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 2012

Writers Write Right Part 2

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The best writing advice I can give you is to never punch your Smith-Corona typewriter. Don’t kick it, bite it or defenestrate it.

In case you are wondering I just used a five syllable word describe throwing said typewriter out the window. Let me repeat my advice not to do this. The reason why should be obvious but in case you need another let’s just say that the girl you are really interested in will probably not find this endearing.

She won’t see it as a sign of a deeply sensitive artist who she should really get to know better. Instead she’ll look at you as being in need of anger management. You might as well kick her dog, pull her hair and bite her father’s leg.

Ok, don’t do any of those things. That is just ridiculous hyperbole inserted for the sake of keeping your attention. And let me assure you as the father of a daughter that any boy who bites my leg will lose the ability to eat anything but apple sauce and most assuredly will not date my daughter.

So why do I sit here and share these thoughts with you. Why do I ask ridiculous questions and answer them myself? The reason is simple, Writers Write Right.

English: 1890s L. C. Smith typewriter machine,...
English: 1890s L. C. Smith typewriter machine, shot at Western Development Museum, Saskatoon (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have never known a writer who truly loves our craft not to agonize over their words or wonder if they should choose a simpler profession, like brain surgery.

Why do I agonize over simple words. Why do I wonder if people can see what I see and if I have created a connection that compels them to continue reading? Because it is what I do.

I write. I am a writer. I tell stories. I do it because I love this.

Speaking of Love

If you want proof of my juvenile nature all you need to know is that when I heard she cut off ten inches I crossed my legs, fell to floor and pretended to moan.

Ok, that is not true. I didn’t do any such thing but my daughter did cut off ten inches of hair today. Ten inches of her hair is being sent to Locks of Love and I can’t be any prouder of my girl.

Every week I make a point to talk to my children about giving back. Every week they hear me talk about how lucky we are and why we need to help others. I have explained to them it is not done for the tax break or for Karma but because it is the right thing to do.

That is important to me and I want it to be important to them. I want them to understand gratitude. I want them to recognize that even when things are tough there is still a reason to be thankful.

Teach Your Children

These rug rats call me dad and I take that responsibility seriously. It is part of why I write about when failure is an option. It is part of why I write them letters.

My job isn’t just to clothe and feed them- it is to educate them. It is to help them learn what they need to know to become productive members of society. I am dad, this is what I do.

What I Wish I Could Do

What I wish I could do is dance, paint and sing the way that I can write.

Writing is easy for me. I have some natural ability that I have spent hours working upon with the goal of improving.  If You Write It They Will Come is a post about realistic expectations and I try to keep my focus there.

Writing is a skill that can be improved through practice. It is part of why I pump out this content with reckless abandon. I know that every time I put pen to paper I am working on becoming a better writer so that I can turn what I love into something more than a hobby.

It is not unrealistic to believe that I can succeed at this. It is unrealistic to expect overnight success. I don’t mind working at it.

Are you working on converting your dreams into reality or are you just enjoying the dream of what you could have?

This week I am linking up with Yeah Write #69 and Just Write #47.

When Is Failure An Option-2012 Edition

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Sometimes the way we move forwards is by looking backwards:


airport

 

The next time I get stabbed I hope that my assailant chooses a better blade. Something a little bit sharper than a rusty butter knife would be nice. I am sure that sounds ridiculous to you, but I’d rather have it just slide in than to be battered repeatedly with an object that can’t quite pierce my skin. Sure, there is the ego boost that comes from being able to say that your shoulder blade is semi invulnerable.

What is up with that. Dad is supposed to be a real superhero. Bullets are supposed to bounce off of his chest. Some people would say that a father who can’t do that is a failure. And if you believe what you hear and or read, ‘failure is not an option.’ It makes for a good slogan. I can think of  all sorts of ways to market it. T-shirts, buttons, television, movies and more. Or alternatively we could turn it upside down and make it a slogan for Jersey Shore.

But that is not what this post is about and I really shouldn’t have mentioned that show because I feel like I just lost 18 IQ points by mentioning it.

Don’t know why but I keep thinking about a moment in time from my fraternity days. It is around 1989 or so and we are at the house. The place is packed full of people and I am one of what feels like a million bodies moving and swaying to The Power.

The music starts and there is no room on the dance floor for anyone to do much more than nod their head and pretend like they have some sense of rhythm. Tonight it doesn’t matter to me what I look like because Lori, Lisa and Marissa are at the party with me.

I have known them for a million years and there is nothing romantic between any of us, but they tell me not to worry because when other women see us dancing they will feel more comfortable speaking to me because they are around.

Mere moments into the song the floor magically clears and two of the guys are out there. They have taken over the space and people are hooting and hollering. That is because they can flat out dance. They are the epitome of grace and rhythm and I am…not.

That is ok. They are among the nicest guys you will ever meet. That night they are also among the most popular guys at the party. It seems like every woman there wants to dance with them. Marissa taps me on the shoulder and tells me that if I learn how to move like they do I will never be lonely.

 Thank You Marissa

Almost a quarter of a century later I look back at that moment and realize that I should have thanked Marissa. Her comment did two things:

  1. It irritated me. I didn’t want to be judged or compared to those guys, especially since they could do something I couldn’t.
  2. It made me focus on what made/makes me who I am.

The reason this is relevant to me now is that a good while back I hit some rough spots and had to make some significant alterations to the life I was leading and the path I was going down. It frustrated me because much of it had nothing to do with things I did and everything to do with what others did. It irked me because if I am going to get into trouble than I want to earn it.

I am good at it. If there are consequences for an action that is going to affect me let me be the one who caused that situation to exist. Except this time I had almost no responsibility for what happened. While I can’t say that I take no responsibility I can say that it is limited.

What bothers me is that my kids had to take some of the brunt of those consequences and that is not cool. And that dear reader takes me back to another excerpt from the post I quoted earlier.

“Life is filled with wonder and magic but it also comes with haunted forests and scary flying monkeys. And the problem with being a semi invulnerable superhero is that I can’t always be there to fight off the monsters of the night. So I have to teach them how to do that for themselves”

I think in the years to come when I look back at this period of time I will forget about the frustration I feel now with not having made more inroads and advances than I have.

Instead this will be when I recognize that we were much further along than I realized. This will be when I see how far my children have come and how much we have all grown.

Maybe I can’t dance with the same sort of grace and rhythm as the fellas did but even a guy who lumbers about can make his way down the road.

Stuff I Think About…Sometimes

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The Last 5 Songs on iTunes:

  1. Glory Days- Bruce Springsteen
  2. Synaesthetic- Blue Man Group
  3. Born to Lose- Social Distortion
  4. Fire And Rain- James Taylor
  5. Take Me To The Pilot- Elton John

People say that things happen for a reason. Sometimes I agree with it and sometimes I don’t, but most of the time I try not to think about it.

Been wrestling with a variety of thoughts and ideas about this and that. Some are profound and some are mundane but they all have their place. The new DISQUS has really caught my eye and I have been playing around with switching over to it.

I want it to be easy to comment here. I don’t want to ask people to jump through hoops. Overall Livefyre has been pretty darn good, but there are hiccups. I noticed yesterday that Danny Brown made the switch over to DISQUS and meant to ask him about it. Had a very busy day so I didn’t do it earlier.

Decided to check to see if he had blogged about it and came across a post called The Indecision of Being a Blogger and smiled. I know all of the feelings and concerns he shared there. It doesn’t matter how long you are in the game for you always have moments where you wonder about the blog.

You wonder about your content and if you are publishing your best stuff. You wonder about your design, if it is user friendly and if it encourages your readers to stick around. You wonder about the plugins and commenting systems and you wonder about a million other things.

At least some of us do.

This is my baby. I love this place and I want others to love it too. It is my Fortress of Solitude and my refuge from the occasional moments of chaos and conflict. It is one of my favorite places to hang out.

It is kind of fun to look at this joint and see how it has evolved and how I have grown as a writer.

The Next 5 Songs On iTunes

  1. Faithfully- Journey
  2. New York’s Not My Home- Jim Croce
  3. Lady Jane- The Rolling Stones
  4. The Pusher- Steppenwolf
  5. With or Without You- U2

I want to be the Michael Phelps of something. I want to be that good, that dominant and that successful. That is not sarcasm or one of my tongue-in-cheek comments.

But this next sentence might be.

I wonder if Dick Clark shared his secrets on aging with Bob Costas. Maybe there a secret Fountain of Youth that they had/have access too. Don’t know if I would want it for me or not.

Part of me sort of appreciates the lines on my face, I have earned these.

Some people have told me they think that politics have gotten nastier and that we are witnessing a severe decline in discourse but I am not so sure. Think about the famous duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. Much of that came about because of political differences, as far as I know none of our politicians are engaging in duels.

Reality Check

It bears repeating- stop telling me what the world should be like and start talking to me about what you are doing to make changes. Let’s deal with what is and not spend so much time on what should be.

I should be able to fly and have a digestive system that isn’t lactose intolerant or unwilling to convert donuts into essential nutrients and vitamins. I should be retired and attended to by my 293 concubines all of whom are perfectly willing to share me because that is normal.

When we deal in reality and what is it becomes much easier to figure out what could be and what should be as well as how to make them happen.

Another 5 Songs on iTunes

  1. The Long And Winding Road- The Beatles
  2. Natural Blues- Moby
  3. Spoonful- Cream
  4. Numb/Encore- Linkin Park and Jay-Z
  5. Moby Dick- Led Zeppelin

It has been quite the summer here filled with lots of moments to remember. Some of these moments have been good and some…less good. It has been a time when plans fell through and I have done my best to roll with the changes.

Maybe that is why I wonder about what is coincidence and what is meant to be. Maybe it is why I wonder if it doesn’t matter what road I take because eventually I am going to reach the same place I always was. Not really sure about that, but I am doing my best to just let it happen.

Doing my best to keep my ego out of this place. Ego wrecks blogs.

Speaking of blogs I am working on about six now and am feeling the wear and tear. It is time for me to adjust my schedule again because the pace is starting to impact the quality of my content. Or so it feels to me.

There is much more to share but there is work to attend to and I have miles to go before I sleep. So for the time being I must bid you adieu. See you all later.

High Anxiety & The First Day of School

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5 Last Songs on iTunes:

  1. Little Talks- Of Monsters & Men
  2. How To Save A Life- The Fray
  3. Just Like Heaven- The Cure
  4. Blackjack- Ray Charles
  5. Atlantic City- Bruce Springsteen

Midnight has come and gone but I am not smart enough to go to bed early. Spent countless hours running from place to place today and though my body is stationary my mind is still racing at light speed so here I am trying to decompress.

Six years ago I wrote a post about my son’s first day of school. Six years ago I wrote about a boy who was almost half the size of the one who is sleeping in the other room and shared some of my concern about his first day of school.

I blinked and the days that were the present became the past and now I am staring at the future I once wondered and worried about.

We registered for middle school today.

Middle school.

When I was his age we called it junior high except it didn’t start until 7th grade. This kid of mine gets to start in 6th grade, not that it really matters. At least I don’t see a huge difference between the two years.

What is Different Now

What is different now is that my little man is entering public school. After years of attending a Jewish Day school he is going out into the world. I have mixed emotions about this. His education was great but he was sheltered a bit and I expect that some of what he sees will surprise him.

Overall I am very confident in his abilities to get by, but I am still concerned.

This afternoon we had a discussion about some of the differences between middle school and elementary. I told him that now I have to rely upon his using his head and that common sense was very important.

We talked about sex, drugs and rock and roll, except it was a bit more clinical. I don’t want to scare him but I want to make two things clear:

1) I know something about all these things. I was a student so I am not unfamiliar with it all.

2) He can always talk to me about anything.

5 More Songs on iTunes:

  1. The Ocean- Led Zeppelin
  2. Come Together – The Beatles
  3. I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For (Live)- U2 Live From Paris
  4. I Walk the Line- Johnny Cash
  5. (Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay- Otis Redding

The Dark Haired Beauty

My daughter is going to a new school too. She’ll make her first foray into a public school as well. Part of me is really unhappy about this, but not because it is a bad school. Heck, it is one of the better public schools in town so that aspect of this is cool.

What bothers me is that her brother got to stay at the school longer. What bothers me is that it feels a bit like she caught the short end of the stick and that is not fair. I don’t play favorites and I want her to have everything her brother did.

But the decision to pull them is the correct one. It is financially necessary and she is ready.

My girl is a force of nature. When she sets her mind to doing something she keeps moving, pushing, pulling and working on it until it is completed to her satisfaction. She makes friends easily and she will figure this out. It will all be fine.

High Anxiety

My kiddies are nervous about these changes and so am I. Even though I am quite confident in them it is hard not to be a bit nervous. New schools, new schedules and new responsibilities.

New challenges and new opportunities come along with it. I see these things as being quite positive, but a father worries.

I am doing my best to keep them calm. I figure they’ll feed off of my energy and that should help, but it still feels surreal.

I can’t say that I don’t know where the time went because I do.

This blog you are reading holds an interactive chronicle of the past six years. There are tons of stories and a million snapshots of little moments in time in which I can read and return to the past.

But the past isn’t where I want to be, not unless I can pick very specific moments to relive. I have several that I would enjoy experiencing again, but that is not real.

And Yet Another 5 songs on iTunes

  1. Burning Down The House- Talking Heads
  2. Spinning Wheel- Blood Sweat & Tears
  3. Strange Days- The Doors
  4. Ramblin’ On My Mind- John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers
  5. I Gotta Feeling- Black Eyed Peas

Anticipation

Anticipation is what is making this hard for all of us.We don’t particularly enjoy this kind of waiting. Things will get easier once school starts and everyone understands what is going on. Once we see it is all working just fine we’ll collectively exhale and find more important things to worry about.

In the interim I am going to do my best to help them enjoy what is left of summer.

Linking up with Dude Write #8

What The Olympics Should Be About

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This isn’t the first time that I have shared this video but it is worth doing so again for a host of reasons.  What I see in this video is what the Olympic Spirit is about. It is the willingness to push through pain and to try and do something extraordinary because it is The Olympics and not because you are getting paid to do it.

And as a father I cannot help but identify with the dad in this. I would do the same for my children without question.

The Password is Swordfish

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This post may not be safe for your eyes or your ears. It is quite likely that you will find it to be so offensive you will have to bleach your eyes and beat yourself over the head with a baseball bat.

Maybe it is because I am going to put the gay in you. If you are a man I am going to wiggle my fingers at you and you will magically be transformed into a man who can’t wait to fellate every man that walks down the street. And lord help you if you happen be near a Chick-Fil-A because you will face an abnormal compulsion to do it on the counter.

Or I just might decide to go a different direction. I just might shake my mighty stick in the faces of liberals who will automatically be turned into Republicans who hate the poor and minorities. Better watch out because you will wind up walking around in sweater vests and be married to frigid spouses who are uptight.

The worst part is that you will be so starved for sex and affection you will go chase it in a park bathroom and instead of affection you will wind up with infection.

Bully on you all. You are all a bunch of peachy people.

Yep, I am pointing my really large finger at everyone. Can’t help but be outraged that we live in a time where it is more important to be right than to help everyone. Better to walk around with your illusions of grandeur about you are smarter than the other guy. Better to stick your nose in the air, roll your eyes and ask your friends how they can associate with those other guys.

I’d like to say that I am kidding. I’d like to say this is over the top but it is not. Read the news, talk to people and you find that huge numbers of people are rooted to being right and not to helping others.

Some of you are in dire need of a week of oral sex, enemas and brain transplants.

That is not pointed at either party but at both parties.

WTF

I can’t go to the grocery store without seeing people holding signs asking for help. I can’t exit the freeway without passing more people holding signs asking for help. I can name multiple couples who have lost their homes because they lost their jobs.

Highly educated people who want to work and who were always employed. Some of them are working for $11 an hour which means they are working a ridiculous number of hours to not make enough money to get by.

Several years ago my family got hit hard because of a few medical issues and had to finance $5k worth of unexpected medical bills. We were insured but that is what my share of the cost was. Thankfully nothing more happened and we were able to pay that $5k off with a minimal amount of interest.

Some people don’t get lucky and get stuck with catastrophic healthcare costs.

Until this year I had to send my kids to private school because the local public school wasn’t up to snuff.

This should be unacceptable. The problems with public education should be unacceptable. The lack of affordable housing should be unacceptable.

Sadly they aren’t. Some of it is because people don’t with problems that don’t impact them. Some of it is because our government doesn’t feel the pain of the common man. They don’t have the same challenges so it is easy to ignore.

Misplaced Priorities

I can’t engage in any sort of dialogue with many people because they don’t understand how the system works and are more interested in telling me how it should. Stop it. Just STFU and deal with how it works now.

I can’t listen to people bitch about things and then say they don’t vote. If you don’t vote you need to shut up and get out of the way because you are part of the problem.

It is time to stop licking it around the edges and take the whole damn thing in our collective mouths. It is time to stop having to be right. It is time to set our egos aside and work together to fix things.

Unfortunately I don’t have a lot of faith in that happening. What is more likely is a continuation of the nonsense. I looked at my Facebook feed and noticed how people collected around their side of the fight.

I watched the posts go up around pictures of cars piling up at Chick-Fil-A and read the self congratulatory messages. I did the same with those who said they were boycotting it.

What came to mind was that neither group had a real clue what was going on. All they did was talk to people who agreed with them and used that as a benchmark of success.

The Password is Swordfish

It reminds me of a Marx Brothers Movie. This should be comical. This should be an example of high slapstick comedy punctuated by the ridiculous and inane except it is not.

So I am going to take my judgmental, sanctimonious and snooty self to bed and dream about Duck Soup. Hell I might as well go sleep with a smile on my face.