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 January 2013

Waiting For The Click-Part 2

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“Guy at Target had two tattoos- First said “Blow me” and the second said “Bite Me.”
I wanted to put a Post-It on his back that said “Kick Me.”

Yes, I just used my own words as a blockquote. I’ll let you decide if that makes me a social media douchebag or not.

And now I have to quote myself again but this time it is to serve as an introduction:

“Truth is I don’t know what pushed me here other than this overwhelming sense of waiting for the click. Not sure what to say or how to describe it other than I have thisfeelingthat something is about to happen that is going to have significant impact upon me.”Waiting For The Click- The Post You Won’t Read

I think the click is happening…right now.

There is something going on right now that I can’t talk about yet because I barely have wrapped my head around it. It feels like I have a palm full of water and I don’t dare squeeze because all of the drops will run between my fingers and all that I have will be gone.

But this is a very good thing.

Change Is Hard

It is a very good thing but it is going to require me to make some very hard choices and do some things that are going to be hard for all of us.

But I have put hours of thought into this and I am confident that it is the right thing to do, the necessary and proper thing to do. And I am going to do it because my kids call me dad and that is more than just a title to me.

It is a responsibility and a charge that means sometimes you walk off into the fog because you know that the scrapes and bruises that come from not seeing are just the prelude to something bigger and better.

You do it because it is your turn at bat and you would have swing and strike out than say you missed you because you were afraid to take a swing.

It is because of how I was raised and those that came before me did for others so that they could provide for their families and I hear the echoes of their voices.

Echoes Of The Past Touch Us In The Present

It is something that I know my friend Joe and I share in common. This understanding that those who came before us can reach out and touch us regardless of where they may be now.

That last line isn’t supposed to be read with any sort of dramatic inflection. It is just a statement.

You do for others because your Nonna bought Chef Boyardee for you even though she could out cook the can in her sleep.

“You can choose a ready guide
In some celestial voice.
If you choose not to decide
You still have made a choice.
You can choose from phantom fears
And kindness that can kill
I will choose a path that’s clear
I will choose Freewill”
FreeWill– Rush

Music is speaking to me again. I keep hearing Layla and FreeWill marching through my head and I can’t stop smiling.

Blame it on this sense that the click is clicking now and that this sense of treading water is going away. Action feels good and I am ready to walk into the fog I mentioned before, ready to take a shot.

My kids and I have talked about how people figure out what to do and when to do it a few times. We have talked about how you figure out when to take a chance and when to play it safe because it is an important conversation.

I don’t want them to grow up to be dare devils in all they do but I don’t want them to be afraid of the world either.

I hope they view the world as being something that is magical and mysterious. That encompasses good and bad but focuses upon the good. It focuses upon the positive.

Too many people talk about how bad things are and forget about how good they are for so many of us.

We have far more power over our lives and what happens than we realize. If I do a decent job of parenting they will grow up to believe it is not a question of whether they can influence their lives but if they will choose to do so.

I just hope they don’t get stupid tattoos like the jackass at Target. What a tool.

Pink Sports Cars & Self Hosted Blogs

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This might be another piece of fiction for you to read. It was originally posted over here but is being featured here too for some specific reasons.

  1. If your blog is not self hosted you run the risk of losing all of your work. That is because you don’t control the platform and they could decide that you have violated the Terms of Service (TOS) and consequently they could point and click you into oblivion. By including this piece here I am helping to protect my work.
  2. This blog serves multiple purposes and one is to help me become a better writer and there are benefits to practicing different forms of writing.
  3. This blog also has a large platform and maybe one of you will read my work and decide you want to sign me to a gazillion dollar writing contract.

And now on to our featured short story.

 

speakeasy

“Blowing bubbles in milk always feels good.”

When she paused to ask him what he was thinking about he lied and said it felt too good to think about anything.  She smile and started again and he smiled back at her, never telling her that he was thinking about a time many years before.

She was the girl down the street whose mom would sometimes watch him while his own mom did whatever grownups do when they aren’t with kids.

He hadn’t wanted to be stuck with a girl for a playmate, especially one who was a little bit older and bossy. Mom hadn’t listened to his protests and told him that girls could be just as fun to play with as boys.

She was right, but back then he didn’t think it was fun to listen to her talking about blowing bubbles in milk or anything else she had to share.  Eight year-old boys wanted to play army, to wrestle and climb things but they help no interest to nine-year-old girls.

He told her he thought that pink sports cars were stupid and that was the end of any friendship that might have developed.  She yelled at him once and then refused to talk to him.

+++++

Time passed and even though they went to the same schools they still didn’t talk.

Somewhere around the summer before his junior year of high school things changed for him. He saw her walking with a group of friends and noticed her long well defined legs.

But what he didn’t notice was how hard he was staring or that her friends had picked up on things and alerted her to his presence.

“What is your problem!”

He looked up and saw dark eyes staring back at his and tried to come up with a cool response.  Instead of spitting out something that would have made them all smile and swoon he said something that they thought was stupid and was met with five minutes of laughter.

Red faced and frustrated he turned and stormed away, completely unaware of how she watched him walk and admired the changes that puberty and exercise had bestowed upon him.

It took three more months of passing each other in the hall and a series of more awkward exchanges for him to realize that she was flirting and not trying to be mean.

+++++

He was going to ask her to go the Winter formal but a senior boy beat him to it and so he was left to watch her from his window walk to the limo on the arm of some other guy.

She didn’t tell him that she only did it to make him jealous or that she had wanted to go to the dance with him.  She was willing to do many thing but asking a guy out wasn’t one of them, that was his job.

So when the other boy tried to kiss her at the dance she had let him, not because she wanted to but because she felt like she had to. He had purchased the tickets for the dance, paid for dinner and the limo. It was only fair.

It was also the reason why she went on two more dates with him. In the years to come she would learn how to say no and not feel guilty about it but back then she was still young.

+++++

He didn’t tell any of his friends or family about the crush on his neighbor but he promised himself that he would ask her out before she graduated in May and went to college.

And he did, but not until March of that year which meant that she couldn’t go on their first date until after her family came back from their annual Spring break vacation.

So by the time they really started dating they were both hyper aware of how little time was truly left.

She had been accepted to a school out of state and within a couple of months would be moving away to start her freshman year of college.

It was an exciting time for her made bittersweet by the realization that she had real feelings for the boy. He treated her well and was always a gentleman but she knew he wanted to take things farther than they had.

It wasn’t a secret that guys were interested in that thing nor a secret that girls had to be careful about it.

So she wrestled with herself about what to do and what was right.

Eventually she figured out what she could do for him that would be special and would not compromise her values. The question of when and where was solved by her aunt’s request for her to house sit while she took a short vacation.

+++++

She intentionally didn’t tell him about her plan. It was better to surprise him. He looked shy when she unbuttoned his pants and she thought it made him look extra cute.

Just before she started she thought about her friend’s advice and tried to do things exactly as she had been told to which is why midway through she stopped and asked him how he was feeling.

+++++

He stared at the ceiling and wondered why his mind would wander at a time like this but it was the first time for both of them so he had no clue what he was supposed to think about.

And unlike his girlfriend he hadn’t consulted with anyone who had done this before because that would have meant having to confess he hadn’t done it many times in the past.

So he stared at the ceiling and smiled at dreams of milk bubbles and pink sports cars. Maybe his mom was right, girls can be fun to play with.

Of Earthquakes and Music

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Julie wrote a post about music and intuition that caught my eye because well, music has always spoken to me and I am intrigued by the whole “universe speaks to me thing.”

It is an interesting place to be because I have spent most of my life saying that my horoscope is accurate when I like it and bogus when I don’t.

I don’t read it often but every now and then it is kind of fun to see what it says and to read the description about what a Taurus man is supposed to be like to see if it fits me, or at least how I view myself.

After I read Julie’s post I made a point to try to blank out my mind to see if any song popped into my head and I got four responses, or maybe these are just the first four I thought of.

It is up to you to decide whether I had a Stay Puft Marshmallow Man moment or if these were handed to me. If you are interested you can Google the lyrics and see what you find.

I intentionally included the links to the two last videos because they are a package.

  1. Stuck In the Middle With You- Stealer’s Wheel
  2. Take The Long Way Home- Supertramp
  3. Your Wildest Dreams-The Moody Blues
  4. I Know You’re Out There Somewhere-The Moody Blues

In the midst of writing The Wedding Song by Bob Dylan popped into my head so I figured I’d include it here.

Nineteen Years Ago The Earth Shook

Every January 17th I think about the Northridge Earthquake and most of the time I make a point to write something about it. It was the first earthquake that ever scared me and the first that made me acknowledge the raw power of Mother Nature.

I used to park my car in that structure. I knew it well.

By the time the quake hit I had graduated and wasn’t impacted by the damage to my university but I was impacted in many other ways.

I won’t ever forget walking into my grandparent’s apartment building in Sherman Oaks. I won’t forget how the building looked like someone had taken a hammer to it and how I told my grandmother to get out, even though she didn’t want to leave.

It was their home and I understood why they were reluctant to go but I was worried about the building and didn’t want to find out if it would remain standing on its own.It did but city engineers determined it was unsafe and it was later razed to the ground and rebuilt.

Sometimes I think about how my grandfather told me if he was still in his sixties it would have been an adventure but that in his eighties it wasn’t the sort he wanted.

The Roof Is On Fire

I always thought the song was stupid but I have this image of the dance floor at the fraternity house. It is packed full of people and the sweat is pouring off of all of us but no one cares.

We are caught up in the moment and shouting out the words as we sway and move. Songs shift and I am lost in the moment, entranced by the way a couple of the girls can move and then things shift again and we are listening to Fleetwood Mac sing  Gold Dust Woman.

I am dancing with a girl whose name I can’t remember.  For a moment there is this electrical charge running between us but neither one of us do anything to break that chain.

The song ends and she joins a bunch of other girls and walks out the door. I watch as she wanders off and go to get a beer and talk with the guys.

The Moments Matter 

I just flipped on iTunes and the first song that came on is Lean on Me by Bill Withers. It feels symbolic to me. It feels right.

Some years back I was on top of the world and then things happened and I found out again that sometimes life can humble you. Been wandering through my own desert but I think I am right on the verge of reaching that oasis.

Didn’t get there because I am stubborn, determined and unwilling to quit but because people gave me a hand. They didn’t give me a hand out but a hand up–there is a difference.

The song is a reminder to me to make sure I do the same. Doesn’t matter whether you believe in the universe sending messages, karma or anything else. The reason to help is because it is the right thing to do.

Full stop, end of story.

The Many Layers of Hell

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Wildfire at Joshua Tree NPS Photo
Wildfire at Joshua Tree
NPS Photo

I can’t remember who said that there are many levels of Hell, but I know that there are many and that I have been to at least a couple. The Department of Motor Vehicles, The Mall during the holidays and most recently Costco and Trader Joe’s market on a Sunday afternoon.

It is common knowledge among the intellectual elite that venturing to a Trader Joe’s, home of “Two Buck Chuck” vintage wines and fine cheeses will involve solving a puzzle that is a prerequisite for entrance into Mensa. It is called parking. Some sick man/woman in their corporate office gleefully searches for store locations that cannot support the traffic that the store will bring, or so it seems.

I conducted an unscientific survey in which I drove to four stores and then polled the people there and the three dogs that were tied up in front of the stores about this. All of them agree that parking at any Trader Joe’s is an exercise in treachery and guile best left to politicians or those of low moral fiber.

But food is the way to my heart, next to the miles of veins and arteries interred inside my body and I decided that my family required sustenance. As the hunter-gatherer in the household I was required by nature to dare to traverse the challenges that this entailed.

So I ask the dear reader, was I just fool hardy on this errand or is it poor customer service to ask your customers to engage in demolition derby so that they can frequent your store in hope’s of buying food. All I know is that the experience in the parking lot was merely a warm-up for what was waiting inside. As I approached the store I grabbed a shopping cart and bravely entered, armed for bear and ready for hand-to-hand combat.

Needless to say I was not surprised to find aisles packed with hungry shoppers all of whom had the same shopping list as I. Who would have thought that we all needed cheese, soy milk, crackers, cereal, chocolate, wine, juice and produce, more specifically blueberries. The same evil executive who designed the parking lot was surely chuckling as we banged and bounced off of each other’s carts and bodies. In my younger days I would have enjoyed the adventure, but now it just rubbed me raw.

After what felt like days I managed to check out and take my purchases home for deposit into the refrigerator and cupboards. But something in my skull must have been jarred during this experience, because I knew that my shopping was not done. Now I had to run the gauntlet and go to Costco.

Costco, another parking nightmare not unlike Trader Joe’s, but on a much larger scale. Costco, where I knew that the primitives would lose their minds and trample me and small children in the fight to get the free sample of the seafood dip or the greasy slice of pizza. Costco where you go broke saving money by purchasing two tons of toilet paper at a time.

The good news is that you’ll never worry about wiping, but you may worry about wiping out your checkbook. That is assuming of course that you can get a parking space without being overcome by road rage. And assuming that you manage to win the fight to maintain composure there is still the very real chance that you may succumb to some other malady, some other shopping rage. There is only so much one person can take. You can’t be bumped and pushed a hundred times or prevented from reading the description of that new fruit drink they are offering. Heaven forbid, you might miss out on taking advantage of the deep discount they offer for a trough of butter.

Why oh why do the folks in Kirkland not understand that we want, no must have parking attendants in the lot, turn signals on the carts and signal lights on the aisles. How much more bruising can a person’s lower back take before Kirkland understands that shopping carts need padding.

Because the tragedy of this is that while you can shop at both of these stores online you cannot squeeze the pears, nor smell the sausage or appreciate the scent of a good melon. There are still some challenges that technology has yet to overcome. Oh the humanity of it all.

Linking up with Yeah Write.

Writing Exercises

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Please don’t tell my daughter that when she practices playing the violin I have these crazy images that float through my mind. It is really important for her to practice even if it reminds me of cats in heat or animals being slaughtered.

You can’t tell her that because it would hurt her feelings and she wouldn’t practice. That would be bad for a million different reasons not the least of which is because I stress the importance of practice in everything.

It is why I participate in Just Write and Yeah Write each week.  They are two of my favorite writing communities because they serve multiple roles and I see them as being part of my writing exercises.

How Do You Become a Better Writer?

How do you become a better writer is a question that I think about often because writing is my craft, my art and my love. It is a place that always feels like home to me and I would be diminished were I ever to give it up.

Practice is important to me because I hate when potential is unrealized. When I think about my biggest fears one of them is to let myself and others down by not living up to my potential.

I might not ever play for the Dodgers or the Lakers but I can become the novelist I have dreamed of. I can become the writer that people want to read.

So when I ask the question about how to become a better writer it is for both selfish and altruistic reasons.

Books and Movies

I try to read a lot of books and watch a healthy chunk of movies. I devour magazines and newspapers and dip my nose into dictionaries.

Stories are a big part of my world and the life I am trying to create. I want to be able to tell lots of them. I want to be able to sit down and know I have a hundred that I could recite and a hundred more that I could just make up.

It is part of why I have multiple blogs and why I sometimes ask you to go visit them. The comments on my stories help me figure out whether they are good tales that are of interest or things people hate.

One day I’ll give my children the keys to my blogs and invite them to pull a dusty tome off of the shelves and learn something about their father that they might not know.

Writers Need Egos & Thick Skin

It helps to have an ego and to believe that people want to read what you can or will write. It helps to have a thick skin too because some people will read your words and tell you that you are an ignorant, no talent jerk who ought to be forced to live in cleveland or Detroit.

Your ego will be bruised and abused but if you believe in yourself you will keep going.

Blogging helps with all of this. It helps provide a place to practice your writing and a place to practice developing the thick skin you need.

Role Model

I want to be a good role model for my kids. I want them to see how much time I spend practicing but it is hard to do that in a way that doesn’t take time away from them. It is hard to show them how many hours I have put in here and to do so in a way that doesn’t mean they are ignored.

My kids are a big part of why I write. They helped me remember who I really am and what I really want to do.

They are why I started calling myself a writer again, but I continued doing so because of me.

I continued because sometimes names and labels have power and I would wield it to serve my needs.

I am Jack and I am a writer.