of musicmatch's killer apps by going with plus) and Two - I've wanted to dump all of my illegally downloaded music (while I disagree with the RIAA's tactics, that you can now buy a vast majority of the music out there through online libraries for relatively cheap and the artist will get some getback from the purchase is the right thing) and purchase, through itunes, the individual tracks I've had in my possession. I'm currently at 102 albums, 1614 songs, 494 artists, 14 genres, and 6.03 GBs of music. I haven't even scratched the surface. I have only dealt with music that are still in CD cases rather than my 5 giant CD storage books. It's going to be a lot of music, kids. The first CD ripped? Hi-Tek's Hi-Teknowledgy. The 100th CD ripped? DJ Mark Farina's Mushroom Jazz 4 Compilation. CDs purchased because of dumped music? A replacement for Erykah Badu's Mama's Gun which had been stolen from my car and both Jean Grae EPs...and a long list of others. I haven't bought a track from Itunes music store yet, though. Maybe I should do that today. I love music.

where's my head at?

"I'm at war a lot, like Anwar Sadat." - Eric B. & Rakim, Juice (Know the Ledge) (Juice - The Original Soundtrack) My current obsession is thinking about what people would find in my apartment, my car, my office if I were to die today. Do I care that my carpets need vacuuming? Am I embarrassed by the damage that my dog has done to my apartment? Are the unfolded clothes a problem? Shouldn't my desk really be neater? Would people be confused when they see the large stacks of music CDs on the desk of a "web guy." I think about it, and yet, I don't do much about it. People say a cluttered life reflects a cluttered mind. I say a person with clutter isn't going to die today because he's got too much shit to do. My current pop culture thoughts have to do with my relationship with hip hop. Keith and Nova have both been discussing some of the issues, whether directly or tangentially. The fact that the top 10 singles on the charts last week were by black acts and were all essentially hip hop records didn't fill me with much joy. Andre 3000 has been saying a lot lately that "Hip Hop is dead." I don't really want to say it because it's sad but I'm starting to agree. Can hip hop still challenge us? I'm not sure. I do know, though, that this recent crop of fusion records by Roy Hargrove and Outkast and Erykah Badu and even several of the tracks on Mark Ronson's album and the always forward thinking work of The Roots and a few others have me excited about what's next. I just hate what's now. The only exciting person in hip hop is still Eminem and that's a problem. Not because he's Eminem but because there's so much talent out there and they aren't doing shit with it. Common and Kweli are supporting health care initiatives. Can some folks write some raps about those kinds of issues? Kweli does it but where the hell is everybody else? I'm looking at you, Jay-Z, Missy, Luda, Nelly, Fitty. I know Jay can do it when he wants to. For my money, he's the best lyricist amongst the hip-popsters and every once in a while he hits us with a taste but then it's right back to money, cash, hoes. I'm tired of money, cash, hoes. Where's The Message, or White Lines, or Fight the Power, or 911 is a joke or Fuck tha Police or Ladies First or Brown Skin Lady for the 21st Century. Give people some shit to talk about? I mean, damn, Where is the Love? is nice but it's not really saying anything. I hate hip hop this year but I love hip hop influenced music. The stuff coming out of Stones Throw records and Def Jux is some live shit but it's not connecting with the masses. Somebody please find the formula again and have something real to say or else I'm pouring some for my dead homey, hip hop. Huh. That was longer than I intended it to be. Now, I don't know what else I want to talk about. I'm just angry. Love the Kill Bill Soundtrack. Hate Alias. The only tv show I must see every week is Karen Sisco. And Law & Order repeats. Everything else sucks. I think a friend disowned me. Sunday was, easily, my favorite day of the past seven. And, I can't be sure, but I think my dog pissed on the shoes I'm wearing right now. Which probably means my apartment, too, smells like piss. Damnit, I better not die on the way home. I might not care about the mess but I don't want people thinking I'm funky post-humously.

Half Chinese, Half Japane-shi

"Better get ready, that's a fact, get ready you mothers for the big payback." - James Brown, The Payback, Pt. 1 (50th Anniversary Collection) "The price you pay for bringing up my Chinese or American heritage as a negative is that I will collect your fucking head." -O-Ren Ishii I'm talking Kill Bill at Time Wastin'. You know you want to talk about it, too.

Yeah...

comment spam is about to be on my last fucking nerve. UPDATE: I'm trying this quick & dirty fix. We'll see how it goes. UPDATE 2: Because Gwen makes a good point, here's a comment free rss feed

Happy Ending

"slow down, my love, you're confusing me" - Dido, Do You Have a Little Time (Life For Rent) I was prone on her table with a small pillow covering my eyes to block out the sun and fill my nose with the aroma of jasmine. She pushed the hem of my shorts further up my leg and then slid her fingers under the snug fit of my UnderArmor and slowly rolled it back a few times so that I was all the more exposed. Her hands were strong and deliberate and moved along my body without fear. The fear was all in my head. As she worked the muscles in my pelvic bone and then worked her way down my torso, sometimes straddling me, sometimes pulling on me in ways that made me want to yelp all I could think of was suppression. Please, God or whatever higher power is out there if there is really one, because, you know, I have doubts, but that's for another conversation, at this moment I'm putting my trust in you, my invisible friend in the sky, please don't let my body react that way right now. Please don't let me get...