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The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

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Archives for September 2008

Man Goes to Court After Butt Stapled Shut

September 25, 2008 by Jack Steiner Leave a Comment

This story is too bizarre to pass up.

“BALTIMORE – A West Virginia man is suing a Frederick County, Md., doctor for allegedly stapling his rectum shut during an operation, preventing the patient from defecating for 17 days,”

For more on the story please click here.

On a side note I cannot help but wonder how long the man waited before going to see his doctor about this. Something about this story stinks. My apologies for providing this sort of crap for you to read.

Filed Under: Bathroom Stuff, People

Why Me? Rosh Hashanah Thoughts

September 24, 2008 by Jack Steiner Leave a Comment

Why Me? Why Me. Why me!

Language is ever so interesting to me. Words can do so much to communicate thoughts and feelings. All it takes is a bit of effort to craft a sentence that let’s the reader know what is on your mind. When you phrase it like that it sounds ever so easy.

All…It…Takes…Is…A…Little…Effort.

As if the failure to properly express yourself can be attributed to your not trying hard enough. I try. I try really hard. I won’t lie and say that I do every time because I don’t. I am lucky in that I can usually get by with less. But that can be attributed to years of practice and some sort of natural ability.

Don’t get me wrong, there are many others out there who are much finer writers than myself. I know and accept that. The trick is trying to outwork the others. The rub is knowing that with a little hard work I can improve. The question is merely whether I am willing to put in the extra effort.

All of this is a long winded preface to some thoughts about the coming new year. Before I jump into it I am going to link to some prior posts on or related to the topic. It is a silly trick I use to give myself a moment to consider what I am about to write.

The Impact of My Actions
Unetanah tokef
Yom Kippur- Besheret- Judgment & More
Another Day, Another Funeral- It is Elul
The New Year
Rosh Hashanah Thoughts

Free association posts are among my favorites. Hint for those who do not follow, I am still considering what I want to say. So I’ll do what I do best and just dive into this.

This time of year always leaves me unsettled. Life feels like a contradiction. I feel comfortable with myself and completely at a loss. I look in the mirror and ask if I am the person I should be. If I say no I tell myself I am being too hard and if I say yes I ask why I must live in denial.

There is no right answer, I cannot win because I am my own biggest critic. As a compromise I remind myself that I am imperfect and that my father is right, all you can do is your best. Well, I am doing my best, but in some areas it hasn’t been good enough.

Some people tell me not to worry, that I am part of a bigger plan, but I have problems with ambiguous remarks like that. They make you feel good because you can sigh and just live because G-d will take care of you. The problem is that I see too many things that make no sense.

Blog friends who have lost children, family friends who have died far too young and my own share of friends who have been taken well before their time.

Don’t tell me that G-d has a plan. I can’t go to a bereaved parent and tell them that it is going to be ok. When we buried ‘D’ I shook with anger. In between the time he died and the birth of my children I struggled to accept that there was any sort of higher power.

‘D’ was amazing. He was someone who lived life with a purpose. He was a scientist who had incredible ideas about how we could change things and improve life for everyone. He was going to make a difference in the world. He would have changed things and now he is dead, ten years in the ground.

What sort of plan takes him away and lets the BTK maniac run around. It makes no sense to me whatsoever. I can accept free will. I can accept a world in which we are granted the opportunity to be good, or evil or anywhere in between.

But a plan, nah, that I cannot do.

I can look in the mirror and yell about all the things that are unfair in life. I can cry because it seems that everyone else seems to get that brass ring. They get to lead the life that I want. I can look at them and say that it is clear that they are so much happier than I am. I can point and say that once again I am stuck on the outside looking in.

Except that when I talk to friends who are leading these amazing lives most tell me that they are not so amazing. There is always something that is serving as the fly in their ointment. So maybe I can be content in knowing that we all have our struggles, or maybe not.

I suppose that part of what I find so unsettling about this time of year is that I can give a long list of people who have died. It is probably no different from any other time of year, but still it affects me.

“On Rosh Hashanah it is inscribed,

And on Yom Kippur it is sealed.

How many shall pass away and how many shall be born,

Who shall live and who shall die,

Who shall reach the end of his days and who shall not,

Who shall perish by water and who by fire,

Who by sword and who by wild beast,

Who by famine and who by thirst,

Who by earthquake and who by plague,

Who by strangulation and who by stoning,

Who shall have rest and who shall wander,

Who shall be at peace and who shall be pursued,

Who shall be at rest and who shall be tormented,

Who shall be exalted and who shall be brought low,

Who shall become rich and who shall be impoverished.

But repentance, prayer and righteousness avert the severe decree.”

In the end I come back to the same place year after year. It doesn’t serve any purpose to argue about whether we should be good because G-d tells us too. I still believe that you do not have to have religion to be a moral and ethical person.

I try to live that way because it is the right thing to do, not because I may be rewarded. I try to live that way because life is better when we are nice to each other. It is simplistic and a bit self righteous, but it works for me.

And in the end we all have to figure out how to live in a manner that works for us as individuals and collectively.

Filed Under: Judaism, Things About Jack

A Round Up of Recent Posts

September 24, 2008 by Jack Steiner Leave a Comment

It has been a while since I provided a roundup of recent posts so I have decided to rectify that with this short synopsis. If you haven’t been around in a while here is what you have missed.

There is Water in My Ear
Shopping Carts and Fire Trucks
How Many Somedays Do We Get
HH 183- Lost But Found Again
His Ass Burst Right Into Flames
When I Grow Up
Advertising on The Blog
I Talk In My Sleep

And now for your blast from the past:

Suha Arafat Wants To Share Her Wealth With Me
Charlie’s Angels- Child of the ’70s
On the Outside Looking In

Filed Under: Shack Roundup

There is Water in My Ear

September 23, 2008 by Jack Steiner Leave a Comment

There is water in my left ear, courtesy of my shower. If you ever wondered if I had anything between my ears this water is proof that I do. It won’t come out. I hear it swirling around back and forth.

It is making me crazy, this water in my ear. I tried to expel it by leaning to the left. After five minutes I began to worry that the cramp in my neck would never go away. David Blaine gets paid for performance art, like hanging upside down.

I don’t, I just get irritated. Tried shaking my head, but aside from making rattling noises not much happened.

Pinched my nostrils shut and blew. Cleared out the right ear, but the left is still clogged with this infernal liquid. It makes me want to say Y$&***U#$*$%&*$#$. Oops, I just said #^&#&Y#^. Damn, did it again.

Reminds me of Macbeth, “Out damned spot.”

Tried jumping up and down, but no luck. Heading out to take care of some business. With any luck this crap will be over soon. Ugh.

Filed Under: Things About Jack

Shopping Carts and Fire Trucks

September 22, 2008 by Jack Steiner Leave a Comment

Kmart Shopping Cart

If you will, picture me muttering “Shopping Carts and Fire Trucks” to myself. I am sitting in front of a grand piano with a pad of a paper that is adorned with what looks like song lyrics. I can’t help it, “Shopping Carts and Fire Trucks” sounds like it should be part of some cheesy song lyric about childhood.

Or if you want to run with an entirely different image you can visualize me in a basement standing in front of four other men. We all have long hair and are wearing t-shirts with the name of heavy-metal bands upon them. Yes, I am trying to convince the lads that “Shopping Carts and Fire Trucks” is the name of our band, the one that is going to make us famous millionaires.

Truth is that when I came up with the title for this post I hadn’t had any intention of taking it in either one of those directions. Nope, the real impetus comes from the trip I just made to the grocery store and a basic observation about society.

You don’t have to try real hard to find stories about the disintegration of the moral fabric of society. All around us the talking heads are issuing proclamations about bad things are today and how good they used to be.

Well, I am not going to get into a discussion of whether morality is failing, but I will say that courtesy is crumbling and “Shopping Carts and Fire Trucks” are a perfect example of that. Take a walk with me and I’ll try to provide you with a clear explanation of what I am talking about.

When I think about my childhood I cannot help but remember how bored I used to get when I was forced to accompany my parents on the weekly errands. There were trips to Sears, Builder’s Emporium and the good old grocery store. Since I have always loved food I usually preferred the grocery store to the others. It was the one place that I was always certain of finding something that I wanted my parents to buy.

Each week my siblings and I would wander the aisles and try to pack the cart full of stuff we wanted. In a different post I may have to share a few tales about this with you, but for now let’s focus upon what would happen when we checked out of the store.

Mom and dad would pay for our groceries and we’d all fall into line and head back to the old station wagon. My dad and I would load the groceries and then we’d return the cart to the front of the store or at least place it inside one of the shoppping cart stables that are equipped throughout the parking lot.

That wasn’t unusual. Almost everyone did it.

But around 20 years or so ago I noticed that began to change. People stopped returning the carts and just left them stranded throughout the parking lot. If you were lucky they tried to keep them from infringing upon the parking spaces, but there wasn’t any guarantee of that. And after a while some people just gave up and left the cart wherever they were.

Now it seems unusual to see people return their carts. It is a pet peeve of mine so I try to be certain that I do it every time, but I am ashamed to say that I know that upon occasion I have slacked off.

This is just a complete lack of regard for others. I don’t know how else to phrase it. But if that is not enough let’s talk about fire trucks.

When we learned how to drive we were all instructed in how to respond to emergency vehicles. When you saw a fire truck/ambulance you pulled over to the side of the road and let them pass. It didn’t matter what direction they were heading in, you just pulled over and waited for them to pass.

It is another courtesy that I see people ignoring. I can’t count the number of times where I have watched as other drivers just continue driving. Now granted some of them are unaware of the emergency vehicles and they just keep going. If I only saw the occasional vehicle doing this I wouldn’t think anything of it, but that is not what I see.

Far too often I see people just continue driving and I can’t help but wonder if they haven’t any regard for others. Presumably those trucks are racing to help people out who could very well be in a life or death situation. Presumably it could be a situation in which an additional minute could be catastrophic.

If for no other reason I get out of the way of those trucks because I like to think that others would do the same for me. I may not always be the most courteous man or be as good as I should be, but the effort is made.

But society is changing and this is not positive. We spend more time living in our electronic bubbles expecting instant gratification. Want to see more examples of the disintegration of courtesy just watch what happens in places where there are lines, such as the bank.

Far too many people think that they are more important than others…

Ok, enough of this. Mondays are hard enough without bitching all the time. I think that I liked this post better when I was fantasing about writing music or forming a rock band.

Filed Under: Life, People, Random Thoughts

How Many Somedays Do We Get

September 22, 2008 by Jack Steiner Leave a Comment

(Playing in the background Moodswings– Chryssie Hynde)

Quite a bit of my childhood was filled with being told by my parents that I would be able to do that someday. I don’t have to close my eyes to hear it, all I have to do is think about it.

“Dad, when I am going to be able to drive?”
“Mom, when can I make my own bedtime?”
“Mom, when will I be old enough to eat ice cream for dinner?”

“Someday.” Someday was always part of the answer. Sometimes someday was accompanied by more specific directions such as being told that I’d be able to drive at 16. That was followed up by “and someday you’ll have your own car.”

Nice parenting trick that I use on my own children. Couch specifics alongside a nonspecific answer.

But this post is about more than my childhood. In fact it really is more about the current moment in time and the issues that I am dealing with now. Most are no different than millions of other people. Most of them are nothing more than the normal challenges we all go through with the sole difference being that they are mine.

(Playing in the background Just Another Day- Oingo Boingo)

They are mine. They are mine and that makes all the difference. I can be sympathetic to the problems of others. I can always say that someone’s life is harder than mine, but that only works so well. I am not living their life, I am living mine.

And because I am living mine I have to look at what I am doing and figure out if I am pleased with where I am going. I don’t come up with posts like Do You Live Your Dreams? for the purpose of generating comments. Sure, I want them, but this is still a blog in which I try to figure out what it all means.

When I was twenty it was easy to look into the future and see a million somedays coming down the pike. Now it is a bit harder. Now I stand this much closer to turning 40 and I find myself struggling with it. Intellectually I see it as just another birthday. The mental image I carry around of myself is that 20 year-old kid. The guy who wore a flat top and had six pack abs.

(Playing in the background Just The Two of Us – Bill Withers)

The truth is that I am probably happier than that guy was, but then again I know so much more now. Now I have seen more than one friend die and watched as a number of my parent’s friends have also succumbed to early deaths. Happy talk, I know. But the guy who lives in the Shack has a dark side that hangs out with the happy-go-lucky dude. And somewhere the two turn into what I like to think is a realist with a strong touch of dreamer.

That brings it all back to the initial question of how many somedays do we get and what do we do to maximize those somedays. Not to mention is what do we owe our families in respect to our own happiness.

(Playing in the background Summerwind– Frank Sinatra)

Sinatra is appropriate for this moment, if for no other reason than it makes me feel like there all sorts of possibilities. Maybe that is just because that is what summer is to me, a season of potential. But I digress.

I have been focusing on my dreams because I feel time slipping away. Even though I truly believe that I’ll live for another 90 years I still think to myself, what if. What if I don’t. What happens if I die tomorrow. What happens if I get hit by a bus, develop a terminal disease or are marooned on a desert island. (Guess who is not going on a three hour cruise.)

And so I find myself wrestling with a number of issues. Here I sit staring at the monitor wondering what to type, how honest to be. In spite of what some people think. I really don’t live in denial. I have a very clear idea of who I am. I know my strengths and weaknesses. But even knowing these things it can be hard to read them. Even knowing them, it is not easy to see the shortcomings listed in print.

Who wants to read all that crap about themselves anyway.

Which brings me to the place where I get lost in thought about all this nonsense. Here is what I know and what I am willing to share with you. I have a lot of things to be thankful. My life is pretty damn good, but it is not what I want it to be. There are a few key areas that I need to focus upon, a few key areas that require my personal attention.

I have written in the past about the things that I fear and I have decided that I have a few things to add. For now I’ll keep the specifics to myself, but Bobbo, I will say this much. I have a serious fear of finding myself looking back on my life with regrets. Not ordinary regret, but that caused by being stationary.

When the time comes I want to say that I did my best to make the most out of my somedays. I want to say that I may not have always succeeded, but I tried. Damn it, if I can’t say that I tried well then I really did fail.

So until I am granted the ability to know how many somedays we get I suppose I’ll have to keep trying to make the most out of each one.

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Filed Under: Life, Random Thoughts

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