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 June 2011

He Taught Me How To Be A Father

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Dear Abba,

It is 1 AM and I am back at the computer. If your grandchildren saw my face they would recognize that I am in that place we go to when we are fully engrossed in a project and don’t want to be disturbed. Lately circumstances have forced me to spend far too much time working and it feels a bit like all they see is the “do not disturb” look. Everyone knows that interrupting me when I am in this place is not recommended and you dear abba are responsible for that.

I don’t fault you for it because I know where it comes from. This is our “game face” and it is the one that we put on when we are working hard to take care of the family. It comes from the right place and I can’t fault you for that. I never questioned your devotion or your love for us. My siblings and I always knew that anyone who messed with us would have to deal with you. Today they would say that we always knew that you “had our backs” and that helped make for very confident children. We all had our struggles and challenges but we always knew that you and mom were there for us.

When people asked how we developed such fierce loyalty for each other I point to that.  It is one of many examples that I can point out.

So here I sit at the computer with my eyes closed, headphones filling my ears with music and a parade of images floating through my mind’s eye.  I see you as you were when I was in grade school. A full head of hair, tall and so very strong. I remember what it was like to wrestle with you. I remember throwing my ten year-old self at you with all I had and how easily you handled me. I remember being frustrated by it. At school I was always one of the strongest boys but it never mattered because you were always stronger.

I remember how my sisters would fight with me and how sometimes they would magically start crying when you showed up. Seconds before they were yelling at me and now they were sobbing and that glare would find me. I remember trying not to wilt under it. I remember protesting my innocence and the lectures. I remember you telling me that it was my job to protect them and I did.

Ask them and they’ll tell you stories about how I chased away the boys. They’ll tell you that I had too much fun running them off and they are right. I am a big brother, it is what we do.

Now your grandson yells about how unfair it is that his little sister doesn’t start crying until I show up and sometimes I fight not to smile. You knew back then what they were doing just as I know now.

Abba, there is a lot more to be said. I had wanted to incorporate I Call Him Dad into This but I ran out of time. So we’ll leave this as it stands for now and maybe I’ll revisit it later.

Happy Father’s Day.

Why Is Daddy Crying

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LoVE Dot. Dot .dot .I don’t suffer from Writer’s Block…ever. Words are my friends and family. Really, the words that I write here are often effortless and shared with ease. Most of the time the quality of my work is solid but it would be untrue for me to say that it never falls short of the mark. But since I like to use the blog as a cyber sandbox I rarely edit or modify these posts.

Some might say that is a mistake, especially since the blog has led to many freelance writing jobs. Some might say that I tarnish my reputation and damage my online resume by not taking care to cull the weaker posts from the field. But I don’t work that way. I don’t hide my blemishes from me which means that I don’t hide them from you. Those posts help me strengthen and improve my skills so I prefer to keep them where they are easily accessible. Besides it feels more authentic to me.

It is also tied into why I sometimes like to dig through the archives here. Seven years of posting has provided a treasure chest of material to read. Some of it is quite good and some of it is awful, dreadfully bad. Today I find myself revisiting the topic of men and emotions- more specifically whether men cry or not.

Earlier this week the dark haired beauty wandered into my bedroom and was shocked by what she thought she saw. I had just using some eye drops and had accidentally squeezed too hard on the bottle sending a stream of it rushing down my cheeks. Since she walked in prior to my wiping my face she grew quite concerned and asked me why I was crying. I assured her that I wasn’t crying but she decided that I was lying about it and told me not to be embarrassed.

She hasn’t ever read The Tears That Do not Fall so she is unfamiliar with that story. Maybe she remembered the conversation we had here or maybe not. I can say that some things have changed there somewhat, but not so much that she didn’t press me on this.

I looked down at her and thanked for her concern and received a very stern lecture about being honest. I suppose that it wasn’t fair of me, but I couldn’t help laughing. She was very sweet and I am more than appreciative of her concern about my welfare. So I thanked her again and told her not to worry. Moments later I heard her whispering to her brother, “daddy’s crying.” And then I learned that in his old age he is becoming far more clever as he made a point to tell her to close the door so that I couldn’t hear them speaking.

For a moment I remained seated on my bed and then I decided that I wanted to know more about their discussion. Slowly I tiptoed over towards the bedroom door only to hear my son say, ” we can hear you dad.”

Damn, the little man has learned more of my tricks than I had realized. That is the sort of thing that makes you smile with pride and grimace with frustration. I am not an eavesdropper. I don’t go snooping around but I do pay attention to what they do/say. I am dad and that is part of my job. Really, if I emailed you the job description you would see it listed there.

But I do wonder about this a bit. I am not a ‘cryer.’ It is not something that people see with me. I get sad and upset like everyone else. I just don’t shed tears easily. But what I wonder a bit is what sort of impact that has on the children, especially my son. I am very affectionate with them. I don’t run around telling him to ‘man up’ or try to make crying seem weak.  But then again there have been times where I told him that life isn’t fair and to just ‘suck it up.’ So I wonder if I am sending mixed messages. My gut says no, but sometimes I am wrong.

Of course that is rare and infrequent, but it does happen every now and then.  I wonder though what would happen if they saw me cry. Would it scare them because it is so out of character or would they just take it in stride. Have to think about it a bit.

Fire On The Mountain

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Something beautiful has broken and now I reap the rewards of the consequences of decisions I have made and the political maneuvers of others. I stand here staring out the window with my lips curled into a snarl and right hand squeezing the life out of a rubber ball. Inside my head I hear the roar of the freight train that rumbles towards me and find myself standing in the middle of the tracks daring it to hit me. It is not suicide that propels me onto the tracks but rage.

I burn and I ache but I remain defiant…obstinate and unwilling to just go away. The point and purpose of my actions aren’t clear to you and I don’t care. I don’t report to you. I don’t owe you explanations or any sort of words. When it got hard you left and made it clear that I had no reason to rely upon your return.

So I don’t and I won’t. I am alone on this road and dammit I am kind of happy about it. Everything went to hell and I went with it.  Better to be angry and bitter than an empty, hollow shell of a man. Anger fuels my fire and any time I feel it begin to cool I think upon what once was and remember what isn’t.

The fire that burns within won’t let me quit nor will it allow me to relax. Rage consumes my core and creates a careless condition. Better I should be alone than near anyone. Better to be left to myself and my thoughts for now is the time when I would wield my words like a barbarian wields his sword. I offer no quarter and suffer no fools.

I shall ache and burn until I do so no longer. That is not gibberish or exaggeration. It simply is fact.

An Example of A Bad Post

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A reader asked me to share a sample of a bad post with them. Since I try never to let my readers down I present to you the mess below in the block quotes. It reminds me a bit of a bag that has been stuffed full of too many objects and is on the verge of splitting open at the seams.  Comments to follow.

 

This Father’s Day is likely to be memorable for me but not necessarily for the right reasons. It happens to fall during a challenging time for me.  That is not much of a surprise. I have been writing about it in very general terms for some time now. The general terms are used because there are boundaries in blogging- lines that we need to think carefully of before we cross. This is not a private blog nor a private post. It can be read by anyone.

There is that insouciant part of me that rolls his eyes at all of this and says “who cares.” His twin the angry man doesn’t care either asking what difference does it make. But there is hesitation and that’s enough for now. I suspect that I’ll share more details later, but I am not ready…yet.

So my friends if I told you that I was writing a book, would you buy it? Would my request be enough or do I need to provide you with details? Would it make a difference if the price were $5 bucks or less.

As I write this post there is a conversation on Twitter regarding which superhero we would be. There is a debate between Superman and Captain Marvel with a sprinkle of Wolverine and Captain America. For a moment it is a nice distraction but that doesn’t last long. Too much is going on far too fast and yet so slowly I am feeling crazed.

If I wrote a book I would probably weave together posts from Fragments of Fiction like:

  1. Echoes of The Future
  2. He Put A Gun To My Head
  3. A Beginning
  4. Timing
  5. The Almost Warrior
  6. A Burning Anger- Georgie
  7. A 21st Century Break Up
  8. Lightning Strikes Twice
  9. Dancing In The Fire
  10. Jericho

Or I might go a different direction and focus upon blogging and business. It might be based upon things like:

Maybe it will be a combination of all of those things and maybe it will be none of those things.

There are several simple solutions for fixing the problems created by this mess:

  1. 1) The obvious one is to select all and then click delete. Simply “nuke it” and start over. It is a quick and easy way to correct things.
  2. 2) Take a few minutes and break that bad boy up into bite size pieces. Once you do that you can trim some of the fat off and sew it back together.
  3. 3) Review the three things a story needs and then modify to fit. Those three things are beginning, middle and end.

I don’t have one standard response but it is worth mentioning that I save all of my drafts. I find them to be very useful. It is not unusual for me to pull out sections and use them in new posts. I also find drafts to be a good tool for devising ideas for new posts. More thoughts about this in a post to come later.

Great Headlines Are Overrated

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Hi everybody, headline goes here please
Hi everybody, headline goes here please (Photo credit: reinvented)

The blogosphere has an overabundance of advice on how to become a better blogger and even more superfluity on how to make money. A recent study by the Fouker Institute found that there are 987,032 posts that say that it is very important and or critical for bloggers to use great headlines.  Let’s repeat that, 987,032 posts state that great headlines are a key element in the success of your blog.

That is among the greatest lies and or exaggerations ever uttered.  It is almost as egregious as referring to LeBron James as a basketball superstar. LeBron is an all-star and among the finest players in the game, but he is not a superstar. And the fact is that great headlines are overrated.

I could provide you with a list of reasons why they are overrated and or 1000 words- but in this case I am going to rely upon one word: Retention.

More specifically we are talking about reader retention. A great headline might bring some eyeballs over to the blog but it isn’t going to be the thing to make them stay Great headlines aren’t going to create great content or build community. And without retention a great headline is just an exercise in creativity.

If you like you can equate this to the business world. Retail store XYZ does a fantastic job of generating foot traffic. Lots of people wander in and look around but almost no one buys their products/services and once they are gone they never return. I  can’t speak for you, but at TheJackB I want to build a community that is invested, engaged and welcoming. I’ll take fewer readers with higher engagement over many readers and no engagement.

Great headlines are nice, but without great content they are just fluff and consequently overrated.

Wednesday Wrapup

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It is a crazy morning here so I haven’t had time to respond to comments or update the blog.  But I can provide you with links to recent posts that are worth reading:

And if that isn’t enough reading here is a little bit more fun:

New material coming soon.