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 February 2014

What About The Story You Fear To Write?

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Zip Lining

“In a good bookroom you feel in some mysterious way that you are absorbing the wisdom contained in all the books through your skin, without even opening them.”
― Mark Twain

“You can talk with someone for years, everyday, and still, it won’t mean as much as what you can have when you sit in front of someone, not saying a word, yet you feel that person with your heart, you feel like you have known the person for forever…. connections are made with the heart, not the tongue.”
― C. JoyBell C.

“The only way to find true happiness is to risk being completely cut open.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

I thought about telling you about what happened when my kids and I watched 42. Thought about telling you about the conversation we had about people and racism. It is a good story and it is the kind of tale that reflects well upon me because it makes me look like a good father.

Well, I am a good father. I am not without my faults, but I am a good dad. But that is not what I want from this post. Not looking to impress you or generate compliments.

No, this post is me thinking about storytelling, boundaries and how to create compelling content.

What About The Story You Fear To Write?

There is a story trapped inside my head but I am almost afraid to put it down on paper.

I don’t know if you believe in fate. Don’t know if you think the universe sends us messages or if you think life is one big coincidence but things are happening now and I have this feeling in my gut about it all.

Just read The Song Of My Heart Makes My Soul Sing and smiled because those words spoke to me in a different way than the past.

“when you make certain choices in life you find out that as you close doors they lock behind you. You can’t go backwards and there is no exit other than that at the end of the tunnel- so you go through.”

There was a time when those words were said with a bitter finality and a wistful shrug of the shoulders, but no longer. Now I look at it as part of a grand adventure and while it would be nice to go back that is not of interest to me.

Forward is where I want to go. Life is about today and tomorrow, not yesterday.

I hear the song and I wonder if I should answer it or wait.

“Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisioned by the enemy, don’t we consider it his duty to escape?. . .If we value the freedom of mind and soul, if we’re partisans of liberty, then it’s our plain duty to escape, and to take as many people with us as we can!”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

Want to know what really frustrates me about writing? It is the story you feel inside you that you can’t put down on paper. It is the tale you try to tale but scream because you know the people aren’t hearing/seeing what you want them to see.

There is always someone out there who can read in between the lines, a person who knows you well enough to recognize and understand the awkward expressions for what you intend them to be.

But what is really killing me, what is making me crazy at this very moment is that the story I see refuses to be shared. It is hiding in the recesses and corners of my mind.

It is not writer’s block, this thing I am experiencing now. It is writer’s frustration, but not block.

Either way the bottom line is that am not pleased with the outcome but I’ll hit publish because you don’t improve without practice. And besides, you never know what will resonate with people. Sometimes the words we hate the most are the ones someone else loves best.

How To Watch The Olympics

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mikes

If you are among the loyal and devoted readers you know that one day you might read about The Dad Who Won A Gold Medal At 50.

In theory I’ll be standing on the pedestal singing along with the Star Spangled Banner, but as a pragmatic realist it is possible you might see me representing some smaller, less well known nation. Might be the great nation of Shmataville or Lower Grapevinia, can’t really say for certain.

It is contingent upon what gives me the best chance of getting into the games because if you don’t win you can’t play. Excuse me, I meant if you don’t play you can’t win. My apologies for that, I got excited and lost in a moment.

Anyhoo, I wasn’t in the games this year so I spent more than a few hours at home watching many of the competitions. That included one hell of a shindig yesterday that included lots of chips, pizza, assorted desserts and  a Hard Party Kit courtesy of Mike’s Hard Lemonade.

mikes2

Some of you who follow me on social media might have noticed an exchange of banter with various Canadians regarding what the US would do to Canada in both mens and womens hockey.

You might have seen comments where I told the Canucks we didn’t fear their attack penguins and that we weren’t worried about their polar bear cavalry because we were going to take them out the woodshed.

Well it appears that we slipped on the ice and were handed our hats so I have to congratulate them on playing some great hockey, so good that we watched the games live and then again a second time.

In fact we had so much fun we watched the Gold medal match and cheered on for our beloved Canada. Did I mention my paternal grandfather was born in Canada?

mikes4

Bottom line: we had a ton of fun gathering the family and friends together. I’ll be sorry to see the Olympics end, I never grow tired of them.

You can share your own photos of your own Olympic Moments with Mike’s for a chance to win GO USA party gear. All you have to do is share your photo on Mike’s Facebook Page ( https://www.facebook.com/mikeshardlemonade?ref=hl) or tag Mike’s with your photo on Twitter (@mhl).

Per FTC guidelines you need to know that I was provided with compensation for this post. It did not include any Gold, Silver or Bronze medals because one day I am going to earn those on my own or I’ll just write one hell of a story about it but I digress… 😉

Thank you again to Mike’s Hard Lemonade, we had a lot of fun.

How Bloggers Make More Money & Have Better Sex

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The rose has thorns only for those who would gather it

Sometimes a writer is lucky enough to be able to say he or she has a biggest fan and I am one of those. Yeah, that wacky broad named The Shmata Queen is her and though she is crazy I figure on this Saturday night I’ll give her the rose above.

Billy Joel is playing And So It Goes  in the background and I am thinking about how music and blogging fit together so very well. Because music moves people and so does great writing.

5 Songs- A Music Intermission

  1. Happy– Bruce Springsteen
  2. Whiskey Lullaby– Brad Paisely and Allison Krauss
  3. Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door – Bob Dylan
  4. Over The Hills and Far Away– Led Zeppelin
  5. Gypsy- Fleetwood Mac

Write With Reckless Abandon

One of the dad blogger groups has been delving into writing, plumbing the depths about how to do more than just tell a tale.  I don’t know about you, but I love that stuff.

It is part of why you can find so many posts here about writing. Look at Twenty-Five Links That Will Make You A Better Writer/Blogger or dig into 1 Foolproof Way To Become a Better Writer and you’ll see certain themes run are a constant.

I will always advise bloggers to just write. Tell the internal editor that lives inside your head to go away and just write with reckless abandon.

Put your pen on the page, fingers on the keyboard and let the words flow from your fingertips. Sometimes you will fall short and you will be disappointed by what you produce and sometimes you’ll come up with gold.

You never know for certain how people will respond. I thought this piece was junk but it is among the most popular posts I have written.

How Bloggers Make More Money & Have Better Sex

Have I mentioned that women rarely respond well to being called crazy, hysterical or being asked to relax? No? Ok, consider yourself warned and informed.

Also should you ever come across the Shmata Queen remember that it takes her a moment to wield that big black purse. If you keep your eyes open you usually have enough time to duck, but once that monstrous thing gets moving it packs one hell of a wallop.

Ok, if you really want to know how bloggers make more money and have better sex you’ll have to leave me some comments. But if you are willing to settle for a summary the answer is bloggers are more effective communicators and more effective communicators talk to their partners and build deeper levels of trust.

Deeper levels of trust lead to better sex.

How is that for 30 seconds of thought.

More Words About Writing- What Many Fail To Do

What many writers fail to do is truly imagine themselves as the reader of the posts/article/story they are writing.  When you fail to picture yourself as the reader you sometimes forget to try to answer the questions your readers have about whatever you are writing about.

And let’s not forget that sometimes less is more.

One of the most powerful tools you have to rely upon is the readers’ imagination. If you provide just enough detail they will fill in the blank spots and sometimes they’ll do a better job than you could have.

If I told you I wrapped both of my hands in her hair and looked her in the eye you’d take those words and then run with it, within the context of the story that is.

Two hands in her hair could go a million different directions- could be romantic/action/comedy.

The Final Words On This Post

Writing is subjective, always has been and always will be. I never grow tired of reading Mark Twain’s comment about wanting to beat Jane Austen to death with her shin bone, or something like that.

Some people love Hemingway others hate him.

And as impossible as it may seem, some love my work and some hate it.

Don’t worry about whether people will like/love or hate your work. Just write.

It really is a skill you can improve with practice but if you never put your pen to paper you’ll never improve. Got to run for a while, back to update this joint again with the tales of the great Olympic party of 2014.

The Dad Who Won A Gold Medal At 50

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He Escaped From a Hairy Situation.
He Escaped From a Hairy Situation.

The 17 long time readers can tell you many stories about the mighty athletic skills of the old man known as Jack Steiner. Ask them to talk to you about the plan to do 500 push ups a day and tell you The Greatest Dad Blogger Of Them All still has a set of guns on him.

And what that obnoxious prat isn’t talking about himself in the third person or trying to see if keyword stuffing works he’ll tell you the plan to hit 500 push ups a day fell short.

I got back to a place where I was doing more than a 100 and was on my way when I got sidetracked by life. The proverbial shit happens happened to me and I just stopped doing them.

Somewhere between aches and pains, moving several times and multiple other  poor excuses I stopped pushing up and well, I need to start again.

To be fair I didn’t fall off of the wagon entirely, but far enough away that it didn’t happen.

The Dad Who Won A Gold Medal At 50

Every night the kids and I spend some time watching the Olympics and every night I wonder what sport I could win a Gold medal at.

Three years ago I wrote A Letter To My Children in which I told them about how I consider my 42nd birthday to be among the worst I have ever had.

It was a miserable time of life. When I wrote We are fighters by birth and by choice it was more for me than for them because I was in a place where I just wanted to find a cave and hide.

But I also wanted them to have that letter so that if they ever face the dark moments they can see dad did too and remember even in the darkness you can find some light.

And now that the clouds have lifted even more I think about the games and wonder if there is an event that I can qualify for and then go on to win.

Partly because I think it would make a great family story and would be something they could be inspired by and partly because how cool would it be to win a medal.

Some of you may classify it as narishkeit. You might call it an impossibility and suggest that man my age is too old to truly compete with young people who are in their physical prime and have spent years training for their event(s).

I could put together a solid argument about why you are wrong but the bottom line is I don’t have to convince or prove anything to you because this is all about me.

Live Your Dreams

It is tied into mantra of live your dreams. The children and I talk about it often. We talk about the difference between saying and doing. We talk about the value of risk taking and how to determine when you can push the envelope.

Yeah, some of it is tied into my fragile male ego which doesn’t like the physical changes.  I have a hard time with not being able to just know that my body will respond when I ask it to.

I miss knowing I could just walk onto the court and start playing. I miss that feeling of invincibility and knowing that bruises would fade ten minutes later. I miss knowing that I could go out drinking all night and then go to work the next day and still be productive.

Mind you it is not because I want to go out drinking all night, been there done that. I don’t want to do it, I just want to know that if I did the day after wouldn’t be awful.

When Did My Parents Become Old People?

I suppose you can also attribute some of this to my parents because something happened to them. They became old over night.

Ok, that is not entirely fair, it didn’t happen overnight and I haven’t been completely oblivious into their transformation into old people. Can’t say it is new to me to see them doing the same things I remember my grandparents doing or how funny it is to see them do what they swore they wouldn’t.

But I notice it because if my parents are old that must mean that I am…older too.

That is not a bad thing, hell it is better than the alternative. Older is better than dead, but it is a sort of surreal feeling.

500 Push Ups & The Fountain Of Youth

Why do I want to be able to do 500 push ups?

Because I see it as being tied into the fountain of youth. When I get back to being able to do 500 push ups a day I will feel better and feeling better will keep me younger and less cranky.

So ultimately the selfish decision to take more time to exercise is in many ways quite altruistic. Now if I can figure out how to use that logic to cover buying that car I want I’ll really be set.

What do you think?

57 More Reasons To Hate Bloggers

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Trouble brewin'

The same words keep jumping off the pages today which some might say is because the universe is trying to get my attention. Perhaps it is true and perhaps it is not either way it matters not to me because when people ask if I am boring I always answer by hitting them in the head with a giant shilelagh.

57 More Reasons To Hate Bloggers

I probably shouldn’t surf the blogosphere when I am as out of sorts as I am now. My back feels like someone is pounding upon it with the aforementioned giant shilelagh and some nasty demon is feasting upon my brain, working on gaining his freedom by eating from the inside out.

Naturally your sometimes lovable curmudgeon is crankier than usual and tired of reading posts in which new bloggers talk about all of the ways we are killing blogging.

It is easy to play the pretentious old timer and tell you how much better it used to be but it gets old. I can tell you how to get more comments and how to build your presence. I can give you all sorts of tried and true measures to make your mark here but it only works if you are willing to put the time into making it work.

The foundation of making your mark is simple–build relationships with other bloggers.

If you have spent any time in the so called real world you know that the most talented people are not always the ones who get the best jobs/promotions/accolades.

Those often go to those who are the best self marketers/promoters. In the blogosphere writing gigs, notoriety, brand ambassadorships and trips often are extended to bloggers who aren’t particularly good writers but they are friends with someone who knows someone and that leads to an introduction which leads to opportunity.

If you want more from blogging make the commitment to put the time into it. Unless you are the rare prodigy you didn’t become an expert piano/guitar player overnight. It took a commitment, a time commitment.

Blogging is no different. You have to put the time in and you have to understand that it is not just about putting out content.

Don’t You Dare Say Epic

The next person who tells me you can only be successful by producing epic content is going to be slapped, beaten and smacked around because you have stripped epic of all meaning.

You know what is epic? A 7.1 earthquake, lightning strikes, tornadoes and burning rivers. Those are epic, your post about how to make money online, potty training and beating up Santa Claus are not.

What you need to do is produce solid content on a regular basis and you need to read other bloggers and comment on their posts. If you want to build your presence on Twitter/Pinterest/G+/Facebook you need to dedicate the time. You need to be there to engage with the people that are there.

Do that and you will start to build relationships. You will make friends. If you want more opportunities build relationships with people who are doing what you want to do.

It takes time.

Are you willing to put it in?

I am here because I have a sickness called I am compelled to write…daily. I have five different blogs and I produce more content than most bloggers do and I do it daily.

Some of it is because I have some talent. I am a better writer than most people I encounter, don’t have to try that hard. Did I mention I am funnier, more handsome, clever, stronger, smarter and faster on my feet too.

I’ll let you decide if that was intentional or just bait.

Words That Must Be Shared

I was going to talk about The Inigo Montoya Method For Building Community but decided against it. Instead I will leave you with the words below because for me they are part of the foundation of blogging.

“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

Stay tuned, I’ll be posting again tonight.

What Happens When Blogging Isn’t Fun Any More?

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fun

I’ll be 45 in May but I still can’t tell you what she meant when she hoped I didn’t break her fun button. But I can tell you that I helped Sister Mary see god…more than once and that if you are going to go to church that is the only way to it.

I suppose you might think it is sacrilegious to have sex in church but I figure if the goal is to bring people closer to god than the clergy ought to thank me for finding a way to keep the pews filled with people. Hell imagine what life would be like if when you passed the collection plate it was to grab a hand full of condoms and not to leave a handful of cash.

Yeah, I know some of your faces might be turning red now because old Jack Steiner is committing blasphemy. I could tell you to keep your shirt because I believe in sex in the synagogue too.

I could tell you some stories about the rabbi’s daughter, hell I could even tell you some stories about the rabbis too.

What Happens When Blogging Isn’t Fun Any More?

I’ll let you wonder how much of what you read above is fact and how much is fiction because the real focal point here is for the people who wonder what to do when blogging isn’t fun any more.

The people who last in this game are having fun because it is too much work to keep on keeping on. It is too hard to keep trying to figure out what to write, how to promote it and wonder if your words measure up against the others…unless you are having fun.

And me, well part of the way I have fun is by writing ridiculous stories about sex with nuns or chronicling the lives of my children, like stories about the world’s strongest penis or what happens when they read the graffiti on the stall walls.

It is a mixture of serious stuff here. I haven’t yet blogged about how my mother is going in for surgery this week, they say it is benign and that this is a precautionary measure but old Doc Google can make you crazy with what he shows you.

Sort of fitting that it is coming now during the midst of this transitional time.

When blogging isn’t fun you have to find a way to make it fun…for you.

If you aren’t having fun your writing may very well suffer and that won’t make your readers like/love you any more.

Don’t Write For Other People

Don’t write for other people. Write for yourself. Tell the stories you want to tell and answer the questions you want answered. Try not to give in to blog envy and wonder why that other blogger gets more, has more, does more.

I am not always good at that. Most of the time I am, but sometimes it just chaps my hide to read some posts and wonder how they got whatever it is they have that I don’t that I think I should.

Sometimes if I am feeling particularly juvenile I think about those other bloggers and imagine that along with the great gig they got a bad case of the runs too.

Confession: In high school I had a major crush on a girl who had very bad taste in men. When she started dating one of the major jackasses I tried to convince myself that it didn’t bother me, except it did.

One day I heard him bragging about some of their sexual exploits and he said she caught him with her teeth. I damn near cheered, it was time for a celebration. I wanted to give him a hot dog bun and some mustard and a note that it was for the next time they got busy.

My best guess is that a bunch of readers haven’t made it as far as you have. They might have been offended or bored by what they have read and I am ok with that. I guarantee there are 567 ways to tell a better story.

And I can assure you that even when I bleed at the keyboard I wonder how I could have done a better job.

Find Your Smile and Run With It

The trick here is to find your smile and run with it. Figure out what makes blogging fun for you and keep doing it. If you are having fun and you sustain your effort good things will come from it.

And if you are new to the blog I want to thank you for being here. I hope you’ll become a fan of my Facebook page and that you’ll hang out in the comments not to mention you should know that some of what you read is fiction. Don’t worry because I didn’t get arrested for this, this or this.

I may or may not have taken Jersey Santa on.

All I can tell you is Don’t Look for Death Because it Might Find You and have fun blogging, you deserve it.