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 September 2015

The Place Between Light & Darkness

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Keepstanding
The teenage boy I sometimes refer to as Little Jack places his hand against my own and smiles.

“Dad, my hands are almost as big as yours.”

I smile and tell him it won’t be long before they are and he smiles back at me.

We’re seated at the far end of a table of twenty-something people and I am listening to the conversation between his great uncle and him.

They are talking about school and life and somewhere in the midst of it that kid who isn’t very little anymore talks about how he outran me on the soccer field.

I nod my head and say it is true, I don’t have the endurance to run for distance anymore but I point out that I can still beat him and his friends in a sprint.

He smiles and says that is true and say he has seen me win several races and then points out he has seen me dive for loose balls and wrestle some of my friends.

“My father thinks he is a boy sometimes.”

I Am A Jedi—Like My Father Is…Was

“Dad, I think you, grandpa and I should see the next Star Wars movie together, just the three of us.”

“Sure, as long as your homework is done.”

He nods his head at me.

“Stop harassing my grandson, he’ll be on winter vacation.”

The smile on my father’s face couldn’t be any bigger. We are at a family party and the three of us are standing in the corner talking.

“It’s too bad my grandfather isn’t around to tell you to stop harassing his grandson.”

Dad loves being grandpa and likes nothing more to spoil his grandchildren and give me a little grief. He calls it “payback” for lost sleep, lost hair and time spent worrying about me.

I tell shake my head at him and tell him that we are even.

“You never flew across country not knowing if your father would be dead or alive when you landed.”

He laughs, “I am here now, aren’t I.”

“Dad, sometimes you are a pain in my butt.”

“Isn’t that what your own son just said to you.”

I don’t have to look at his face to know there is a Cheshire Cat grin across his face. It makes me smile too, but sometimes there are flashes of memory and I remember.

I Am A Jedi---Like My Father Is...WasClick To Tweet

Dad obviously survived and more than a decade later is in his early seventies. But his health is not nearly what it could be and that makes me a nervous.

You never forget what it is like to see your own father on life support and I suspect that is probably part of what drives me to race my son and his friends and engage in some of these other shenanigans.

Dad and I have had very honest conversations about life and he tells me he knows he is closer to the end than the start but reminds me we haven’t got a clue what that means.

Some of that is him still trying to protect me, some of that is him being my dad. I recognize it for what it is, but I don’t push back because now isn’t the time.

No point in telling him he should have taken better care of himself and that if he had we wouldn’t wonder when his kidneys will decide they are done for good..

It is what it is and he is pretty damn happy right now so why complain about what you can’t change. That horse left the barn and it doesn’t matter how fast or resourceful we are, not this time.

So we move to the next thing and focus on what we can control and influence.

Some of it makes me smile because I know when I write/read things like Dads Love Their Sons- Darth Vader & Luke Skywalker Edition Part II he is in them.

When The Force Doesn’t Work

The party is long since over and I am sitting at the computer enjoying the place between light and darkness.

Got a list of things I want to do and a ton of reasons why they might not work or happen the way I want them to. Somewhere in the back of my head I can hear my father’s voice and the echoes of something he said when I was little.

I am not even really sure what it is, I just know that when you can’t use the Force to make things move for you sometimes you have to hitch yourself to the plow and pull the damn sled and or sleigh behind you.

It is not a matter of can’t or won’t but will and that is where I am at.

The car is jammed between the walls of a canyon good and tight and it doesn’t matter how many times I gun the engine, can’t get it out.

But I haven’t tried pushing, pulling or greasing the walls, wheels and world around it.

Master Yoda says there is no try, it is do or do not…so I will.

I Am Going To Win The Bet

My son finds me and says that he told his uncle he is going to win the bet and I just shake my head and laugh.

“Don’t laugh at me dad, it is not cool.”

“I am not laughing at you, I am laughing with you. You won’t want to hear this, but I am going to tell you anyway. Once upon a time I kissed a woman and electricity ran through my body. It was life changing and I knew the world was different.”

He looked at me and asked me what I meant.

“If she asked me to go to Hell and bring back the Lucifer’s pitchfork  I would have done it and I would have brought his spare one for good measure. If she would have told me she needed the moon I would have pulled that sucker out of the sky.”

“I think you’re exaggerating, but it doesn’t matter because I am never going to kiss a girl.”

I just laughed and said we’d see.

“I remember measuring my hand against grandpa’s and smiling because it was almost the same size. Life is a real kick sometimes.”

 

 

Maybe You Shouldn’t Blog About Your Broken Penis

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flight
She told me to sit down, climbed onto my lap the same way she had done when she was really little and then put her head on my shoulder.

I closed my eyes and listened to her breathe and for a moment she was a toddler again and not 11 going on 30.

She fell asleep in seconds and I wondered what kind of day she had been through. This is the girl who screamed at me that I shouldn’t treat her like a baby because she is almost a teenager.

I waited a few minutes to see if she would wake up and then she exhaled and I felt her whole body relax.

In the old days that was the sign that I could put her in her crib or bed and know she was done for the evening, but that girl didn’t have homework and this one did.

Not to mention that I had things I had to get done, so I did my best to stand up without waking her so that I could carry her to her room.

We made it halfway up the stairs before she woke up and told me to put her down.

“Why are you carrying me?”

“Because you fell asleep and I figured your bed was a better place to take a nap. It is easier for me to beat up the monsters when they come out of your closet or from under your bed.”

She gave me a smile followed by a full eye roll, “I can do that now daddy.”

“I know you can, but I am always here and I know how to listen.”

“I know.”

Maybe You Shouldn’t Blog About Your Broken Penis

In the good old days of the blog I could share stories like She Broke My Penis without any concern because the kids and their friends weren’t nose deep in electronics.

There wasn’t any concern about whether someone would Google someone else and come across material that could be embarrassing or used to embarrass but that was then and this is now.

You never worry about infants or toddlers sharing Too Much Information- The Girl in the Men’s Room because that is not part of the gig.

Back in those days you worried about making sure they didn’t choke on a carrot, run into the street or get lost in a store.

Now I look back on those years and smile because even though the kids required more hands on attention in some ways it was easier because they were always being watched by an adult.

There was always a grown up monitoring things and now there isn’t.

Now there are lots of moments where they are on their own and the concerns about what they are doing and who they are doing it with are different.

I know you can, but I am always here and I know how to listen.Click To Tweet

If you are among the 17 long time readers you know I am not an advocate of wrapping our children in bubble wrap and that I believe they need to learn how to fail.

You know I believe in giving them the tools and resources to do things for themselves and that my children have been taught to advocate for themselves.

But that doesn’t mean that I don’t worry about them or that I don’t make it clear that I am available to help them either.

The World Is Great But Sometimes Scary

One of the first things my grandfather said to me after my oldest was born is that you never stop worrying about your children.

You never stop watching and hoping that they continue to make smart choices and that nothing bad happens. He told me that it is not something you think about consciously because if you did you’d never be able to relax or go about your business.

It made sense to me then and it makes even more sense to me now.

I am good at not actively worrying about them or things because I know that statistically the really bad stuff is unlikely to happen.

But then shit happens and I wonder.

Someone I knew was murdered last week. He was shot to death in his apartment.

I don’t know many details and in some ways they don’t matter because the bottom line is his life was cut short because of something stupid.

I have been thinking about him and the stupid crap that comes up in life all week, like how horrified I was to realize that I can tell you about three different people I knew who were murdered.

Those people are separate from the list of people I know who died young from accidents and or terminal illnesses.

Is This Normal?

I often wonder if it is normal for someone like me to be able to list so many people who have died young in circumstances that would crassly be described as “shit happens.”

Maybe.

I am one of those people who has spent his life involved in groups and organizations. I know a lot of people so maybe that provides a large enough sample set to say that this is sad, but normal.

I really don’t know. I don’t have any data I can use to determine which way to roll with this one way or another.

All I am certain of is that it feels like a lot and that I feel badly that so many life stories were cut short.

I suppose all of this in total is part of why this isn’t just a dad blog anymore.

The Evolution Of A Blog

Call it the evolution of a blog and blogger. Everything changes and though there are things I miss about old fashioned blogging I enjoy and appreciate the places these changes have taken.

There is joy in writing about what happens when the rhythm of life is disturbed just as there is joy in writing about the rhythm of life.

These days I like looking at what my stats show as being my most popular blog posts because I want to figure out why so many of them seem have been written several years ago.

Is it because my writing was better then or because I worked harder to market and promote the blog?

I don’t know.

I think that my writing has improved and that while some of those posts are pretty good I feel confident that there have been equally good or better written since then.

Blogging is a funny thing, you never know what is going to hit or what won’t.

*****

I always say that whatever age my children are is my favorite and I mean that. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t really enjoy listening to my little girl fall asleep on my shoulder again.

Simple times and simple pleasures.

A Thoughtful Gift & Teenage Boys

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loved
There is a teenage boy in my house who if given the choice would never allow himself to be photographed.

It is not because he thinks he looks strange, awkward or funny but because of some arbitrary decision he made years ago to try and avoid being photographed.

He knows his choice wasn’t based upon logic or reason but he doesn’t care. Some might suggest this is because the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree but that is not something I care to think about because it is immaterial.

The how and why he prefers not to be photographed would only matter if logic was involved because then I could provide him with a reasonable argument about why his position is ridiculous.

For years we would talk about why pictures are important and ask for his cooperation. Sometimes he would just do it and sometimes I would suggest that if he didn’t want my size 12 boot in his ass he might try smiling.

And then in one of the great shocking moments of life, my teenager surprised me and said he thought he could be part of more pictures.

Dad, The Manipulator?

What made him change his mind?

You can attribute it to dad, wrangler of teens, copywriter and occasional manipulator.

Good old dad told him that it is important to try and come up with a thoughtful gift for people and that family members would love a nice picture.

I think this is a trick and that you think you can manipulate me, but I know what you are doing.Click To Tweet

“Dad, I think this is a trick and that you think you can manipulate me, but I know what you are doing. I am going to do this because it makes sense to me, not because you asked.”

“Son, you are going to do it because I manipulated you into doing this and I did it so skillfully that I can tell you I am doing it and be confident you’ll still do it.”

He rolled his eyes at me and we shared a chuckle.

He did it because he realized that sometimes it is easier to go along and get along and because pictures really are fast and easy gifts.

In short, some of it came because it enabled him to be lazy about gift giving.

But I understand that and I give him a break on some of this because when you don’t drive, have an income and or live near public transportation getting a good gift for someone can be more challenging.

A Thoughtful Gift & Teenage Boys

Truth is even when you have a car and make a couple of bucks it is not always easy to find a good gift, especially if you are shopping for one of those people who doesn’t want or need much.

If you are like me you have encountered this situation more times than you care to think about which is why I got so excited when I heard about a company I could use to help make my life earlier.

It is called Pictli and they offer a desktop solution and App that you can use to give someone you care about a thoughtful photo gift.

You pick a photo you love and submit it to Pictli. They’ll print it out, put it in a frame you have already chosen and then ship it to whomever and wherever you want it sent.

Then you sit back and wait for the thank you note or call from someone you care about who will tell you how delighted they are with your thoughtful gift.

And the  best part is you will have done it with minimal hassle and without having to fight the crowds at the mall.

No muss, no fuss.

I Love Mine

I love my Pictli picture and frame.

It is a family photo from the teenager’s Bar Mitzvah that is now on the mantle on our fireplace.

If you are looking for a thoughtful photo gift and want to try Pictli I have a  20% discount code you can use and or share with friends, family and followers: JS1510.

Please note that code is good through October 2015 only.

Disclosure: I received a gift code to purchase my Pictli print.  All opinions are mine, such as Brussels Sprouts are awful, the DH and the Tuck rule are abominations and Hawaii is a great place to take a vacation.

Would You Like To Be The 132nd Greatest Blogger Ever?

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Foolishquit

You are not supposed to enter the Jewish New Year thinking about whether you should defenestrate someone or throw them down the stairs.

I might have chosen not to go to rabbinic school but I can assure you this time of year is supposed to be devoted to introspection, reflection and personal growth and not whether you are strong enough to pull someone’s head out of their ass.

But I am the guy who takes the road less taken and blazes trails where none exist so maybe it is fitting to roll into the new year in a different sort of way.

Hell, when I realized what The New Normal was going to be I should have just accepted that life would be a bit different.

Part of me wonders if there was ever a time when life didn’t feel like I was a lumberjack in a log-rolling contest.”

Bread is singing Everything I Own and I am sitting here in stunned silence, trying to process some terrible news and make sense of something that won’t ever make sense.

Maybe I should take W.C. Fields advice and let go, move on and roll on to the next thing but that is easier said than done for me.

That is because I am the guy who has had great success in figuring out answers to the hard stuff. I am the guy who tears down the walls using hammers, fists or a block and tackle.

It is just a combination of my Taurus nature and my trying to imitate Albert Einstein.

It is not that I’m so smart. But I stay with the questions much longer.

There is a reason I tell the kids to work smarter and not harder, it is effective. I figure if it worked for him there is no reason why it might not work for me.

The music has shifted to Rod Stewart’s Rhythm of My Heart and I have to smile because something about it seems so damn appropriate.

It doesn’t mean I have forgotten about the bad news just that I have pushed it to the back of my head where it can rattle around for a while unencumbered by a father trying to get his kids ready for the responsibilities of the following day.

Would You Like To Be The 132nd Greatest Blogger Ever?

My daughter asked me if I could become the greatest dad blogger ever and I told her it was possible to better than that, I could be the 982nd greatest blogger ever.

She laughed and told me I ought to aim higher so I asked her if it made sense to try to become the 132nd greatest blogger ever.

“Dad, sometimes you are ridiculous.”

“I have been very successful at being ridiculous. You can consider me a master of mishegoss and one of the greatest meshugehnehs you’ll ever meet.”

She rolls her eyes and tells me she can’t understand how I ever managed to find a woman to date me. I shake my head at her and tell her she doesn’t want to know what my secret is.

As she walks away I tell her it is fine to be 11 and to not try to grow up so damn quickly. It is said for both of our benefits.

She isn’t as old and mature as she wants to be and that is ok. It hasn’t stopped the eye rolling and attitude but the boys report is that all of our daughters seem to be going or growing through this at the same time.

And we all agree that it is probably easier than the crazy mother-daughter thing we see going on too.

****

Later on I’ll sit her down and talk to her about how I used to say that I wanted one percent of IBM’s ad budget. It is a reference to the good-old-days when I sold advertising.

“Jack, what is your goal for the next year? How are you going to grow your sales?”

“Well boss, don’t worry about how I am going to grow my sales just understand that IBM has an ad budget of $100 million and I am going to capture one percent of it.”

He nodded his head and smiled.

“If you do that we’ll both be very happy.”

“Not as happy as I’ll be when you get the hell out of my office, you are preventing me from working.”

As I recall the boss sort of rolled his eyes at me too, but he left and for good measure I told him not to let the door smack him in the ass when he left.

Have I ever mentioned the importance of keeping your boss in line?

No?

Consider this that mention and remember that if you do as I do you need to start with the snark and sarcasm early on.

But don’t forget to be very good at what you do because when you are obnoxious they want to cut your throat so you have to make it worth their while to keep you around.

successandfailure
The kids and I are sitting in the living room talking while the dog tries to walk in a circle on my lap. Don’t know why he does that, I just know every dog seems to need to make that same circle because they lie down and pretend to sleep.

Daughter looks at me and asks if I have any news for them and I ask what she means.

“Dad, I don’t want any surprises. Are we moving to Texas or Fargo, North Dakota anytime soon?”

“I told you we aren’t moving to Fargo anytime soon, at least not until someone offers me a million dollars to do it.”

“You didn’t say anything about Texas.”

“You are right, I was there two weeks ago and I am sure I’ll be there again, just don’t know when.”

“Daddy, give me a straight answer.”

I smile and tell her that I don’t anticipate her having to move today or tomorrow or even next week but I won’t promise anything beyond that.

“Remember when we talked about whether I could become the 132nd greatest blogger? Well, if you want to dig into the nuts and bolts of it all I can promise you that if I was the 132nd greatest blogger we could probably live a very nice life in any number of places.”

This is the kind of conversation I love because it is filled with teaching moments and I am able to share a bunch of life experiences and talk about how they have helped me.

I tell her about the times I have failed and how anytime something has knocked me down I have gotten back up.

We talk about problem solving and when you should take risks.  She asks me if it bothers me to fail and I say that it always hurts and I hate it but I refuse to just give up because something is hard.

“Sometimes the hardest part is figuring when to walk away because you just aren’t getting anywhere.”

*****

It really is too bad I couldn’t defenestrate the guy I saw in shul, probably wouldn’t have made a difference because he is the kind of asshole who thinks being an asshole is something to be proud of.

But you never know, if you stick with a problem long enough sometimes you come up with the perfect solution.

Let’s Kill Twitter, Blogs & Bluster

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Whatisyourstory
Four or five hours ago I rode out on my shiny keyboard to do battle with trolls, people and personalities, ya know people you meet online.

The point wasn’t to try to convince the people who were debating with me to believe as I do but to convince the lurkers who never comment that they should adopt my perspective about life and living.

Why worry about the condescending fools who like to tell me that I am both fool and asshole for not believing as they do.

In a different life I used to enjoy these battles and I would engage every chance I got because I knew that I could drown the other side in information.

I could bury them in facts and eviscerate their arguments and do so in a manner that made them look stupid.

Sometimes I miss being so very cool.

Let's Kill Twitter, Blogs & Bluster and anything else that makes people think.Click To Tweet

That was before I asked the ever so insightful question of Does Facebook Promote Stupidity & Intolerance?

Eventually, I tired of these debates because I rarely found myself learning from them and I started to wonder if there was any benefit in proving that I could tear down whatever walls were erected in front of me.

conversations
We are on the verge of the Jewish New Year, 5776 is the year we are celebrating as opposed to the 2015 we welcomed during the secular New Year last January.

The children and I have spent time talking about what it means to us and what we hope to see happen in the days to come.

We have talked about what is, what was and what may yet be.

It has been fun to hear their thoughts and to not focus on the evil that some people engage in. That’s not to say we have ignored it entirely because we haven’t.

They have heard me stress the importance of getting involved in the world and giving back. They know that I don’t believe in just passing through life hoping that others do the heavy lifting.

Social responsibility isn’t just something we talk about here but they also know that their old man is a big believer in developing a thick skin and a willingness to walk out own path even when others suggest we shouldn’t.

That is because people will always tell you what to do and how to do it. People will always push you to be a sheeple and that is just not acceptable to us.

But then again we don’t believe in rebellion just for the sake of rebelling either.

Life With Purpose

When Ma and Pa Steiner didn’t want my siblings and I to understand what they were saying they slipped into Spanish.

It didn’t take long for my siblings and I to figure out what they were saying in whatever language they spoke.

But when you are learning Spanish, English, Hebrew and Yiddish your ability to focus and move from rudimentary skills is tested and if you are ask foolish as I once was you might choose to stop learning one or two so that you can focus in other areas.

You can call that a long-winded way of me saying it is time for me to focus on Spanish. With some time and effort I should be able to hit the ground running and resume being able to carry on a basic conversation.

So I am in the process of looking for a good way to turn that into something more than just a thought. Got a couple of options and opportunities, just have to figure out what makes the most sense.

That is tied into another lesson I want to pass along to the kids, living with purpose.

To me living with purpose is recognizing our social responsibility to others and to ourselves. It is doing something to stimulate our minds and engage with the world in a larger way than we might if we did nothing to educate ourselves.

Let’s Kill Twitter, Blogs & Bluster

I like social media, always have.

It never ceases to amaze me how it opened up my world and gave me experiences and opportunities I never would have had.

I’ll be forever grateful for the friendships and people I have met but the one thing that makes me look cross-eyed at it is how it has made it easy for certain groups of people to assemble.

How it has enabled and assisted people to pass along some very nasty beliefs and encouraged many to wear blinders. That is not something to be proud or happy about.

Don’t misunderstand this to mean that I think we should truly shut down social media platforms. I am too big a proponent of free speech and the marketplace of ideas.

What I am saying is that it is like any other tool and it can be used for great things and things that are not so great. I am saying we need to be willing to confront some of the crazies and demand they provide fact and substance to support their tinfoil hats and crazy conspiracies.

We don’t need to convince everyone nor should we expect to, but we need to work on hitting at least a few of them.

Consider it the cost of freedom and doing business online.

What do you think?

P.S. This post took a bit of a turn, now didn’t it. 🙂