No Small Talk

A brief collection of significant events with brief descriptions comprising of Jon, Jonny Boy, Jonathan, and JODY. 

It's February 9th, 2019, 68 degrees on a Wednesday at 1:10pm. 

"Get up, Jon"

I'm in a feeble-fetal position in front of a place JODY steals company time from Monday-Friday. Plaid shirt, khakis, and some Clarks. A young human who has swapped multiple ideas about mutual concerns is telling me to get up off the ground, as I believed it was my subconscious. This is the first time JODY feels fear and being afraid. First time JODY saw myself as lonely and couldn't dance out of this one to throw people off. The understanding is that all of the Jons were all absent and an empty vessel had existed; void of any emotional, intellectual, or physical control for about 5 minutes. 5 minutes is too long for someone like me to reboot in a space like that. 5 minutes of me doing the limbo in limbo. No Jon, Jonathan, JODY, Jonny Boy, Jon-Jon, Jonny Nyles. No Jonny Bravo, Jon-117, Jon Hamm, Jon Heder, Black Jon, Jon Whitey, Jon Bender, H. Jon Benjamin, Long Jon, Lil' Jon. No InhumanJuvyJon, JuvyJon, Jon Lapel, King Jon, Jon The Prince, Jon with No 'H", Jonny Appleseed, Jon The Ruler, JonJammerJimmer. 

Just me.

--

"Hey, I need to talk to you" 

It's 2017, mid-October. Beautiful morning.

I don't wait for a response, as Jonny Boy opens the door with a feeble push. There's little to no indication that a conversation is about to initiate. I peek up at the other human who is perched up on a raised bed in the 10" x 10" room, caressing a white controller and painstakingly tapping buttons to avoid immediate virtual death, only to be reanimated again. I'm sitting cross-legged on the floor. She does not down at me until Jonny Boy says the magic words. Her gaze is turned aggressively from the screen to my five-head because my eyes are still locked into my twiddling thumbs. But you know Jonny Boy did look up eventually. It was my least favorite gaze from another person by far. I mean I did not want to go, but I had to leave. Part of the journey is the end, right? Leave everybody you love and like and people you built a relationship with because Jonathan spontaneously pops up and reminds everybody it's apart of the plan. 

The plan sucks sometimes, but I made the plan.

--

"Hey,"

It's November or December in 2013 a cool evening, I think. Jon tried to blurred out dates when I was younger.

I'm talking to him, trying to understand why Jon got a light 'Hey' as opposed to a more aggressive, assertive tone in his voice, like normal. Jon is walking at my normal, flamboyant pace from class to the shuttle for a playoff game again Pike. All the Jons hate Pike. The phone call is a slight inconvenience to my pregame playlist of Two Door Cinema Club & J. Cole but I pick up. There is a 3-minute long monologue; some mumbo-jumbo of a 10% chance of survival, life-saving surgery, whatever. There's a quick affirmation that I will see him soon, and Jon walks onto the court with a feeble pace, pausing the conversation. First play of the game, Jon steals the ball ,dribbles down court, and dribbles all of the way out of bounds without the ball leaving his hands. Jon gives the ball to the ref and tells his players to sub him out. 

-- 

"I don't want to play anymore"

It's late summer 2010, dusk and the street lamps just turning on. 

I'm standing beside an older gentlemen staring at the ground. I'm starting to cry all over my basketball warm-ups, as we are standing behind a 2002 Ford Explorer. This man, who asked me a simple question, waits patiently as Jonathan responds with a feeble tone. This is the first of my knowledge that Jonathan expressed any emotions or feelings to a man has lived with him for many years. A man that help create him, clothe him, give him resources. All of the life lessons, jokes, long car rides. A man who sometimes scared Jonathan as I would try to tiptoe past his room to not bother him. A man that Jonathan never tried to establish a relationship with but Jon begin to throw lines out too, eventually getting a nibble.

You Started Rapping When You Wasn't Good at Basketball

Sometimes it is difficult to talk to my peers about stuff. And by stuff, I mean things. And by things, I mean, erghh words.

Jon has discussed this before but I keep hearing about self-love, self-growth, self-esteem, yadda-yadda. That has become such a huge topic with black people over the past few years because negros weren't out here taking care of their mental states. Like to colored folks therapy wasn't cool in 2013; yoga was for the outlandish who wore waist beads; Childish Gambino was (and is) a Weirdo. I was watching "The Carmichael Show" and Loretta Devine aka Everybody's Momma in the show had PTSD. How could a black middle-class mother with two handsome kids in this long, everlasting marriage have any anxiety? 

I asked Jonny Boy and we concluded, fairly certain black moms aren't robots. Neither or black sons. Or black sisters. Or black men. Or I don't know, maybe black people? Everybody is strugglin' and some people love strugglin' in their own way. Just because Loretta's character wasn't getting hit with drive-bys off MLK or crackheads doing ill-advised cartwheels in their living doesn't mean everything is chill in Chile.

Hold on remember Jon is confidently an idiot, inept at most things. Let us not forget the 1-hour spent working on my Master's at Norfolk State where I confidently shook my head and walked out the class. But for real consider the following: I think black people really do "g*ve fuck". Wait I bleeped out the wrong word. 

Have you ever walked down the street in Negrotown and overheard conversations? People inherently will recite "fuck what you th*nk, don't effect me" "I d*n't give a fuck" Niggas b* tr*ppin' ov*r dumbass shit"

But niggas r*ally do care! You hear it in music, the cracks in one's voice, the compassion when one of us gets killed by some donut totin' officer. Do influencers use social media and post on the gram or send snaps honestly do not care about what people say about them even though they say they don't.  All of these external factors honestly don't matter if we can't start working on within. I'll be the one to say I give all of th* fucks, every single one. I do not care who it is, I care 300% what people think about me. It doesn't effect my overall mental attributes much besides making sure everybody who comes in a close proximity of JODY feels like they are interacting with a pillow. Which of course is a whole other problem.

Even if I wasn't on social media, why would Jonny not care about what people thought of me? I am naturally a happy, and blindly optimistic person. And I love what I can do for people and what people can do for me. But not everybody is for JODY to love and JODY can't love every one. Not everyone is going to check in on me or talk and cheer me on from the bleachers. Not every one will meet me halfway. And sometimes it hurts. But those are the Jons' jobs. 

Damn did I punctuate that correctly?

bLack pARty produced and performed "Bloom" which promotes self-love and growth that has been one of my favorite subjects to talk about with my peers.

Mask Off

I introduced myself as "Jon" to this one dude who was semi-famous over Instagram Live and he told me he knew a lot of Jons. I told him I knew a lot too,

I was watching "Hip-Hop Evolution" on Netflix this morning with my hip-hop heroes, such as A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, DJ Kool Herc, MC Lyte, and all of them. And remembered how every rapper wouldn't eat or sleep or would spend time, money, and energy in perfecting their craft. KRS-One couldn't sleep until he got his rhymes in the booth. And here Jonny Boy is making a blog at 12:11 am after 12 hours of work. I gotta' get these words out, ja' feel me?

Jon also thought about how one of my favorite comedians, Bill Burr, told me the difference between a job and a hobby. How does a rhymer or creator know they will subsist off of their talent. Do they even care about the duckets? What is the difference between the two? I don't know.

I reminisce about "Mask Off" by Future a lot. Jody doesn't think the song is super impressive but I have numerous amounts of masks and facial expressions I had behind,

Jim Carrey is one of my favorite people, period. I admire him so much because of his facial expressions are so vivid, crazy, amazing. All of the crease and crevices of someone's structures that can be manipulated were so fascinated and I always thought they couldn't be taught.  Ace Ventura, Truman Show, The Mask; I would spend hours molding and stretching my face because a Jonny could and would and should,

I also think about my wigs, masks, costumes at my disposable. Jon can move my face muscles into any form or shape. I won't buy a decent suit but I'll buy a movie replica of a Captain America outfit. Sometimes I wonder if Jon dresses up to hide from the public or if I dress up only to go out in public. What is the difference between a hobby and a job? Ugh. I am going to turn 26 soon, and it is crazy because I know exactly what I want to do. Is Jody going to go for it or crawl under the bed and fold? Well not really, there's not enough room to actually physically fold,

"Mask Off' by Future may not have been my personal anthem of choice but the song title and hook always got me into a certain mood.

Late At Night

I am writing this in the time sequence it takes for "Early In The Morning" to play from start to finish two times. Apologies for abrupt finish but y'all should be used to it,

Jon has been thinking about the past year and a half I have been in the Denver metro area. All of the renewed friendships, new relationships. The renewed relationships, new relationships. Of course over analyzing and self reflecting like a 10 year-old trying to ask a crush out. And I realized something,

Jody is a perpetual 10 year-old trying to ask a crush out,

Not the actual action but rather meeting new people in a intellectual capacity, romantic capacity, gainz capacity, professional capacity. It's like a GIF of me calling Big KAT or Cousin Skeeter to hype me up so they can say what I want to hear. And also what I don't want to hear,

When Jon meets new people there's multiple emotions; I feel isolated and confused and irritated and annoyed but then I feel energetic and hopeful and honestly bashful like a Taylor Swift meeting her next victim, Jon meant partner. There is no in-between when Jody meets people that are expected to have a significant part in my life. 

To be honest, I thought it was weird and exceptionally excessive how I've been towards anything and everything. Whether it be selling my entire 1,200 basketball card collection for a Nintendo DS Lite when I was 12 or telling someone upon meeting them for the first time "we are probably going to be besties forever" and wholeheartedly meaning it or making a 75-year plan on how major events in Jon's life will unfold or convincing thee Nupes they can't shoulder shimmy for shit.

Like I am not lonely, I am alone; not a reference to me being single or not being near my Tier 1s. Don't get me wrong, Jon has the best family and friend network of all time; the Jons will always have unconditional love and a place to stay. 

But I'm from the south and now Jonny lives in Colorado; my physical, day-to-day network is not established. There are no Tier 1s, family members, monogamy, etc. There's this revolving door to this dingy hotel of new friendships/relationships and I am standing in the lobby taking the effort to make a new fresh casserole for every single person I make eye contact with. I know I have few half marathons under my belt but even Jody gets exhausted until depletion. I'm tired, we all are. I'm not tired of meeting new people, I am tired of giving everybody 100% of my energy (shout-out to my outgoing introverts). And it's my problem I have to deal with sooner rather than lter

It is crazy because one would think these thoughts would unfold late at night with a tin of gin that would make Jonny Boy feel like I'm a kid again. Which honestly, with this mindset, may come with a fabricated depreciation of one's self,

I went over my time limit.

The Gap Band's "Early in The Morning" is a reference to the love/lust relationships as well as me literally always being up early in the morning .

Public Service Announcement

I am not sure how to start this post. Um, I pooped about 3 times this morning. Anyways it is Monday morning, preparing to start my week. I recently checked out the new Avengers movie, definitely on the prowl to rewatch it. 

As I sat in the theater to watch the culmination of all 22 films in one final epic showdown, Jon briefly drifted off into character development aka JODY development. Watching Thanos, Tony Stark, Steve Rodgers, Thor, etc. develop over the span of about 3 years has been a lot on my poorol' lil' Jonny heart. But even with all of these fictional characters, I think about people I have known for quite some time who had their own progress.

Personally I have reached a point to where I can do a longer, more detailed reflection of where Jon is mentally, physically, spiritually, financially, emotionally, etc. after my own "epic" showdown a couple of months ago. And that has prompted me to discuss with my friends the root or foundation of their personal growth. Which is honestly difficult to have that talk with all of social media lurking around. Maybe I do not mean lurking, maybe I mean sitting in your bed while you sit propped up against a wall, passive aggressively asking Instagram to get out of your bed and off of your girl. 

My best friends, my Tier 1 friends, people who know Jon, Jody, Jonny, Jonny Boy, etc., they have these talks with me and are consistent with checking on me vice versa. It is hard to say people are in a "transition phase" because I believe people should be constantly evolving and developing into their own final form. Unfortunately when you keep checking on famous people your own age and how quickly they got to a certain stature, you may look at their last few years and feel dismay. Which should NEVER be the case. Unless you're Logan Paul. Logan, do better babe.

There's always the Jay-Z quote I paraphrase or misquote:

"No matter where you go, you are what you are player

And you can try to change but that's just the top layer

Man, you was who you was 'fore you got here"

This was actually my quote from my 200 hour YTT that got me going. Jody interpreted it as everything that you do or have done and will do was already going to happen because of who you are. Your mannerisms, how you talk, behavior, intellect; it was already there in the first place. But of course a Jonny may use this as a cap, but a Jonny may also do this to realize potential. Depends on if I want to get out of bed first.

"I Am Just A Rapper" introduced me to one of the corniest rappers I've ever heard in my life that showed me how amazing one can develop.

Sand Is Overrated

It's Sunday April 21st, 2019. Easter Sunday. Resurrection Sunday. 9:21 in the morning. 65 degrees, partly cloudy. Scattered thunderstorms are 50%. Wind is around 7 miles per hour. From basement floor window, I can see Louie sitting outside, delicately chewing on her favorite toy. Eyes half shut, her fur being fluffed by gentle gusts.

I'm on my bed laying belly down, mouth covered by a shea butter-scented pillow with a floral design. My feet hang off of my queen-sized Serta mattress, as I routinely twirl my ankles around. My body has been adjusting to having 3 jobs that all require an extensive amount of stamina. And also all requires the use of sweatpants. I've been fortunate enough that I can get back to my college workout routine to get the physique of Captain America. 

I briefly pause typing as I listen to the sounds around me, as my 4-foot tall window is slid open.

Airplanes floating on by.

Birds tuning.

Sirens wailing.

Neighbor dogs growling.

Roommates shuffling around upstairs.

My double jointed hands tapping on my HP.

An ant slowly shuffles by looking extremely gassed. I am sure the little fella' ventured all the way over yonder to the crumbs from my late night salmon burger. I have never seen an ant in my room. I break his neck. My glance then peaks around my 9' x 9' bedroom.

Xbox One and 52" TV on top of an old card table.

A vision board I made at my Auntie's house.

An old running shoe collecting dust in the corner.

Random fifths of white rum that have run their course.

Couple of dirty dishes from last night.

Some covers folded up in a corner for no reason.

Christmas lights strewn around the ceiling that connect throughout my entire floor. Well almost, I need one more extension cord to reach the living room.

I think about writing more but I want to watch the Beyonce Homecoming film on Netflix to see why people are so obsessed with her before I trot over to the Colorado Rockies baseball game. I have free tickets from my job, and I am going with my old college friends. I haven't seen one of them in a while, I hope he's okay. 

At this point I wonder why I haven't mentioned any Jons or music references in this post. Dee told me that my writing is riddled with grammatical errors. That's a weird thing to say because I'm writing down individual thoughts as they spontaneously pounce out of my head. It's like I'm projectile vomiting and I blacked out and he is telling me to aim at the trash can. It's also weird because I am 72% certain I have used that reference before. I have to pee and cut my hair.

*Crazy In Love plays in the background

Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind has been on my list at the most watched movie of all time. I first heard of it listening to the OST while Jay Electronica rapped over the original score.

Fear The Pink Mist

I'm not a fan of the color pink. It's so bright and loud and flamboyant for my own taste. It doesn't blend very well; if you have a pink shirt, like that blush, flamingo, taffy pink is what I am referencing. Mostly,

Jonny Boy doesn't own anything pink really. Unless you count the pink covers and pillow case, rose pink iPhone, pink phone cover. Sometimes Neo Yukio. That's it, I swear. What can I say it's a solid color,

I reference this color because of what it represents in society. Like that feminism, femininity, feminine traits that people associate with women or women-like movements. Breast cancer awareness, those coochie hats etc. And I think it has taken away from the color itself. 

Jon-Jon can go outside and wear blue (normally), black, green, purple, orange, red (sometimes), and nobody thinks about a got-damn thing. Just a big-headed negro sashaying off of Colfax lookin' spiffy. But when I have any shade or hint that pink is accidentally existing or breathing on me, that's where the inquisitive inquisition comes,

I have had "problems" "proving" my masculinity for years now. I separate those two phrases with quotations because "I" "don't" "give" "a" "duck" collectively at this point. It seems at this point you can only prove people you're a man by dying, according to Bill Burr. Especially to black people, goodness gracious. Have you openly spoke to most black men about their feelings? It's like trying to perform open heart surgery on an ant. How did my celebrity idol Terry Crews make it this far? It was the first time I understood the importance of discussing gender norms.

Jonny Boy can openly admit there is a bit of an outlier perk on the Jons' behalves. Maybe the ability to twerk, putting on "The Sea" by Corrine Bailey Rae to cry myself to sleep in high school, buying women sweaters because they fit, and looking for any reason to wear a skirt comes into play. But still, it is a part of my whole definition of what it is to be a man and be delicate. The only trait I know for 100% accuracy is the definition of being a man and having masculinity is handling your business; whether it be taking care of your family or dealing with your own sh*t. You can do that wearing jeans or you can do that in a crop top,

"Are You Here" by Corinne Bailey Rae was put on loop certain nights in high school as I as learned how to actively show emotions in private