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 April 2011

She Wore A Red Dress

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I thought about you for a long time
Can’t seem to get you off my mind
I can’t understand why we’re living life this way
I found your picture today
I swear I’ll change my ways
I just called to say I want you to come back home
I found your picture today
I swear I’ll change my ways
I just called to say I want you to come back home
I just called to say, I love you come back home
Picture– Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow

This Time you can explain/blame some of it on a red dress. A simple red dress that just happens to be worn by the very same woman you are pretending not to love anymore. A simple red dress that she wears with elegance and grace. A simple red dress that looks so good on her you know that she can’t walk through a room without other women silently cursing her.

It is not easy for you to see her from a distance. It is not easy because you feel a connection to her that never disappears. No matter how angry you might have been or how angry you may become with her that connection pulls you back in.

For a long time you sat in silence because you thought that was appropriate and because she gave you no reason to do other than that. You have told her more than once that you would be her hero and that you would storm any castle to rescue her. There are no dragons that you wouldn’t fight nor challenges that you wouldn’t take on for her.

But you cannot do it alone and you know this. You cannot give her the moon unless she is ready and willing to take it. Force of will isn’t enough to make her do what she will not do of her own accord. Though it pains you terribly to accept this you do because it is the only thing that you can do.

For the time being you must continue to play the role of the hero who cannot rescue the damsel in distress. For the time being you must walk a separate path that you hope will one day intersect with hers. For the time being you must continue to dance in the fire because that’s what is required.

But you can take solace and comfort that time is proving that you were right about many things. Right to let her go try to find her smile and to give her space to come back to you. And now if your gut instinct is to be trusted she is slowly taking steps in your direction. So while your instinct is to run towards her you stay planted where you are.

Planted in a place where she can find you and with open arms that will welcome her back to them. And in between it all you can’t help but smile at the mental image you have of that beautiful woman in the red dress. So you close your eyes to block out the outside noise and picture her walking towards you. Long legs, dark eyes and a huge heart stare back at you and you smile broadly.

For the moment that is all that you have, this memory and this picture. It makes you snort and smile, this thought of how very strange life can be. Who knew that a picture of your girl in the red dress could make your heart pound like this.
Yep, this is another post based upon a prompt from the Red Dress Club. It is not a perfect match, but it works for me- more or less.

Give me a memory of the color red. Do not write the word ‘red’ but use words that engender the color red when you hear them. For example: a ruby, a tomato, fire, blood.

Writing has the elegance of mathematics. Try to write economically. A red cherry is redundant. Cherry is enough unless it’s one of the yellow ones from Washington state. Then it’s a yellow cherry. But, otherwise, cherry immediately wakes up the color red in the mind.”

Come back on Tuesday, April 19th and link up your posts.

In the spirit of writing economically, let’s keep this post at 600 or fewer words.

Post Passover Seder Songs

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The scorecard reads 10,982 calories consumed, 10 Plagues recited, 1 Pharoah defeated and a ringing in my ears from children whose laughter and squealing alternated between delightful and %$#&)^(#%YT^ be quiet. So I am sitting here decompressing by listening to music and writing.

And my friends that is my introduction to the mix that my iTunes DJ put forth for me to listen to. As always this is a snapshot of some of what I am listening to.

Girl of the North Country– Joni Mitchell on the Johnny Cash Show
Old Alabama (feat. Alabama)– Brad Paisley
A Country Boy Can Survive– Hank Williams Jr.
Turn The Page– Bob Seger
Mr. Blue Sky– ELO
Eye In The Sky– Alan Parsons Project
The Voice– Celtic Woman
May It Be– Enya

The Easiest Way To Get Comments On Your Blog

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Joining the Community
Joining the Community (Photo credit: Infomastern)

Friends that headline is certified linkbait but the information contained within this post is certified gold.  If you are concerned about comments and want to know how to guarantee that people will comment there is a surefire way to make it happen. Blog about blogging.

Yes, it is that simple. Blog about blogging. Write about how you develop ideas for posts or talk about how you build community and other bloggers will take time to comment and or share their thoughts with you.  Comments are currency and they have value but the question is how much.

In my mind the better question is what happens when you you get your friendly neighborhood blogger to pay a visit. It is nice to get a comment or two but what happens after that. Do they stick around or they surf their way on to their next stop. How long do they spend on your site and how do you retain them. I have lots of thoughts about that. I can provide you with lots of different ideas but this isn’t Jack The Social Media Guru speaking. Nope, this is Jack the grumpy old man who is commenting about comments and communtiy.

And as the resident grumpy old man my comment is that I look for community. That is what I want. That is what I hope to build here…community.

It is happening. Even as we “speak” readers are returning because they like reading the comments that YOU leave. They like seeing what YOU think about the content. Content creates community and community in turn creates content leading to comments.

Pretty nifty stuff.

The Price of Passover

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It is Sunday afternoon and the weather outside is what you could call spectacular. Family is at the park and I watching the children run around in circles. Every so often they come back to the bench and ask if I’ll buy them an ice cream. Since their father is a fine fellow I say, sure just show me the proper way to use Pi R Squared in relationship to the playground. They screw up their faces and tell me that they don’t understand and I ask them to tell me whether Pythagoras had one horn or two. Some guy standing nearby shouts out that Pythagoras wasn’t a dinosaur.

The kids look at me and I tell him that if they don’t close their mouths I’ll be able to see their Isosceles. The big shot 4th grader laughs and says that he doesn’t a triangle in his throat and I say ‘I hope not.” That would have really mucked up my damn weekend. I already told Gini that the weather here is perfect and I want to be able to lord that over her and everyone else who is snowbound. Don’t ask me why because that is just how I roll. Ok, I don’t really roll I sort of strut and when I am feeling saucy I do a little sashay.

Somewhere around 4 PM the dark haired beauty tells me that she really needs ice cream.  I smile and tell her that she is but a padawan and that her jedi mind tricks won’t work on me. So she climbs into my lap, pulls my face to hers and starts kissing my cheek. “I love you daddy- you are the best.” I laugh and tell her that she needs to kiss me five more times, give me 7 hugs and then ask again.

Sure enough the girl follows my instructions and then asks again for ice cream. I look at her, smile and tell her that I love her because she is really smart. She asks for ice cream and I say that I love her because she is smart and really cute. I see fire building in her eyes and before she can bring the big guns out and give me the female look of death she says that I am not being fair. I smile and tell her that I am. She tells me that I never should have asked for the hugs and kisses if I didn’t intend to buy her an ice cream. I smile and tell her that they aren’t considered currency and that while I never get tired of them she can’t get things just by doing that.

She shrugs her shoulders and runs back to the playground to play and I smile. Some victories are simple and others aren’t.

++++++++

Passover approaches far too quickly. I am not ready for it. Just not mentally prepared to really enjoy it. Things are happening here. The tides are a’turning and the whirlpool is fully formed and in full effect. I may be the captain of the ship but it doesn’t mean that I have the same tools/resources to sail the seas as does Poseidon to control them.

Speaking of which, when you find yourself doing battle with a Greek God it is always best to either be a demigod or have the assistance of some powerful entity, like Zeus. It would make the fight much more interesting if I could throw a few lightning bolts at that long haired Trident waving sea monster. But we don’t always get the opportunity to fight the wars on our terms so we do what we can with what we have.

The holiday is supposed to be about freedom and in some ways that is more significant this year than ever before. I am fighting for freedom of a different sort but fighting nonetheless. Sometimes endings are really new beginnings- but I wonder what the price of Passover will be.

Breaking News: TheJackB Left off 50 Most Influential Rabbis List….Again

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On the eve of Pesach (Passover) I was horrified to learn that yet again I have been left off of the list of the 50 most influential rabbis in America. Ignore the obvious fact that I have yet to become a rabbi. I have blogged about it on a few occasions. And of course my son and I have discussed whether I am smarter than a rabbi.

One of these days we’ll revisit the topic and I’ll update you on whether I still have interest and or intent on going down this path but today is not that day. Today we’ll provide a link to last years post on this topic and clarify that I really don’t take any of this any more seriously than the degree to which I take dad blogger popularity contests seriously.

Stay tuned folks, more to come.

Dad Blogger Link Bait- The List You Wish You Were On

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Dare To BeIt is well past the witching hour and I haven’t yet sent out my usual tweet about Twitter Vampires. Rumor has it that some of the dads that attended Mom 2.0 are still out trolling bars and or roaming the 9th ward. The bigger rumor is that there is going to be another attempt to put together a dad blogger convention of some sort. Don’t know why but this all makes me think of  The Devil Went Down To Georgia.

The devil went down to Georgia, he was looking for a soul to steal.
He was in a bind ‘cos he was way behind: he was willin’ to make a deal.
When he came across this young man sawin’ on a fiddle and playin’ it hot.
And the devil jumped upon a hickory stump and said: “Boy let me tell you what:
“I bet you didn’t know it, but I’m a fiddle player too.
“And if you’d care to take a dare, I’ll make a bet with you.
“Now you play a pretty good fiddle, boy, but give the devil his due:
“I bet a fiddle of gold against your soul, ‘cos I think I’m better than you.”
The boy said: “My name’s Johnny and it might be a sin,
“But I’ll take your bet, your gonna regret, ‘cos I’m the best that’s ever been.”

Now I won’t ask how many of you started singing and or dancing along to that song because everyone knows that a true dad blogger is a sucker for such things. Just as most of us as are suckers for lists. If it wasn’t so damn late and I didn’t feel so damn lazy I would link to Dadcentric and Backpacking Dad’s lists- you know that ones about the best and sexiest dad bloggers.

Those were solid responses to the Top 25 dad blogger contest being run by Circle of Moms. You know the same contest where they had to announce that someone or “ones” had used technology to rig the voting. Yep, someone was so intent at winning a meaningless popularity contest they tried to cheat their way to victory. I guess that they must be Patriot fans, you know that whole spygate thing.

Anyway I signed up for the same contest and for a short time even had a badge/link on my sidebar. I did it because I figured that it couldn’t hurt to find another way to try and promote the blog. Figured that more exposure would be good and that I could use that to continue to build things around here.

And then I got tired of giving up that much space to a contest like that. Got tired of it because I heard through the grapevine that a few bloggers were talking crap about me. They hadn’t heard of me and assumed that I was new. Got irritated because I have been blogging  for far longer- not to mention that their oldest kid is in diapers and I have one heading towards middle school.

So I decided that unless we could meet in person and use a ruler to prove who has a bigger penis there was no point in engaging in a silly pissing contest. Did I mention that in high school they called me tripod? It is because I carried a camera everywhere. Really, get your damn minds out of the gutter.

But what it really did was serve as a reminder of a bunch of things:

1) Life is really freaking complicated right now. If I removed all boundaries from my blogging I would write a tale that would make heads spin. Some of you would cry and offer help and others would try to rouse the rest of the villagers and burn down my castle. Complicated contradictions I tell you.

2) These complicated contradictions are wearing me out. There are moments where I feel like I have an anaconda coiled around my waist, a tiger taking swipes at my head and a horde of angry gnomes attacking me. And then there are times where I laugh because my left hand has the snake by the throat and the sword in my right hand is handily holding off the tiger and gnomes.

3) I love blogging and the stupidity of caring about this sort of nonsense destroys that love. My best writing comes from not giving a damn about the readers. My best writing comes from sharing stories about parenting and telling tales that could be part of the books that I want to write. My best writing comes from sharing my tragedies and triumphs without regard for anything but the truth as I see it.

That truth as I see it is important. The people who are part of some of these stories might disagree with what I have written. Their recollection might differ from mine and I am ok with that. This is not a scholarly work or a historical document that is going to change the world if it is inaccurate in places. It is a blog. It is a collections of thoughts, feelings and ideas.

Two days ago I told my son that I don’t care what most people think of me. I told him that there is a short list of people who have influence upon my self esteem. If you aren’t on that list than I am unlikely to be interested in whether you like or dislike me. It doesn’t mean that I don’t prefer that people like me. Life is better that way. People who like you are more likely to work with you and that is important.

But I am not going to change my style or engage in shenanigans that aren’t things I would do anyway. I am still going to write about beating up Santa and turning the Easter Bunny into rabbit stew. I am still going to share stories about hard questions that my daughter/son ask and write fiction. I am going to ramble and post more frequently than six bloggers put together because that is how I like to do it.

And with that I am going to end this walk through the weeds.