Prompt 256. "I Done Fumigated the Queen"

My beloved Jon Batiste with a special essay & prompt on glorious awkwardness

Hi friend, 

Halfway through my cross-country road trip back in 2015, as I was driving through the Mojave Desert among flowering cacti and yucca trees, I sent up a prayer: May I be awake enough to notice when love appears, and bold enough to pursue it without knowing where it will lead.

At the time, I was deep in grief. I had lost so much: friends, an important romantic relationship, my sense of certainty about my health and my future, just to name a few. I was a few months into a new relationship with my now-husband Jon, but I was struggling, fearing that if I really took the leap, I would open myself up to more pain, more loss. But I also knew that if I walled myself off, I risked feeling nothing at all.

That little prayer served me well: today I can’t imagine my life without Jon. In my mind, picking a partner is the most important choice you can make, and he is by far my best decision. He’s a realist, but he’s also a believer. He’s modeled for me a particular kind of perseverance: knowing you might fail at something and still having full faith that you can see it through. I find it so awe-inspiring that he can hold both those beliefs in his head at the same time, not just in relationship but also in his creative work.

The last year and a half has been such a strange time for us, with so many highs and lows, for all the obvious reasons. So many things have changed. Jon left The Late Show, we moved into a new home, and we spent more nights in a hospital room than any human should have to. And yet, in the midst of so much upheaval, he carved out a massively ambitious project—a new album called World Music Radio that comes out in just a few days, on August 18. He chipped away at it over the course of a year from the unfinished basement studio in our house, with nothing more than an Ikea desk chair and table as a makeshift workspace.

All along the way, Jon was playing me individual songs as they came together, and each one was beautiful, energetic, soulful… I could keep going, filling in the blank with every positive adjective. But he was struggling to see how they all connected; they seemed so disparate. Late one night, he came upstairs tired and frustrated, saying, “I think this has failed. I don’t know what to do.” He lay down and started to fall asleep. Then suddenly, he bolted upright and started saying, “World Music Radio, interstellar radio, DJ.” I was thinking, What is happening? This man has lost his mind. But knowing Jon, I knew something brilliant was percolating. So I said, “Yes, go do that right now, before the idea slips away.”

I didn’t see him until the next morning, when he introduced me to Billy Bob Bo Bob, the interstellar DJ narrator of World Music Radio—an album that’s an expansive, openhearted disruption of what Jon describes as “‘the horrendous idea of what we call world music’ — local traditions viewed through a condescending Western lens — ‘and the narrow diameter of what’s considered popular music.’” (That quote is from a profile in the New York Times, which you can read in full here.) It may sound wild, but I have to tell you, it perfectly coheres, and I can’t wait for it to be out in the world.

The band Jon started in his 20s was called Stay Human—and to this day, that’s what he embodies more than anyone I know. He has an incredible ability to hold space both for our very real limitations and our moments of brilliance, our awkwardness and our elegance. More than that, he always does the hardest thing, which is to keep showing up—for work, for family, for faith, for love.

And so today, in honor of all the multitudes that my beloved contains, I’m resharing a prompt of his from the beginning of the pandemic called “The Glorious Awkwardness.” The essay below is his own response to it. It’s a gloriously human and hilarious story that I hope will make you laugh. May it, along with the prompt, help imbue your own cringe-worthy moments with humor and vibrancy and allow you to embrace the full range of what it means to stay human.

Sending love,

Suleika

P.S. Jon’s album is available for preorder, including signed vinyl copies. I spent so many nights watching him scrawl his signature smiley faces and occasional love notes, too. There’s a limited number of copies—get yours before they’re gone!

Some Items of Note—

• For the month of August, we’re returning to our regular schedule for the Hatch, our virtual creative hour. That’s the third Sunday of the month—so next Sunday, August 20, from 1-2 pm ET. It’s always the most uplifting, creatively generative gathering, and I hope you’ll join us. Mark your calendar here!

• This week I sent out the latest installment of Dear Susu—called “Cults, Boundaries, & Breaking Ties with Family.” With the help of the wise and wonderful Jedidiah Jenkins, I answer a question from a reader named Petunia: “I was raised in a cult and left. Do you have any advice on how to heal those wounds?” Paid subscribers can read it here!

Billy Bob Bo Bob, coming to an airwave near you

Prompt 256. The Glorious Awkwardness by Jon Batiste

A couple of years ago, I crept into Jazz at Lincoln Center to practice in one of the empty concert halls on a massive Steinway—something I’d done since I was a student at Juilliard. I was a few weeks away from embarking on my first piano and microphone tour, where all the shows would be in the round, and I wanted to get into the zone. That morning I left the house without showering, wearing sweats, with the single-minded purpose of figuring out this new performance configuration, and I ended up playing for several hours in that empty concert hall, losing track of time and space. I was on Mars by the end of it, delirious. I played until I was bleeding sweat—in fact, I had conjured up a good funk, figuratively and literally. I needed to get some fresh air.

It was night by then, and the British musician James Blake was playing a concert in the same building. It was a solo piano concert, which was atypical for him, so I decided to check it out and see what I could steal. One of the security guards invited me backstage to listen and say hello to James. “Yeah,” I said. “I’ll say what’s up.” So I stuck around—still in my stanky sweats—until the show was over.

But to my surprise, when James came backstage, he wasn’t alone. He also brought Beyoncé and Jay-Z. They were dressed up, all Lincoln Center vibes: she was in a gown, and he was clean, and they had that royal energy. And here I was, in sweats, stank and not even a fresh hairline or a pair of crisp kicks on to greet the Carters!

I had briefly met them before. As he reached out to shake my hand and said, “How you been?” I blurted out, “I think we met before, at the wedding right?” As soon as the words left my mouth, it occurred to me—you don’t think you met Jay-Z. It’s not like he’s somebody you bump into at the supermarket, and you’re like, “I think maybe we’ve met before.” But I was so discombobulated, still reeling from my practice sessions, and had momentarily forgotten how to communicate. (In fact, I was seconds away from rapping one of his verses at him.) All I could think was: Wait—what am I supposed to do now? Who am I? Who are you? Oh, you’re that guy I’ve been listening to for like 15 years. Oh yeah, that’s you! Right?!

Meanwhile, Jay-Z was looking at me like I had a head injury or something.

At that point, despite my blunder, Beyonce leaned in to say hello and hug me. I was still in my head and so caught off guard that I forgot about my stankness. But as soon as I lifted my arms to hug her back, I could feel the whiff of heat emanating from my sweatshirt, and I was like, Oh, no. I done fumigated the Queen.

She didn’t mention it of course—just pleasantries like, “Good to see you again.” And then there was a pause. The kind of pause that happens when Uncle Ned drops the Thanksgiving turkey. That awkward handshake hello. That hug where we both knew what happened and didn’t want to say anything. It was ground zero of Glorious Awkwardness, but it didn’t end there.

Alas, although our greeting was not fully realized, it was time to move on to the next phase of social interaction. James broke the ice and, addressing the group, said, “Shall we go to the dressing room and catch up?” I started walking with them—still in my head—but after a few steps, I realized, “I don’t really know these people. Also: I done fumigated the Queen.”

So instead of continuing on, I just peeled off in embarrassment, heading toward a barricade fence for crowd control. It was only when I’d thrown one leg over that I realized I’d neglected to say goodbye. When I turned back—one leg still over the barricade—they were all staring at me like, “Huh?” 

I don’t even think I waved, just mumbled, “All right,” and kept on going.

Your prompt for the week:

Reflect on a particular moment in your past when you felt most in touch with your “Glorious Awkwardness.” It could be a cringe-worthy moment you’ve replayed a thousand times in your mind. Or something essential about who you are, something unchangeable. Go back there.

What did you learn from it? Can you laugh about it? And if not, why?

If you’d like, you can post your response in the comments section, in our Facebook group, or on Instagram by tagging @theisolationjournals.

Today’s Contributor—

Jon Batiste is an Oscar, Emmy, Golden Globe, and five-time Grammy award-winning musician from Louisiana. He earned a B.A. and M.F.A. from the Juilliard School in New York City. From 2015 until 2022, Batiste served as the bandleader and musical director of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. His latest studio album, World Music Radio, draws inspiration from his mission to create community and expand culture with the power of music.

For more paid subscriber benefits with my beloved, the brilliant Jon Batiste, see—

• On Failure, an excerpt from our very first ever Studio Visit—where I talked to Jon about taking risks, getting your rejection in, and overcoming the idea of “not good enough”

• Marriage Vows & the Myth of a Good Catch, an installment of my advice column Dear Susu, where Jon helps me answer the question, “Is it selfish to ask someone to marry you if you’re ‘broken’?”

• A Creative Heart-to-Heart, a raw, unfiltered conversation between Jon and me, where we talk about life, the creative process, and how we can marry our sorrows and our joys