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 2013

Do You Fear Looking Foolish?

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Mardi Gras Parade, New Orleans, Louisiana (LOC)

Chuck issued a challenge to create three new pieces of visual, video or audio  content every day and I haven’t stopped thinking about it.

I loved the post and his comment that creativity is more than just a matter of talent because I agree and because it made me think about my creativity.

It reminded me about how I haven’t done as much to exercise the creative side as I normally do and I suspect some of it is because I have let my fear hide behind excuses about not having time or being stressed out.

No One Wants To Be The Fool

Creativity requires losing our fear of failure and or looking foolish. How many times have you had an idea you didn’t follow up on because you were afraid that people would think it was stupid?

My guess is most of us have multiple examples of this both personally and professionally. Some of our ideas probably are stupid, improbable, impossible and unlikely to succeed.

But there are others that aren’t.

There are others that fall into the same place trips to the moon and smartphones did. There are people who are willing to push the limits and to sail a ship around the world because they know it is not flat.

I don’t know about you but I think the difference between them and everyone else is a willingness to risk looking foolish.

Writing Requires A Suspension of Fear

Those of us who write fiction have to confront our fears about it or risk never finding out if we really have the ability we think we do. We have to stop worrying about whether people will hate, like or love our work and just write.

It is something I have been thinking about often because I haven’t written as many stories as I used to.

Some of it is because I haven’t had the motivation to take what I see inside my head and put it on paper and some of it is fear. That is sort of unusual for me because most of the time I really don’t care if people like what I write. Some will and some won’t, that is how it is with every writer.

There are people that love Mark Twain and people that hate him, why should it be different for me.

Dad Is A Role Model

I can’t serve as a good role model unless I am willing to do the same things I teach my children to do. Can’t be an advocate without getting my hands dirty and it is time that I do so again.

Time to say screw it and just put the pen to paper because without risk there is no reward. I always say I want to live my dreams and not dream my life…

Or maybe it is more accurate to say I want to take the Cave Johnson approach to life. When life gives you lemons, what do you do?

Love that.

How To Help Teach Children To Give Back- #oneforone

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Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California

Then it don’t matter. I’ll be all around in the dark – I’ll be everywhere. Wherever you can look – wherever there’s a fight, so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever there’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there. I’ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad. I’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry and they know supper’s ready, and when the people are eatin’ the stuff they raise and livin’ in the houses they build – I’ll be there, too.
The Grapes of Wrath- Tom Joad

I am a father, a writer, a friend and a human being. The most important job in my life is to raise my children to be menschen, to be people of character who are compassionate and productive members of society.

Many of their friends were born lucky, born to affluence and wealth they don’t know what it means to go without. Sometimes my children ask why we don’t go on vacation like some of their friends. Sometimes they wonder why we don’t have a house like them, but what my kids don’t realize is they haven’t really gone without.

They have never known what it is like to be homeless, hungry or clothed solely in hand-me-downs because their parents can’t afford to take care of them. They don’t know what it means to be poor or to be truly worried about important things.

So I think about what I can do to help them appreciate and understand that not everyone is lucky. I work on helping them adopt an attitude of gratitude. It might sound goofy, but it is important to me.

How Do We Do It?

In our house we do it by going through our clothes and our toys to see if there are things we no longer use/need so that we can give to others who do.

We give of our time to help others at different activities and we look for companies that give back and help them too. Sometimes it is by purchasing products from them or by referring friends and family, sometimes both.

TOMS And Children In Need

Sometimes I wrestle with where to spend my money and how to support others because there are so many different opportunities and my resources are limited.

But let’s cut to the chase here, both you and the FTC want to know if I am writing this because I have been compensated. It is a legitimate question and you might think that it is the only reason why I am doing it.

It is not, I am doing it because TOMS shoes have made a commitment to give 1 million pairs of new shoes to America’s children by the end of 2014 and if my post helps them reach and or surpass that goal that is worth something.

And it gives me another opportunity to show my children that there are multiple ways to help give back and that is worth something too.

The Absentee Father

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The phone rings, I answer and listen to my children tell me about their first day of school. They fill me in on teachers, classmates and their impressions of what they think the school year will be like and ask me to tell them more about my life.

It doesn’t feel real to me to hear them ask what my life is like and wonder if my apartment looks different than when they were last here to visit.

My childhood memories aren’t like this, nothing like this.

I had a father  who lived with us, he didn’t move away and he rarely had to travel for work.

What Kind Of Father Am I?

Time passes and the phone rings, my dad is on the phone and I feel like I am a kid again. I tell him what I am doing and I realize I am looking for his approval, asking for him to tell me what I am doing is alright.

He says it is, tells me I am doing exactly what I need to do, what I should be doing. Tells me he is proud of me and that this is just temporary.

“What is different between you and the guys in the service?

He is not really asking for an answer but I do anyway.

“Not much really, aside from little details like I am not in the service and no one is actively trying to kill me.”

Dad laughs and says that it is probably true, but reminds me that if I go through with my banana plan it could change the equation.

Musical Interlude

The Ghost Of Tom Joad– Bruce Springsteen
Radioactive– Imagine Dragons
BURN IT DOWN-Linkin Park
Reflections Of My Life– The Marmalade
Hold On- Bruce Springsteen and Sam Moore
Misty Mountains– The Hobbit

It Is An Adventure

I told them when I left I was going on an adventure and that one day they would join me on it. I left for the three day drive and wondered what come from it all.

Promised them that I was doing this for them because I was and I am. Told them nothing stays the same and said it was possible work could bring me back home but explained that sometimes you move for opportunity, for a better life.

Time passed and I wondered what life had been like for my great grandparents. Thought about how they moved to the states from the old country and figured that had to be harder. There wasn’t any Skype or email to use to keep in touch, no telephone.

But was it harder or easier, were attitudes, different or better.

Sat outside one night and smoke a cigar, closed my eyes and exhaled. Been around 25 years or so since my grandfathers smoked cigars but the smell brought the memories back and I held a silent conversation with them about my life.

They told me it was ok to miss the family and that I did the right thing. Told the echoes in my head that it felt a bit silly to have the conversation because I didn’t need approval and yet here I was asking for it.

Not Really An Absentee Dad

I am not really an absentee dad. I didn’t walk out on my family but there are moments where it is harder to be far away. Doesn’t matter why I am or whether it is for the right reasons.

Doesn’t matter because when things happen you want to be there to help, to be a part of it. If I had to name my fear it is that something will happen when I am too far away to help but that has always been there.

Things can happen when you are down the street, crap you can’t plan for can come about and turn everything upside down and that is just part of life.

So I accept that and move on to the next part, remind myself this is just temporary and that in the grand scheme of life this will be a moment in time and not the final act.

And for now that is enough.

A Dad Blogger Teaches You To Cook the Perfect Steak- A Post People Will Read

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Dad can cook, clean and parent.
Dad can cook, clean and parent.

Five days ago you and I talked about Triberr And The Challenge Of The Twitter Thank You and I watched as traffic exploded.

Some of it was because it is a timely subject and some of it was because Mark Schaefer linked to me in a post he wrote about the same topic.

Initially this post was supposed to talk about what happens when a popular blogger links to your post(s) and how to take advantage of the opportunity to convert new visitors into subscribers/readers but there are a million posts out there that deal with that already.

So then I was going to write about the best way to become a billionaire while blogging but that kind of bored me too, because the answer is so simple.

How do you become a billionaire while blogging? Win a billion bucks.

How To Cook The Perfect Steak Is Far More Interesting and Practical

If you want to write posts that generate comments and traffic than all you need to do is blog about blogging. Write about social media and use titles like How To Monetize Your Blog, How To Write Headlines That Work or 18 Ways To Publish A Successful Ebook.

That is low hanging fruit and I guarantee you that some of the bloggers who are sharing those “powerful Ebooks” are rookies who have barely been blogging and are just jumping on the bandwagon.

Maybe one day I’ll write an Ebook about how to become a dad blogger but right now I am more interested in just writing and in continuing to build a community.

Community interests me, they evolve and you see people come and go. After almost 10 years here there are only a handful that have been with me from the start.

Maybe it is because the others got bored with my blog and or decided that it didn’t provide the same value anymore. That is cool with me, no one is obligated to stay but if you go remember that there are blog cancellation fees. 😉

So maybe the best way to protect and prevent losing readers is to share valuable information like how to cook the perfect steak. BTW, that is not intentional keyword stuffing, it is heading towards midnight in Texas and this old man is tired.

Blogs and Bloggers Evolve

Blogs and bloggers evolve and if they didn’t I think it really would be sad. Evolution is growth and if you aren’t growing, than what are you doing? Maybe you are trapped in cleveland.

Speaking of growth it has been sort of a bizarre week for me.

The kids went back to school last week and for the first time in their lives I wasn’t there to be a part of it. That is because they are still in Los Angeles and I am here in Texas.

It is supposed to be a temporary thing, a transition for all of us. I am here for work and they will eventually join me but not until next summer so for now I head back to LA as often as I can.

But it is not easy to try and help with homework over Skype or to be  the sort of father I want to be from here. If I were in the service it would be similar to being deployed, but I am not.

My MOS is civilian and my objective is the same as every other parent, to give my kids the best life possible so moving here for work makes sense, but it is not always easy.

And life experiences are a big part of what makes a blog and a blogger evolve so consider this part of my evolution.

The Bachelor Lifestyle- Cooking

I have always enjoyed cooking but it has been a while since I have done as much of it as I have had to do this last year. It has been a lot of fun and my only complaint is that I hate having to do the dishes.

Anyhoo, one of the things that I have enjoyed doing is finding useful YouTube videos like the one below that provide a quick overview for cooking a meal.

I have cooked a lot of steaks in my life, but almost all of them have been on my grill and since that is back in L.A. I have been doing the stove top thing.

And with that my friends I bid you good night, hope you enjoy the video.

Drunk Blogging For Amateurs

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Firmaments

All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you: the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was. If you can get so that you can give that to people, then you are a writer.
• Ernest Hemingway

Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don’t know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use.
• Ernest Hemingway

This post comes with a guarantee- many of my fellow Triberr Tribesmen won’t share this post because the headline will scare them off.  We won’t talk about whether they’ll actually read the damn thing first or not.

The second thing you need to know is that I am what they call stone cold sober. I thought about grabbing a beer to accompany me but it is after midnight and that seems like a poor time to begin drinking.

In the days that once were I might have chosen to pop open a bottle, take a hard pull and then try to bleed here at the keyboard but I am not that kid anymore. Don’t need to pretend to be like the man I heard old Uncle Ernie was. I just need to be me.

Hell, I prefer that. It is easier in every way.

Read The Quotes Above Again

If you haven’t read the quotes I used to open this post I am going to ask you to do so now. They resonate with me and I take more from them than I can possibly express.

Not unlike most people I am on a journey, a spiritual quest of sorts and I feel like I am doing the two steps forwards, one step backwards dance. It is sort of an awkward and ugly shuffle but I am not built for grace.

That is ok with me because I know who I am and what I am about. I have a goal in mind and a general idea for how to get there. That is my way of saying I see the spot on the mountaintop I want to reach but I don’t see the fucking trail.

Not that it makes much difference, I walk, I hike and I climb. Doesn’t much matter whether there is a path or not because while I may not climb like a monkey or mountain goat I get where I am going.

I Stopped Trying To Figure It Out

Some of you have asked me to provide the back story behind posts in this series. You read posts like:

and then you move on to things like:

and try to figure out what is fact and what is fiction.

Sometimes you send me emails telling me that you have figured it out and ask for confirmation but I never give it. That is because it is not important.

What is important to me is trying to figure out why I seem to focus on the same sort of theme/stories or at least it used to be. It used to make me scratch my head how I could go from being a sportswriter who dabbled in fiction to this sort of thing.

And then I just stopped trying to figure it out.

I stopped trying to understand why songs like this and this worked so damn well for these stories. That’s because I see a connection between them and that place I am trying to reach.

Dreams

The long term goal is to make a living from writing stories and those posts above are always among my most popular. People read and re-read them. They pull in new readers and make the older ones come back.

And if you if you believe that the universe provides a guide or road map to follow you’ll understand that it makes sense to pay attention to the signs that keep flashing red.

It doesn’t really matter to me whether that connection is real or imagined because either way I see it as pointing me towards opportunity.

So I am just doing my best to try to recognize when possibility turns into opportunity so that I can take advantage of it.

And there you have my few words about drunk blogging for amateurs.

Write to be read and read so that you can write.

One Year Later- Post Script

Technically this post ran just short of a year ago. I stumbled across it today and stared at it for a while because I was curious to see if anything resonated with me.

The answer is yes. I have more answers and I have more questions.

Ain’t life peachy sometimes. 😉