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 2015

Different Is Always Wrong

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enemies
People disappoint me and though I am told to forgive them I am not sure that I do it very well.

My mother tells a story about how I went through a phase where I would introduce myself to other children and then hit them.

She says I was around three or four and that I explained the hitting by saying I was getting the other kids first.

Maybe this explains my fondness for preemptive strikes or maybe it is just one of the embarrassing things kids do for no good reason.

I don’t really know but I can also tell you I went through a period of time where I bit other children.

Yeah, little Jack Steiner was the peachy kid who bit and hit other kids.

Today that probably would have gotten me banned and or exiled from playgroups and school but I was born in ’69 and a child of the seventies.

We seventies children are a different breed and frankly tougher than most.

Different Is Always Wrong

I am a fighter and a scrapper by nature.

Though age and maturity have helped to dull the edge of my sword the fire inside burns as brightly now as it ever has.

I am still fearless and willing to wade headlong into fights without much regard for what people will think. I like to blame that upon being a Taurus but today someone told me it is because I am an asshole.

Ask me if I think that is true and I’ll shake my head and say it is not. I can be one but it is not the word most people would use to describe me.

Unless you are speaking about lately and even then I am not entirely certain if it would be accurate.

But old Jack Steiner is a father and that comes with big responsibilities which is why I have taken some time to think about whether this description is true or not.

It is not because I am worried someone will tell my children that their father is a bad guy but because I think about what sort of behavior my children see me exhibit.

I think much of it has to do with the different is always wrong attitude I have seen exhibited from so many different people and how I respond to that.

What Different Is Always Wrong Means

It seems to me like people have become intolerant of being offended and angry about being asked to deal with opinions that are different from their own.

There seems to be an unwillingness to look the world through different eyes and to say others can have a different experience.

I am not a sheep or a Sneetch and I don’t have to agree with you nor do I need for you to always agree with me.

But that seems to chap some hides and I don’t understand it.

One of the greatest gifts blogging has given me is the opportunity to find clarity in my thoughts and ideas.

Sometimes it comes during a letter to my children when I write about life and my thoughts. There is a discovery in which I realize my belief about XYZ isn’t founded upon logic, reason or rational thought.

It is just an arbitrary decision based upon random circumstance and I am forced to consider whether I want to pass it along to my children or reconsider my position.

This is where I appreciate challenging my thoughts and ideas. It is where I don’t mind speaking with someone whose perspective is different because there is an opportunity for learning and growth.

What is funny to me is that some people say it is like I am shopping at some bazaar looking for an opinion to claim as my own.

Sometimes I think about asking them if they are familiar with the Marketplace of Ideas but most of the time I don’t say anything.

Most of the time I don’t tell them how very opinionated I am or explain that I don’t think every idea or group is as moral, reasonable, rational or ethical as others.

I teach my children to be judgmental.

I want them to consider who they spend their time with and why.

Not because we are better than others because we are all human.

But some people get you in to trouble and cause issues and others don’t.

Wrong place, wrong time is a bad idea for all of us and we do our best to avoid it.

It is Ok To Disagree

I talk to the children about it being ok to agree to disagree and explain the benefits of learning how to go along to get along.

Part of me laughs at the hypocrisy because I am not as good at this as I want to be. I am not good at hiding my feelings, if I don’t like you chances are you will know it.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t be civil or that I will only be around people and things that I like.

A Few Random Thoughts

I am reading through The Story Of A House- The Final Days and Nobody Beats The Disease because I am looking for something.

Maybe it is in Generations- They Are All Gone Now but I am not entirely sure.

It is a thought, an unformed idea that is rolling around the back of my mind. It feels like water in the palm of my hand and if I squeeze too tightly it will run between my fingertips and I won’t ever figure out what I am trying to grab.

Those people who came before me they knew who they were and they did their best to live that way.

Maybe it is just a lingering desire to speak with them about that which was and that which is.

Maybe it is to thank them again for all I learned from them and for showing me how to be a father and a man.

Or maybe it something entirely different.

Different is not always wrong

987 Reasons Why Monetizing Your Blog Makes You Sexier

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best friendMidnight approaches and I hear voices of authority reminding me that nothing good happens after midnight and though they mean well all I can do is shake my head.

Shake my head because experience has taught me some of the greatest moments and memories of my life were created after midnight.

Yeah I know The witching hour is a time when your parents suggested that people of ill repute were anxiously awaiting your arrival so that they could engage you in the kind of trouble that you never wanted to be a part of.

And while I would hate to say your parents stretched the truth I would also say the validity of their statements falls somewhere close to the people who told you that blogging would make you rich.

987 Reasons Why Monetizing Your Blog Makes You Sexier

Every now and then I read a bunch of the social media expert posts and think about how much fun I could have if I wanted to peddle their particular brand of snake oil.

It makes me want to write, produce and star in my own infomercials in which I try to sell you a pill that makes weight melt right off of you, restores your hair line and fixes your crooked teeth.

Of course I wouldn’t do any of those things without offering it to you for the low, low price of only $19.99.

Maybe it is coincidence that When The Levee Breaks is playing now because that last line about $19.99 is ridiculous. Hell if I am going to try to charge you for my services I am going to do it for a hell of a lot more than twenty bucks, but that is a separate issue.

Remember in Where Bloggers Fear To Tread I spoke a bit about Steiner the minor and the middle school madness he is going through?

Well one of the things that I do in my role as dear old dad is try to teach him some basic tips and tricks for building relationships with people.

Sometimes that involves using the heavy bag to teach him how to throw a right and snap the elbow and sometimes it is far simpler like trying to teach him how to engage with words.

In the wild and woolly blogosphere I sometimes use audioposts to try and make that happen.  Adding your real voice can be an effective way to help people start to see you as a real person.

Earlier today I stumbled on an old favorite called Do You Have An Accent?

If you don’t feel like clicking the link to read it you can always use the button below to listen to me speak and then you can decide for yourself if I have an accent.

I like teasing the Shmata Queen about sounding more Texan than she does, but you won’t hear any of that drawl in the post below.

listen to ‘Do You Have An Accent?’ on audioBoom

Blogging Tricks Any One Can Use

Did I mention I recorded that post on March 9, 2012?

Yeah, that sucker is almost precisely three years old and I was able to use it again. I like being able to repurpose my content.

Ask my kids and they’ll tell you I try to teach them to work smarter and not harder. They’ll also tell you working smarter doesn’t mean I advocate taking short cuts unless you are certain it won’t create more work.

That is a lesson I learned the hard way.

I am fast on my feet and have always been a quick study and good at getting things done. Sometimes that has led me to bite off more than I could chew but I never saw it that way because I always knew I would figure out a way to get it done.

And I did, but it wasn’t always as good as it could have been and I realized that I was selling myself short.

People got quality work but the not the quality work they could have had and sometimes the short cut meant that I had to do something twice because it wasn’t done the right way the first time.

Sometimes the only way to be successful is to do the work or to get lucky but luck is never guaranteed so you might as well do the work.

Speaking Of Work

Speaking of work I have been tooling around with linking New Year’s Eve, My Stairway To Heaven and An Uncertain Certainty.

Been thinking about whether I’ll turn them into a larger story that I’ll self publish, but haven’t decided yet.

Some of that is because I have been mulling over whether to create one large piece or several smaller using those pieces and some of the posts in The Fifty Posts You Didn’t Read On New Year’s Eve.

Anyway thinking about things has never proven to be an effective way to get them done. I can’t decide if it is as bad or worse than taking short cuts that create little messes that have to be cleaned up.

But the witching hour isn’t for figuring out whether short cuts or analysis are your best option or at least on this particular night it is not.

So in a moment I’ll this tale of treachery and treason on the high seas of social media knowing that this post got more clicks because the headline talked about blogging and money and not because people are dying to read the famous writer Jack Steiner.

But that may yet change, oh yes, it might.

Where Bloggers Fear To Tread

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Dare To Be

The nameless and faceless talking heads who write about how hard the junior high or as they are known now middle school years don’t talk about how challenging it can be for the parents.

They’ll talk to you about the chaos and confusion that comes with puberty and how it can make kids a bit crazy.

They’ll tell you it is perfectly normal for your kid not to know when hair shows up in odd places and mention how hormones might make them act out a bit but they don’t say much about how you are supposed to handle it.

Or maybe they do and I just never bother to listen or read that stuff.

Either one of them might be accurate and it wouldn’t really matter much because I probably wouldn’t pay attention anyway.

Maybe it is ‘cuz I have faith in my ability to be the kind of father who figures things out or maybe it is because I have faith that my teen will figure it out.

The latter is where I place more weight because he has to live his life and part of living life is figuring out how to deal with whatever comes.

Doesn’t mean I don’t do my best to support him or that I won’t tell him because he knows I am there. It just means I know I am not in school with him so I can’t slap compassion into the mean kids or beat sense into those who are nasty.

But I can imagine it.

5 Songs

  • Day After Day-BadFinger
  • Sloop John B- The Beach Boys
  • The Night Is Still Young- Billy Joel
  • Can’t Find My Way Home- Blind Faith
  • Lay, Lady, Lay- Bob Dylan

Where Bloggers Fear To Tread

There are boundaries in blogging so I am cautious and careful about how much information I provide about the tales I tell that are no longer mine alone.

That boychik of mine is going through some growing pains now and it is hard for me to watch. But he is not dealing with anything he can’t handle and what he is dealing with he has to handle.

I can’t try to catch or carry him through this part because he won’t learn and I have to let him fall down sometimes so that he recognizes he knows how to get back up.

So I blur and obscure some details to try to protect him so that it is not easy to identify him and talk about how he says he feels invisible at school.

His old man has often felt like he was on the outside looking in but I never felt invisible. I always knew how to get attention if I wanted it and was dumb enough to find sometimes when I didn’t.

Steiner the Minor is his own man and I love that. I want that for him. He doesn’t need to be my clone. He doesn’t have to be clever, charming and handsome…I can handle those things and humility too.

We’re on the verge of high school and he is ready for changes and challenges. I am excited for him and impressed with how well he is handling the uncertainty of not knowing where he’ll be in school.

Could be here, could be 10,000 miles from here or somewhere in between.

Have I mentioned how magical it is to see these little creatures mature into people who can take care of their own affairs.

5 More Songs

  • Tougher Then The Rest- Bruce Springsteen
  • Can’t Get It Out of My Head- ELO
  • Kashmir- Led Zeppelin
  • New York’s Not My Home- Jim Croce
  • Hurt- Johnny Cash

Writing With Reckless Abandon

Sometimes I look at posts like She Saved My Heart and smile because I see the kind of writing I want to always see flow from my fingertips.

The kind that inhabits A Partial Tale of Two Liars because the words flow freely and without concern about whether people will like, love or hate them.

That is how I always want to write, with reckless abandon and the kind of honest authenticity that jumps off the page like an electric shock.

That is where many bloggers fear to tread. We don’t always give words free reign because we fear the consequences so we temper them and tamp down upon our feelings.

Most people fear to live but I refuse to let that be me. Sure there may be moments where fear slows me down or inhibits my willingness to do a few things but I am not the guy who won’t mix things up because I fear change.

Inertia is an enemy of living a deeper, happier and more fulfilled life.

That is why we are mortal enemies, inertia and I.

So every day I do my best to not succumb to the succubus who tries to lure me into complacency. Every day I work at trying to push myself one more step because the my biggest competitor is also my biggest critic.

Back To Middle School Madness

That teen of mine asks me to explain how I step outside of my comfort zone and to give him examples of things I have done.

I tell him about a time I looked a girl in the eye and asked her if she still loved me and he says he doesn’t understand why I would use that because he doesn’t like girls.

I tell him it is ok and explain that some day he might understand.

When he nods his head I tell him sometimes you fall so deeply in love you know that other person can level you with a look or a ‘no’ to your question.

“Sometimes you need to risk having your heart torn out because the joy that could come with a yes exceeds the pain of the no.”

He nods his head and tells me he never wants to get married or have a girl friend.

“Do you have a different example that is easier for me to relate to?”

I smile and nod my head and 15 minutes later walk out of his room feeling like I have met and exceeded my fatherly goals for the night.

Later on he’ll ask me to talk about something else and I’ll remember that dealing with middle school madness is like fighting the Hydra.

Every time you cut off one head two more grow in its place.

That will teach me to walk with a bit less swagger.

The Final 5 Songs

  • American Pie- Don McLean
  • No Leaf Clover- Metallica
  • Fanfare For The Common Man- Aaron Copland
  • America- Simon and Garfunkel
  • Mess Around- Ray Charles

Should You Delete Old Posts?

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Principles
It’s not quite 5 PM and I feel like I have gone ten rounds with an angry gorilla. Been a very long day and my heart is heavier than I expected but so it goes and such is life.

When I wrote about the end of the beginning I expected to be able to see more progress than I see now but sometimes people plan and G-d laughs.

Had more time on my hands than I like and not enough energy to do all that needs to be done so I did what I could to distract myself and spent time trying to clean up the blog.

Because there comes a time when you realize your blog is riddled with broken links and though it is not really your fault they exist you need to take care of it anyway.

Broken Links & Broken Blogs

A thousand years ago when I was just a rookie blogger it never occurred to me that one day I would have to worry about broken links.

When I would link to posts, articles and or videos I did so with the idea that those links would be good forever.  I didn’t think about what would happen if the the blogger who wrote that really cool post quit and took down their blog.

Didn’t think about whether a video would disappear because someone took it down for any reason.

Today it feels silly to think such a thing and I look back and wonder why I was so naive. I know the answer to the question but that doesn’t really matter now does it.

Doesn’t matter because you can’t go back in time and change what has been done.

All you can do is live in the present and make the best choices you can based upon the information you have today.

So every now and then I flip through the old posts and pages here and try to clean up the broken links. Every time I do it I find myself reading some of the old posts I wrote and responding with a smile or a head shake.

Some of the old posts like My Father Is A Blogger are pretty good and some of the others are…awful. And no, I am not going to link to any of those right now.

Should You Delete Old Posts?

I go back and forth about this.

Sometimes I am adamantly against it because it defeats the purpose of the blog. This joint is supposed to help provide insight into my thoughts at particular points in time.

It is supposed to chronicle the lives of my children and to serve as a tool for becoming a better writer/storyteller.

Old posts serve as a benchmark I can use to see how I have improved and show snapshots of those moments in time.

But some of them are so damn awful they are embarrassing and I wonder what the hell was wrong with me.

My general rule of thumb is I only delete the ones that are riddled with too many broken links to fix.

A Disruption In The Rhythm Of Life

Today was another disruption in The Rhythm of Life of the sort I wrote about here. I suppose it is a good time to share this video again:

I love that video because it makes perfect sense to me.

Reminds me of a time when I asked my dad for some advice and he laughed because after he finished speaking I asked him if it was his ‘A’ game.

Jack: Damn, I thought you were going to say that.
Dad: Sorry to disappoint you.

Jack: You used to be smarter. What happened to the father who knew everything.
Dad: His dumb son went to school and learned a few things. Now you know the secret life of being an adult.

Jack: You really shouldn’t laugh when you say that.
Dad: Payback is a sweet thing.

Jack: Dad, if we weren’t related I’d be awfully unhappy with you.
Dad: One day you can share this with your kids.

Jack: Thanks, that is ever so helpful.
Dad: I have faith in you. Go figure it out.

I didn’t really expect dad to be able to tell me more than he did. Didn’t expect him to be able to answer questions only I could answer but I would be lying if I said I hoped I was wrong.

Sometimes you reach a place where there are no maps or manuals to follow and you must trust your gut. Sometimes it is all you have.

Spock: Captain, I cannot allow you to do this!
Bones: Jim, you’re not actually going after this guy, are you?
James T. Kirk: I have no idea what I’m supposed to do! I only know what I *can* do!
Star Trek Into Darkness

 

People Die & We Move On

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1977 Chevy Camaro 01
I had a ’77 Camaro that I miss driving and working on.

Oren Miller died yesterday but I am not going to write much about him.

I am going to leave that for others who knew him better.

I met Oren online somewhere around 2008 or ’09 I think, I am not really sure. I know that when I was writing the Festival Of The Fathers- A Blog Experience posts he was often one of my stops.

That was all part of the whole 2010 is the year of dad blogger thing we had going on. I think I did around 19 or 20 of those round ups and then I stopped.

Anyway I think most of those round ups were done before I moved to a self hosted blog but when I imported the old material they showed up here so they are on the old and the no longer new joint.

I did those round ups because I hoped to generate more traffic and to build a community.

But I never did manage to build the community I hoped to. Maybe it was because I had a selfish angle or maybe it was something else.

Doesn’t really matter much and that is where Oren comes into play again.

He built a community on Facebook that is more than a 1,000 men strong now and though he is gone his influence is going to live on in the lives of many people and that is worth celebrating.

People Die & We Move On

In some ways this blog has been built on posts about people who are no longer here and I have mixed feelings about that.

My Children Confront Death Again is one of the best posts I ever wrote.

I wrote it after my maternal grandfather told me he was ready to find out what comes next. I wrote it knowing that in a short time he would die and I would have to have another conversation with my children about death.

It reminded me about how one of the first serious posts I wrote was when my son asked me not to die. He was around four and the conversation was very different than the ones I had with him when I had to talk to the kids about saying goodbye to grandpa.

And the conversation was even more different when he walked in the room and saw the Facebook posts about Oren dying.

This kid of mine is going to be 15 this year and death is something he understands now.

When he asked me about it I told him I feel very badly for Oren’s wife and kids. I feel badly for his extended family and friends and then I told him that people die and we move on.

That probably sounds like there is an edge to it and maybe there is. I have buried a few friends now, people who were my age and I know stories about a bunch of others.

There might be some callouses around my heart but that doesn’t mean I don’t have empathy or sympathy.

Our Obligation To Live

One day my kids will get the keys to the kingdom and will get chance to read these posts so I like to give them some context to what is going on in dear old dad’s life.

Today I am on fire.

I am as angry and frustrated as I can remember being.

Much of it falls into my feeling like I had to go to war again to fight battles that had already been won.

When you look at all you have accomplished and feel like it is crumbling you can howl at the moon and collapse in frustration or you can fight.

Dad is a fighter. It is who I am and all I know to be.

We like to think we aren’t building castles out of sand and houses of cards but that is almost always how it goes.

When I think about friends and loved ones who have died I think about how I have no real idea what comes next but their time on earth is done.

There are no do-overs or chances to live a different life.

I owe something to my grandparents and those who came before. It is an obligation to do all I can to live the kind of life that fills heart and soothes my soul.

I think they would appreciate that and that is enough for me. Enough for me because they aren’t here and we are.

Not long ago I sat with the kids and we talked about the ocean and I said I relate to it. The sea can be tranquil and the most peaceful place to be and then it can turn into a stormy mess.

That is me too.

But the ocean has no conscience, no awareness and I do.

So I do my best to be aware and to act accordingly.

We Can Live Many Lives

I remember sitting with my grandfathers talking about life. My toddler son was sleeping in my arms and both of my grandfathers had the kind of smile they reserved only for their favorite occasions.

They shared some stories about good times and bad and offered advice for when things were more challenging.

Somewhere in the midst of the discussion they had a debate about the best restaurants in Chicago from when they were boys and when they were men.

I watched them go back more than 60 years and tried to imagine what it was like to have memories that extended so far back.

They had memories of two world wars, Korea, Vietnam, the moon landing, two Gulf Wars and so much more.

When they talked about the different jobs they had and places they had lived I knew they had lived a life.

But I don’t know if I really understood or appreciated it the way I do now. That is because sometimes you have to live a little bit and experience a lot before you can really hear.

Hearing is different from listening.

What I Hear

There is a song playing in my head and I don’t know if anyone else can hear it but it doesn’t matter.

Doesn’t matter because I will follow it to the ends of the earth and beyond. This is part of a moment in time that I can’t change and won’t try to.

Life is changing and I am evolving. I can’t be who I was any longer and I have to fully immerse myself into who I am becoming.

Straddling worlds isn’t an option for me. It is too painful and too damn hard.

I can’t be who I want to be and who I need to be without moving to the next place.