jasontoney.com tag:www.jasontoney.com,2008-07-06://1 2008-08-03T06:32:18Z the blog and the bee. Movable Type Open Source 4.2rc3-en 07/08 Mixtape: Shut the Summer Down Edition tag:www.jasontoney.com,2008://1.859 2008-08-03T06:29:21Z 2008-08-03T06:32:18Z So, I've already failed the NaBloPoMo challenge but I'm going to keep doing it anyway. Hopefully, this will be my weakest entry for the month as this only is "hot" in the sense that these are hottest tracks of... Jason Toney So, I've already failed the NaBloPoMo challenge but I'm going to keep doing it anyway. Hopefully, this will be my weakest entry for the month as this only is "hot" in the sense that these are hottest tracks of July 2008 according to me. Since this is the first time I'm doing this on the all-new jasontoney.com, I'll explain: I try to do monthly mixtapes. For the most part, they are songs I've listened to in the month prior and put together for pleasing flow and thematic purposes. This one -- dubbed "Shut the Summer Down" -- started off with me wanting to make a dance party mix to cure my hot Saturday in August Summertime blues.

I failed in that regard, too.

While we do get the party started in the first half of the mix with true get up and dance joints from Rhymefest, Kanye West, and Girl Talk, we rapidly descend into cute songs about flirtation on into some slow tempo-ed tracks lamenting the state of the world and our own sorry existence in it.

Not as hot as I wanted it and I don't know what that says about where my head is at. Instead, I'll just blame last.fm for recommending a bunch of downtempo introspection this past month instead of the hardcore get down and boogie jams I'm clamoring for.

07/08 Mixtape: Shut the Summer Down Edition

  1. Intro + The Message - DJ O-Dub
  2. Conducted Rhythms - Beat Conductor
  3. Keep it Movin' - Kidz in the Hall & Mick Boogie
  4. Foolin' Around (Rhymefest ft. Dres) [prod. by Mark Ronson] - Rhymefest
  5. Champion - Kanye West
  6. Shut the Club Down - Girl Talk
  7. A Fortnight's Theme - Maxïmo Park
  8. I Kissed A Girl - Katy Perry
  9. F-cking Boyfriend - The Bird And The Bee
  10. Anti Matter - N*E*R*D
  11. Nighttime Maneuvers - Little Brother
  12. Where D'You Go - Jamie Lidell
  13. Better World - De-Phazz
  14. I'm Loving Nothing - Impressions
  15. Brukpocket's Lament - Heavy
  16. No Time Soon - Gnarls Barkley
  17. Summertime - Rosinha De Valencia

Now, excuse me while I go dance it out to

and

and a mash-up by Titus Jones that falls somewhere in between.

]]> Books: The Monsters of Templeton tag:www.jasontoney.com,2008://1.858 2008-07-28T06:08:38Z 2008-07-28T06:12:09Z The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff (Voice, 2008). The most important thing about this book is that it's given me a new drinking game called Cowboy Faces. The rules? "Take a shot and pretend it didn't hurt. Make... Jason Toney The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff (Voice, 2008). The most important thing about this book is that it's given me a new drinking game called Cowboy Faces. The rules? "Take a shot and pretend it didn't hurt. Make your face as stoic as possible." Simple. Comedic. Brilliant.

I don't have much to say about this book. I enjoyed it, despite the fact that for some reason it took me months to finish. Groff is adept with dialogue and does an amazing job of creating this fictional small town rich in history. Our heroine, Willie Upton, is often hard to like but has more than her fair share of wit and charm and smarts so she's forgiven. Much in the same way we forgive her mother, Vi, and the random cast of characters in their lives.

Except one guy...fuck him. But I'll leave you to figure out who.

The one challenge I had with the read is the breaks in the primary story to delve into the sordid history of Willie's family. It isn't always a problem but in the early chapters, I'm still getting to know and care about the present day people of Templeton. I wasn't ready to dig into those old letters and secrets until about halfway through the story.

Once I was ready, though, the sordid parts of Willie's family tree were fascinating and enthralling and Groff's sure voice and enjoyable writing style never waiver.

Recommended.

]]> One Thousand Young Americans tag:www.jasontoney.com,2008://1.857 2008-07-24T08:02:33Z 2008-07-24T08:04:21Z Jason Toney

Photo by Caesar Sebastian

I'd mentioned this a week prior but standing at the back of The Fillmore with my friends all of a certain age (meaning born before 1980) listening to the DJ spin R&B and hip hop tracks of the last 25 years and watching the teens and those only slightly older mill about in their chunky glasses and bright shirts and rainbow colored belts and kicks and headbands and slouching boots and off the shoulder blouses all anxiously waiting for Skateboard P and the rest of N*E*R*D to hit the stage and showcase in less than 90 minutes what it took two days of the previous week's yPulse mashup conference to tell - the kids are alright.

In many senses, they are more than alright. I realize I was in San Francisco for this show but right there was the perfect example of an America that, at least for this night around this music, was more post-racial than not. Whether Black, Latino, White, Asian, some mixture therein, or none of the above, we all knew we could fly or die. Race wasn't much of a factor for all the girls standing in the line for the bathroom. You didn't have to be a shaggy haired white boy to head nod and jump along to a faithful cover of Seven Nation Army by N*E*R*D's entirely Black Funk focused tour band.

This was Obama Country.

And I was reminded of yPulse and Michael Franzini's day one ending Keynote about his book, One Hundred Young Americans which, for me, was the most interesting part of the conference, by a mile. These kids, in this concert hall, who all flashed pics, took video, and speed dialed their ex-es on Pharrell's command as he sang about how they've done us wrong with their cell phones, are absolutely the Instant Access Generation.

They might hear When Doves Cry during the warm-up show and think of it as some song their parents play at the BBQ but they've likely seen every video version of Kanye West's Can't Tell Me Nothin' and could pull up that one featuring Zach Galifianakis on their phone if you asked. They're likely here running into myspace friends and facebook connections for the first time. Maybe they're recognizing each other from their last.fm profile pics or their flickr stream.

They are colored, pop cultured, and connected and it shows.

Now, Franzini made the point that the kids aren't alright in every aspect. Good ol' fashioned education is failing them. That kid who has every remix of Spaz possible and can recite the lyrics to Lapdance without much prodding, isn't likely to be able to name the first five U.S. Presidents, tell you the important political issues of the day, or thrill you with their science acumen without being near Google or Wikipedia. If an Academic Decathlon randomly started in the middle of the concert hall, most of these folks are probably going to want to text a friend.

But, on this night, we're staying away from the anti-matter. I might be 33 and in the back of the club but I'll jump around to She Wants to Move and mosh it up a bit when appropriate and enjoy the Generation Gap.

]]> 10 after 6: The Obligatory 2008 Edition tag:www.jasontoney.com,2008://1.856 2008-07-08T07:56:07Z 2008-07-08T07:59:10Z It's my obligatory 10 favorite albums after 6 months post. And while it's late tonight, I better do it now or it will change again and that whole 6 month window thing will be rendered irrelevant.1. Mark Ronson Presents... Jason Toney

It's my obligatory 10 favorite albums after 6 months post. And while it's late tonight, I better do it now or it will change again and that whole 6 month window thing will be rendered irrelevant.

1. Mark Ronson Presents Rhymefest: Man In The Mirror by Rhymefest. On Mike the Mentor, Rhymefest has a serious conversation with Michael Jackson about self-doubt, racial identity, and the rap game. Mike, in audio segments taken from interviews and documentaries from the 80s, is cogent, passionate, and inspiring. "Good, that's good," says Mike in a call & response that is both cute and natural and every time I hear it, I smile. Add to that, Ronson is the most on-point producer of the last two years and you've got a mixtape banger and my favorite, most listened to album of the year, so far.

2. The Odd Couple by Gnarls Barkley. "Got some bad news this morning which in turn made my day." For my money, this should be the album that garners the most attention come award season. Cee-Lo's grimey falsetto and lyrical acumen and Danger Mouse's muted, self-assured production are both just so next level on The Odd Couple that it makes St. Elsewhere, which was a bombastic leap forward in pop music, sound almost quaint in comparison. This is serious, seriously fun, seriously engrossing wonderful song-making.

3. 19 by Adele. I'm listening to Chasing Pavements right now and I'm feeling my heart hitch in my chest. It's involuntary. There's an emotion in her voice that cuts to my soul and attacks my tear ducts. She finds her way into any part of me that might well up, heave, threaten to burst. She notes in interviews that she only writes songs when she's sad or angry. That's not what I hear or what I feel. As she gets to this chorus, a theatrical overture where she nearly screams out asking if she should give up or keep on chasing, her passion becomes unbridled. She breaks free and I follow. I, too, break free.

4. Jim by Jamie Lidell. At his Los Angeles Show, we stood front row, stage left. He looked as if he had walked into Filter Magazine Headquarters and all the hipsters exploded around him covering him in gaudy trendy cliches. White shoes, sparkly shirts, skinny pants, a kind of ironic herky jerky dance, and willfully undone 'do. And then he started belting out these soulful tracks in the traditions of 60s Black Soul stalwarts and all was forgiven. Encouraged, really. He understands the absurdity. He understands this moment where white UK artists who cut their eye-teeth on Northern Soul and Mod records are now selling more records by mimicking those sounds than those artists maybe ever could but, you know what, he loves this music. He loves playing it, performing it, and sharing it with us. There's no pretending. So, let's give him a soul clap during Where'd You Go and sway back and forth during Green Light and accept another deserving entrant into the ever growing pantheon of Blue-Eyed Soul.

5. Seeing Sounds by N*E*R*D. You know that Everyone Nose (All the Girls Standing in the Line for the Bathroom) is the real song of the Summer but do you know that this is N*E*R*D's first album that meets the promise of all their massive talent? It does. And, for all you kids ready for the post-racial America, the international skate park of your dreams? This is your red capped, mosh-pit friendly multi-culti soundtrack. Get familiar.

6. Narrow Stairs by Death Cab for Cutie. I Will Possess Your Heart is my current song of the year. It's simply perfect. That they spend the first 5 minutes of the 8 1/2 minute tune building a crescendo of their wonderful drum riff and melody is ballsy and a reminder to their fans that going to a major label hasn't "ruined" Ben Gibbard and the boys. In fact, it may have made them better. Their focus on the sound they are creating is admirable and may be the reason this is, perhaps, their finest release yet.

7. The Mixtape About Nothing by Wale. Wale is your favorite blogger's favorite rapper these days. On The Vacation From Ourselves, he gets Julia Louis-Dreyfus to add a drop. This is mixtape people! He's got Elaine yelling out, "Motherfucker." And besides that, what other rapper is going to do a concept album about the show Seinfeld? I'm sorry, nobody is even in the same stratosphere as Wale these days. Not even Weezy. This DC area cat hasn't even put out a traditional album yet. And, again, more of that Mark Ronson influence. And, for bonus points, his track, The Kramer, is the most nuanced record on race you'll hear this year and blows everything I've heard from Nas's once-titled Nigger release in the dust.

8. Plastic People by Kraak & Smaak. Can we dance? Can I sing in your ear? Can we groove? Can we chill out? Can we look at the stars? Can I hold you? Will you hold me? Plastic People is the soundtrack for your late night adventures with whomever's catching your fancy at the moment. The chase is on.

9. Feed The Animals by Girl Talk. A late entry. Girl Talk is music for web nerds. People who like information. Who enjoy separating the signal from the noise. People who youtube-twitter-facebook-flickr-digg (in fact, I first heard about it on twitter) their days away. And like to get down.

10. Stereogum Presents...Enjoyed: A tribute to Björk's Post by Various Artists. It's not the best album in the world but I appreciate these interpretations of my favorite artist in the world. Particularly The Modern Things by High Places. I also love the idea that this is the kind of project that doesn't get made 10 years ago. At least not with any kind of hoopla. While Girl Talk is music for the internet, this is music from the internet. In the abstract, we made this.

The top 10 albums of the first half of 2008 according to my last.fm charts:

  1. Cross by Justice
  2. Untrue by Burial
  3. Donuts by J Dilla aka Jay Dee
  4. The Odd Couple by Gnarls Barkley
  5. Belle Et Fou by Various Artists
  6. Graduation by Kanye West
  7. ...and all the pieces matter, Five Years of Music from The Wire by The Wire
  8. Metal Fingers Presents: Special Herbs 9+0 by MF Doom
  9. Rabbit Fur Coat by Jenny Lewis with The Watson Twins
  10. Some People Have Real Problems by Sia
]]> How I Use FriendFeed tag:www.jasontoney.com,2008://1.855 2008-07-07T03:46:40Z 2008-07-07T03:50:20Z I've been meaning to post this for over a week. With all the discussion of FriendFeed being a bit of an echo chamber these days, I'm aware that this is a post that will appear on FriendFeed talking about FriendFeed... Jason Toney

I've been meaning to post this for over a week. With all the discussion of FriendFeed being a bit of an echo chamber these days, I'm aware that this is a post that will appear on FriendFeed talking about FriendFeed but my non-ff or new-to-ff friends have been asking about how to get past what they perceive as noise so, here we are.

First, let me say that I don't see the FriendFeed constant stream of information as noise. Maybe it's just how my brain works but all that stimulus is exciting and engaging, especially considering how much of it I find interesting and how much of it I want to comment on or dig into further.

That said, here's what I do to make it even more user-friendly.

1. You'll want to use some greasemonkey scripts (I assume you're using firefox)

FriendFeed Highlight Your Comments - As the script writer notes, it makes it easier to pick up on conversations where you left off. It also lets you know if your friends are also engaged in the conversation. You can easily see what they are saying.

FriendFeed Read Later - If you use this and hit "later" it creates a "read later" tab in your interface and also adds a like to the item. You'll now be able to go back to that "read later" tab later and dig into links you only glanced at previously. I like this a lot. Particularly for NY Times articles for some reason.

FriendFeed Filters: Friends & Groups - This is a "must have" if you think FF is noisy. I have 3 groups "Most Interesting Friends", "Angelenos" and "People I know" and use it often to parse through my growing friends tab.

FriendFeed By Service - I don't use this one as often and generally only use it for two things - to search for flickr photos (usually on the everyone tab) and to search for last.fm feeds. I might start using it to look for more librarything users, though.

2. You Like Me, You Really Like Me

I always go to the "me" tab first. It's what I have bookmarked and firefox says this is my most favorite link in the world right now. I do a quick scroll down of my page to see if people have liked or commented anything I've posted since the last time I was on. I respond as necessary and then...

2. Whatchu Talkin' 'Bout Willis?!

I make my way over to the Discussion tab (found in the side bar as view all likes and comments) to see what things I liked and/or commented on earlier have had on-going conversations. As people have noted elsewhere, friendfeed has a lot of very robust conversations on content from all over the place. You never know where something is going to go and who is going to chime in. Again, I respond and/or participate as necessary.

Then...

3. Friends, How Many of Us Have Them?

I spend the vast majority of my time right here on the Friends Tab. First, I do a quick scroll down to see what people are posting right now. This is the noisiest my FF experience gets. The 150+ people I subscribe to are all aggregated here, the friends of friends content,  along with the rooms I've joined and some of them, like the lastfmfeeds room could dominate the entire page. But, this is often how I find gems of content I wouldn't find otherwise.

I do my requisite comments and likes and then I filter. I tend to go with best of day and then People I Know. If I haven't been thrown on some tangential journey, I may go to my Most Interesting Friends filter or Angelenos but I usually have seen most of those folks by this point so I use those groups much less often.

Now...

5. I Give You Much More

Now, it's time to participate. Since I'm a very lazy blogger, I'm an active friendfeeder by doing the following -

A. I post links. Early on, I would just share or share with note from Google Reader but I find that posts with images and a pull-quote garner much more interest (I know they do for me). So, I tend to go directly to the source and use my bookmarklet or shareaholic to submit links to FF. I stay away from techie stuff. There are already way too many social media nerds posting that stuff. I like music, books, movies, comic books, words, words of wisdom, TV stuff, food pr0n, and stuff black people like. My feed reflects that, I think.

B. I put stuff on my amazon wishlist. You'd be amazed how many conversations crop up around products/media.

C. I favorite and publish images to flickr. FriendFeed has changed the way I use flickr. I would rarely search for images before. I would just track what my friends were posting and be done. Now, after seeing how other people use the service, I do daily searches around the things that have been in my field of vision for the day (yesterday it was "poketo" and "rooftop pool party") and favorite the images I find. It has enriched my experience on flickr incredibly and I've been using that site since 2004, if not before.

D. I youtube much more often.

E. I Librarything - although, the jury is still out here. I still haven't found an online book community/service that does for me what last.fm does for music.

F. I blog...sometimes.

6. Rinse. Repeat.

You'd be surprised (or maybe not) but I spend hours a day doing this. And I love every minute of it.

And, not to evangelize a tool (I did the same thing with Twitter last year right around South By) but the "friend" part of friendfeed is not just some cute alliteration and a smart name for a product. I've met several new people who have become significant acquaintances in a short time. Unlike even my favorite online social media tools - last.fm and twitter - by "liking" and "commenting" on FF, you find yourself connecting with strangers quickly but because of similar interests and/or engaged conversation.

With Twitter, I've always been much more interested in talking with the people I know in real world terms. My people. My posse. With last.fm, I connect to people across similar music tastes but these are very passive relationships. With friendfeed, however, I've met new random people and we are talking about stuff that matters to each of us.

And, it's fun.

]]> announcing... tag:www.jasontoney.com,2008://1.7 2008-07-07T00:58:40Z 2008-07-07T01:03:19Z Ms. Jen rules!Also, I'm upgraded to MT 4.2 and hosted on laughing squid now.New content to come shortly.I hope she doesn't mind that I stole this photo from her flickr stream.... Jason Toney msjen.jpg
Ms. Jen rules!

Also, I'm upgraded to MT 4.2 and hosted on laughing squid now.

New content to come shortly.

I hope she doesn't mind that I stole this photo from her flickr stream.
]]> Books: American Nerd - The Story of My People tag:www.jasontoney.com,2008://1.6 2008-06-25T06:22:18Z 2008-07-07T00:24:58Z View imageAmerican Nerd: The Story of My People by Benjamin Nugent (Scribner, 2008). Before I get into the review, I just want to acknowledge my own validation. This year, at SXSW, I asked at every session that talked about the... Jason Toney

americannerd.jpgView image


American Nerd: The Story of My People by Benjamin Nugent (Scribner, 2008). Before I get into the review, I just want to acknowledge my own validation. This year, at SXSW, I asked at every session that talked about the web and site/software development from a non-white male perspective (so girls & games, black tech bloggers, etc.) this one question: Is not having group X participating in the creation of Y a problem?

Ron Eglash, an associate professer at RPI, tells Nugent:

"Voice Recognition software works better on men's voices because a bunch of engineers are sitting around in the lab and they say: 'Charlie, come over here, I want to try your voice,'...Over time they build that social environment into the software. Camera film was created by these chemists and when they wanted to try it out, they said, 'Hey Charlie, come over here,' and Charlie's a white guy, and so in the end the cameras work better on white people because you have all these white people trying it out and fine-tuning it. Not because these guys are racists but because of the social environment in which it's getting created."

And while, I didn't go into SXSW asking a kind of begging question, this was my hypothesis. So, you know, this is why race, gender, age, etc. matters in what we do and how we create what happens online and on our computers. I'm not sure of the solution but I do know more of us need to consider this.

Moving on. Now, to be clear, I'm not a nerd. I have nerdish tendencies to be sure - I dislike small talk. I'm comfortable, perhaps more comfortable, being alone. I prefer reason over emotion. I like straightforward communication. I read comic books. I spend all damn day in front of a computer and then come home at night and do it some more. That said, I'm far from socially awkward and while the current state of my gut might suggest otherwise, when I'm physically active, I usually excel at the activity. Nugent's book focuses heavily on traditional/historical concept of a nerd - the intellectually and socially machinelike folks and those who are nerds by virtue of their social status.

Nugent spends a lot of time discussing how the concept of "nerd" came into being and spends a lot of time in California writing about lots of different nerd groups - the ren faire folks, the cosplay types, the sci-fi nerds (in fact, he spends a lot of time with a sci-fi society that meets just down the street from me in a building I pass every time I go to Miss Martini's place) - and all of them are fascinating. As Nugent notes, he isn't apologizing for or celebrating nerd-dom. He's just trying to understand why. I found the "why" to be one of the most compelling and fresh reads in a while.

The conceit of Nugent's book, however, is this - he was once a nerd. Up until a fateful trip abroad in high school, he was this Dungeons & Dragons playing, computer loving socially awkward kid with friends of equal lack of stature. The true story is really Nugent's trip back down memory lane as he finds his old friends and talks to them about their lives then and now. His candid struggles with the guilt of leaving those whom he once considered his best friends behind for the allure of acceptance is heartfelt and real and worth it.

This is a fast read and it's highly recommended.

]]> Dust tag:www.jasontoney.com,2008://1.5 2008-06-25T05:43:35Z 2008-07-07T01:07:37Z We had a little hiccup. I tried to upgrade from, as Anil put it, this old-ass version of MT last night and all hell broke loose. Yahoo! Web Hosting, I'm blaming you. So, now we're back to MT 3.2x while... Jason Toney We had a little hiccup.

I tried to upgrade from, as Anil put it, this old-ass version of MT last night and all hell broke loose. Yahoo! Web Hosting, I'm blaming you. So, now we're back to MT 3.2x while I consider my options.

Ugh, I hate posting about administrative technical blog management tool nonsense. This is why I jumped to typepad and then eventually to Vox. I don't have a website because I like to battle MySQL Databases and PERL scripts.

Anyway, comments were lost but the posts have returned. I'm also going with the cutline theme that I like on many of my friends' sites.

Back to your regularly scheduled posting.

]]> People Everyday tag:www.jasontoney.com,2008://1.4 2008-06-25T05:35:05Z 2008-07-07T01:09:20Z There we were standing on first street animatedly talking about "the glory days" of blogging. Jhames, Michelle and I discussed how we all found each other, the infamous de-linking incident, and other classic tales. Someone noted, "Back then, you... Jason Toney There we were standing on first street animatedly talking about "the glory days" of blogging. Jhames, Michelle and I discussed how we all found each other, the infamous de-linking incident, and other classic tales. Someone noted, "Back then, you pretty much knew everybody" and that's true. In the moment, I was thinking, blogging was much intimate then. But, the truth? Back then, it never occurred to me to leave my monitor and see these people in person and yet there we were, in Seattle, live and in the flesh, talking and laughing and hugging and sharing.

That's true intimacy.

I've seen Cecily 3 times in 3 different cities in 2008. In the past year, I feel like I don't go more than 60 days without hanging with George. I used to see a line between the online & offline parts of my life. No longer. I was reminded of this when I read the angry/frustrated response to Stowe Boyd's recent post about how much more connected he feels to the people he interacts with online than to some of his offline "best friends". I no longer debate this. The two types of relationships are decidedly different but, really, are just differently wonderful. Very little of my online experience can replace the connection I share with my family and friends whom I see physically much more often. But, just as those relationships are enhanced when they venture online (I know way more about what my sister thinks about the world and how she perceives herself via her facebook profile than I could ever get in conversation with her), my online relationships are greatly enriched by offline experiences.

So, it feels natural, obvious, really, that I would trek to the Northwest to spend a weekend with Michelle and B. That I would find time to connect with Rakka and Leff whose real names I didn't know until 3 days before arriving in Seattle? Normal. So what, we speak in flickr handles? I get the type of people they are. So, of course, within 30 minutes of meeting them, I'm hanging in their house watching Knight Rider and eating pizza. Why wouldn't I be?

So, whether travelling by foot, by ferry, or by monorail, no matter where I was when I was in Seattle, I was with My People.

The cool thing is that now that I'm back at home, whether I'm at my computer or on my phone, I'm still with them.

They are my Everyday People.

]]> Sing Along / 7 Songs Meme tag:www.jasontoney.com,2008://1.3 2008-06-25T05:30:20Z 2008-07-07T01:11:18Z Tagged by j. "List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they're not any good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying now, shaping your spring summer.... Jason Toney Tagged by j.

"List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they're not any good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying now, shaping your spring summer. Post these instructions in your blog along with your seven songs. Then tag seven other people to see what they're listening to."

Posted in order of awesomeness:

drop.io: simple private sharing
  1. Una Dia Otra Noche by Allá off of Es Tiempo. Simple answer: it fills me with joy.
  2. Squeeze Me (feat. Ben Westbeech) by Kraak & Smaak off of Plastic People. Funky as can be. This was free from RCRD LBL.
  3. Everyone Nose (All the Girls Standing in the Line for the Bathroom) by N*E*R*D off of Seeing Sounds. This has a chance to be the official song of the Summer. So hot.
  4. Lollipop (Remix f. Kanye West) by Lil' Wayne off of Tha Carter III. Even though Weezy's track is a bit weak to me (although the latex/late text rhyme gets me every time), this is all about 'Ye and his growing lyricism and his grand understanding of how to use auto-tune for the right effect. That and the line "Man the flow so cold chicken soup won't help" is the illest boast I've heard in a while.
  5. Sow into You by Róisín Murphy off of Feminissima. I'm struggling to find any information about this album but it's 8 bucks on amazon for 20 tracks. That's bang for your buck and if this track is any indication the rest of this joint should be fire.
  6. Love In This Club (MSTRKRFT Remix) by Usher. The original is on Here I Stand. I hated this track when I first heard him perform it on Saturday Night Live. This remix, however, makes it all better.
  7. We Need Barack (Feat. Mavado & Barack Obama) by DJ Green Lantern off of Yes We Can. Has this mixtape come out yet? I can't find it anywhere. Anyway, I've been enamored with how Obama has inspired artists of all stripes. Even Mixtape Kings.

All available here.

]]> The Obligatory First Post Bio tag:www.jasontoney.com,2008://1.2 2008-06-25T05:05:24Z 2008-07-07T01:13:17Z Look. I'm back with a real live site using traditional blog type software. I've been doing this for awhile so we'll fore go all the pleasantries and just reference a post I wrote on vox back in December. Speaking of... Jason Toney Look. I'm back with a real live site using traditional blog type software. I've been doing this for awhile so we'll fore go all the pleasantries and just reference a post I wrote on vox back in December. Speaking of vox, i'll probably keep it around when I want to write stuff that is for specific eyes only or if I want to post some random music in an easily playable format. I probably won't clutter up the sidebar with a bunch of links and things either. If you want to find me all over the web, check my friend feed.

Oh, one more thing - the negroplease archives, after an 18 month hiatus, are live.

And now, if you don't know who the hell I am, here's what a Wikipedia entry about me might look:

 

Jason Antony Toney (born March 19, 1975 as Jason Antony Saunders) is an American-born web producer and blogger currently based in Los Angeles, California. He is currently a Senior Producer at Disney Online focused on TV, Games, and Music websites. He is probably best-known as the blogger behind negroplease.com, a one-time editor of laist.com (part of the Gothamist Network), and a frequent panelist at SXSW.

Contents

  • 1 Life
  • 2 External links

Life

Toney's father, Kevin Toney, is a jazz keyboardist who has recorded as a solo artist and as a founding member of 70s jazz fusion band, The Blackbyrds. His mother, Phyllis Saunders Toney, is a costumer and wardrobe director working primarily with major music tours.  Toney was born in Omaha, Nebraska and spent much of his youth in mulitple locations from Oxon Hill, Maryland to Van Nuys, California. He considers the San Fernando Valley his hometown. Toney attended The George Washington University pursuing a bachelor's degree in Sociology and a minor in Creative Writing from 1993 to 1997.  While there, he was active in student activities, chairing the Multicultural Affairs Program Board for two years and working as the Diversity Programming Clearinghouse coordinator in the Student Activities office. Toney's 1995 Unity Week program "And Still We Rise" won the multicultural program of the year from NACA.

After College, Toney returned to Los Angeles and working briefly in Student Affairs at Mount St. Mary's College before moving to Bunim-Murray Productions in 1998 as an Information Technologist. Over the next 7 years, Toney would be promoted to Director of Web Development and oversee online content creation for a wide variety of reality television series including The Real World, Road Rules, Making The Band, The Simple Life, and Starting Over.

In 2002, Toney launched a weblog entitled "...Better Left Unsaid" that would soon become known as "Negro Please." Negro Please was a blog focused on pop culture, politics, and technology from a sociocultural perspective. More than that, Negro Please was about identity, identity definition and creation, and race. From 2002 to 2005, Negro Please was one of the most recognizable "Black Blogs" which eventually led to the Blogging While Black panel at 2005's SXSW and subsequent panels in the following years on Identity Blogging.

Toney has also edited laist.com, written for VIBE online, and run the Honolulu Marathon.

Since 2006, Toney has worked at Disney Online.

His two most popular pictures on flickr are of him as a baby and a dead rat.

He's scrobbled over 100,000 songs on last.fm and by that meter, Björk is his favorite recording artist.

He was a participant in the infamous "I Call Trunk" event, widely considered to be the funniest night in the history of the world.

Toney smells like cheese. ZOMG LOLs[citation needed]

External links

last edited by misterjt on June 21, 2008.]]>