1. This is NOT for the ADD crowd. It's a long read. Grab a snack before you sit down.
2. There will be no strings pulled. This is entirely different than just being evil. This is just my opinion.
3. Only a small part of what will be written is a look into my current thoughts and feelings. (See #2 & #4.)
4. I can't stress this enough...if you have questions, comments, or just want to cuss me and tell me how wrong and full of myself I am, DO IT! I'll make it easier for you...here's how you can reach me:
- Facebook - Emmanuel JaSon Johnson
- Myspace - www.myspace.com/FalconBaller9
- E-mail - emmanueljason@gmail.com
- Here on Blogspot, of course
- And if you have my number, the line's open.
2008 was, by far, the most upside-down and inside-out year I've experienced on this earth. I was alive for history in the making...I gained a lot...lost it all...was nearly broken...and found a silver lining in the night. I met some amazing people (some a bit more...let's say, "interesting" than others, but amazing nonetheless), saw a bunch of new places, and, dare I say it, found my soul along the way. Let's start from the top, shall we?
January
The beginning of the year showed a lot of promise. I had a new job that I loved, was meeting new people every day, and was still getting acclimated to the trauma known as jet lag. Of course, it didn't come without a fair share of hard work -- 16-20 hour days became the norm, and sleep was at a premium. I took my first (real) trip to Texas, down to Dallas. Got up early, stayed up late, found a Chinese buffet (!), ate steak till I couldn't breathe, found one of the few malls that could be more expensive than Woodfield (for anyone who knows, this is a task), as well as something that was once lost. That, and a 30-second spot that turned on my personal music light for the first time since high school.
Song Of The Month: "Upside Down," Jack Johnson. "I don't want this feeling to go away..."
February
Fresh off getting my feet wet at the job (and still working like a Hebrew slave), things were coming together very well. There were a couple of tumultuous situations with close friends, neither of which ended very well (by the way...I'm sorry. It wasn't one of my high points.), and I had a lot of catching up to do. I found myself back in California, this time in Walnut Creek. Up to this point, I had yet to find another place I could see myself calling home, but the Bay Area grew on me pretty damn fast.
San Francisco is needlessly expensive, but amazing at the same time. That, and apparently, it's the only place where you can walk down a crowded street, downtown no less, smoke your weed, and no one pays it any mind (it was crazy...I would have caught contact from this dude if I didn't walk around him!). I had more than my fill of Chinese food (notice a pattern here?), got a ridiculous amount of exercise (screw you, California hills. Screw. You.), and a meeting a year and a half in the making finally happened. And all was well in the land.
Song Of The Month: "California Dreamin'," Bobby Womack. "California dreamin'...on such a winter's day..."
March
March was a breeze, to say the least. Work was starting to come into some sort of normalcy, and I was slowly getting used to the expensiveness that was California (jet lag still sucks). I found myself back in the Bay Area, and in Sacramento. Both places I had seen in the past, but in much different contexts.
I found it interesting that the state has so much open space, but consumers costs are still as spiked as they are. To compare...as pricey as Chicago tends to be (thanks, Mayor Daley!), $900 a month can actually get you a house in some areas. In California...maybe a 2-bedroom in a lesser-known suburb? A waitress at a restaurant I had dinner at one night in San Francisco told me that she and her boyfriend had an apartment in the city. $2100 a month. Not a house. Not downtown. Just wrap your head around that one for a second. Now stop complaining about how bad things are here!
At any rate, my thoughts were moving toward the idea of living 2,200 miles, give or take a mountain, away from home. Would it be worth it? Would I be able to deal with the people, the lifestyle? And what's to come of Chinese food? Only time would tell.
Song Of The Month: "Refuge (When It's Cold Outside)", John Legend. "You know and I know...through all the battles..."
April
Well, the beginning of April was pretty sweet...work was on point, I negotiated my way into an 11 day vacation (eat on that!), and love was in the air. Company sports took me to new places, and my own itch for travel led me all over the place. It was back to the Bay, then off to a place I'd only seen on TV: Los Angeles.
It was kinda funny walking through the same paparazzi-filled airport that tends to pop up on "TMZ" almost daily, and not seeing a SINGLE recognizable celebrity or cameraman. I made my way to my hotel, passing through neighborhoods made famous by movies like Boyz In The Hood and Friday, and countless music videos from the likes of Snoop, Dre, Pac, Game, and even Skee-Lo ("I wish I was a little bit taller..." haha). Compton, Watts, Chinatown, just to name a few. I've written about my trip to LA previously, so I won't get into more detail. There was a Chinese place down the block from the hotel that was AMAZING, though.
The middle of the month (April 12, to be exact...I'll never forget it) was the beginning of what would be a complete and utter personal hell for me for the next few months. I won't go into what happened, because I'm very much set on keeping face professionally, if nothing else. But it took two weeks to go from top to bottom, and have my life turned upside down. The person I expected to have my back turned theirs, and the support of some very good people (you know who you guys are...I'll never be able to repay you...) probably kept me from floating on my own personal island.
Song Of The Month: "What Hurts The Most," Rascal Flatts. "What hurts the most...was being so close..."
May
More drama ensues. I follow the rules, and find out that there was a lot of dishonesty going on in my professional world. Soon after, I would find out how needlessly complicated the Illinois legal system can be. It's a fight that's still on the burners as we speak. I tried getting to know new people to get my mind off of things...didn't work. More on that later. I got back into my writing, back into my music, trying any and every way to keep my mind away from what had happened, and focus on the next move.
Song Of The Month: "Money In The Bank," Swizz Beatz. Sometimes, you just gotta bump.
June/July
Both June and July were a blur of lord-only-knows-what. I did some things I've never done before: I started writing my own music, entered a music competition, and began putting serious thought into publishing written works, rather than just blogging. I lost out on a couple friends, mostly due to my own circumstances, but I often tell myself that it was for a greater good. Oddly enough, a vacation during the Fourth of July holiday turned out to be the beginning of the end of a couple things, and the start of something new. But it took a late-night conversation, and some very strong words from someone, for me to hit the bottom of my self-imposed freefall. I had officially had enough; something had to be different. People had to know where they stood, lines had to be drawn, life had to change.
Song Of The Month(s): "Flashing Lights," Kanye West. "As you recall, you know I love to show off...but you never thought that I would take it this far...what do you know?..."
August
Times were changing. Not just in my life, but in my family's life as a whole. My oldest sister was getting married, and I was getting the brother I had waited nearly 24 years for. Granted, he'd been there for the last eight years, but there was still something deep in the officialness of it all. Mentally, I was coming back around, and enlightenment followed. It took one baseball game to find out what friendship does (and doesn't) mean in the bigger picture. New people popped in, and older friends disappeared; while it was disappointing, and I wanted things to be different, the pain and sadness didn't override the goals I had set for myself. It was like that little light in the back of the closet had finally turned on, and I could see that there was so much of myself that I was missing. Now was the time.
Song Of The Month: "Can't Tell Me Nothing," Kanye West. "La...la-la-la...wait till I get my money right..."
September
I was back on my "mini-hustle," so to speak. The road I walked was definitely a bit bare, and the amount of people I talked to with any regularity could be counted on one hand. But somehow, it worked. I spent my 24th birthday alone, as I had the previous two. The obligatory calls were there, as were texts from people I'd barely had a full conversation with up to this point in the year.
Despite its proximity to Labor Day (and the numerical simplicity), my birthday is apparently an easy one to forget. Even my own father managed to pull it off, calling me five days later on my older sister's 27th birthday. I've always said that you can gauge how important you are in a person's life by their remembrance of birthdays...of course, people can be forgetful, and I'm not condemning anyone for that. I suppose it's more along the lines of seeing the effort made by the person to remember said info, combined with how long you've known each other. But after a little thought...when a sibling's birthday is less than a week away, and on a MUCH more memorable day, and they're easily the social butterfly of the group, you tend to shrug and just leave the whole thing be. The whole "if I were there, I would..." and "I wish I would known, or I..." lost its meaning before I graduated high school.
In current events, I was resolved to keep myself open to some of the things life had to offer, while being mindful of (yet not intimidated by) the challenges presented. Put in work, save like mad, but don't forget to have a life (still working on the last one). The "palm," as I've come to think of them, were solid, and good things were beginning to grow.
Song Of The Month: "American Boy," Estelle. "Take me on a trip, I want to go someday...take me to New York, I want to see LA..."
October
Well...I'll be honest. October was pretty boring. Stayed on the hustle, and I was slowly regaining my soul.
Song Of The Month: "I Want Those Flashing Lights," Colin Munroe. "But all this nothing I've got...is all that's keeping me tough...maybe this nothing I've got...is enough..." (If you've never of him, YouTube it. It's hot!)
November
Let me begin with this...I will contend to this day that November 2008 was by far the single greatest month in my lifetime to date. Done. If you've read "So America...", you know my take on the biggest event of all. I stopped giving as much of a damn externally as I did internally, and it worked wonders. The people who got it stuck around, and those who didn't slowly faded into random association. I slowly went back to a place I hadn't spent a lot of time, and ended up finding a group of friends from all over the place in the process. My soul was getting back to full form, and good times were in full swing with good friends.
Song Of The Month: "Closer," Ne-Yo. "Turn the lights off in this place...and she shines just like a star..."
December
The year wound down with a sense of familiarity, and dealing with the fact that things would change for good come January. Lines had been clearly drawn, and new opportunities were on the horizon. The holidays came, and old friends from better days returned. The little dude celebrated his first (memorable) Christmas, and it reminded me of just how simple life can be. There had been twelve months filled with happiness, anger, sadness, hurt, confusion, and I-don't-know-what. But watching him rip open his boxes, and throw around all the new toys he had gotten, made me forget about all the drama that tends to come with being an adult. At least for one night. And, just like that...2008 came to a close, as quietly as it had come.
Song Of The Month: Well, there isn't one. I downloaded a lot, and looked into doing some damage with my own pen.
With the year in the bag, I'd like to take a little time, and talk about the people who helped make this year as crazy as it was. Keeping in line with previous episodes of "The Life and Times Of...", no real names will be used. That being said, some people may be easily identified, and some may have to do a little thinking to find their place. But all the names are fairly connected to the bond that we had/have. So, in no particular order...
- Hall-of-Femme: You've kept me very well entertained for quite a while now. We've talked about everything under the moon, and you were there for me when the chips were not only down, but crushed into little pieces. You've gone from a girl that had very little idea about, well, a lot of things, to a girl that knows...slightly more about those same things...haha, just kidding. You're coming into your own as an adult, and other things will happen in due time. Don't rush.
- OshKoshB'Gosh & CarolinaPanther. I put you guys together for reasons I think you both are well aware of, but I'll still address you individually. First...I'm sorry for how things turned out. Although there are things about you that irritated the hell out of me, you were still really cool, and I enjoyed the time we spent together. I'm sure we'll probably only see each other in passing in the future, but I wish you all the best. Second...you're a good friend. Do I think it's to a fault? Yeah, but that's directly in relation to what we've talked about. I'll never know how much you really knew about what was going on, and I'll always have the strange feeling that you enabled a lot of time to be spent on a lifeless endeavour. I do know and fully accept that you guys are separate, and the seen-in-passing sentiment carries, but maybe we'll stay in touch. Who knows.
- OldNavy & JoeBlow. Was I ever glad to run back into you two! It brought back a part of me that had basically been put to sleep for the last 7 years, and it feels good to just catch up, and pick up where we left off. It was a good reminder of what a good friendship looks and feels like...BS-ing about everything and nothing, no beef, no drama. No matter what, The Family lives. Dude...I'm coming to the VA real soon!
- Jugganaut & JazzePha. My people! We've known each other for what, 12, 13 years now? That's crazy. We all went our separate ways, and I was out for a minute, but I'm glad y'all didn't forget about me. Again, it's like we never left, except we got grown-folks business going on. Let's make it happen this year.
- WisMiss. Wow...where do I start? We've fought...a lot. We've laughed a lot, and we've hurt each other's feelings, whether it be intentional or not. But you were there when I absolutely didn't deserve it, and there are no words to describe the debt to which I owe you. We've talked about more than I could ever write in this little space, but I hope you know that I have nothing but love for you. Continue to grow, see what the world has to offer, and know that there's a light at the end of every tunnel.
- OriginO. Believe it or not, you taught me a few valuable life lessons in the short time that we've known each other, and probably not intentionally. How important my family really was to me, regardless of what's happened...real friends are honest, yet accepting...and that timing is everything. In a different world, had we met a month earlier, things may be quite different. I met a good person at a very bad time for myself, and the entire situation suffered. I'm glad things are better for you now, though, and I hope they stay that way for a long time. You deserve it. By the way...I thought we were supposed to be doing lunch? The hell!
- My OKCers. I'm glad I decided to stick around and get to know you guys a little bit. You come from every part of America, and all over the world, and all the personalities are beyond entertaining. Let's see...
- CaliZonaBlonde. Like there was any way you COULDN'T be first on this list! I've never met anyone with such an addictive personality, as off-the-wall and all-over-the-place as it is. But you're always upbeat, always fun, and we can talk about everything. Not very often has my first conversation with someone lasted as long, and kept me laughing the entire time. I promise I will visit at some point! I may not be alone, but I will be there, and we will hang out, no questions asked.
- AussieKat. I will admit that I did not expect you to have the career path that you've chosen, but I give you all the respect in the world for doing it. I can tell that it takes a toll on you every now and then, but we both know that it'll make a little one's life better in the long run. You're a welcome break from the random banter that tends to go on in our little group, and it's more than appreciated. I hope you make it to the States soon!
- FloridaFeek. Dude...you make me laugh. What can I say? The back-and-forths you get into are pretty much priceless. All things aside, I can tell you're a sweetheart. Let the world see it, too.
- TexaSooner. The little band geek that keeps her face buried in her pillow...I swear, if you don't smile more, I'm going to come and shoot Botox in your face, and make it permanent! Haha. You have a lot to offer...multi-talented, studying abroad, very hard-working. Seems like something's missing, but it may be nothing. One thing I can say, and it's something I've told you before: don't be afraid to let things happen. Life's going to happen, too.
- VadaUnLeashed. We've had our fair share of pow-wows, and learned about each other and ourselves in the process. You've got a big heart, and you're not afraid to share it. Of course, it can lead to more pain than most of us may experience, but that's the trade off you get in comparison to someone who chooses to lock theirs away. I hope that everything turns out positively, and you're always in my thoughts and prayers.
- Orrinegon, aka T-2. Thought I'd forgot about that, didn't you! Haha. You've got a lot of stuff goings on...a LOT...but when you're settled, you're one of the best people I know. I contend that we're not as polar as our sun signs or gender may dictate, and I do think that you're a fairly potent mix of pride and sensitivity. I'll share something with you that I got from watching a very close friend almost drive themselves crazy...the more you try to control what goes on in your life, the less you'll change. I hope the new year brings all good things. And I want apple juice, not orange!
- The Guys. You know who you are. We're all pretty much partners in crime. I got nothing but respect for you, and it's been a crazy ride so far!
- CaliforniaDream. If anyone knows me fairly well, they know that I could write (and have written) an entire novel with you being the subject. Our time was both the best and worst of times...you brought out a fire in me that few people had been able to tap. Not in the sense of anger, though that was definitely there, but in the sense of really finding ways to turn my dreams into reality. I will formally credit the true beginning of my music career to your living room. I pray every day that you find whatever it is that you're looking for...whatever it is, just know that it will never be perfect. It's going to be hard. And you're going to have to work at it to make it work. Let's see...year and a half, three fallouts, two months, 18,000 miles. If that's not proof, nothing short of moving to Sacramento would have done the trick. At any rate...keep up the good work on the court, and I really hope you've held on to that sapphire. It's as beautiful as you are. Anger doesn't mean that love fades. Don't ever forget that.
- ChippewaChick. You grew up quick...almost too quick for your own good. And the same maturity that you've acquired in that time is what makes other things not as great. I was not happy with you for a while there...it's since faded, but I know you're getting a chance to do your own thing, and I'm sure it's very liberating. All I can say is, for the love of everything, if something's on your mind, TALK! Your soul will thank you when it's all said and done. Keep up the good work. And...I don't know if I'll ever write a book, but other things may come.
- GreekGoddess. Last, but certainly not the least. The last few months have been nothing short of amazing...we've talked about everything imaginable, and somehow, we still manage to find out new things about each other. I see us getting along more and more with each passing day...you make me laugh, smile, and think in ways I hadn't been able to in a long time. You've been nothing but supportive of me, and I've been able to maintain my drive, without feeling pressured into getting things accomplished, lest it negatively affect the bond we have. Initially, I thought this would be a lot longer, but there's not too much that you don't know already. This year looks very good, on several levels.
I'd love to explore the realm of writing beyond "he's just bitching about (XYZ)" blogs and formal (yet sheer emotionally-based) diatribes involving unnamed victims. I've come to notice that the number of people that can accept that blog-based writings are, in majority, personal opinion, is shrinking. Everyone's so sensitive to things these days...the "we're all winners" mentality makes us cringe at the thought that someone might not agree with whatever comes out of our mouths at any given point. I understand what comes from writing what I write, and I actually encourage people to speak their peace about it. Do I expect to change the world? Nope. But knowing that I've stirred up some emotions and sparked some debate? Totally worth it.
There's that, and I'm inclined to stop fighting myself, and delve deeper into music. Singing more often, writing my own songs, finding the right connections. And all it took was an addiction to "American Idol" and a trip to LA to make it happen (the first wasn't mine, I swear!). I've always been able to find the right song to describe how I've felt in different times of my life, and it's time I started creating that same feeling with those same feelings. I've gotta get past that perfectionist streak I have, and stick to what's written once it's out. I'd never let a corporation like Fox have creative control over me, so "Idol" is out, but I also know that it won't be solely for attention, either. There's going to be some digging in the crates...you might end up in a song, and never know it. No worries...it won't be Jasmine-Sullivan-busting-windows-out-of-cars hostile!
To sum it up...to everyone that's here, thank you. To everyone that's gone, I'm sad about it, but I thank you for what you gave me while you were here. To my family...thank you for letting me do my own thing. I made it through 2008 for a reason, and I'm ready for everything that 2009 has to offer. Change is here.
- Emmanuel JaSon Johnson
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