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 March 2013

How To Make Time For Blogging

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TIME

Sometimes life gets in the way of blogging and you feel like you haven’t got enough time to produce a proper post. If you find yourself facing that particular set of circumstances you can choose to handle it in a number of ways:

  1. Stop blogging until you find free time to write.
  2. Find guest posters.
  3. Run old evergreen blog posts.
  4. Create a list post out of old posts and ask your readers to hang on just a bit longer for new content.

I’ll let you guess which one(s) I have chosen to use this week. 😉

Warning: There Are No Coincidences

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There are no coincidences because what you see, hear and do are part of something greater than us. It is tied into something larger that can be described as both mystical and magical.

Don’t ask me to explain this because I can’t tell you how or why. All I can say is that I know because I have experienced it. I have seen it. I have lived it. I have been there and that is all the proof that I can provide.

It won’t be enough for some of you. It won’t be the kind of thing that you can accept because you can’t buy, touch or taste it. Actually, that is not true, you can but only if you open your mind and let your soul seek its match.
super_blue_2012

I know this because for the longest time I didn’t do it. I spent years not buying into it or believing that it could be real. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to because I did. I desperately wanted to believe that this thing was something tangible. Because I just knew that if I could feel it in my hands and see it with my eyes it would prove that there was something to this dream I had once lived.

You see I fell in love with a girl and I loved her fiercely. I loved her madly. I loved her passionately. I loved her in every way that the poets wrote of, spoke of and dreamed of.

I loved her with all of my heart and all of my soul. I loved her desperately and somewhere in that madness, I lost her.

Some of you can’t feel what I am saying. These words have no meaning to you. They are figments of imagination that you can’t feel, see or taste. So they never grab you. Your heart, your eyes and your mind are closed to them.

I can’t fault or blame you because I used to be like you. I used to look at this sort of writing and roll my eyes because I didn’t know. I hadn’t seen. I hadn’t felt it.

But that was long ago. That was in the time before I became who I am now. That was before I understood that love is a drug that can make you soar to the highest heights and or drop your ass into a pit so dark and dank you can’t remember what it felt like to see sunshine.

Some of you are nodding your head. You don’t even realize that you are doing it. You aren’t even aware that your pulse has quickened and you can’t see anything other than these words and even those are growing faint.

That is because we are running with the moon you and I. We are partners on a journey and you want to know more about my story because you hope that maybe it holds some sort of key insight to your story.

You want to know about the girl I loved and what happened to her. You want to know if there is hope for us because if there is hope for us there might be some for you.

The thing that is ever so interesting about this is that I haven’t given you much in the way of detail. You haven’t heard about how we met in the most unusual way or how crazy it all was. You don’t know how it is we fell in love. You wonder if I am exaggerating or maybe you don’t.

Maybe you know what it is like to have that kind of passion where you can’t stand not having that person in your life because there is a gaping void that aches and burns without respite. Maybe you too were surprised to discover that the kind of crazy love you experienced the first time you ever fell in love could come back. Maybe you were shocked by the passion and overwhelmed by the loss of the friendship that you had.

Because that friendship threw you for a loop. It wasn’t just about love or lust. You liked them as a person. They filled the gaps and made you believe that you could be more than you were. They made you believe that all that hokey stuff you read in cheap paperbacks or saw on television might be based in reality. You understood that you could be naked in every possible way with them and be confident that they would caress your soul and cradle your heart.

It doesn’t have to be a dream. You don’t have to keep running with the moon. You don’t have to feel that enormous sense of loss or wonder whether you can ever love and be loved like that again because if it happened once it can happen again.

There are no coincidences. You can live your dream. You can find a way back. All you need to do is let go, submit to the reality of the possibility and accept that there will be opportunity.

It is not poetry or fiction. It is reality. It can’t happen on its own but if you ask and if you believe you will find the answer. You don’t need the old gypsy woman to sell you Love Potion number 9.

There are no coincidences.

(I am still enjoying my pseudo vacation so while I am out I am sharing some old favorites here. This is a work of fiction that originally appeared here.)

The Problem With Blogging

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130921-25619-MakerFaire
Building a better mousetrap isn’t easy.

The problem with blogging is that any post about blogging automatically receives more traffic than normal posts. The problem with blogging is that it lends itself to people listening without hearing.

The problem with blogging is that it creates a hamster wheel effect that makes people push for quantity over quality. The problem with blogging is that many bloggers can’t come up with their own ideas so they parrot the same old things and create an echo chamber that kills creativity.

The problem with blogging is that some people try so hard to be different they…aren’t. The problem with blogging is that if you don’t spend time commenting on other blogs your traffic tends to wither and die.

The problem with blogging is that the blogosphere is cluttered and chaotic.

The problem with blogging is that we aren’t focused on telling good stories, interesting stories or insightful ones. We are just pumping out content.

The problems with blogging really aren’t problems, they are just challenges in need of a simple solution. The answers are there for those who are willing to look for them.

Here’s A Proven Way To Deal With Difficult People

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Someone once told me that “he who laughs last laughs best.” Well, I don’t know if that is true but I am about to find out. My dear roommate thought it would be funny to mess with me by posting questionable pictures of me online.

Head in Hands

Sure Jimmy, millions of people are going to get off with those pictures. After all who doesn’t want to see a man reading a newspaper on the toilet. Ok, so it wasn’t the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times but who cares. Really, do you think that anyone is going to think less of me because I like to spend my time in the smallest room of the house reading The National Enquirer.

You never know when it might be useful to learn that the reason Brad Pitt left Jennifer Aniston is because he is really Angelina Jolie’s brother. How many people are cognizant of the fact that the reason why the Middle East is blowing up is because there is a war being fought between the Martians and the Venusians.

Don’t think that I haven’t noticed your passive-aggressive behavior. I may not respond to your little digs but I notice them. I don’t respond because by not doing so I piss you off more. Yes, I know that you hate the lack of reaction. You are like a freaking insecure woman who flips out because I don’t pay enough attention to you.

Has there ever been a man more in need of a blow job than you. I don’t think so.  Nor is it my fault that you got arrested for hiring a tranny to take care of that need. Did you ever hear of Hugh Grant? Dude, only an idiot parks their car in a strip mall at 6 PM. It wasn’t dark out and the dry cleaner was still open. What did you think was going to happen.

I wish I could have been there to here you fumble through an excuse. I can picture the little beads of sweat forming on your head and that nervous laugh. Did you try one of your stupid jokes on the cop. “Gee officer, I am not sure how that ended up in her mouth, I was trying to help her find a contact lens and somehow it sprung out.”

But you are a moron and I am guessing that what prompted your anger towards me is the telephone call you heard between Dave and I. Maybe you forgot but Dave and I are in the process of rebuilding a car. When we were talking about a tranny it wasn’t about your experience but the transmission we need to rebuild that ’67 Camaro in his garage.

Damn, if I wasn’t so strapped for cash I wouldn’t be sharing a place with a dolt like you. I only wish that you could read this because I am typing slowly so that you can keep up. You my dunder headed friend made a serious mistake when you came after me with your Cool Hand Luke quote about a “Failure to communicate.”

So let me communicate this. Your mother reads the Beverly Hills Newspaper Daily and she’ll see the following ad with a picture;

For Sale: One slightly used Penis Pump. Not sure when it was last cleaned, if ever. The soon to be former owner is a skinny blond man who was arrested for indecent exposure in a local strip mall. Of course I’ll use your cell phone and email address as contact information.

Who is laughing now…big boy.

*****

This is a work of fiction. It was originally published over here. Of course I would never consider doing anything remotely similar to this in real life, or would I.

Excuse me while I go ponder this. 😉

Do People Find You To Be Boring?

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Empty Cage

“The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them — words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they’re brought out. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you’ve said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That’s the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a tellar but for want of an understanding ear.”
― Stephen King, Different Seasons

I really do wish there was a soundtrack for my life besides the one that played in my head.  Call me what you will but sometimes I wish that when I entered a room everyone would hear the theme to Raiders or The Imperial March.

Maybe that is crazy, egotistical or something else but sometimes I think about it because it is fun.

We’re on the cusp of Passover and I am lost in thoughts about seders past and people who are no longer here. I am stuck in moments from the past while I look towards the future and trying to figure out what made those moments so memorable.

Who Accepts Us?

The story of Passover is about freedom but not just the physical kind, it includes the mental too. Don’t worry, this isn’t a post where I am going to preach or witness to you, it is just trying to share some thoughts with you.

Because very few of us have people in our lives who we believe/feel accept all of us for who we are…unconditionally. So we operate in a sort of slavery to social conventions and dictates that we often refuse to break.

Sometimes it is important to not step out of line because to do so would cause more harm than good and sometimes it is the best thing we can do. Sometimes our freedom from slavery comes the moment we say fuck it I am going to take a shot at doing XYZ because it is what my heart requires.

Boring People and Boring People

Change the emphasis there and you can move from being the person that serves as a cure for insomnia to a description of other people. I think about this often because I don’t want to be the person who is the substitute for Ambien.

But I also don’t want to be the guy who is like everyone else because it is easier to get along when you go along. And of course as a writer/marketer I have professional reasons not to be boring.

So it is important to me on multiple levels to do what I can to not be boring.

Everyone Has A Story

I suppose it is part of why I try to ask people to tell me their story. Most people like to talk about themselves so when you give them an opportunity to do so it is a way to help build connections and to prevent them from thinking you are boring.

Unfortunately it doesn’t necessarily mean that you won’t find them boring, but those are the breaks.

And of course listening to someone tell their story is often interesting and a good way to stimulate ideas for stories to write. Truth really is stranger than fiction.

What I often find interesting about trying to get these stories out of people are how many tell me about what they really want to do and how they are doing something else until they can figure out how to do what they really want to do.

And that my friends is enough fodder for the midnight hour.

“There are no safe paths in this part of the world. Remember you are over the Edge of the Wild now, and in for all sorts of fun wherever you go.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

How To Become A Better Writer- Build Your Vocabulary

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English: Of course. — What is so "monster...
English: Of course. — What is so “monster” of a word? — It’s an adjective. — But when I say: You’re a monster! What is it then for a word? — So it’s a words of abuse! Dansk: Selvfølgelig. — Hvad er saa “uhyre” for et Ord? — Det er et Tillægsord. — Men, naar jeg nu siger: Du er et Uhyre! Hvad er det saa for et ord? — Saa er det et Skjældsord! (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

One of my favorite ways to work on becoming a better writer is by building my vocabulary. The point is not to pepper posts with words that make me sound like I am competing with Shakespeare or trying to write a legal document because that tends to bore readers.

Rather I see it is being similar to cooking a great meal where the secret lies in the spices and sauce(s) you use. Here is a snapshot of some words I have collected over the years.
  • adjunct– Noun: A thing added to something else as a supplementary rather than an essential part. Adjective: Connected or added to something, typically in an auxiliary way: “alternative or adjunct therapies”
  • augur- : an official diviner of ancient Rome 2: one held to foretell events by omens
  • bete noire– a person or thing strongly detested or avoided
  • ecumenical– 1: worldwide or general in extent, influence, or application 2 a : of, relating to, or representing the whole of a body of churches
  • fait accompli– a thing accomplished and presumably irreversible
  • inveigle– to win over by wiles : entice 2: to acquire by ingenuity or flattery : wangle<inveigled her way into a promotion>
  • lagniappe– a small gift given a customer by a merchant at the time of a purchase;broadly : something given or obtained gratuitously or by way of good measure
  • poltroon– a spiritless coward
  • truckle– to act in a subservient manner
  • vacuous- : emptied of or lacking content 2: marked by lack of ideas or intelligence :stupid, inane <a vacuous mind> <a vacuous movie> 3: devoid of serious occupation
  • vagary– an erratic, unpredictable, or extravagant manifestation, action, or notion.
  • Opsimath– N. a person who becomes a student or learner late in life.
  • Climacteric– n.1 : a major turning point or critical stage
  • 2 a : menopause b : a period in the life of a male corresponding to female menopause and usually occurring with less well-defined physiological and psychological changes
  • 3 : the marked and sudden rise in the respiratory rate of fruit just prior to full ripening.
  • Prolix-adj. 1 : unduly prolonged or drawn out : too long
  • 2 : marked by or using an excess of words
  • Confluence: n. 1 : a coming or flowing together, meeting, or gathering at one point 
    2 a : the flowing together of two or more streams b : the place of meeting of two streams c : the combined stream formed by conjunction

  • English: Cobbe portrait, claimed to be a portr...
    English: Cobbe portrait, claimed to be a portrait of William Shakespeare done while he was alive Lëtzebuergesch: Uelegporträt vum William Shakespeare am Alter vu 46 Joer, gemoolt 1610 zu Liefzäite vum Dichter, haut am Besëtz vum Konschtrestaurator Alec Cobbe. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
  • Tendentious-adj. marked by a tendency in favor of a particular point of view.
  • esurient- hungry, greedy
  • Nugatory–1 : of little or no consequence  2 : having no force.
  • acatalepsy-Incomprehensibility of things; the doctrine held by the ancient Skeptic philosophers, that human knowledge never amounts to certainty, but only to probability.
  • acephalist– One who acknowledges no head or superior.
  • Raconteur-One who tells stories and anecdotes with skill and wit.
  • Callipygian-adj.Having beautifully proportioned buttocks.
  • Lachrymose-adj.
  • Weeping or inclined to weep; tearful.
  • Causing or tending to cause tears.
  • Perspicacious-adj. Having or showing penetrating mental discernment; clear-sighted.
  • Flibbertigibbet-n. A silly, scatterbrained, or garrulous person.
  • Jejune-adj. Not interesting; dull: “and there pour forth jejune words and useless empty phrases” (Anthony Trollope).
  • Lacking maturity; childish: surprised by their jejune responses to our problems.
  • Lacking in nutrition: a jejune diet
  • Ollendorffian– in the stilted language of foreign phrase-books.
  • gerascophobia -a morbid, irrational fear of, or aversion to, growing old.
  • bathysiderodrophobia -the fear of subways, undergrounds or metros.
  • hormephobia-Fear of shock.
  • cacoethes loquendi-the irresistible urge to speak.
  • cacoethes scribendi-the irresistible urge to write
  • saudade-[Port.] yearning or longing, but more than that…
  • Scaturient-L. scaturiens, p. pr. of scaturire gush out, from scatere to bubble, gush.]
  • Gushing forth; full to overflowing; effusive. [R.]
  • Walpurgisnacht1) the eve of May Day on which witches are held to ride to an appointed rendezvous
  • 2) something (as an event or situation) having a nightmarish quality
  • barlafumble[fr. parley, call for truce + ?] Scot. obs.
  • a call for a truce by one who has fallen in fighting or play; a request for a time out
  • defalcate-intr.v., -cat·ed, -cat·ing, -cates. To misuse funds; embezzle.
  • Dactylonomy-n.[Gr. da`ktylos finger + no`mos law, distribution.]
  • The art of numbering or counting by the fingers.
  • recrudesce-intr.v., -desced, -desc·ing, -desc·es.To break out anew or come into renewed activity, as after a period of quiescence.
  • videlicet-vÄ­-dÄ•l’ĭ-sÄ•t’, vÄ«-, wÄ­-dā’lÄ­-kÄ•t’) pronunciation
  • adv. (Abbr. viz.)
  • That is; namely. Used to introduce examples, lists, or items.
  • temerarious-adj. Presumptuously or recklessly daring
  • Tentiginous-[L. tentigo, -inis, a tension, lecherousness, fr. tendere, tentum, to stretch.]
  • 1. Stiff; stretched; strained. [Obs.] Johnson. 2. Lustful, or pertaining to lust. [Obs.] B. Jonson
    Urinator-n.[L., from urinari to plunge under water, to dive.]
  • One who dives under water in search of something, as for pearls; a diver.
  • usufruct-n.The right to use and enjoy the profits and advantages of something belonging to another as long as the property is not damaged or altered in any way.
  • Jackpudding-n.A merry-andrew; a buffoon.
  • Jobbernowl-n.[OE. jobbernoule, fr. jobarde a stupid fellow; cf. E. noll.]
  • A blockhead.
  • nikhedonia-fr. Nike, the Greek goddess of victory + hedoné, pleasure] the pleasure derived from anticipating success
  • quidnunckery-[fr. L. quid nunc, what now] nonce-word curiosity, love of news or gossip (also quid-nunc-ism)
  • mancinism-the condition of being left-handed
  • macroverbumsciolist– 1) a person who is ignorant of large words
  • 2) a person who pretends to know a word, then secretly refers to a dictionary.
  • mastigophorer-obs. a fellow worthy to be whipped.
  • matutolypea-getting up on the wrong side of the bed.
  • xenodochiophobia -the fear of foreign hospitality (worry about foreign hotels).
  • Xenodochium-n.(a) (Class. Antiq.) A house for the reception of strangers. (b) In the Middle Ages, a room in a monastery for the reception and entertainment of strangers and pilgrims, and for the relief of paupers. [Called also Xenodocheion.]
  • Knobstick-n. 1. One who refuses to join, or withdraws from, a trade union. [Cant, Eng.]
  • 2. A stick, cane, or club terminating in a knob; esp., such a stick or club used as a weapon or missile; a knobkerrie.
  • effulgence-i-FUL-juhn(t)s, noun:
  • The state of being bright and radiant; splendor; brilliance.
  • [Webster 1913 Suppl.]
  • divaricate-To diverge at a wide angle; spread apart.
  • Otiant– idle; resting.
  • machicolation- n. apertures in parapet or floor of gallery for firing upon persons below. machicolate, v.t. furnish with these
  • Secern– To discern as separate; discriminate.
  • prothalamion -A song in celebration of a wedding; an epithalamium.
  • a capite ad calcem-From head to heel.
  • ad internecionem- To extermination.
  • Abusus non tollit usum-Wrong use does not preclude proper use.
  • ad captandum vulgus-To attract or to please the rabble.
  • Abligurition- n.[L. abligurito, fr. abligurire to spend in luxurious indulgence; ab +ligurire to be lickerish, dainty, fr. lingere to lick.]
  • Prodigal expense for food. [Obs.] Bailey.
  • Anililagnia– an attraction to older women.
  • Armsaye: the armhole in clothing.
  • Euneirophrenia: peace of mind after a pleasant dream.
  • Suppedaneum: foot support for crucifix victims.
  • Adfenestration: V. The act of entering through a window, usually surreptitiously.
  • Vatic-adj.Of or characteristic of a prophet; oracular.