Jason Toney

Where You At?! - 07.30.06 - 08.06.06

"Twist your head around. It's all around you" - Björk, All is Full of Love

Considering my track record lately, I shouldn't even do any sure things outside of catching Deadwood and So You Think You Can Dance (Dance, by the way, is featured in Calendar today) every week. You can bank on that shit. Last week, I only made it to two of the sure things and one of them, Oral Surgery, was just a consult so I get to make that a sure thing again in two weeks.

I also missed out on things I didn't put on that list like a House Cooling party, Nortec Collective and Dakah Hip Hop Orchestra with Daara J.

Before we get into this week's possibilities, let's look at what I won't be doing:

Corinne Bailey Rae @ House of Blues Sunset Strip
This show was originally going to be at the Roxy and I had originally planned to go for the Tuesday, August 1st show but one of my absolute must sure things this week has gotten in the way and now I'll not be seeing her at all. It's fine, really. It's been so long since I've gone to HOB, I've convinced myself it sucks as a music venue. Well, at least the parking sucks.

Garth Trinidad 10th Anniversary Show: Bilal @ Temple Bar
One of the original reasons I wasn't going to see Corinne Bailey Rae on the 31st at the Roxy was because of this show but, alas and alack, I'm going to be here either.

Tina Dico @ Largo
Another August 1st show. Another No-Go

Bloc Party & Broken Social Scene @ The Greek
I'd really like to see Broken Social Scene but I only want to sit up close at The Greek and that's not really possible with the tickets still available for this show.

Street Scene @ San Diego
I'm on the fence about this still being a possibility. The saturday line-up is a lot of fun. We'll see...

Sure Thing:

Disney Teacher Awards Webcast
I'm producing this so I damn well better be there and by there I mean at my desk at work stressing out to 5 different people over IM about whether or not the video feed is coming through clean and with no audio problems for about 2 hours.

Very likely Things:

Zealousy @ The Gig-Hollywood
Your favorite blogger's favorite Vermont bar-back is doing a one year anniversary show with his band and I might actually finally show up at one of his shows like I've promised to do for the last 6 months.

The Section Quartet with Special Guests @ Largo
I want to try something new on a Friday night and what's newer than hot string instrumentalists doing covers of songs you love in an intimate setting?

Amandarin's birthday/Bootie LA @ the echo
I still haven't been to Bootie even though I plan to go every month and what's more fun than a real live blogger's birthday? If I don't end up in SD on Saturday, i'm killing both these birds with one stone.

Little Miss Sunshine & The Night Listener
Both movies look excellent and might make a great Sunday double feature next weekend.

Sunday Random Ten: Feather Crest Edition

"No other sound is quite the same as your name" - Marvin Gaye, Ain't Nothing Like That The Real Thing

The plan a month ago was to crash Blogher this weekend. Lynne and Tiffany and George and a ton of bloggers writers I admire are all in one place having some incredible conversations that Lynne has been live blogging all weekend.

But moving is expensive and dental work comes unexpectedly and contract consultants hate non-paid holidays and the shortened work days that come with them and pain killers make me useless and my eyes aren't acting right and I'm worried that this is what getting older is all about and and and and...

And I'm full of excuses.

What real excuse is there for missing out on the internet version of Lesbo Island? Or perhaps it is the real version. One of my favorite funny people, Jill Soloway, explains in Tiny Ladies in Shiny Pants, she imagines Lesbo Island is somewhere in Northern California. It is "an all-female state, with a big ol' newfounded land, sort of a gigantic honeycomb hideout...until the patriarchy is toppled and a global matriarchy...is installed."

Now I'm no Lesbian-Identified Man named Lisa but I can get with that. So I created my own Island this weekend filled with a whole lot of the first season of The L Word (which I'm giving up on because I can't take much more of Mia Kirshner's Crazy Jenny. Just go read Michelle's recaps), reading lots of interesting women both online and off and enjoying very much the cover story of today's Calendar section on strumming brown girls.

Oh, and a music soundtrack that looks a lot like this:

Out of 3553 songs in my Best Of folder, these are the first random ten performed by women.

1. Rise Up With Fists!!! - Jenny Lewis With The Watson Twins
2. Fever (Adam Freeland Remix) - Sarah Vaughan
3. Sinnerman (Felix Da Housecat's Heavenly House Mix)[Extended Vocal] - Nina Simone
4. Just A Little Bit - Liz Densmore
5. Hidden Place - Björk
6. Off With Your Head - Sleater-Kinney
7. One Minute Man (Remix) - Missy Elliott
8. I Can Deal With That - Dee Edwards
9. Salt - Lizz Wright
10. Wonderwall - Cat Power

Hot Links & Gumbo

"It's so bad lasting far, but love yourself" - Gorillaz, Demon Days

And on the 29th day, God said let their be high speed internets in your home and it was good.

Dancing Brave: Inspiring Words

"It's not whether you get knocked up, it's whether you get DOWN"

Press The Buttons: Donkey Kong's Pauline Set To Return

They know not that Princess Toadstool and Princess Peach are the same woman.  They also know not of Pauline, Mario's original damsel in distress.  The brunette in the red dress was kidnapped by Donkey Kong in 1981's arcade smash, Donkey Kong.  What little we knew about her at the time came from the arcade game's cabinet and not the actual game itself.  Over a decade later she made her second appearance in 1994's Donkey Kong expansion for the Game Boy, playing the same role as the kidnapped woman.  Once again her character was neither expanded nor featured.

   

Now Nintendo has reached back into the vault and pulled Pauline into the twenty-first century.  The original monkey magnet will appear in the upcoming Mario vs. Donkey Kong 2: March of the Minis for the Nintendo DS.

Welcome to The Museum of Black Superheroes

AlterNet: EnviroHealth: Brave New Enviros

For the first time, an African-American is at the helm of a major green group. Is environmentalism finally breaking free of its wealthy, white confines?

The Closer: Head Over Heels - TV Squad

I love the way they portray Los Angeles. It feels about right.

thebrotherlove.com {Who Is Jimi Izrael, Anyway?}    

Gay black bloggers blew Jimi's dreads back by using their influence to shut down the Lifebeat concert. And he can't wrap his head around that. Since then he has ranted about it in several more posts, even going as far as stupidly and erroneously acussing Keith of "promot(ing) a raw sex party". That was foul and Jimi should know better than that. Not content on keeping his own shit at home he's left rambling comments on Keith's site and Donald's blog. Donald pretty much laid it out proper, causing Jimi to revert to using fag insults (a good sign he ran out of shit to say).

   

Now here's the kicker; sometimes (even on this issue) Jimi makes good points. But you have to wade through his hipper-than-thou mumbo jumbo to uncover it; and lets' face it, who has the time? I have no problem with opposing Keith, Jasmyne or anyone else. I don't agree with them half the time, either. But don't act like you on some inside-track-of-gay-intelligence when your simplified logic reads otherwise, homie.

Poplicks.com: QUESTION OF THE WEEK #66

Perhaps the most notorious homophobe in the world, Rev. Fred Phelps and his church followers (largely comprised of his family members) believe that 9/11, the deaths of American soldiers in Iraq, and Hurricane Katrina are all a result of God's hatred of gays and lebsians and America's alleged tolerance of homosexuality and adultery.

Phelps and his clan are currently spending most of their time attending the funerals of American soldiers. They typically stand immediately outside the cemetery, hold signs (see photo above), and yell that the soldier is in hell.

Hollywood Big Blasts Lohan - July 28, 2006

Robinson notes that while Lohan's aides have chalked up her lateness and absences to illness, he is "well aware that your ongoing all night heavy partying is the real reason for your so called 'exhaustion.'" Noting that Morgan Creek refuses to "accept bogus excuses for your behavior," Robinson warns Lohan that she will be held "personally accountable" for losses caused by her actions. Claiming that Lohan's behavior has already "resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage," Robinson hints at possible legal action against the actress unless she begins honoring her production commitments. He concludes, "I urge you to take this letter seriously and conduct yourself professionally."

Prefixblog.com: Kids + Rap + Sufjan

"First Ladies Anthem" by the Rapper's Delight Club, a Maryland-based after-school group that teaches kids how to rhyme in the traditional sense: talkin' trash, giving shout-outs, and referencing their bling bling, all over Sufjan's "There are Zombies!! There are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back From the Dead!! Run for Your Lives!! Ahhhhhh!".

Steven Hargrove: How to redirect a web page, the smart way

How do you redirect using html you ask? Here is how: DONT!

Over the past 4-6 years, use of meta tag refresh redirection has been abused for uses in relation to SPAM. The result of this and other scenarios of mis-uses of it, is that when using it, that page WILL be de-indexed from every search engine.

NOTE: This also applies to javascript redirection. Search engines can easily detect javascript and meta tag redirection, so just dont do it, use the 301 redirect.

Stones Throw Records

Peanut Butter Wolf presents
Adult Swim & Stones Throw's
CHROME CHILDREN
CD & DVD to be released OCTOBER 3RD

The CD: music from Madvillain, J Dilla, Madlib, and many others - this will also be released on 2/LP. The DVD: a full-length live hip hop show headlined by MF DOOM and Madlib. The concert was filmed at this year's SXSW in a tent. That's how we do it. Filmed & edited by the Adult Swim crew.

Saturn | Future Vehicles & Concept Cars: Saturn Aura & Outlook

A disaster to take everyone's breath away - 24 Jul 2006 - World News

The consequences would be awesome. The wet Amazon Basin would turn to dry savannah at best, desert at worst. This would cause much of the world to become hotter and drier.

In the long term, it could send global warming out of control, eventually making the world uninhabitable.

QotD: I wish I could...

Play any instrument or speak any language, which do you choose?
Question submitted by cruftbox.vox.com.

Speak any language. Well, more appropriately read and write in any language. It would help my cause as an all-consuming media beast.

Besides, I want to flirt with you in tagalog.

Cute Over-Rode

"B-boys rock with me. Come by the bar with me." - Yo Gotti, Gangsta Party

I've been feeling a little über-shmooped and cute overloaded lately so this guest Diesel Sweeties cartoon made me bellow with testosterone-filled glee.

Nevermind that it was drawn by two chicks*. That's some he-man humor.

*John Allison is not two chicks.

QotD: Sugar, Sugar

What was your favorite candy when you were a kid? How does that compare to now?

I wasn't a big candy kid but I did like that one candy bar, what was it called? Chunky? The one that was just a single square of chocolate with raisins and nuts in it. Oh, and raisinets. I did love raisinets.

Now? I kinda dig that Take 5 candy bar. Probably because it has the pretzels in it. I like savory better than sweet.

In other news, I haven't been here in a minute. The new posting interface is kinda hot.

Is it sad, that all this vox goodness just makes me hope for this type of functionality to be implemented in typepad?

I mean, seriously.

9 in 52: The Known World

"How did we make it, I don't know" - Kelis, Glow (featuring Raphael Saadiq)

The Known World by Edward P. Jones (Amistad, 2003) Manchester County, Virginia doesn't exist. Never has. After reading The Known World, however, you'd be forgiven if you thought you could take a tour of it's plantations and slave cemetaries on your vacation to colonial Williamsburg. The complicated pre-civil war Southern society that Edward P. Jones creates feels as real and surreal as any factual history of slavery you've read. It was not so much the story of Henry Townsend, a black slave owner, and all the people that his death allows us to meet that engaged me. It was the world, a world where I could taste the soil I might till and the women I might marry and the terrible choices I might be faced with, that put it's claws in me and refused to let go.

It took me nearly 2 months to finish the book's 388 pages. It should've been a quick read. It is a fascinating place with peculiar problems and characters I cried for on more than one occasion. It should've been a quick read but I kept asking myself this question: who would I have been? The slave, toiling away in the field? The overseer, unable to see the world for what it truly was? The freed man, working desperately to free the rest of his family? The smart child, taken under the wing of the rich white slave owner and convinced that there was nothing wrong with owning another human being? The broken black man tortured by his family's wealth built on the backs of men and women that look just like me? The slave too proud, too strong, too powerful to let another take his freedom? Who would I have been?

Who am I now?

In matters of race, there is always that fool's point, usually made by a white person (though not always) that asks,"why aren't you over it, already? Can't we just let it go?" It is a way to end an uncomfortable conversation. The reasons don't matter. I know many a person for which the sticky tar baby of race in America is simply a discussion they can't stick their hands in. It is too difficult. Too raw. Too cloudy to be sure that people will remain friends after an honest chat. The way I feel when I read books like The Known World is my answer. No matter how well-adjusted, how integrated, how loving of my fellow man, how multiculti kumbayah I am, I'm not over it. I can't let it go.

This fictional world was very real not all that long ago. It's effects still ripple through our every day. The world I know doesn't exist without it.

Highly highly recommended.

tags: 52 in 52 | the known world | edward p jones

Sunday Not-So-Random Ten: Busted Mouth Edition

"nnn-Girrrl-uh." - Al B. Sure, Nite and Day

The only thing on my mind today is my swollen face, the hole where a tooth was and how much of all this dental work insurance is not going to cover so this week you get my trip to the dentist soundtrack.

1. Bad Mouth Kid (skit) - Ghostface Killah
2. Don't Worry About My Mouth O (African Message) - Fela Kuti/Monoaural
3. Mr. Tooth Decay - Muhammad Ali
4. Potty Mouth - Ugly Duckling
5. Make The Music With Your Mouth - Biz Markie
6. Dollar In The Teeth - Upsetters
7. Mouth's Cradle - Björk
8. Crooked Teeth - Death Cab for Cutie
9. Sun in My Mouth - Björk
10. Tenement Teeth 2 - Pela

Where You At (And Where I Been)?! - The Like

"Walking from the past but I don't think I've said my goodbyes" - the like, What I Say and What I Mean

From Jen's Daily Candy, we ended up at MOCA for Night Vision After Dark and a high society love-in for Nine Black Alps and the like. Despite getting lost in the confusing one-way no-way streets of downtown as I always do when I don't Google Maps my journey, we made it just in time for the oppressive heat, the arts & crafts and the much younger than usual crowd. When the oldest member of the featured band can't even buy beer yet, that's par for the course.

But I didn't mind. I didn't mind anything at all. You see, my daily candy was vicodin. After spending nearly 2 hours in a dentist's chair while he went to war with a mean molar in the back of my mouth, I was given a prescription for some high powered pain medication to go with my antibiotics and the nubbin of a tooth root that refused to leave my head. Until I popped that beautiful little pill -- the first time I have ever had vicodin -- I felt like I had accidentally walked into a UFC match. I felt like I had accused Mike Tyson of rape. To his face. And didn't run afterwards. But by the time I got to Jen's place, She could've stabbed me with a knitting needle as I walked through the door and I would have been just fine.

I was still on easy street when the like took the stage. Feedback, wind and heat attempted to derail their set, mostly of songs off of Are You Thinking What I Am Thinking, but they powered through like the miniature veterans they are. By the time they closed the set with my favorite track, So I'll Sit Here Waiting, my heart was pounding.

And my face was throbbing.

It was time to go home.

The sure things:

My Super Ex-Girlfriend
I like Uma. The trailer makes me laugh. That's all I need from a summer movie.

San Diego Padres @ Los Angeles Dodgers
Hopefully I won't die from heat stroke at the game.

Jake Leg and the Dixie Itch
Finally we'll see what our favorite bar back can do with a musical instrument in his hands. Country music in Burbank? I guess so.

Oral Surgery
Because what's more fun than getting a tooth extracted? Getting 4 wisdom teeth and the remnants of your partially extracted tooth taken out at the same time.

It's a party in my mouth, y'all.

tags: the like | moca | dentist

Conspicuous Consumption: One Sentence Reviews

"Library cards, rented faces, lying on the naked train" - Broken Social Scene, Backyards

alternate title: Making Up For Lost Time

Anywhere But Here - This glorified after school special proves I'll watch Natalie Portman in just about anything.

Batman Beyond - The Complete First Season (DC Comics Classic Collection) - The current Batman cartoon can't hold a candle to Bruce Timm/Paul Dini rooted work like this.

The Devil Wears Prada  - The best thing about this movie is the one hour they spent on it on The View the day before Star Jones walked.

Greetings From Michigan - Not as good as Illinois but still pretty darn good.

Post Live and Homogenic Live - With these two albums, Björk joins Mary J. Blige, A Tribe Called Quest, Erykah Badu and Zero 7 as the artists whose entire official catalogs I own from b-sides to remixes.

Four Tet: DJ Kicks - I love four tet remixes but this compilation of music they like is bullshit.

Kings of Diggin' - Kon & Amir are nice but this might take the rare grooves aesthetic too far even for me.

Marvel of Marvin  - Now, 4Hero knows how to put together a remix record.

Death Certificate - The album that finally quenched my gangsta rap thirst this summer.

Juke Joint, Vol. 2 - This might be my favorite record of the summer.

Superman Returns - Read the review.

16 Blocks - Nothing special but a surprisingly satisfying twist on the buddy cop genre.

L.A. Confidential - I finally sat through it from start to finish and enjoyed it immensely.

Trees Lounge - A little plodding but I think this is the role that has made me decide that I like Chloe Sevigny as an actress.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest - Bloom is still boring but Jack Sparrow still rules and Keira Knightly is having great fun in the role.

The Avalanche - Because apparently there can never be enough Sufjan Stevens.

Blue Collar - A really nice album that is probably a year too late to make Rhymefest a star.

Gave up on: The Corporation and The Office (UK): The Complete First Series.

tag: all consuming