The Cloud Over My Great Day

Hello there ladies and sirs, it's me your very favorite most insightful blogger, Ponder.  And I think that tonight I'm going to take a break from being awesome and drop a little knowledge on all of you common folk out there. (Obviously I'm just kidding, except for all of you common folk out there that will be reading this.) Today was a really good day for me.  Today was one of the first days since I've been out here in LA that I have felt fully assimilated to this place.  I took the metro up to universal city and watch Pacific Rim with my life partner one Cooper(The Machine)Hagedorn.  

And as I walked back to the metro tonight to get back to my place, I couldn't help but feel like this city, and myself are so alive right now.  There was just this feeling of me beating the world that just felt great.  I long for days and nights like these.  If only I could string together a few more thousand days like today I'll be just fine.  

I got to spend the latter half of my day, after watching Pacific Rim talking to one of my best friends about what it is or what it's going to take to make a summer blockbuster, and really the overall state of movies in general.  And in that moment when we were both going back and forth at each other expressing our ideas and getting under each others skin about what we think and feel is right, and couldn't help but think this is what I've been missing.  I've missed these talks that I used to frequently have with Cooper and the push back that I always get from him because even though we both love movies with such a great passion our tastes seem to always be a little bit different from each other.

For the first time in a really long time I felt like it was all happening.  Like this is the beginning of something truly great. I'm in the place that I need to be with the people that I need to be with.  I don't know what the future may hold but in a perfect world I will get to make movies, or be directly involved in the process of making movies, and I will be able to do so with my best friend, and today felt like the beginning of that process.  After all big things have small beginnings.  

And even though all of this great stuff was happening today, there was still a bit of a cloud over my day today, or tonight I guess I should say.  It happened two fold.  The first for those of you who aren't on the planet earth there was the Trayvon Martin Verdict.  Now I'm really not going to get into all of it because I know it has been such a device thing anyway.  I just know that since I heard about it, it has been weighing heavily on my mind.  I am so sad for that family because no matter what anybody says about not know the facts or there are only two people that really knows what happen, etc, etc, etc.  What I do know is this... There is a 17 year old kid that is dead.  And that kid was unarmed, and there is a man the gunned him down, and today he will walk free.  And at least for me it's hard to say there is justice in this world when something like that can happen.  

I don't presume to know everything that happened, but I will say this like a said it earlier today.  It is just a sad commentary on a society that is obsessed with guns.  I mean in Oklahoma there is a open carry law where people can just walk around with a gun on there hip like it's the goddamn wild wild west.  It's stupid, and I don't care about the backlash that I'll get for saying that.  It is fucking retarded.  And I am in no way saying take away everybody's guns and we will be so much safer.  I realize that we all have a right to bare arms, but when is enough enough?  That is all that I have to say.  

And also I really am getting sick and tired of people saying don't make this a race thing.  It's not about race, it's not about race, racism doesn't exist anymore.  It are statements like these that really make me think that people are just being naive.   And for the most part the people saying these things are those that have never had to deal with it in the first place.  Because the truth of the matter is that African American Men in this country live shorter lives, on average get paid less, and are more likely to end up in prison than any other sub group in this country.  Those are the facts and they are hard to ignore. Should people not be mad that a 17 year old unarmed black male was gunned down in the streets by somebody that wasn't a law enforcement officer?  Should people not be upset that this man was allowed to go free?

I don't know the answers to any of these questions.  I just know that after such a great day I'm going to go to bed with a little bit of a heavy heart tonight and for me that kind of sucks.  There was also something else that brought a cloud over my day that probably hurt a whole hell of a lot more, but that my friends is for another day entirely.  I think I'm done now, so as my good friend Cory Williamson always says now.  I'll see you all again, this side or the other.

Just thought everyone could use a little bad ass in their lives, and that is exactly what this trailer is.

Versions of Ourselves

Well, well, well, it's been a little bit hasn't it.  You know when I started this whole thing I was planning on writing on this thing everyday.  I was going to write and so many people were going to read this thing and I would get some kind of validation that I needed because I have this huge insecurity about writing. That time, the way I felt about everything feels like a different life ago.  It's funny, since I've moved out here to LA I've had a lot of time to think about a lot of different things. Things like where I'm going and where I've been.  It's a funny thing thinking about all the places you've been and the possible places that you might go.

I went to the Pacific Ocean yesterday.  That sentence in and of it self is enough for me.  I can't even begin to tell you the magnitude of that moment.  Just being there and looking out over the horizon into an infinite body of water I can't even begin to describe the feeling I had.  Just being there and realizing just how small that I am.  I mean god the push and the pull and the power of this ocean is incredible, and I was out there in the ocean getting tossed about and I realized that all my so called problems and worries didn't matter that much.  I could have been sucked under and gone forever and what would it really matter.  I'm just a speck, just a thumbprint on the window of a skyscraper.  There are so many beautiful and wondrous things out there that everyone takes for granted.  There are so many things out there that we all take for granted.  

I'm sorry, I am officially off topic.  I'm so busy talking about the mighty Pacific that I lost my whole train of thought about what I really wanted to talk about.  Which I guess is change.  So now that I really have you all hooked, I'm not gonna throw you back just yet. 

So, since I've been out here in LA I've had so much time to wonder around this city and think since I and incredibly and hopelessly unemployed.  So with all the thinking that I've been doing I've had time to think about change.  The change that I'm thinking about of course is within myself.  I mean I look back to 3 or 4 years ago and I have realized just how different a person I was.  It's hard to even think about it but I am such a different person.  I thought I had a real handle on things back then but now looking back on it all I realize I just didn't.

I don't know why I'm even saying all these things except for the fact that I've just now realized that there are so many things out there that become different versions of themselves.  I never thought much about it but even when I was in college there was a bar that we all use to go to and it changed names and ownership like three different times.  And every time it changed we would all go back only there was always something about it that was a little different.  Something that was missing.  It was like and evil version of itself.  I think now it's a salad place or a health food store, which is really disappointing. 

So after thinking about this for quite sometime I thought to myself, "Am I nothing more than another version of myself?"  I know for a fact that I am.  It's a weird feeling let me tell you but I think it's good.  Because the me from 3 or 4 years ago, that guy was something else.  

I know that years from know I'm going to look back on those 3 or 4 years and think what in the world was I doing.  That was not the Brandon that I wanted to be.  I think those might end up being the lost years.  3 or 4 years ago I was in love with a girl.  And she wasn't just any girl, at the time she was the girl.  And I thought that if I did just enough, if I changed the type of person that I was and became more of the type of person that she wanted me to be then it would be everything that I wanted it to be.  I thought that maybe, just maybe if I was less of myself and more of what everybody else thought that a responsible adult was then she'd love me like I loved her.  But the thing about that is that if you change who you are to try and please someone else, chances are that thing change that you undergo will end up being the thing turns them off from you.  

It's weird for me the think about all the different versions of myself there have been or that there will ever be.  I think now more than ever we are living in an ever changing world so chances  our by the time I'm dad and in an ash vile around my close friends' and families' neck (now that's a story for another time completely) I will have been 5 or 10 different versions of myself. 

The thing that really gets me when I think about all the different versions of myself that I'm going to end up being is that when I really stop and think about things I always wonder if the version of myself that I am right now, if my grandfather would be proud of that person.  I know it sounds crazy, but basically my grandfather was the greatest guy that I've ever known so if the version of myself that I am at this exact moment, if that guy isn't a guy that he would be proud of, then I have to change my situation.

And that guy from 3 or 4 years ago, I'm pretty sure that he would not have been too proud of him.  This whole thing right here has not been my best.  But I'm going to post it anyway.  I hope when you read it you don't think to bad of me, I've have written better and I will write better.  Thank you.

Questing in LA

Well it's been a few days since I've been able to get on here and write something down, so I decided that I couldn't let another day go by without writing something down about this Quest that I'm on.  I know that it may all seem quite stupid or that I'm not taking things very seriously, but the truth of the matter is that it is actually quite the opposite.

This Quest for me halfway across the country has been the biggest endeavor of my young life.  Only the real thing is that I don't really feel quite young at the moment.  I feel more like an old soul really at the end of it all when really I am at the beginning.  My spiritual Quest to the West has been quite cleansing for me in one way and very anxiety ridden in another way.  

I wake up every morning in sunny California were the weather is always beautiful and I can't help but feel at peace.  But then I look around at my surroundings as I am getting up on the couch of one of my best friends and I can't help but be a little paralyzed with fear.  It's a crazy feeling taking this leap like I have.  I don't really know what all is out there for me, expect for everything. And I guess that in and of itself can be somewhat of a frightening thing.  All the possibilities right out here for me I just have to get a move on.

The crazy thing is that I'm just about an hour away from the beach right now, and I still haven't been yet.  I know I will go soon, but at times for me it's hard to want to see or feel the joy of certain things in life, because I know and feel and am so aware of the weight of life itself.  I have to be mindful of this situation and make sure that I don't miss out of all the beautiful things that this Quest has to offer me. Because there are so many things about this place that is just flat out beautiful.

There are also aspect of this thing that is greatly terrifying.  I don't think I've ever been in a city quite like this one.  It feels as though I am on a different planet sometimes being out here.  I mean I've been to big cities before, New York and Chicago, but the truth of the matter is that they are nothing like this one.  Sure it is a big city and it has that feel of all the hustle and bustle, but this is also not a vertical city and things around here are very spread out.  And the people are just so chill and laid back.  I have a long way to go to really get the hang of this thing, but I know that I will be able to.

It seems to me that life has it's own funny and unique way of working things out and somehow despite all odds and me resisting this for so long I have found myself just in the place that I always find myself dreaming and talking about.  Trying to pursue something that I am always talking about but in a lot of ways was just to afraid to really pursue it.  

I know that life will carry on from here and that this moment in time as compared to all it's other moments really isn't that big of a deal.  I have friends that are entering the second phases of their lives and some are becoming parents and some of us are just now finding ourselves.  I know that ten years from now this blogs and these writings that I'm doing now may just be a joke or a funny story that I tell at a dinner party, but right now this life and these words that I'm writing are the only things that I have to hang on to.  They matter so much to me and if you are reading or have read any of the silly things that I have written in the past years I hope that they might matter to you.

Letter to my Best Friend

Now I know that some of you out there may think you have some idea of who this letter is to.  And I could go down the list of people that are in the best friend category of my life which there are a few and most of you out there probably still couldn't guess who I am writing this letter to.  But tonight 875 miles away from home in a hotel room that overlooks a mountain in Flagstaff, Arizona I want to write this thank you letter to some who without this trip "Quest with Chris Ponder" would not be possible.  That person of course is my sister Tiffany Jackson-Ponder.

That's right folks my sister is one of the black women with a hyphenated last name.  And man does she pull it off.  This is a letter to you sis, thanks for everything.

Dearest Tiffany,

   I guess the best way to start this off is just to say, thank you for being you, because without you I wouldn't be me.  Thank you for all the torture you put me through the beginning part of my life.  Chasing me around with kitchen knives scaring the shit out of me, hitting me in the head with all my hot wheels I left laying out on the floor and especially wrestling me down when I still wasn't strong enough to take you and slowly spitting loogies on me. And just genuinely not liking me when I thought it was all just a game. 

   Thank you for baring the burden of our parents divorce because I was that goofy kid that played star wars over and over in his head and to be completely honest I really had no idea what was going on other than the fact that Dad is going to live with Grandmother and Grandfather now. Thank you for letting me tag along on your dates and just be the annoying little brother that had to have seemed to be right out of an early 90's family sitcom.

   Thank you so much for getting older and actually starting to like me around the time I was going through my super awkward teenage phase.  And always trying to help me pick out close that were cool and in fashion because god only knows where I would be had I made all of those decisions myself.

   Thank you for supporting me and being on of my biggest cheerleaders in my flash in the pan baseball career and dragging mom along with you to some of my games because you knew how much it meant to me even if I never said anything about it.

   Thank you for having the intelligence, drive and work ethic to go after your dreams and just be that positive influence for me to look up to always.  And for letting me run up such a large amount of debt on your credit cards for no reason other than the fact that you are my big sister and I am your little brother. And thank you for letting me move out with you to Virginia and be your roommate for six months and showing me that the world is so much bigger than I could even imagine and that with hard work and determination everything you want is out there for the taking.

   Thank you for showing me just exactly how to sneak into a movie, and how to know take shit from anyone.  How to know what you want and go out and get it.  And the value of customer service.  Thank you for fighting with me and never taking my sarcasm to heart and for training me to remember at least one person's birthday.  thank you for everything you have done for me and all the stuff I know you will do.  I love you so much sister and I can't wait to make you proud.

Respectfully, 
Brandon "Bubba" Ponder

   

rambling

So, I've had a lot of time to think lately.  I know I know, that might be a dangerous thing, me thinking, only really romantic and over dramatized things can come from this.  Oh and probably some tears(just saying). It's just been a really weird couple of weeks for me lately.  I mean really and truly growing up is a hard thing to do.  And I know that people never say that it's going to be easy.  You know you're parents are always saying well wait until you get older, and wait until you have responsibilities and you have to pay bills and all that jazz that parents like to say.  And for me it's something that I always took seriously but when your a person like me that constantly finds himself in Neverland wondering around trying to gasp onto that last bit of innocence it can all be a little overwhelming and seem to almost smack you in the face when that times comes.

I don't know if any of that even sound remotely like a complete thought.  In my head it did but when my fingers get to typing it all seems like it could just be the ravings of a mad man.  It has been weird to me lately though.  I mean the closer I come to leaving the more I have to deal with the fact that I actually am leaving.  Like this place that I've called home for my entire life will no longer be my home, it's a scary fucking thought.  It's also kind of exhilarating.

It's crazy to think about.  I mean I'm sitting here and I'm just thinking about all the things that have lead me up to this point good and bad.  I start to think what my life would be had I done things just a little bit differently.  I don't know really, I'm sure everybody thinks like this ever now and again.  I mean it seems to be the same old story.  One day you're 18 years old thinking about the future and what all is in front of you.  And then before you even know it yesterday turns into today, today turns into tomorrow, and then tomorrow turns into the rest of your life without you even realizing what is happening.  

I really don't know why I'm even writing any of this.  I think it's because I've changed so much over the past 10 years and it seemed like I didn't even realize just how much I've changed until recently.  I mean i've kind of spent that last two days at home sleeping in some state of depression.  But I started thinking, I was thinking about my time spent in college and how right there on campus corner there were all these places that I use to go to that don't even exist anymore.  Like these bars and restaurants that I used to love to go to that turned into different bars and restaurants and have since turned into different bars and restaurants some of which now I love to go to. (I'm talking about you Fuzzy Tacos) And this made me think over all of these other places that I know have changed over the years.  And it started to make me think, because when you are younger everything seems so final, like it's going to be there forever you know.  Weather it's your parents marriage, or the house you grew up in, or the school you went to, or the baseball park you use to play at.  But as you get older you start to see all of these changes and you begin to realize that everything seems to be a different version of something else and the longer you live the more this seems to be true.

And it gets to a point where you start to forget that old version of what was there.  I think people tend to be the same way.  I think our whole lives we are constantly becoming different versions of ourselves good or bad.  I mean at our core we will always be ourselves, but as the years go on we get a little be more conservative or liberal, we value different things a little be more or less and we have a little bit more life experience.  And the crazy thing for me is that I'm not quite sure that the version of myself from the last 5 years of my life has been my best self.  But I'm hoping the version over the next 5 years will be.  





The Richard Linklater
Sunrise Trilogy one of my 
favorites

Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg's 

Blood and Ice Cream Trilogy 

another one of my favorites

Happy Mother's Day - FOR SHERRY

Today is a special day boys and girls.  I know that if you're reading this then you're probably on Facebook and you probably have seen the millions of updates testing to what you are about to read.  So for that let me just reiterate what everyone and their dogs have already said.  Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers and soon to be mothers out there. To all the women out there that aren't necessarily mother's but have look after and loved someone as if they were.  Because without the mothers of the world out there you wouldn't have some sap like me here writing this blog.  Thanks Mom!

Now that that is out of the way I think that I will use this little bit of time I have before me and my sister take my mom to see the great gatsby to talk about a special lady that I have in my life.  To say that my mom is the best mom in the whole wide world would be quite the understatement.  And I guess from as early on as I could remember I have always been a mama's boy.  Now as hard as my dad tried to boyz n the hood me and make me a man (which he did by the way, I am a man, for all those out there that have something to say about it.) I have been and will always be a mama's boy. 

And it's crazy because the older I get the more I realize that I am so much like my mother it is crazy.  Everything in me that is thoughtful of others, patient, loving, and my love for cooking I get from her.  But don't let all that I just said fool you because my mother can also be a bit of a hard ass (somebody just ask on Christopher Ponder if you don't believe me... Oh and as some of you out there might not know who Christopher Ponder is, that's my father)  And I like to think that I get that from her as well.  

I'd like to tell a few stories about her that I always especially remembered.  When I was a kid I played sports, and my dad was always my coach.  Well my mother didn't always come to my games because she thought that she made me nervous.  And I would always tell her that she didn't but in reality she did.  Whenever I would look up in the stands and she her but there I would always try to throw a little bit harder to strike everyone out or swing a little bit harder to hit a home run for her.  Or if I was on the basketball court shot a little bit more to score points for her.  And of course it always backfired and I always had some of my worse games when she came to watch me play.  And after every game I would go up into the stands to sit by her pouting and she would always tell me how great I played, and I would just smile and give her a big hug.  

I remember my senior night playing basketball she came and I we had the whole senior night ceremony before the game or at halftime or whenever and I was so excited.  You have to understand I wasn't really the greatest of basketball players, I mainly got by because I worked hard and was charlie hustle on the court... But on senior night I was gonna score 20 points for her.  I'm pretty sure a few air balls and ill advised three pointers later I was being hell at by my coach on the bench.  We ended up winning the game and I got back in the game and if i remember correctly my stat line was something like 6pts 7rebs 3assts 5tos it was a pretty pathetic night by anyones standers and after the game I went up into the stands and give my mom a hug, and she told me I was the best on out there.

And that's my mom.  It always has been and always will be, even when I suck, which has been quite a bit she always always thinks that I'm the best. 

I was almost done with college and I came home to hang out with her one weekend.  I was in her room laying in bed bothering her I'm sure when I looked over at her nightstand and saw a framed picture of me with from when I "played" at OU if you want to call it that.  She had went on the internet and printed out the picture of me from the website and put it in a picture frame. Even in one of my biggest failures in my life my mom was still proud enough to frame a picture of me.  

So I'm gonna stop writing right now, because I need to go see Leo get is Gatsby on, but let me just end by saying if you have a mother that is even half as cool as my mom, you need to get your ass on the phone or drive over there right now and tell her you love her.  Because it is the mothers that wiped our butts, and comforted us when we were sick, and cheered us on in whatever we did.  I LOVE YOU MOM, THANKS FOR BEING MY BIGGEST FAN.

Moments

It's sunday afternoon and it's a beautiful day outside.  I'm slightly hung over from a great night out with some great people, I'm watching Friday Night Lights, and all I can say is that my heart is full.  I've been meaning to write this post for sometimes now and you know what I thought today was as good as time as any other.  So here I go on another adventure of what I like to think is eloquent writing.  

So in me re-watching this show all the way through for like the third go around(yeah that's right third time through, I am a bit of a loser.)and I realized just what it is I love about this show.  Now besides everything, the thing that I really love about this show are the moments.  Those are the things that really matter in this show.  Every show has its melodrama and every show is trying its best to entertaining.  But not every show can move you with the moments that it puts in them.  And that is exactly what Friday Night Lights does.  

Obviously this is a television show, so of course it's not real, but I promise you if you ever have the chance to watch this show and you don't feel the things that these characters are feeling then you just don't have a heart.  Because every moment that exists in this show good or bad are so spectacular.  And every character is this show gets his or her due.  They all get their moments and then some. And boy do they all shine in them.

And that's when I started to think what is life, but just a series of moments?  And that these moments that we have in life are exactly what shape us.  We take these moments and like puzzle pieces we put them all together trying to make the picture that becomes our lives. All the moments good and bad, the first time you played catch with your dad, the first time you saw star wars, the first time your mother put a band aid on you when you scraped your knee, the first time you pitched a shut out, when you graduated high school, when you got grounded for coming home drunk, when you got cut from the college team, when you watched Closer and realized you loved writing, when you told a girl you loved her for the first time, when you got your heart broken for the first time, when you decided to not be afraid of failure.  These are those moments and this is the picture that has become your life.

I think sometimes we just don't get it though, we just don't see the meaning in these moments or we think they are too mundane or we read entirely too much into them.  We don't just sit back and appreciate them for what they are or for what they mean to us.  I'm going through a complete roller coaster of moments lately and for good reason.  Some of you out there that read this stupid little thing probably know, and some of you don't and that's fine too because it doesn't matter either way, I'm not even going to talk about it. 

Not too long ago I had a totally zen moment... I had this moment that was just so pure of anything that I found myself in tears (I know surprise surprise Brandon's crying again.) the moment was just so beautiful that I just couldn't help myself.  And to steal a line from a movie that I so dearly love in that moment all I could feel was infinite.  And the crazy thing about me saying that is I remember watching that movie (Perks of Being a Wallflower) and when the character said that line I just got goosebumps and thought to myself man i want to feel that.  And then a couple of Saturdays ago I was down at the Arts Festival with my MOM, AUNT, and SISTER and I had to leave to go somewhere, I'm really not sure right now, but I was leaving and I put in my headphones and was just walking downtown on one of the most beautiful Saturdays of this entire year.  And there are people everywhere, and I'm listening to the Django Unchained Soundtrack, and I'm walking by the Devon Tower, and this song Freedom comes on and as the cool breeze his me and the music is blaring in my ears and I'm looking at all these people I realize that I am having a moment that I'm never going to have again, that nobody in the history of the world will get to have again and I just thought about how beautiful life is, even the shitty parts, and I just had to cry tears of joy.

 Now I know that if you're reading this thing you just might think I'm plum crazy. But the truth is I'm just writing this to let people know that they should be taking this stuff seriously, they should take that moment with your mother, or your spouse, or your friends, or your kids, or just that moment spent with yourself doing the thing you love the most seriously.  Because that moment is making you the person that you are this very day, this very second, and that moment is beautiful, and you might never get another one like it.