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

Archives for August 2010

Twitter and Time

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Here are the Cliff Notes for the audio post here. I am taking a hard look at the number of "social media" platforms that I am using. They include a Twitter account, several blogs and Facebook. So the question that I ask myself is whether these things are adding value to my life or serving a role as a "time suck."

The short and unofficial answer to that question is that the main blog is something that I truly love. Writing is a passion and I can't imagine life without it. Twitter doesn't take up much time so I think that for now I will continue using it. Facebook is a mixed bag for me. I have found a number of professional uses for it and been relatively pleased with how it has enabled me to reconnect with some old friends. More on this later.

Let's focus on Twitter again. I have noticed that there are quite a few people who have an enormous number of followers and it raises a number of questions for me. If the purpose of Twitter is to engage with others the law of diminishing returns has to apply here. The more followers you have the harder it becomes to engage with a large portion of them. I suppose that if you are a business or celebrity you might argue that it provides you with a platform for communicating with customers/fans and that there is value in that.

But I am also left wondering how big an influence you really have on your followers. If you ask them to do something will they really do it. If you have 10,000 followers and less than 2% respond to call to action are you really making a difference. Or are you just adding to the existing noise and confusion.

What do you think?

Posted via email from thejackb’s posterous

Is It Plagiarism or Love

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Someone has been digging/crawling through my archives for several weeks. When I look at my stats I routinely see something similar to the clip in this picture. Based upon some past experiences this sort of behavior sets of a red flag in my mind as my work has been plagiarized more than once. On two separate occasions I have "found" the blogs where my content has been 'repurposed' and had them shut down.

Now it is entirely possible that there is nothing to be concerned about and I am seeing nothing but the trail of a "fan." I sometimes stumble across blogs that I love and spend time going through the archives. Sometimes I do it because I find the content transfixes me and sometimes I do it because as a writer I appreciate the work of other writers. But I just have this nagging feeling about this one, something feels off to me. So dear reader if you are a real fan then please accept my thanks and know that I am appreciative of your time because you clearly have spent hours reading my work.

Also know that I am very aggressive in protecting my content and if I determine that less honorable actions are taking place I will respond accordingly. These words are a bit like my children and since you have read so much of my content you understand just how seriously I take protecting them.

On a side note I am available for guest posts and free lance writing gigs. If you have any questions please contact me at talktojacknow-at-gmail-dot-com.

Posted via email from thejackb’s posterous

Invisible People

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Friday morning, sunshine fills my room- got a cup of coffee in one hand and my hat is cocked across my head at a jaunty angle. Stevie Wonder’s I Was Made To Love Her is on iTunes and I am wide awake. Here in my home office I am about to tell you a tale of wonder and magic called Invisible People.

Invisibility is something that a lot of people dream about. On a list of prospective superpowers it is probably just a few notches below the ability to fly or super strength. It would be cool to be invisible or so a lot of people think. It certainly catches my eye, I could do a lot with it.

But the funny thing about invisibility is that it already exists or should I say that there are lots of people who have mastered invisibility. You probably have passed a bunch and not even realized it. The thing is that you probably don’t recognize them as being invisible in the superpower sense because they aren’t.

We have lots of different names for them some nice and some not so nice. In this post we’ll just call them homeless. They are all over the place. Some of them live in the bushes off on the side of the road or under a freeway overpass. Others live in their cars or roam from one cheap motel to another.

The ones that don’t have real shelter and spend their days exposed to the weather do the best job of staying invisible. Most of us don’t want to look at them. Some times it is because we blame them for their situation. We think that they most of squandered opportunities to earn a living and live in an apartment or house. We think that they drank or smoked their life away and because they can’t control themselves they ended up on the street. We might even feel badly about it. We might even want to help but fear to because we don’t want to contribute to their habit.

Whatever the reason is it doesn’t matter because they are invisible to us. As a father I look at my children and think about their futures. It is horrifying to think that one day my kids could be that man or woman at the side of the road. I would feel like I had failed them.

But I can’t worry about that now. It is too far down the road. Now I have to be concerned with teaching them many things, not the least of which is to remember that the invisible people are humans and that we have an obligation to try to help. We have a social responsibility to try to find a way to help those who have fallen down.

I can teach the kids all of the reasons why Judaism obligates us to help. I can cite chapter and verse but that is too easy and too simple. I don’t want them to view this under the “G-d wants us to do this” mantle. I don’t want that because it is too easy to externalize the reasons why. I want them to internalize it.

I want them to do it because it is the right thing to do. I want them to do it because when we help others we make the world a better place. I want them to do it because of the lessons it teaches and because of the rewards it offers.

I want them to do it because it helps to reinforce the humanity of people. I am not a pacifist. I believe that sometimes force is necessary and that when it is you unleash hell upon those you go to war with. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t remember that somewhere a mother cries over the bodies of her children.

It is a terrible contradiction but we live in a world full of contradictions. And one of those is that in a country that offers incredible opportunities there are millions of invisible people fighting to be seen. So here is my reminder to myself and whomever else is interested that it is time to help the invisible rejoin the rest of us in the sunlight.

I Once Had a Girl

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“I once had a girl, or should I say, she once had me.” Norwegian Wood- The Beatles

Though I know better I can no longer remember a time when you weren’t a part of me. Those days are gone forever. Now I know what it is like to have been loved by an angel and to have loved her in return. I know what it means to love someone with a depth and fierceness to it that exceeds description and defies expectations.

You weren’t the first woman that I had loved. There were others. I had drunk from that particular cup and swallowed deeply from the draughts I was given. And I knew what heartbreak was. I knew what it meant to have loved and lost. So I thought that I was protected by life experience. I thought if I ever lost you that my knowledge and experience would be enough to get me through.

And then I learned that I really knew nothing about any of it. I learned that though I had been in love it had never been so pure, so raw and so honest. I learned that nothing I knew mattered because you shattered my expectations on every level. You were like the perfect storm that blew in and surrounded my ship.

For a long while I sailed nestled in your bosom in the eye of the storm, safe from the madness. Though I could sometimes hear the howling of the wind and the roar of the waves I was protected from all of it. I lay there in your embrace and marveled over your imperfect perfection. In my eyes you were simply magnificent.

But in arrogance and stupidity I somehow lost you and was tossed right into the heart of the storm. A storm that I am still sailing through. Every day is a battle to keep the ship from being thrown into the rocks. And there have been more than a few moments in which I wondered why I couldn’t just let go.

It seemed so simple. Let go of the wheel and let the sea take me. Let the elements have me and if that meant being dashed against the rocks, well so be it. But that isn’t who I am. That is not what I am about. I endure and I sustain. And I suspect that you have always known that about me.

Known that you could throw me in the fire and I would dance in the flames. Known that no matter what challenges were presented I would go after them with a passion. Can’t help that. In part it is who I am and in part it is because even now you still inspire me. Even now I want to be your hero. And that drives me to reach down deep and find the places where strength that I didn’t know I had exists.

I do it because of who I am and who I hope we can be. Because yes, I see you standing there in the distance. I hear you say goodbye but you don’t mean it. I read between the lines and see the truth of your heart and I recognize the S.O.S. it sends to mine.

There is no disguising that. No way to ignore or pretend that it doesn’t exist. The connection is too deep and too strong to be broken this way. And really, would you expect me to pretend that it was just a dream. Would you really feel better if I shrugged my shoulders and accepted that all we got was a few minutes in Eden.

This I cannot accept nor can I do. I may be a fool, but whether you know it or not I am your fool. And I will storm the gates time and again. I will fling myself into the breach until I die from exhaustion or am convinced that there truly is no hope.

For I promised you all of this and more. I swore a vow that I cannot ignore and sealed it with a kiss that I cannot forget. So I call on the demons and the devil himself to remove themselves from my path. I give notice to all who would challenge me. At the end of the day I will be the sole being standing on this road.

Call that hyperbole or melodrama if you wish but this is how it shall be. I shall do my penance and serve my time.