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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

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Archives for November 2013

Should We Care About Unsubscribers?

November 19, 2013 by Jack Steiner 7 Comments

Empties

I am not sure if aliens captured me or if someone tried to do a lobotomy on me using a butter knife and a tire iron but it has been the kind of day where I can’t tell you what happened or how so much time has passed.

All I know is that the sun has set and I feel like someone has worked me over. Years of contact sports have made me quite familiar with many aches and pains so the ones that have chosen to visit me today are the familiar sort.

That is my way of saying that I am pretty certain the back pain comes from two hours of basketball last night and not the aliens, but one can never be sure ‘cuz the little green men are devious.

Readers Come & Go

I don’t pay as much attention to my stats as I once did, at least not on a global level. I tend to focus more upon subscribers and though I have a respectable number it is small enough that I notice when people disappear.

When people disappear I tend to shrug my shoulders and just move on because there are a million reasons why they might choose to go. The primary one is that these words don’t provide enough value to make it worth their time to continue coming by.

I am not going to lie and say that it never bothers me or that I never think about it because I do for personal and professional reasons.

If the goal is to build something bigger here and to turn this into something more than it is important to pay attention to what people do and to figure out what the draw is.

Once you know why they visit and what they want you do your best to give them more and then they recognize that they can’t afford not to keep visiting.

That is the theory and in practice it tends to work except I don’t listen to my own advice, nor to any other. I just keep marching to the sound of an a drummer who has no rhythm because I like doing things my way.

And I believe that doing it my way will lead to where I want to go, albeit at a slower pace than I might like.

A Lost Day

Remember up above when I said today feels like a lost day and I wondered about little green men? Well I feel like I should tell you that the Shmata Queen hasn’t seen Inception yet and she needs to. Maybe she’ll get lucky and see it with me,

Casablanca is still my favorite movie and I’m not sure that I would rank Inception in my top ten but it is good enough to merit watching.

Don’t ask me to give you a list tonight of my favorites because today has drained me and after walking through mud for 18 hours I don’t have a list to share.

But I will tell you that I watched The Notebook this summer and was pleasantly surprised.

Lost days like today make me a bit crazy. I don’t particularly enjoy this feeling of wondering where the time went because it is not associated with feeling like I was productive and that is not easy.

Not easy because I have this long list of things that have to be done and this sense that if I don’t figure out how to move them from “to do” to “done” something bad will happen.

It is probably not true but I have that little itch that makes me wonder and I am having trouble shaking it off.

What Kind Of Blogger Are You?

Maybe that uneasy feeling is what is pushing me to look at unsubscribers and to think about why they are moving on. Maybe that is what has me taking the hard look and asking what kind of blogger am I because success in blogging is related to knowing the answers to questions like that

Or maybe it is not.

Maybe it is the muscle spasms that never used to visit me but now consider themselves invited guests. Maybe it is tied into the ongoing fight with aging and frustration with myself for not adhering to a diet.

Or maybe it is not.

Might be something else entirely but what I am certain of is that writing always makes me feel better even when the posts I write aren’t quite as good as I hope them to be.

Readers come and readers go. If you show some passion and personality and invite them to join you on your journey many will walk with you for quite some distance and a few might even go all the way.

What do you think?

Filed Under: NaBloPoMo 2013

What Is The Best Use Of Your Time

November 19, 2013 by Jack Steiner Leave a Comment

Jousting

There is no punctuation in the headline because I don’t know if it is a question, statement or comment. Blame it upon this being one of those days where it feels like I am crawling through mud.

Took a look a short while ago at some old pictures and cringed because when I see what I looked like then and think about now I want to know what the hell happened.

But the truth is I know exactly what happened and exactly how to fix the issues I see.

The bigger question is will I make effective use of my time to make those corrections and the sad answer is…maybe.

How Do We Spend Our Time?

I have been disappointed with the reflection in the mirror more than once and had ample opportunity to do something about it yet I haven’t. Maybe it is inertia, maybe it is because any discomfort or embarrassment wears off quickly or maybe it is just laziness.

The bottom line right now is that I haven’t chosen to spend time adjusting my eating and exercise habits to correct these things. Been too hard to fix the diet and too easy to enjoy the foods I love.’

Sitting here at the computer isn’t helping it. Not fixing any of these issues and in some cases it is probably exacerbating them.

Circle around to social media and I have to ask my standard question of what am I getting out of it. One part of the answer is a paycheck and that is necessary and beneficial.

The second part is pleasure and that is necessary and beneficial too.

The third part is lazier and that is not good on any level.

Sitting at the computer each day for look is something I have to do, but I need to find a way to adjust how I spent my time.

Attitude Adjustment

Maybe it is a matter of adjusting my attitude and deciding that it is not too hard to change my diet and to do more running. Not a fan of running which is part of why I play basketball because I don’t mind it during the game.

Could be something I adjust, my thoughts about running that is. Or maybe it is just a matter of increasing the amount of walking I do. Maybe the thing to do is to agree to adjust my schedule so that I have more time for walking.

Tired of not liking the way I look and of clothes not fitting the way I want them to. Tired of thinking about what I looked like at 30 and how I look now.

The best use of my time is adjusting my thoughts and doing something about my actions.

What about you?

Filed Under: Life

How 25 Million Bloggers Destroyed Publishing

November 18, 2013 by Jack Steiner Leave a Comment

goat-1
Somewhere in the archives here you’ll find a post about my trip to the Olympics and some words about the screamers. It is a reference to the couple who stayed in the hotel room next to mine.

For three nights they entertained my roommate and I with their all night long sessions. I have never heard or witnessed a woman scream like that outside of bad pornography nor did I ever get to thank them in person for the show.

Way back during the dawn of time known as the ’96 Olympics I made my roommate laugh hysterically with various Howard Cosell impressions about the screamers and even penned part of a newspaper story about them.

“Jack, you are a funny guy. Promise me one day you’ll write a book about this.”

I remember nodding my head at my roommate and telling him that Simon and Schuster and three other major publishers were waiting to discover me and that if they failed I would hijack one of my our copier trucks and do the book independently.

Independent Publishing

It is funny looking back upon it all because I can’t say I was serious about publishing a book independently. I made that crack because we were Pitney-Bowes copier salesmen and it was funny to us to suggest that we could grab one of our trucks and photocopy our way into a best-seller.

Never occurred to me that one day independent publishing would become popular and that it would enable almost anyone to become an author.

Nor did I realize that I had a bias about so many people publishing their own book. Didn’t realize that one day I would be somewhat bitter about how easy it was for anyone to declare themselves a writer.

Didn’t realize that I would look at some reality television stars and be irritated because they were published authors. Not only were they published some of them had gotten the very cool publishing contracts from the big publishing house(s) that I wanted.

And then in the midst of my bitterness I recognized that I wasn’t upset with them as much as I was upset with myself.

Upset because I didn’t follow the advice that I give my own children. Didn’t go after it the way I could have because if I did I wouldn’t be jealous.

Bloggers and Publishing

I can’t say that realizing this about myself changed everything and suddenly provided me with a better attitude because I would be lying. I still look at some blogs and cringe when I read the writing there.

I still read parts and pieces from books that bloggers have written and wonder how the hell they managed to not only become popular but published because what I read is awful.

And it reminds me how subjective writing can be.

There are people that love my work and people that hate it. That is no different than any other writer. It is no different than I how I feel about some professional writers too.

Some authors produce content that makes me smile and or feel something every time. Some of them produce content that makes me shake my head and wonder why I can’t write like that and some make me wonder how they ever get paid for producing such dreck.

Sometimes Mondays Are Hard

In the midst of this game of let’s remember I’ll share today has been a hard Monday. Just one of those days where you feel like you are walking through mud and everything you do is an effort.

Call it an extra cup of coffee kind of Monday and you still won’t adequately describe how pleasurable it has been for me. Today is one of those days where I am fairly certain that I’ll see pair of horns sticking out of my skull but it doesn’t have to end that way.

Today will be the day where I grab the bull by the horns and make something happen. The moment where I do more than just rant or complain about what others did, do or have done.

And that will make the difference.

Filed Under: Blogging

A Beach Requires Saltwater

November 17, 2013 by Jack Steiner Leave a Comment

listen to ‘A Beach Requires Saltwater’ on Audioboo

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Starry Night

November 16, 2013 by Jack Steiner Leave a Comment

image

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Ojai, Fort Worth and El Paso- sunset and evening skies have been the setting for quiet time and introspection.

They all feel so close and yet so far apart.

Filed Under: Life

Is Foreplay Overrated?

November 15, 2013 by Jack Steiner Leave a Comment

Foreplay

Five Songs:

  1. I Was Wrong- Social Distortion
  2. Jackson- Johnny and June Carter Cash
  3. I’m On Fire- Bruce Springsteen
  4. Reflections of My Life – Marmalade
  5. Come Live with Me- Ray Charles

Won’t be long now before I’ll officially kick off the weekend. I’ll hop into the car, drive up the coast and go visit one of my favorite places in the world.

I’ll wander through the hills by myself and stop every now and then to listen for the echoes of the past and think about the people that once walked through those places with me as well as some who should be there now.

Stop, look and listen because it is a place that helped make me who I am now. The site of some transformative moments, most of them good but there are a few that aren’t what you would call nicer memories.

So be it, that is part of life.

Foreplay Is Overrated

That is a reference to How I Used Bad Headlines and Jedi Mind Tricks To Make A Billion From Blogging. It is a post I wrote I while back that just reminds me about how cyclical blogging is.

The more things change the more they stay the same.

Not going to turn this post into any sort of rant about social media or how I think life should be. It is just the contribution for the daily posts that come with NaBloPomo and as such it is a brief snapshot of my thoughts.

But I will mention again for those who are new that I mess around with headlines because I get tired of a lot of what I read and the focus on creating “perfect headlines” so that people will read bores me.

Write good content. Tell a good story and people will read.

It is a marathon and not a sprint.

The Greatest Posts Ever Written

I thought about scheduling a post for tomorrow containing my greatest hits  but decided against it. Primary reason is because I am short on time and I don’t know what posts to include.

There are the usual ones that I tend to include so that people get a sense of what I write and share here but I think it is probably time to take a hard look at those and see if some are played out or if there are new ones that merit inclusion.

Probably a good time to review my About Me page and see if that should be updated too. But can’t do any of that now ‘cuz the Traveling Jack show is about to leave and I need to run.

There is a beach that needs my attention. If I remember I’ll snap a shot of the water and share it with you later, but no promises because that part of the trip is supposed to be for me to sit and chill out.

Be good to each other and I’ll be back before you know it.

Or I won’t.

Either way, be nice.

Filed Under: Blogging

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