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

5 Reasons

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Music plays a huge role in my life and my writing. Here is a short selection of songs that are a part of this particular…production.

  1. I Was Wrong– Social Distortion
  2. God’s Gonna Cut You Down– Johnny Cash
  3. 16 Tons- Tennessee Ernie Ford
  4. He Stopped Loving Her Today– George Jones
  5. Remember When– Alan Jackson
  6. Danny Boy– The Irish Tenors
  7. Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door– Bob Dylan
  8. Hero Of The Day– Metallica
  9. I Love This Bar– Toby Keith
  10. Ecstasy of Gold – The Good, the Bad & the Ugly Theme (Ennio Morricone)
Yes, I know that was more than 5 songs but you need to remember that most limitations are self imposed. I do my best to remove them.
This post is choppy. It hasn’t got any flow or rhythm to it  and that is ok with me. It is representative of my day. I have been working on a major project and have managed to make it far more complicated than it needs to be. Some times that happens but the trick is not to freak out about it.
I took my own advice and didn’t freak out but I did get irritated. Remember I often tell the kids to do as I say not as I do. Maybe it is because I march to the beat of my own drummer and he has no rhythm, or maybe not.

5 Reasons

Someone told me recently that we should always give our readers what we promised them and I aim to do that, sort of. I gave you a headline called 5 reasons. It is a vague and ambiguous headline that doesn’t tell you what these reasons are about. I’d like to say that was intentional and that I am messing with you but it wouldn’t be true.

I am distracted by the work that is waiting for me but the words aren’t flowing freely and I need to uncork the bottle and remove the blockage. When I say that I never suffer from writer’s block I mean it.  I don’t.

But I do go through periods of time where I am not pleased with the quality of my writing. Sometimes that is easily fixed. I just edit, clip, cut, copy and paste. Bing, bang, boom and we have something of substance.

This post here is me exorcising some writing demons. It is me beating the tar out of the irritation I feel for my mistake. When I finish I will resume working on my project. I’ll hit that sucker…hard. All shock and awe.

I am on a tight deadline so it is important that I be able to pump out that content with little delay. But unlike here I have to be a bit more cautious about errors. Don’t feel badly dear reader that doesn’t mean that I don’t take you seriously because I most certainly do.

But you don’t pay me to write and you are more forgiving of my errors so….

Private School and Summer Camp

We’re in the midst of the annual dilemma about school and camp. Those of you “in the know” recognize that this is late in the season. Many of the camps are already booked and have been for weeks. Camp isn’t cheap nor is school.

Rest easy because it won’t be long before I write another post ranting about the poor state of our schools and why we collectively prove ourselves to be idiots who under value and under pay teachers. A better educated society is good for all of us. So is a society where everyone has access to good healthcare.

It is almost time for me to write another post about the sins of the father being passed along to the son. My son is having a bit of a rough time in school now. It breaks my heart because some of his concerns aren’t rooted in things that he should be worried about.

But you can’t screw an old head on young shoulders. I do my best to support him and help him understand that some of this isn’t worth his time but he hasn’t accepted it yet. He is like me. He lives a thousand lives inside his head. That fire in the belly is good for some things but it can be challenging for other things. This is one of those times where I tell him to be more like his mother.

Last night he held his hand up against mine and asked me how long it would be before his hand was my size. It is sort of a strange thought. I have big hands. The day he was born I noticed that his hands and his feet were smaller versions of mine, but back then it was much harder to see a day when they would become my equal.

Can’t say whether he’ll be taller than I am but I would be shocked if he isn’t at least as tall.

Pieces of  The Tale

A smart reporter does their best to never go into an interview blind. It doesn’t matter if  they have agreed to speak with you for five minutes, an hour or all day. Their comfort level with you or lack thereof has a significant impact on what you come away with.

Your job is to dig beneath the surface and find the gold nuggets that they haven’t talked about or shared with anyone else. You do that by building a rapport with them and part of the way to make that happen is by taking the time in advance to learn more about them. Even the biggest cynic will appreciate your having taken the time to learn about them.

One of the big advantages of living during the Internet age is that it has become much easier to do this sort of research, especially when you are dealing with a personality like….

There is a lot more of the story above. You can find it over here.

 Got to Run Now

It is time to get back to work but before I go let me leave you with a clip from one of my favorite movies

Put A Bullet In My Head

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Some of you may remember watching a television show called The Greatest American Hero. It was about a high school teacher named Ralph who is given a suit by extra terrestrials that provides him with superhuman powers such as the ability to fly and super strength. It sounds simple enough except Ralph loses the instructions and is forced to learn how to use his powers by trial and error.

One of my strongest memories from the show is watching Ralph fly because he wasn’t graceful like Superman. There  was no “Up Up and Away.” Ralph would go hurtling through space and only be stopped by crashing into the side of a building or some other stationary object.  It usually made the 11 year-old boy version of me laugh pretty hard.

I mention this because the show has been on my mind. During the past couple of weeks I have had the kind of vivid dreams that make you wake up disoriented and confused because for a brief moment you aren’t quite sure where you are. Each time I woke up I felt like someone had given me instructions or advice that was very important.

During that first moment of wakefulness I knew exactly what it was that I had been told and why it was important and then suddenly it was gone. The harder I struggled to remember what had been said the faster the memories fled. The third time this happened I took a different approach. I got out of bed, stretched and did my old man shuffle towards the bathroom.

Except this time I was prepared to pounce upon the dream and write everything down. I put my plan in motion and as I walked I could still hear the whispers and though I was fast the dream was faster. Ask the fellas and they’ll tell you that I have fast hands. I steal a lot of basketballs but this wasn’t a pickup game and that dream fled from my field of vision leaving me frustrated and cranky.

Maybe it doesn’t mean a thing. Maybe it is something silly, I don’t know. I just know that the fragments I feel in the back of my head make me want to remember more.

++++++

My son asked me to tell him how to become a dad blogger. I smiled and asked him why he wanted to know. He told me that if he decides to get married he wants to be able to get cool stuff for his children and then he apologized and said that I might be too old to play with my grandchildren.

I laughed and told him not to worry. I am not middle aged yet and I don’t plan on being for quite some time, if ever. And then I told him that if he wants to become a dad blogger he is going to have to spend more time writing. It is a topic that I tread carefully around. He doesn’t like writing. It is very difficult for him. I don’t think that this is going to be an ongoing problem. He knows how to tell a story and I am more than able to help teach him how to improve.

But I remember what it was like to be a boy and how I sometimes struggled with letting my dad help me with certain things. I desperately wanted him to do so but at the same time I didn’t want his help at all. So there were more than a few occasions where he and I fought about silly things. He wanted to help me and even though I wanted his help I didn’t want it.

Sometimes it sucks is wonderful to be a kid.

I know my son well enough to know that I can’t tell him how much I love to write because he’ll feel badly that he can’t do it like I can. No need to fight with him unnecessarily. Not to mention that the situation is complicated by his younger sister. The dark haired beauty writes beautifully. I am biased, but she isn’t an ordinary second grader, not when it comes to writing.

++++++

Transitions are hard and we are in the middle of one. There a hundred and one changes taking place now and we are feeling the stress from it. Part of me celebrates the opportunities I see and is dancing with anticipation. During my conversation with my son we spent a few minutes talking about it and he told me again that he wants to live a “big life.”

I don’t know where he got that expression. It means that he wants to live his dreams. The smile on his face and the light in his eyes brings me joy and makes me laugh. It is the sort of feeling that is contagious. I love it. I feel it radiate off of me and I just feel so optimistic.

Later on in the day I discovered that I had made a pretty big mistake on a project I am working on and I muttered “put a bullet in my head.” I was by myself  when I said it but it still made me stop. That is not something that I normally say. I have a lot of different expressions but I don’t say things like that.

I took one last look at the word document, stood up and walked over to my weight set. I picked up the curl bar and let the clinkety-clank of the weights and the feel of my blood pumping take the edge off of my frustration. Midway through my third set I realized that I could hear the whispers from that dream in the back of my mind again.

So I put the bar down and slowly walked over to my laptop. The whispers were just loud enough for me to  catch bits and pieces. Just as I was about to start transcribing what I heard they stopped and the dreams fled again.

I feel like Ralph. I have got the suit and I am flying but I need to figure out a better way to land because I am tired of slamming into buildings.

They Aren’t Really Dead

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The clock says it is 11 PM and Party Rock is playing on the stereo. The shuffle is on so I end up listening to a melange of music that includes opera, rock, rap and country.

My Droid sits quietly next to me. The sound is off but the flashing light attracts my attention. I haven’t picked it up yet because I don’t want to get lost in the mighty mess we call email. That is because I have six or seven addresses that forward messages to the phone and since I haven’t checked it in hours I know it is going to be a mess.

The phone lies on top of a parking ticket I received a few weeks ago. It irks me to see it. $60 bucks that I have to give to the city because I was three minutes too slow in getting back to the car and meter.

I told Shonali to keep an eye peeled for my annual post about why I hate Valentine’s Day but I haven’t managed to write it yet. Don’t ask me why it hasn’t happened yet because I am not really sure why. I am sort of curious because it makes me wonder if there is something lying just below the surface that I need to explore and think about.

The music has changed and now I am listening to Coldplay sing Paradise. It is another song that my children love. We listen to it together…often. Music is a constant in our lives. I tell them that music and books are two of the great pleasures of living.

They nod their heads and I tell them that daddy wishes he could be a musician. The dark haired beauty wants to know if that means I would be a rock star and I say “maybe.”

It is not something that I have always wanted, thought about or experienced in my dreams. This wish or desire materialized a few years back. I think it is because of the stories I see in my head. It is tied into a desire to create. Creation is something that I think of often. If I could I would be a great painter and photographer.

All of it ties into stories. I haven’t always called myself a writer or a storyteller but I think that at my core this is what and who I am.

Everywhere I go and everyone I meet is part of a story. Sometimes I watch, listen, look and learn while they tell me their stories. I alternate between being the life of the party and the wallflower. It is easy for me to step into either role. They are both comfortable but I prefer to live my life in between them.

Tomorrow is my nephew’s birthday. He’ll be twelve. That is a magical age for a boy. You are still young enough to get lost in some of the dreams of younger youth but old enough to do things far beyond your years.

I’ll call him tomorrow and wish him a very happy birthday and then I’ll remind him that he is always under Uncle Jack’s protection. It is tied into an old joke that his younger sister sometimes asks about.

But he knows that I am serious. It applies to all of my family but doubly so to my kids, nieces and nephews.

I once told a girl who loved me the same thing. I once promised her much and more. That is part of what love does to you. It changes you. When you find the right person it moves and motivates you in ways that are often described as magical and mysterious.

Magical and mysterious is a reasonable description for it but at the same time it doesn’t work for me because somethings are “obvious” and they just “are.” Again when you find the right person you understand magical, mysterious, obvious and are in ways that others can’t.

It feels strange to not have any grandparents any more. For 42 years they were a constant in my life and a fixture that I miss terribly. I always knew that the day would come when they would be gone but it doesn’t seem real and sometimes I find myself looking and or listening for them.

Last Saturday morning we had our official daddy/daughter day and I took the dark haired beauty down to Farmer’s Market. We drove across Laurel Canyon surrounded by the Hollywood Hills and past the ruins of Harry Houdini’s house. At the end of the canyon we passed by the apartment that one set of my grandparents lived in for thirty some years or so.

They may have spent the last ten years or so of their life living elsewhere, but that building will forever be their home to me. Drove past and listened for the echoes of my grandfather standing on the balcony calling down to us. I could hear his voice and smell his cigar but I couldn’t quite see him.

Fairfax isn’t the same as it used to be but it is still filled with more than a few memories. The high school may be known for alumni like Demi Moore and The Red Hot Chili Peppers but to me it is where my father, uncle and other relatives went.

I haven’t been back to Farmer’s Market since The Grove muscled its way in. It holds a million other memories. The parking lot where my father learned to drive called out to me as did other ghosts of my past. Farmers is where my paternal grandfather and his cronies used to hang out.

Twenty years ago I would have found them playing cards and telling the same old stories about World War II and Korea. Sometimes you’d see a couple of the old birds do more than bark at each other. They’d slowly stand up and start promising to kick the crap out of the other.

Once when grandpa was in his mid eighties another fellow started up with him and I saw lightning flash in grandpa’s eyes. I watched as he stood up and for a moment I saw the years fall back and the man who stood there was someone much younger that I had never seen but only heard about.

Grandpa took his cane and quietly placed it on the table and stood unaided. I wasn’t sure what my role was to be but I wasn’t going to embarrass my grandfather by standing up or trying to shush him. I knew that he knew I was there so I sat and watched.

The other man muttered something and shuffled away. I don’t really know what set the two of them off. Could have been something that happened 60 years earlier or five minutes. It was just a moment in time and part of a story you are reading now.

Tom Sawyer is playing now. It is the song by Rush and doesn’t have anything to do with the book but it makes me think of other things. Huck and Tom are running around together and it won’t be long before Huck takes his raft down the mighty Mississippi.

That is probably a good sign that it is time for me to end this post. There are more tales to be told and stories to be learned. And somewhere close by there are sleeping children to be checked on.

Life is ever so sweet with bits and pieces of the bittersweet and spicy root that make it so memorable.

This is part of the Just Write Project. This is week #22 and as always I am both glad and grateful to participate in it.

What Do You Need Versus What You Want

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“Riding my life
Like a run-a-way train
Moving from
One track to that
Howling, crying,
Screaming at the moon
Only my voice came back
Only the echo came back”
Prodigal Blues- Billy Idol

Dear children,

We need to have another conversation about identifying what you need versus what you want. It is an important distinction because when you know the difference it makes life easier.

We are about six months into this new chapter of our lives or maybe it is more accurate to say that we are six months into the transition that leads to the next chapter. Frankly I can’t decide which is which and I am not sure if it really matters.

What I know for certain is that we have faced considerable challenges and though you may not see it I can tell you we have already overcome most of them. That is the benefit of life experience speaking. I can look at the past and use that as a reasonably accurate tool to see the future. While it doesn’t provide me with as much clarity or prescient sight as we might like it is enough.

Think of it as being similar to my being taller than you are. The extra height allows me to see what lies ahead more easily than you can. But though I work hard to try to make you comfortable and confident I know that you are feeling unsettled. I am sorry for that and I’ll do my best to change that quickly but in the interim you just have to roll with the punches.

It is not unlike our conversations about sailing and body surfing. It is much harder to fight the current so it is to our advantage to swim with it when we can. If you work hard and time it right you just might be able to use the energy of the waves to make your way to shore.

I don’t know when you are going to read this but I expect it is going to be sometime in the distant future. You understanding and interpretation of these words will be different then. You’ll be older and more mature and maybe you’ll have a deeper appreciation of what happened and why I did certain things. That is also tied into why I haven’t told you about everything.  I don’t think it would help you and I don’t want you being worried about what you can’t change.

My grandfather used to say that you have to play the hand your dealt and he was right. But that doesn’t make it any easier for me to sit back and watch.  I am certainly better about it

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.” William Shakespeare

It is Sunday afternoon and I am hanging out with my electronic mistresses. Got the computer, iPod and Droid on the end table next to me, but my real focus is on trying to find the right words to express myself. Those aren’t quite right but they aren’t necessarily wrong either.

Been thinking about what my goals are and wondering if the plan I created makes sense. Maybe sense isn’t the right word either, maybe it is more accurate to say that I am evaluating my progress and trying to determine if I can become more effective/efficient.

Old Willy Shakespeare is right about all of the different parts we play in life. It is kind of fun to look back at former roles and to look ahead at those that are coming down the pike. Been spending most of my time looking at those that are just around the corner with a mix of excitement and anxiety.

Some of the changes that I expect are going to rock this world that we created and I can’t say how. I expect most if not all will lead to good things and many improvements but it is possible that there might be a few snags. It is those hiccups that concern me but I am determined to hit them head on.

I am tired of watching and waiting. Bring on the battle and let’s dance a little bit. It won’t be the first time that I have gotten popped on the chin and I want to know what sort of impact it is going to have. It sounds melodramatic but I always do better after blood has been drawn. I do better because now I know what I am dealing with and can adjust accordingly.

“Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one’s own sunshine” Ralph Waldo Emerson

That is one of my favorite quotes. It is a reminder that sometimes we are our own biggest enemies. It is a fair assessment. When I look in the mirror I see my arch nemesis and the superhero he battles with.

But so much of this comes back to making the determination of what we need and what we want. Because when you figure that out it becomes much easier to eliminate the extraneous crap that creates confusion. Get rid of the dead weight and focus on the people/places/things that help you love and live.

Get rid of the dead weight and you find the days are better, brighter and happier. That is my focus and has been for a while but until recently it hasn’t been real obvious to others. That is ok with me because we have to follow our paths and do our best to live the lives that we want.

So children climb on my back if you need to and just hold on because sometimes daddies don’t bother asking for directions or try looking for a path. I am a traveler through life and so are you.

That is one of the reasons I am a dad blogger. This joint here helps clear my mind and makes it easier for me to see the path I am trying to create. It also provides a great chronicle of the things we have done and the experiences we have shared.

Love,

Dad

Weekend Reading Meets A Life Of Few Regrets

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listen to ‘Weekend Reading Meets A Life Of Few Regrets’ on Audioboo

And now I present recent posts that are worth reading:

As a bonus here are some older posts that you might enjoy too: