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 2014

Stop Worrying About Whether Anyone Reads Your Blog

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I often write about the 17 long time readers but I know I have more than that. If I looked up the stats for everyone who follows via RSS, Jetpack subscriptions and or other methods I would come up with a much larger number and then I would ask myself if it really matters.

Once upon a time the Shmata Queen suggested I was addicted to my stats and to an extent she was right. I was on the hamster wheel where every day I would check them and wonder why there weren’t more people reading my wonderful words.

Eventually I reached a place where I stopped obsessing about why the numbers weren’t what I wanted and when I checked in it was to see if my wacky queen had come by to visit or it was when a brand was vetting my blog to determine if I might be among the lucky chosen few to represent them online.

You see I blog because I am compelled to do so. I have so much inside my head that if I don’t share these stories my head will explode. And I write because writers write. It is what we do and I am obsessed with improving.

Stop Worrying About Whether Anyone Reads Your Blog

I am not going to lie and say I never think about it. Not going to lie and say I never wonder why some inferior writers get more attention and more traffic. It could be because they are better marketers, networkers, luckier or better at kissing ass.

None of that really matters to me.

It would be nice to have more of everything. It would be nice to have more readers. It would be nice to have more subscribers, brands working with me and opportunities but I don’t know if it would be as much fun or as easy to rant.

And believe me, it is fun to rant about the number of people who don’t blog as I wish they would, who ignore the ancient art of blogging and defile it.

I like ranting about how bad and or basic some of the advice from experts is. Every month there is another post about bad pitches and how brands don’t understand how to engage with bloggers. Every month there is a post about how bloggers don’t understand how to engage with brands and why they shouldn’t be so goddamn self important.

You can take that admonition to stop worrying about whether anyone reads your blog to be me talking to myself as much as anything else.

You can call it a printed reminder to focus on becoming a better writer and communicator.

What Is The Ultimate Goal

Social media is fun. I have made friends, gotten jobs and gained a lot from it. Been around the block enough times to know all the buzzwords and to have my own bit about how to define influence/power in social media.

But that doesn’t necessarily sync with my goal.

The most important thing I can do here is become a better writer/communicator. That goal is a big part of why I write daily and don’t focus on any one topic.

It is because I want to be able to produce compelling content. I want to be able to write about any topic and be entertaining and informative.

If you really lucky you are graced by god with the kind of talent that makes golden words flow like honey from your fingertips.

Or you have a knack for constructing sentences that tell stories that make people laugh but most of us don’t get that sort of gift.

Most of us figure it out by grinding away at the keyboard and by reading hundreds of books.

You have to be willing to write dangerously and share the stories about the things, people and places that scarred you. I have done quite a bit of it but not enough of it lately.

When you worry about readers you start to forget about the importance of telling stories about stains that don’t wash away, stairways to heaven, relationship ads, Donut Shops, Detours or burying dear friends.

A Few Final Comments

There are some technical issues here that need to be attended to. Duplicate comments, SEO issues and broken links. I am working on them because I hate the clutter and chaos they cause but the bottom line doesn’t change. My focus is on the words and on becoming a better storyteller.

You are welcome to join me on the journey if you would like.

Weapons of Mass Blog Destruction

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www.thejackb.com

It is probably better not to write about Weapons of Mass Blog Destruction when you are listening  to a Robin Williams interview.

He is not doing comedy the whole time so there are serious moments and some of his comments about being a father resonate with me. I relate to them and I wonder what life was like for his kids and if they were ever embarrassed by the things he said or did.

That is because when I go through my blog and I see posts like She Broke My Penis I laugh and smile. Laugh because it is a good memory and honestly I think some of it is funny and smile because it brings back fond memories.

The boy the post was/is about is gone. That child is almost twice as old as he was when the story was first written and I am far more careful about what sorts of things I write about. I do my best to mask his identity but we always leave crumbs online and should it be discovered I would hate for him to be teased about something I did.

And the girl who questioned reproduction and said that we can’t come from eggs because we aren’t chickens, well she is much older now too.

Weapons of Mass Blog Destruction

I turned off CommentLuv  and moved back to Livefyre again.

Did it because I grew tired of being asked to approve comments for sites I didn’t want to link to or promote. Did it because there are a boatload of broken links from comments that were made by CommentLuv users who let their blogs die.

I try to catch those and weed them out but it is time consuming and I have other things to focus upon. Several people have recently moved to DISQUS and have spoken highly about it but I didn’t do it. It takes a chunk of time to move over and import all the comments and I didn’t want to give that time up right now.

This is the side of blogging that is less attractive to me. It is the ticky-tack, knicky -knack take care of all of these tiny detail so everything works that sometimes wears me out.

The comment section here is very quiet these days and I suspect that given the current situation that won’t change unless I make a concerted effort to comment on more blogs and or work the content here so that people feel like they need to engage.

Not to mention I have tried to remember to ask people to join my community.

I have also been making a point to link to more of the old and recent posts here with the hope that those who haven’t read them will decide to do so the second time they see them.

About Those Boundaries Again

My son told me he heard about a journalist who was beheaded and wondered if it is true the video is online. I told him it is and I thought about James Foley and Daniel Pearl.

Daniel Pearl has always had a profound impact upon me. He was a few years older me, grew up in the same area and went to the same high school.

I have friends whose older siblings knew him. There was a time when I thought I would be a journalist so it wasn’t hard to see how with a few twists that could have been me.

Anyhoo, I didn’t mention Daniel Pearl to my son but I did mention James Foley by name because I thought it was important to make sure he understood we were talking about a person.

And then I told him I didn’t want him to watch the video. I didn’t want him to be upset by it and I want to hurt the terrorists ability to terrorize.

If no one watches their videos and or hears/reads their proclamations it will cut down on some of their influence. It might not be as effective as saying hello with a Hellfire missile but I’ll do what I can with what I have.

Tie it into a question of dignity and the things I wrote about in Grandma Didn’t Listen To This Music.

And there you have it, what do you think?

Misanthropy Is An Under Appreciated Art

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The Dale Carnegie Institute would probably recommend against using a headline like Misanthropy Is An Under Appreciated Art because it doesn’t sound like a useful way to win friends and influence people.

They might be surprised to learn just how many people are interested in a career based upon misanthropy or maybe not. I haven’t asked them so I can’t say for certain.

I wonder what they would say if I told them that age doesn’t bring wisdom and that you can increase it with the roll of a 20 sided die.

Maybe they would ask me to explain How To Make Time For Blogging and I could respond by telling them about The Excuses We Make.

Time Is Short

Things are changing now and I am still in this period of extended transition. I have been trying to use the blog to get a sense of how long I have been saying this and to figure out if I have made progress.

I keep coming across stuff like this:

There are other days. There will be other days. There have always been other days and there always will be until there aren’t.

It is a lesson that I have learned the hard way. I have stood graveside and buried friends and relatives. I have said goodbye to relationships and jobs that I thought would always be there and then they weren’t.

These words sting a bit because they make me sound foolish and naive, but I can’t hide from them. We only have so much control about the people, places and things in our lives.

It is bittersweet to read those words because in some ways I have made so much progress and moved so far away from where I was at but it doesn’t prevent me from feeling like it is not enough.

I made a decision a while back not to be stuck in the same place I was when I wrote this:

Ok universe, you all powerful, mystical and mighty something or other– stop saying ‘so what.’ Stop rolling your eyes and asking me to climb mountains so that some scraggly bearded yogi can give me some sort of wise sounding answer to the mysteries of the cosmos.

I asked you before and I am asking you again to give me a straight answer as to what you expect/want me to do. Yeah I know I don’t listen to anyone and that I march to the beat of a drummer who has no rhythm but trust me when I say it will be better for both of us.

That is because I have decided the best thing I can do is surrender to the current and to use its energy to move me instead of fighting it. I may be better than most at swimming upstream but that has’t proven to be as profitable way to make things happen.

Dad Is a Role Model

What I want is for my children to see how it benefits them to not rely upon one approach to solving problems. It is something we have discussed many times but action is almost always more important and effective than words.

Sometimes they hear the snarky comments about bad customer service, “THE STUPID, IT BURNS” but I don’t know if they always see the other side.

The side where I smile and thank people for their help because experience has proven that is usually much more effective than making a scene.

You can blame attribute that to my response to people who have tried to create a scene to force me to do things. And that response has been to find a quiet way to become less responsive and more difficult. Treat me like dirt and you’ll wear mud but if it goes as I wish you won’t be able to hang the blame on me.

Perhaps it is juvenile but I kind of like working things that way. While you are screaming and I am nodding my head and smiling at you what I am really doing is finding a way to express my true appreciation for you.

I do try to avoid those situations but lately I have found myself reliving my own Groundhog Day. Almost everything has felt like an unnecessary struggle and I have wondered if I am just lucky.

This past May I signed my kids up to play soccer again. We’re at about 11 years or so of playing at the same park so I am very familiar with how the system works.

The league runs almost exclusively on volunteers so every year I try to make a point to do something. I have been a coach many times but didn’t want to do it this year because I am not sure if my schedule will allow me to keep that commitment and I am loathe to break that sort of promise.

We received an email this weekend in which we were told that the coach for my daughter’s team had pulled out and that if no one signed up the girls on her team wouldn’t get to play.

Long story longer I was forced to sign up to coach. It is not the first time it has happened but I am unwilling to be so selfish with my time that the kids can’t play.

It annoys me to no end to hear/read people tell me about how busy they are as if no one in the world could possibly be so busy.

We all have the same 24 hours in a day and it just irks me to listen to people suggest they are special at the expense of others.

We Do What is Required

When the proverbial push comes to shove I want my children to understand if we want to live our dreams and not dream our lives we have to do what is required.

So I guess I’ll be a coach again as best I can and we’ll just swim with the current and see where it takes us.

I Am The Bruce Lee Of Dad Bloggers

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Bruce Lee Statue on the Avenue of Stars in Hong Kong

I Am The Bruce Lee Of Dad Bloggers is probably only slightly less obnoxious than calling myself The Original Dad blogger, but not much.

But if you want to win the magical game of building your blog you have to market yourself. You can’t rely upon your love of writing to make it work because they won’t come just because you write it.

I know, we want to believe If You Write It They Will Come because it makes us feel better but unrealistic expectations kill blogs, businesses and championships. It doesn’t matter how many times you read 500 Ways To Have Better Sex & Earn Money From Blogging because your expectations or should I say ability to manage your expectations dictates more than you know here.

Ask me how I know these things?

Ready?

Here comes a response from some jackass who has written about these issues before.

And this idea of “if you write it they will come” is Internet Mythology.

Very few new bloggers or online businesses will see the sort of immediate success that is suggested by this mythology that so many promote.

I suppose that you could say this mythology plays a role in my creating  some of my more colorful headlines. Posts like Cheaper Than A $5 Whore With Less Risk of Infection, Things Bloggers Say During Sex and 69 Reasons Why Fathers Make Better Lovers are all suggestive but they are not as lurid and lascivious as they sound.

Of course that same jackass has written posts about many topics besides parenting, dad blogging, sex, music, writing, reading, brake jobs, tune ups, history, politics and humor.

Sometimes the jackass goes after grammar snobs and those who don’t know about a self deprecating sense of humor. When you ask him if he can write a funny post he gets a little nuttier than normal.

Yes grammar people, I hear your cries. You want to know why I didn’t point out that I was referring to a person’s ass and not a person in their entirety. Maybe it is because I wanted to circle back to our headline and write the following:

  1. Can You Write a Funny Post.
  2. Can You Write a Funny Post?
  3. Can You Write a Funny Post!

If you asked nicely I could write three separate posts based upon those three punctuation marks. At least I could if my juvenile sense of humor wasn’t stuck in the land of scatological humor.

Does This Post Have To Make Sense?

No. It doesn’t have to make sense and you don’t have to read it, but you will. You have already invested this much time here so you might as well go the distance. Who knows, maybe there will be a giveaway. Maybe there will be a prize.

Maybe the author called up some company and said to give him free stuff or risk having a bad review written about your product because the Bruce Lee of Dad bloggers is so damn powerful.

Or maybe he just wishes he was. Maybe he feels like life has been more challenging than normal and he is trying to catch his breath, Maybe he feels like he is encircled by enemies and he is trying to figure out where he put his nunchucks because it would make life a bit easier.

That crazy old guy man has never had a problem using his fists when necessary, but dammit, these days it takes much longer to recover from the battles, even the ones he has won and at last count it was most.

Hell, ask him to tell you how many bad days he hasn’t survived and he’ll laugh because he has survived them all, maybe a bit worse for wear but still standing.

Better yet ask him why he is referring to himself in the third person.

Life Lessons Learned From The Soccer Field

My kids are playing soccer again. They love playing and we love watching them. There is so much joy and so many good teaching moments that come from it.

But right now I am less than pleased with some of it. The whole operation runs off of volunteers and always has.

In concept that shouldn’t be a problem but there is a dearth of coaches and the guy who was supposed to coach my daughter’s team has resigned.

I want to take over but there is a good chance work will take me out of town or at least make it impossible for me to guarantee I can make the practices and the games.

This irks me in multiple ways.

I don’t want my daughter to be screwed because we can’t find another coach. There have been a 100 parents so it is hard for me to believe that everyone of them is in the same position as I am.

Those of you who know me well know it is hard to pin me down but that is because I work very hard not to make promises I can’t keep. I am reluctant to step up when I cannot guarantee I will be available for the majority of the practices and games.

But if they can’t find anyone and the girls aren’t reassigned to a different team I might volunteer anyway. I don’t like that idea much because I really don’t know what will happen with my work situation, but perhaps it is better to make sure she gets to play than not.

Would be nice if this one area wasn’t so damn complicated but life doesn’t always cooperate as we wish it would.

What do you think?

Top Ten Bruce Lee Moments

You Must Embrace The Ancient Art Of Blogging

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Hieroglyphics inside the tombs of the workers who built the Valley of the Kings.

I am a murderer. I am a thief. I am the worst person you have ever met. There is a reason why just being in my presence makes the hackles on the back of your neck stand up.

But most of you will ignore the soft whisper in the back of your mind that tells you to get away from me. You ignore your intuition to your detriment and to my benefit. And that is how I like it.

You’ll wait a moment and try to reconcile your thoughts with the feeling you get when you look at my face. Big warm smile, eyes that twinkle and a deep voice that rumbles just a little bit.

I can’t be those horrible things. I have to be better, different. I am not a murderer. I am not evil. I am someone warm, special and interesting. You like spending time with me because I make you laugh and you feel safe, secure.

It seems inconceivable to think I am the cause of the hairs rising on the back of your neck. You know that intense look on my face that you told your friends makes you melt because it makes you feel like you are the only person in the world that matters to me?

Soon you’ll figure out you are just one of the many people who were fooled into thinking there is something bright and shiny behind my eyes. You’ll look up at me and wonder how you could have been so wrong and you’ll hope this is a dream.

Just before you lose consciousness I’ll whisper something in your ear and then I’ll record your reaction and add it to the collection.

In the morning you’ll wake up with only the faintest memory of what happened and then as the sun makes it way across the sky the memories will have moved to that place that nightmares go and you’ll tell yourself that you aren’t a kid anymore and go about your day.

Night will come and so will I and our private party will continue…for however much longer.

You Must Embrace The Ancient Art Of Blogging

Confession: I took a large section of this post from one I wrote a few years ago but I figure the basic message is still the relevant and worth discussing.

The best bloggers have always been story tellers and storytelling is a noble and ancient art. I still believe Writing Is Not The Hardest Part Of Blogging.

The hardest part is sustaining your effort. The hardest part is being consistent and not worrying about how many readers you have or don’t have. The hardest part is not comparing yourself to others who have what you think you should have.

Sometimes I write posts like this for others but sometimes I write them for me. The messages in How 3,000 Sycophants Made One Man A Better Blogger still resonate with me.

What I want most from this blog is to become a better storyteller and a better writer. What I want is to hone my skills and become a master of my craft.

That doesn’t require 50 comments per post or awards. Those things are nice and there is no doubt it feels good to receive them and to feel validated that your words and your actions are appreciated by someone.

What Do We Have Control Of

Ask me what my biggest blogging related dream is and it is to turn what I do here into something that pays significant amounts of money. It is to do what I love to feed my family for the long term.

Brand ambassadorships, speaking gigs and swag don’t necessarily translate into those things. I am not saying it is impossible or that people aren’t doing it but if they are there are few.

What I know is the best thing I can do is focus on what we have control of. I can’t force people to like my words and how I put the puzzle pieces together.

I can practice writing and work on my craft so that I do a better job of it. I can work on constructing more compelling content but that by definition is subjective. If I flip through the posts and feedback here I can show comments that are diametrically opposed.

Write funny stories and some people will tell you that you are not funny. Write scary stories and people will tell you they aren’t scary or they are too scary.

Write about how to give a better blow job and someone will thank you, someone will tell you that gave bad advice and someone else will ask you if it was necessary to go there.

I can’t control how you respond but I can control how I do.

Storytelling, Love Of Writing and Sustaining My Effort

It is midnight on Saturday night and I am sucked into Sons Of Anarchy so this post is going to end in a moment. So let’s sum it up.

Great storytelling helps you take a dull subject and make it interesting. My love of writing is why I keep blogging and why I will continue.

If I wanted to dramatically increase traffic here I would do a better job of visiting other blogs and commenting on them. I used to be much better about it and I can always tell when I am on my game because traffic reflects it.

Adrienne has always been good at blog commenting and if you want to see your traffic increase read that post and do as she says.

The main reason it is not still part of my anchor strategy is due to time. When it got tight I shifted my focus to my craft but part of the reason I could do that is I have been good at sustaining my effort. I have been doing this for a long time and I have a decent online footprint so I don’t feel like I need to rely upon it.

Got to run, got Sam Crow to watch. BTW, I don’t just watch for entertainment I watch these shows because I like seeing how stories are constructed and trying to figure out how to do those things here.

Leave me a comment and let’s talk.

What Do Broken Condoms Have To Do With Blogging

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Le pissoire des Broken Spoke

I shouldn’t be blogging now. It is after midnight and I am in a foul mood that started yesterday and hasn’t improved with fatigue.

Can’t say I am surprised by that because I know better. Experience taught me long ago that exhaustion is not a solution but sometimes I am the guy who refuses to take the ski lift because it is more fun to climb the damn mountain than take the easy way.

Watched some videos from Ferguson and it just made me shake my head. I have had more than a few conversations with my children about how sometimes life doesn’t make sense.

You haven’t lived until you have had to explain what a gas chamber is to your kids and then been asked how many of our relatives were murdered there.

I have a ton of respect for law enforcement, it is a difficult job and I wouldn’t want it. Sometimes you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t but hell every time I watched this one video of a Black kid being body slammed I wanted to shake the cop.

Wanted to grab him and ask him what benefit there is in hiding behind the power of the badge. Wanted to ask him how he builds trust and respect for authority when his response to questions is to attack. Is he really that scared of people and if so, maybe he is in the wrong profession.

Of course my tolerance for the shenanigans of the world is at low tide but even if it were not I would have no patience for people who misuse and abuse authority.

What Do Broken Condoms Have To Do With Blogging

I  intentionally did not use punctuation for the headline or the subhead. I like thinking about how it would read with a period, question mark or exclamation point.

If you want to know what made me think of it you should read Pray For Him. It is a post about how I almost became a father before I was ready to be one.

I like it because as I told the story I shared what happened during the present and talked about watching the State Of The Union with my kids.

What really distinguishes it in my head is that I think it is a post that demonstrates an improvement in my writing. If you haven’t been reading along for years you might not see any difference, especially since the definition of good writing is subjective.

Several hours ago I helped my son work on his English homework and reviewed some of the 5 things I know about writing and the importance of building your vocabulary.

When he asked me for advice on how to become a better writer I told him he needs to quadruple his reading and write far more often.

I think he was surprised to learn how much I read and about how often I blog about writing. I really am the guy who blogs because he loves to write.

The only proven method I know of to get better at anything is to practice, which as I remember is something I told the girlfriend who shared the broken condom experience with me.

A Sleepy Writer

Because I am stupid stubborn I am going to spend a few more minutes here at the computer. Sleep must come soon because exhaustion rarely leads anywhere truly exciting but before I go I need to share a few more thoughts and ideas.

Sometimes it feels very strange to me not to have any living grandparents any more. I was 42 when the last one died and now all the generations have moved up a notch.

I do my best to tell the stories my grandparents used to tell me but I am still not the storyteller my grandfathers were. I practice and work hard to do so because as long as someone knows the stories they aren’t gone.

The other night I had a dream I was moving back to Texas. It might sound silly, but I was riding my horse under a moonlit sky when a pack of wolves showed up.

We weren’t going to be able to out run them so I jumped off the horse and spent the night battling wolves. The last thing I remember from the dream was waking up in the forest, a pile of dead wolves surrounding me and vague memories of the battle.

I knew I had broken the necks of two of them but couldn’t tell you more than that. All I know is that I saddled up and resumed my ride towards Dallas.

Just writing that down makes me feel like my grandfathers are near. I can feel them nodding their heads and smell their cigars.

And now my friends, Traveling Jack must get some rest. Every year it gets a little bit harder to fight off the wolves and though I write and rewrite my obituary yearly it is not time for the real thing so it is time for me to go.

Don’t worry, I will be back, even if I have to move heaven and earth to do so. I know things.