Jason Toney

The One With Eggs and Africa

“If you can talk you can sing. If you can walk you can dance.” - Talib Kweli & DJ Hi Tek, Africa Dream
 

It’s been awhile.

I’m accepting that my normal modus operandi now is to be up well before 6 AM. All this past week (and much of the week before) I’ve been waking up in the wee hours. 5:15, 4:30, 3:45! Instead of merely moving to the couch from the bed and lamenting a lack of sleep or daylight, however, I’ve taken it as an opportunity to get a head start  on my day. I clear items from my work to-do list. I respond to important emails. I plan.

It also gives me time to empty the dishwasher, to clean a little, to watch the world wake up. And to cook. Tiffany may rule the stove top at dinner time. She might even command the martini shaker behind our bar. I suspect when we get a grill and a smoker that will be her world as well but breakfast? Breakfast is mine.

I love breakfast foods. I love toast and english muffins and bagels. I love cereal and oatmeal and grits. I love bacon and sausage and corned beef hash and chorizo and eggs. Eggs! My goodness I love eggs.

Everyday this week we had eggs. Scrambled. An omelette with spinach and mushrooms. A healthy and hearty scramble over toast. A Tribe Called Quest might not eat ham n’ eggs because they are high in cholesterol but the low end theory in this house is that eggs are a great way to start your day.

I’m already thinking about tomorrow morning’s breaking of the night’s fast. I’m moving from the burner to the oven. A fancy but simple fritatta recipe is the plan. I think it’s going to be an all baked eggs week and I’m so looking forward to cooking as I watch our neighbors walk their dogs, the automatic sprinklers come on, and the sun peek out from behind the buildings and trees.

Unrelated but the other big thing of the week was a nearly perfect Saturday. We walked to breakfast (there’s that word again) at Four n’ 20 and enjoyed the company of a good friend. We then shared the afternoon with fans of Fela Kuti and Nigerian art and culture at the final weekend of Central Nigeria Unmasked at the Fowler Museum.

It was a gorgeous day filled with music and dancing and meaningful conversation in Westwood, a part of the city that I don’t spend as much time in these days as when I was younger.

Y’know, I’ve just felt full up inside lately.

With all to be concerned about in the world today, especially this weekend, I have to tell you: I’m grateful. Happy.

My life ain’t bad y’all.

The Week in Review

• The Best Thing I Saw This Week: Luther Series 1. Man. If you haven’t watched this, get thee to Netflix Instant and get on it. It’s smart. It’s grown up. The acting is spot on. You know Idris Elba is going to be outstanding but Ruth Wilson’s Alice Morgan is mesmerizing. And frightening. And I don’t generally “get” British TV and Film so if I like it, it must be good. Runner-Up: Shocking to say this but even Breaking Bad’s intriguing season opener wasn’t quite as compelling to me as the whole of Luther.
• The Best Thing I Heard This Week: The James Drake Mixtape. James Blake has one of my favorite albums of this year. Drake had one of my favorite albums of last year. This is a perfect blend of the two.
• The Best Thing I read This Week: I’m in the middle of A Clash of Kings and just read a bit featuring Joffrey that I can’t wait to see in Next Season of the HBO Series.
• The Thing I Read This Week That Most Resonated:

In the safest, most boring country, the worst lone gunman shooting happens. The worst in the world, in history. But it will not make our country worse. The safe, boring democracy will supply him with a defense lawyer as is his right. He will not get more than 21 years in prison as is the maximum extent of the law. Our democracy does not allow for enough punishment to satisfy my need for revenge, as is its intention. We will not become worse, we will be better. We lived in a land where this is possible, even easy. And we will keep living in a land where this is possible, even easy. We are open, we are free and we are together. We are vulnerable by choice. And we will keep on like that, that’s how we want to live. We will not be worse because of the worst. We must be good because of the best.

 

I don't believe I need to explain why.

Peace go with you, brothers and sisters.

Mid-Year Report

"Maybe now you'll understand that God is laughing at your plans."  - Foreign Exchange, Laughing At Your Plans

If you don't remember, My 2011 Personal Operating Plan.

Broad Strategic Goals

In everything I do this year, the goal is to Provide Value. In my personal life, I will be more deliberate with my Kindness and Compassion. I will also Love Harder. Health and Wellness will be a priority. Professionally and creatively, I will embrace Breaking Some Eggs, Breaking Some Rules, and Challenging the Status Quo.

Financial

We are well on our way to being debt free even with spending beyond our budget on #nerdwedding11. I haven't increased significantly my charitable giving but I think that will happen as we get closer to the end of the year and farther away from our big ticket expenses.

Career

Even with a lot of uncertainty and change and rough spots and sad departures and new arrivals, I think my team has kicked ass this year. We are transforming the way we do what we do in anticipation of the future and it feels like we're on the right track. I couldn't be more proud. Speaking of pride, in just the last two weeks, we've launched Friends For Change Games and Star Tours Adventures.

Creativity and Learning

I have seriously dropped the ball here. While we have done a little LA exploration, we haven't done nearly enough. I haven't been writing much at all. These are some things I should focus on this Summer. There's a big world out there and in here.

Travel

I've been to Austin and New Orleans this year but that's about all the travelling I've done which is incredibly weird after spending all of last year in planes. We still have an international trip planned for the Fall, though, and I suspect I will get to a few more domestic places in before the year is out.

Friends and Family

I have seen my sister more this year and will throughout the year (she's coming back to LA in a few weeks). And, yes, we have begun entertaining more! We kicked off the year with a New Year's day party and just this past weekend had people over to the new house. And, our friends have been entertaining more as well. We're regularly visiting for food and drinks and revelry.

Unplanned for but none less delightful, I've gotten closer to my dad this year and I hope that continues.

Love

Today is Tiffany's birthday and I hope that one of my gifts to her is that I am expressing my undying and growing love and affection for her as often as I can. I hope that I'm sharing my feelings, in general, more openly and expressively. I have a lot of love in my heart right now and I hope I'm not just keeping it there.

And, yes, we did indeed throw the bomb wedding this year. Nearly two months later and we still can't talking about it and smiling. And neither can our family and friends.

2011, you're doing me well. Let's keep it going.

Not Quite 6 After Six

Cover of Rebirth Brass Band

"What goes around comes back around." - Rebirth Brass Band, What Goes Around Comes Around

This is the first year of my life since I was a wee kid that I can say I haven't been obsessed with "what's new" in music. I've acquired very little new music by comparison to the last few years and have spent a much greater amount of time either shoring up my library with music from my youth or classic records I should own or simply listening to old favorites. My last.fm charts for the last six months will tell you that old friends like Foreign Exchange, Kanye West, Erykah Badu and The Roots have been sharing time with some of last year's faves like Drake and The Black Keys.

Only Adele's 21 has cracked the top 10, placing her the top, and, honestly, I think that has more to do with the power of "Rolling in The Deep" and all it's remixes and reimaginings than the album as a whole. I really like it but it's not even my tops for the first half of the year.

That honor goes to Rebirth Brass Band's Rebirth of New Orleans. Y'all know I'm already partial to N'awlins and, especially this year, what with the magic of #nerdwedding11 but this is a party on disc. I always think it's hard for bands that are best heard live to convey that magic in the studio but Rebirth does a great job of doing that on this album. The songs are both timeless and of this moment, reflective of NOLA right now. In the same way that Treme conveys the meandering madness of that little part of Louisiana so does this album. And, as is the usual sign of a great album, any time Rebirth comes up on shuffle, I'm compelled to hear the whole collection as it was intended.

I've already talked about Adele so the other's of note this year are James Blake's self-titled debut and Wick-It The Instigator's mashup, The Brothers of Chico Dusty. Blake's sound is haunting like favorites of previous years, Burial and Antony and the Johnsons, but it's that melding of deep mature vocals with these lush electronic sounds that gives that album some heft that lingers long after I've finished listening. I just played the album loudly over the past weekend and found all new layers to get lost in.

The Brothers of Chico Dusty is a mash-up of two of the more interesting albums of last year and it works perfectly. I like it most because it brings me back to Brothers which I think is pretty close to a perfect album and elevates Big Boi's Chico Dusty which I didn't love nearly as much as others did.

And that's about it. When preparing to write this post, I realized I'm probably underlistening to The Go Team!'s latest and I just got Hot Sauce Committee which is interesting but didn't immediately knock my socks off. I do like TV on The Radio's Nine Types of Light but haven't listened to it enough to include it here.

It'll be interesting to see how the rest of the year plays out.