Jason Toney

Signs

"You're the prince to my ballerina. You'll feed all the people's parkin' meters. You encourage the eating of ice cream. You would somersault in sand with me." - Zero 7, Somersault (When It Falls) He stood on the rooftop staring at the sky. Every once in a while, he would side arm a pebble into the night. �Did you see that shooting star,� he asked as she came up behind him. �Yeah,� she said softly. �That could be our shooting star,� he said, a little nave hope still in his voice. �We could name it and everything.� �What would we name it,� she asked. �I don't know,� he said as he put his arm around her shoulder. �Like Optimus Prime or Snarf. Maybe Rio or Synergy. Like from Jem.� �We could call it The Misfit,� she suggested. �But, you know, it wouldn't be our star. Why would we want a shooting star, anyway? It's such a fleeting thing. A streak across the sky that doesn't even last 5 seconds.� �Yeah, but it's magical. It's white hot. It's passion.� �No,� she pulled her arm out from under his and pointed. �See that glowing neon sign out there in the distance? That sign has been there as long as I've lived here. As long as I've known you. I think that's our sign.� �What's it say,� he asked. �That's not important. What's important is that it's always there. It's comfortable. It's sure. It's steady. It's us. I don't want to lose that sign. I don't want to lose what we've always had. Do you get what I'm saying?� �What's the sign say,� he pressed. She sighed, �Live Nude Girls. All Nude. Live Nude.� �As opposed to dead nude girls?� �Yes, I suppose.� She paused, �I'm trying to be serious here.� He smirked and said, �So am I.� She tossed a pebble off the rooftop. He chucked his in the same fashion, mimicking her. He hoped she would notice. Hoped she would think it cute. She didn't react at all. �So what you're saying is,� he said, �is that I should really start dating strippers.� She chuckled and wrapped her arm around his waist, �Yes, I hear Cherry Apples is in the market for a new man. I've always said what you need more of are free table dances.� They stood for a moment staring into space. No shooting stars came. �I love you,� she said. �I love you, too,� he said. If only that were enough.

the lonely little wonton

The lonely Little Wonton sat on his bed of seaweed, crying. Lost in the land of Burgers and Fries, the lonely Little Wonton no longer believed he was perfect. His mother, the Perceptive Potsticker, had told him that Little Wontons were wonderful packages of goodness. They were sealed and golden brown and held a surprise inside. "What could be better than that," she wondered aloud.

restless night

"I'm so into you" - Stateless

The New Times in San Luis Obispo hold's a World's Shortest Stories contest each year. You have to write a story with 55 words or less. I'm still too wordy to get there yet but this is my attempt at a short short.

Addendum: Ya'll know I don't edit when I post the first time, right? I just write and get it up and then come back later...so after some good criticism from a friend, what is here now is the edited version of "Restless Night"...

lyndsay star...the finale

Through the fire, to the limit - Chaka Khan

random knowledge of the day:Do you know what the term 'kitty' (as in the pot in card games like Bid Whist) comes from? I didn't until today when I read Ray Charles' explanation of it in Q: An Autobiography of Quincy Jones. Six-nine aka RC aka Mr. Charles writes...

...sometimes we'd work at clubs for the kitty, which was tips that people would throw into a tin can or wooden box shaped like a cat's face with its mouth wide open and a light inside.

who knew? Nobody could every explain that to me when i was being taught Bid Whist as a kid...now I know.

random word of the weekend: supple

random saturday: My sister came over and we did mad cleaning. Top to bottom. Moved furniture. Steam cleaned carpets. I have pictures of before and after but i don't think I'll post them until we actually move in my new (well, new to me with cool Trading Spaces style slip covers courtesy of Moms) couches. We then had dinner with Courtney and saw eight legged freaks which was surprisingly good. No brain food here but if you want to laugh, jump out your seat and feel like spiders are crawling all over you...peep this one. Been a long time since I jumped in a movie theater (not since the first Jurassic Park I don't think) but I did in this one. Courtney got to see the crazy one in action and she wasn't even that crazy. A very good day.

random allowance: If you see me on the street and I happen to say dig and mad or cats and kittens and possibly change the paradiggum too much just tell me to shut up and find new words. Go on...you're allowed.

random event of the week: This Friday Night, the Temple Bar in Santa Monica. 3 bands, 2 of whom I love (The Soul of John Black and Medusa and Feline Science), 10 bucks. Its Funk, Its hip hop, its a hot joint, its where the sexy people hang out. You know you wanna be there. I'll be there. Come be with me. I'll probably roll in there about 8:30/9.

I feel like I've forgotten something but its late...just go read the finale of Lyndsay Star. Pts. 1 and 2 in case you missed them.

Lindsay Star, Rock Detective Pt. II

"We're not ballin' or shot-callin', we take it back to the days of yes ya'llin" - Jurassic 5

I'm really tired but I had to get out this section of the Lindsay Star story...it was just screaming to be written. But its going to make it 3 parts. The conclusion will come sometime over the weekend. Tomorrow morning though I want to discuss Warrants, Restaurants and how a whole lot of my really funny material is ending up at uppity-negro.com. I know I've been whoring that site all week but you really should go check out the comments there...there's some brilliant stuff going on besides all the progressive commentary Aaron is passing out.

By the by, I watched maybe 10 minutes of The Pulse tonight. Wow, Geraldo and Bill O'Reilly. Too much asshole for one man. Far too much.

Now, The Set Up

Lindsay Star, Rock Detective

"All I do is think of you, day and night that's all I do" - Jackson Five

Uhhh, its way too early in the morning for Britney Spears videos. She really bugs. Isn't she really just a stripper that talks too much? I think so.

I'm still strying to figure out this trackback nonsense. Prime tried to link to me but I don't think it worked properly. And I've been trying to ping people all over the place but I was using the wrong urls...hopefully I've got it right now.

Tracy has returned after a while being incognito. She links to The Treadmill which, being the happy little capitalist myself, I'm not sure I have anything to say about yet. But its an excellent read with some intriguing points. Socialism is just really hard for me to wrap my head around. I don't trust any government so I can't see giving them more control over things. Just can't do it.

Sometimes this aaron's main character reminds me of this aaron.

And now, pt. 1 of a two part short story inspired by a friend. Its Lyndsay Star, Rock Detective!

j to the L.O./you never know pt. 4

"I'm tired of hearing you're gonna change, but seeing you play these games" - Angie Stone

Since it has a life of its own now, If you're here to read the next installment of the 'couple story thingie' which now has a title - You Never Know - then you should just go read Tricks of the Trade.

for the mac nerds: I practically did the dance of joy and applauded once I installed the Netscape 7.0 X preview release. Its, by far, the best browser in the OS X environment. Almost every page I loaded, loaded properly and looked like its supposed to look. Java works better (like I can actually see my hitbox controls and play monopoly at playsite), pages load pretty darn fast, nothing has crashed it up yet, I haven't felt like my machine was slowing down, and its cute. Its been a long time since I've used netscape but that mozilla engine rules the free world and parts of Communist China. Get it here.

not enough: I finally put my finger on why I have so much J to the L.O. disdain. She's an illusionist. She has people convinced that she can sing, can act, can do all these things. Here's the reality: She was cool when she was the 'chubby' fly girl, Selena was her one great role, she's a decent rapper but a terrible singer. That's it. Oh, and she has a nice backside. Now, that's it. She has ya'll fooled, hoodwinked, bamboozled and led astray. Have you seen The Cell, Angel Eyes, Anaconda, Money Train? She couldn't even pull off the Iman role when Puffy tried to recreate the Remember the Time video. Damn.

The reason I'm annoyed? Last night my sister dragged me to see Enough. Now, nevermind that the movie was far better when it was called Sleeping with the Enemy and you really believed Julia Roberts was getting her ass kicked and the husband was just mega-perfectionist control freak so you understood the motivations of all characters involved. Nevermind that the script is pretty weak falling on too many characters that are only there to get the writer out of jams rather than to really exist as real people in the world of the film. Nevermind that they jump around in the story so much that it feels both long and rushed at the same time. What you should mind is this...she can't act. Or let me change that, she over-acts.

The difference between film acting and stage acting is simple. You overact on stage because you need the people in the back row to see your performance. You underact on screen, using subtlety instead of overt action to convey emotion a lot of the time because everyone can see you clearly, you have the benefit of a soundtrack, lighting, editing, establishing shots, the magic of movies and television to make it all happen. So you might flutter your eyes, raise an eyebrow, chuckle to yourself to get the point across rather than guffawing or dramatically flailing an arm or fainting.

Ms. Lopez understands nothing about subtlety. And it bugs throughout the entire movie. Enough is very cornball.

You know what else bugs? My sister trying to join the chorus of valley girls sitting in front of us every time they laughed or "whoo child" or screamed during the film. Be your own woman, little sis. Damn.

bug #2? Sitting next to a woman with tourette's during a movie. The arm twitching, leg kicking and the shakes was freaking me out man. And made me miss several moments of a bad movie.

bug #3? Turn your damn cell phone off.

bug #4? Leave your babies at home. You had the kids, don't ruin my evening because you can't find a babysitter.

bug #5? This is why I don't go to the movies deep in the heart of the valley often: 2 girls, no more than 19, both wearing 'stylish' hats, talking to each other on their cell phones while their boobs pop out of their shirts that are far too fancy for the movie theater. Why? Do you think Nelly's going to roll up in Winnetka and make you a St. Lunatic? Quit trippin'.

lauryn unplugged/you never know pt. 3

"Forget the proof, a generation so aloof, all following in the steps of the majority" - Lauryn Hill

insert title here: I didn't rush out to buy it last week. I'd seen bits and pieces of it when it aired on MTV2 and even though I was really feeling the music, she talked to damn much. I hate a pretentious musician, incredibly aware of who he/she is and always trying to define his or herself without giving the audience a chance to consider and create opinions for themselves. But they didn't have verve remixed at Borders tonight and I wasn't in the mood to travel to Amoeba this thursday evening and there was no way I was paying 18.99 for musiq's juslissen and a double disc for 13.99 plus my KCRW discount? Lauryn Hill unplugged 2.0 is just damn, wow, damn good. I still wish sometimes that she would just shut up and play but when she does play....whoo, it gets in you. It infects you, your heart swells, your soul is at attention and the mind is at work. The rhythm rocks your hip joints, her licks with the pick make your neck crick. And you rhyme like a concert of windchimes while you sit on your porch and drink a little summer wine.

What is it about a well played acoustic guitar?

Is there some irony in a wordsy bastard like myself wanting someone else to hurry up and get on with it? I mean, its like pulling teeth for me to write a post that's less than 400 words with only about 100 of them being relavent.

So, I'll just shut up and play.

ska-plosion/you never know pt. 2

"You got to give me, give me fever." - Jingo

old places, fresh faces: yeah boy...its all new and blue and good for you too. I finally learned the art of cascading style sheets and me likey likey. There's still some quirks...like the comments link has a habit of shutting down my IE 5.0 on the mac and its not formatted quite correctly but i'm working on it. If you read the new things you should know yesterday, you should read it again today. I added some new biographical tidbits plus some linkage. Its a fun little tour of my life in my head. I'm sure there are other odd problems running around...hopefully I'll get them fixed one day.

other things: I ran tings rude bwoy today, fo' sure. I set up my musicmatch jukebox 'ska-tastic' radio station with the following: Phyllis Dillon, Hepcat, Desmond Dekker, Lee "Scratch" Perry and The Skatalites. It brought me back music from Peter Tosh, Alton and Hortense Ellis, Black Uhuru, Ken Boothe, Jackie Mittoo and Bob Marley among others. The Tosh, Ellis, Boothe, Mittoo, Dillon, and Scratch stuff was just ridiculously good. But for some reason, putting in Hepcat also gets me some Rancid and some poor punk saps called M.E.S.T. from Chicago. I just was not feeling them at all. I also heard a few tracks from The Specials but didn't get into it too much...I might not have been in the right frame of mind for them today though. Ska had me hankering for some funk and soul too so I sprinkled in some Edwin Starr, Gloria Jones, Bootsy Collins and Bernie Worrell around lunch time. And of course some James Brown...you can't leave out the godfather.

Snail mail delivered by a postal carrier is so much better than email delivered by a dell server. Especially mail from folks visiting far away places or from friends who make envelopes out of magazine pages.

and now, since a few of you wanted to know more in the tails of the yet unnamed guy and girl from last post...the baked potato. FYI...while a lot of this is fictionalized, it doesn't work for me unless I use the people's real names. But don't get it twisted, while the emotion may be very real, the situations may very well not be.

the bear & the turtle

"Stand Up, Its all right, I feel it!" - Nuyorican Soul

its been a long time, I shouldn't have left you: 3 days without a post? Yeah, I'm still alive...there's just been nothing going on that's got my ire up or that's struck me as especially funny in the past 72 hours. I went home from work early on Tuesday because my back was killing me. I'm supposed to be switching offices this week but they won't give me an exact time so I sit here anxiously staring out into the hallway hoping that Bart will come with the PA's and some boxes and tell me its time to go...yeah, still no. I have some stuff rumbling in my head regarding politics and the goings on amongst black folks and the oscars this week...but I think I'm going to let those marinate for a while. I'm not in the mood to pontificate today. Rather, I give you this little allegory that popped in my head this morning:

The Bear and The Turtle

On a blustery morning, the turtle decided that it was time for an adventure. She wanted to know what was in the forest that began at the edge of her pond. She had never left the pond before and didn't know much about survival but that big forest was there and it just begged to be conquered. So she collected her things, put them in her shell and left cool water. Slowly but surely she made her way up through the mud and to the dirt trail that parted the trees.

When she got to the trail, she found herself face to face with a bear sitting and playing with a stick. Not knowing much about the world, the turtle had no idea that she should be afraid of such a vicious creature and went up and introduced herself. Now, truth be told, this wasn't a very vicious bear at all. In fact, he wasn't much bigger than a cub and wasn't into very bear-like things. He didn't hunt, he didn't snore loudly when he hibernated, he didn't even like scaring other animals. That's probably why he sat alone at the edge of the forest. Its pretty hard to have bear friends when you don't want to do bear things.

The bear examined this little turtle who had taken the time to meet him and admired her hard shell. They talked for awhile and realized they had much in common despite being completely different animals. The turtle explained about her adventure and the bear listened with great interest. He wasn't much for adventures but he liked talking with the turtle and could see that she was going to need help. She couldn't just go around talking to every bear she saw, he figured, it was lucky that she had just happened to run into him. Luck or fate, it didn't much matter to him.

The bear asked if he might join the turtle on her journey. The turtle was shocked to find herself so excited by the offer. She hadn't realized until the bear had said those words how much she wanted, maybe even needed, a companion on this trip. She quickly accepted him as her travel partner. The bear slowly got up and dusted himself off. He saw that the turtle's shell was dusty as well and wiped her clean. They smiled at each other for a moment and then walked side by side into the forest.

The trek was slow since turtles don't move very fast but the bear didn't mind. He didn't have any place to get to in a hurry anyway and the conversations they were having were wonderful. They found they liked the same butterflies. They both couldn't stand ladybugs. She was allergic to ants, he was addicted to honey. They walked and talked and marveled at the same things in the forest. They were the best of friends and while neither would say, they certainly loved each other. They were like a match made in heaven.

The forest was much larger than they expected. Often they came to points where they would have to choose a direction. Left or right? Over or under? The bear never wanted to make those decisions. This was the turtle's adventure after all. She should be the one deciding where they went. So she did. They went left when she felt the need. They went under when she was too tired to go over. The turtle liked guiding their journey. Except for when she didn't. The bear didn't mind always following her lead. Except for when he did.

The bear had been right about the turtle needing his help. She was small and slow and often found herself in trouble. He was always there to pull her out of the sink holes and to chase away the bees and to carry her away from the scary eyes that peered at them at night. He grabbed the apples and berries that were too high for her to get. He found the cool watering holes for her to drink and relax. The turtle was very grateful for all his help. Even though sometimes he helped when she didn't need it. The bear was happy to do for the turtle. Even though sometimes he really wanted her to maybe do things for him.

As time passed, the turtle and the bear continued to walk together but they didn't talk as much. The bear looked to his left and watched the butterflies flutter and dance but he didn't tell the turtle about the amazing sight. The turtle looked to her right and saw a pocket of honey pouring from a fallen bee's nest but didn't tell the bear it was there. Once, the turtle fell into a sinkhole and the bear didn't notice. He kept walking along. Eventually he realized the turtle wasn't beside him and rushed back quickly to save her. It was a close call. The bear was happy that he was there to save the turtle again. The turtle was thankful the bear still cared. But they both knew things were different.

The turtle and the bear came upon a sign in the forest. "MIDDLE OF THE ROAD" it read. The trail parted sharply here.

"I want to go left," the bear said.

"I think I'm going right," the turtle replied.

They looked at each other for a moment and considered what this meant.

"You can't make it on your own," the bear said.

"I can," the turtle replied. "You won't finish the journey."

"I will," the bear replied.

They looked away from each other for a moment and considered what this meant.

"We won't see each other again," the turtle said.

"We might yet," the bear replied. "Separate trails often cross again further down the road."

"They do?" she asked.

"They might," he answered.

They looked at each other again for awhile and then turned and walked away from each other.

Both hoping that their paths crossed again sooner rather than later.