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 February 2012

Sunday Afternoon Songfest

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A quick snapshot of what I am listening to today as delivered by the shuffle function on Google Music.

  1. In The End– Linkin Park
  2. Mordred’s Lullaby-Heather Dale
  3. Back In The Saddle Again- Gene Autry
  4. Raiders Of  The Lost Ark– John Williams
  5. Mrs. Robinson– Simon & Garfunkel
  6. Who’ll Stop The Rain– CCR
  7. What Would I Do Without You– Ray Charles
  8. Wait– The Beatles
  9. I Am A Rock-Simon & Garfunkel
  10. Roadhouse Blues– The Doors
  11. My Whole World Ended (The Moment You Left Me)– David Ruffin
  12. Tight Rope– Leon Russell
  13. All That Heaven Will Allow– Bruce Springsteen
  14. No Time– The Guess Who
  15. Into The Ocean– Blue October
  16. You’re My Best Friend– Queen
  17. Brilliant Disguise– Bruce Springsteen
  18. Everlasting Love- Carl Carlton
  19. Margaritaville– Jimmy Buffett
  20. Life is Beautiful– Sixx AM
  21. Happy Jack– The Who
  22. As Long As You Follow– Fleetwood Mac
  23. Hold on Loosely– .38 Special
  24. Ain’t That Love- Ray Charles
  25. Love Rollercoaster– Ohio Players
  26. A Thousand Years– Sting

How Do I Choose A Favorite Child?

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My friend Jens asked me to share my favorite post with him. It is a good question and one that has stumped me. I am not sure what that post is. It is a bit like asking me to pick a favorite child.

Some of it depends on my mood. I have been listening to Moshav sing Come Back on and off for two days now. Been battling that feeling of wanderlust for the same few days and remembering what once was and thinking about what might yet be.

Is my favorite There Are Places I Remember. It is a piece of fiction I wrote a while back that for a while just kind of stuck with me. Don’t know what I liked about it, but for a bit it held my attention.

It didn’t grab me with the same force that An Uncertain Certainty did, not by a long shot. That post shook me to my core and woke up skeletons that had been sleeping. Can’t tell you what made me think of it or why.

I don’t always look for reasons why I write a particular post or need to know why the prose I push out appears. I just need to write it. But is that my favorite? Well, I don’t know.

Hell when I look at posts like Stupid Blog Tricks- The Difference Between The Best & Most Popular I see links to many of my favorites. That is not particularly helpful for Jens or anyone who wants me to pick a single post, but it is an easy way for me to give a vague answer.

Some of you who know me are probably smiling because you think that is one of my patented vague answers. Hell, I made a career out of driving The Shmata Queen crazy by not giving a detailed answer but the truth is that I haven’t tried to do that here.

I am just not sure what to choose. Maybe it is because I have so many posts to choose from. Maybe it is similar to going to a restaurant that has an enormous menu, like Jerry’s Deli or The Cheesecake Factory. If you don’t have a particular hankering for one kind of food you can go meshugah flipping pages trying to decide whether you want a salad/sandwich/steak/pasta etc.

If the big lug in that photo was still around I would ask him for help and he’d answer. Man, that dog knew all of my secrets and then some. There was never a day in his life where he wasn’t happy to see me. Talk about unconditional love.

I remember just before he died I wrapped my arms around that massive head and told him that I loved him. I told him that I was going to miss him terribly and that I thought it was really unfair that we could live the rest of our lives together. It really didn’t seem fair and still doesn’t.

He was 125 pounds of love and laughter. If he decided to stand on his hind legs he could reach most things on the kitchen counter. Barely had to stretch to snatch food off of the table and he was sneaky too.

But when the end came I told him it was ok to let go. Told him to go find out what waits on the other side of the veil and asked him to come find me whenever my time comes. I swear he nodded his head at me, watched his tail wag and then he closed his eyes….

He is running somewhere. I close my eyes and I am running with him. He runs just ahead of me and turns his head, he is taunting me, the damn dog is taunting me. I am 25 and I can still run like I did when I was 18.

I am much faster than people expect. Not a rocket, but for a guy my size I can really move. Got a really fast first step and fast hands.

Always good on the court. When I have the ball I try to con the man guarding me into reaching for the ball. My hands are too strong for him to strip me and if he gets that close I can use that first step to blow by and get to the basket.

Don’t know why I expect to be able to use that trick with the big lug or why I am thinking about it. Just know that there is joy in running with him. The sun is in the center of a bright blue sky and we are moving.

And then sunset approaches and we know that in a short time that full moon we love will appear.


We’re back in the present and I am still trying to figure out how to answer Jens’ question about a favorite post. I probably should do what I tell my kids to do and break the question down into smaller bite size pieces.

Probably should try to base it upon categories. I am a dad blogger who writes about family, business, technology, social media and fiction.

I am a writer who blogs. I am just a man tapping keys on a keyboard who hopes that they make sense. Hell, I don’t know what my favorite is.

What is your favorite?

The Ultimate Insult

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listen to ‘The Ultimate Insult’ on Audioboo

As promised here are the lyrics to Positively 4th Street:

“You got a lotta nerve
To say you are my friend
When I was down
You just stood there grinning

You got a lotta nerve
To say you got a helping hand to lend
You just want to be on
The side that’s winning

You say I let you down
You know it’s not like that
If you’re so hurt
Why then don’t you show it

You say you lost your faith
But that’s not where it’s at
You had no faith to lose
And you know it

I know the reason
That you talk behind my back
I used to be among the crowd
You’re in with

Do you take me for such a fool
To think I’d make contact
With the one who tries to hide
What he don’t know to begin with

You see me on the street
You always act surprised
You say, “How are you?” “Good luck”
But you don’t mean it

When you know as well as me
You’d rather see me paralyzed
Why don’t you just come out once
And scream it

No, I do not feel that good
When I see the heartbreaks you embrace
If I was a master thief
Perhaps I’d rob them

And now I know you’re dissatisfied
With your position and your place
Don’t you understand
It’s not my problem

I wish that for just one time
You could stand inside my shoes
And just for that one moment
I could be you

Yes, I wish that for just one time
You could stand inside my shoes
You’d know what a drag it is
To see you”

That is the kind of writing I want to produce. That is pure magic.

Daddy/Daughter Day Revisited- The Cooking With Kids Edition

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You might recall the post in which I admitted to having made a small mistake regarding dates for Daddy/Daughter day. Well, the dark haired beauty told me in no uncertain terms that dads who are superheroes aren’t allowed to make that mistake and then when punished me by doing my hair.

Ok, it wasn’t really punishment for either one of us but she pretended it was and I went along with it. As I told her brother when you deal with angry people nod and smile, and do it twice as much with girls. Hee hee, yes I know that women don’t really appreciate that but the lessons I learned growing up with a million sisters never quite left me and I still tease them, but I digress.

Hey, stop trying to figure out what those last few lines mean and catch up.

A few weeks ago daddy/daughter happened for real and the two of us had a great time cooking with Chef LaLa. We learned about how to make all sorts of nutritious dishes using peanut butter and participated in a cooking contest.

The dark haired beauty is quite competitive (wonder where she gets that from) and wanted very much to win. I did as well, but I knew that in order for us to beat the other contestants I would have to make her the assistant and serve as the primary chef.

I didn’t want do that. It is not because I can’t cook because I can and I do. Rather it was because I knew she would have more fun taking the lead and I would have more fun watching her.

So dad served as the chief assistant. She told me what items to get, where to put them and what to do with them. I think I did I pretty good job and of course am thrilled with what she came up with. That picture above shows one plate filled with her creations, but it wasn’t the only one.

I often kid around about her being 7.5 going on 30, but some of that is my making the usual parental comment about her growing up quickly. She’ll be 8 in July and I remember her as this baby with a lot of hair and dark eyes like it was yesterday.

Now she is no longer a baby. She is a little girl with a ton of dark hair and curls that she pushes away from those same dark eyes. She looks up at me and asks me a million questions. This little girl of mine plays with the boy who lives next door and tells me that he is a friend who is a boy and not a boy friend.

I ask her why she says that and she says that sometimes she sees me giving a look. I tell her that she is seeing things and she says that she isn’t. I am giving him the look I give when I am angry. I laugh and tell her that she is mistaken but she is probably right. There are moments when I see flashes of preteen and teenage girl. Moments where she says or does something that I know is a precursor of days to come.

One day she’ll find boys more interesting than me and then she’ll find some boy much more interesting. Some of them won’t treat her as well as they should and some will treat her well but still break her heart. And then I’ll have to kill them because I’ll still see the little girl who took me to Sur La Table to cook with Chef LaLa.

And for those of you who don’t understand internet sarcasm, I am not really going to kill those boys. Not literally. But I will work on that steely eyed glare and make sure that in the years to come I still have a handshake that can crush steel.

For now those days are still a long way off and the two of us can continue to have these little moments in time where we can cook together or play board games. But I am still not giving in on that American Girl doll. I don’t care how many times she hugs me and tells me how handsome I am.

I may be a sucker, but I am not that big a sucker. It is because I love her that I won’t spend a bazillion dollars on a doll.

I Am My Child’s Advocate

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It is almost thirty years since this song came out but I remember when I first heard it. A bunch of us were hanging out together at a mutual friend’s house and someone put it on the record player.

We were a bunch of middle class kids who rode our bikes, skateboarded and had pretty good lives or so I remember. When I think harder about that time I remember the kids whose parents kept them in line with a belt and how some of them changed when their folks got divorced.

But most of us really didn’t have a reason to be all that angry, other than hormones. And let’s face it when you are 13-14 years old your hormones send you in a dozen different directions. Sometimes you don’t know what the hell to think or do.

So we would collect after school at the homes of those kids whose parents weren’t around and we’d screw around. Sometimes I would hear these other kids talk about how bad their parents were and wonder if they were being honest or if they were exaggerating.

My parents were always around and always involved in our lives. The idea that they wouldn’t be was quite foreign to me. I want it to be foreign to my children too.

I Have Your Back

It is important to me that my children know that I have their back. They need to know that I am always here. It is something that I have worked on since they were born. One day they’ll hit that time and place where they won’t want to talk to me but it doesn’t mean that they won’t want to or need to.

That is why I started building the foundation when they were really little. I wanted it to be seared upon their consciousness. I want them to know instinctively that dad is always around and will always help pick them up. It is all tied into why I have tried to teach them how to lose gracefully and what to do when they fail.

I want them to be able to deal with adversity without my help and with it.

Part of that process comes from them seeing that I won’t let people mess with them. Part of that comes from seeing what I do when something unreasonable, unfair and intolerable happens.

Problem Solving

I mention this because it happened today. There was an incident with my son in one of his classes that made me want to go ballistic. I told him that I was upset about this but I didn’t tell him that I think the teacher FUCKED UP. I didn’t because if he would have seen that it would have made it much worse.

So I explained to him that we were going to send an email to his teacher in which we addressed the issue and we did. It was a very polite note in which I explained what happened and why her response was wrong. I made sure that he saw that I didn’t yell or cry. It was straight and to the point.

But what he also didn’t see was that I emailed the administration too. The school knows that I am not one of the crazy parents. I don’t claim to have perfect children and I don’t complain unless it is serious. And when it is serious I come hard.

This is serious and I really am exceptionally angry. I am my child’s advocate and always will be. One day he’ll take on the responsibility of being his own advocate and I’ll be a sounding board he can bounce ideas off of.

For now it is a job I don’t mind doing, but I would be lying if I said that I didn’t want to scream at this woman. She should know better. Teachers have so much influence on our children and when they screw up….