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 2016

The Hijinks & Shenanigans Of Angry Lost Lovers

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There is a long history here, one that is deeper and more complex than meets the eye or so I used to think.

And then one day I sat down and listened to Ray sing his song and it hit me that it didn’t have to be as complicated as it seemed.

It only had to be as complicated as two people who said they loved each other would let it be.

But the thing was, or is that we let it become complicated. We took something that had a couple of wrinkles and maybe a small knot and let it grow harder and more difficult.

And then when you cut me free, told me it was done and over I tried hard to accept it. Tried hard to just let go and move on but something never let me walk away the way I wanted to.

Something made me hold back and then I discovered what it was.

We weren’t done.

For a long while I refused to believe it. Refused to accept that there was anything left but pain and anger, did my best to feed that fire because anger makes it easy to stay away.

But it didn’t work and thus it didn’t happen, walking away that is.

Instead I found myself sitting across from you, staring at you, trying to figure out how I could simultaneously be so angry and so attracted.

You refused to kiss me that night, but within a week we found each other’s lips and we remembered.

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We remembered. We found each other again. We got each other back and swore that this time it would go the distance.

The Chance You Should Have Taken

That is how I looked at the very beginning, how I thought about those early days.

It is a massive and major regret of mine, that I didn’t do what my heart told me to do because I let fear guide me.

But I moved on past that because I can’t live out what might have been and I can’t go back in time to change it.

So I pushed back against the memories and did my best to move on, did my best to try to walk away.

Yet I ended up where I didn’t expect to be and that is how we ended up sitting across from each other.

That is how we ended up wrapped in each others arms promising that this time we would make it happen.

Heaven and earth moved, the angels applauded and then the devil got between us again.

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Sometimes I look at the water between the lonely tree and I and think if I can figure out how to cross it I can get back to you.

Because if I get back to you, well you’ll push me away a time or two because it is the right thing to do and then you won’t.

You’ll kiss me and we’ll remember and we’ll go on from there.

We’ll find our way and figure it out because it is who we are. When our fingers are intertwined we know we are an unstoppable force.

It is only when they are separated that we forget and fading memories make it easy to pretend it was never as good or as real as we knew and know it to be.

My heart tells me it is not false hope or foolishness to believe or look forward to.

My brain says if it is meant to be then it shall be. It says you don’t have to work for love.

But my heart disagrees, my heart says sometimes you have to work for the opportunity and then you just water the garden love grows in.

Brain says to never listen to a broken heart because they cannot be trusted, but heart disagrees.

Maybe it is because I have loved you for as long as I can remember and even when I probably should have let go, probably should have given up I didn’t.

Remember the day I said I don’t love you, I fucking love you.

I do, because I remember the smile and how you said you do too.

And I remember you making me promise to never let go and how I agreed.

And so here we are apart.

Maybe forever, maybe not.

Heart and head, at odds again.

Editor’s Notes: Technically this ran on Medium first.

I published it the same day I wrote You Should Slap The Devil & Sleep With His Wife. It is another version of a story I have been working on.

Since my Medium blog isn’t self hosted I figured I ought to run it here too so that I could make sure it is backed up and saved.

The Stupidity Of A Smartphone

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I am relatively certain Stephen Stills never imagined a man would write a post about the stupidity of smartphones while listening to Love The One You’re With.

If he did, well I am certain at best he imagined that said man would be writing about a person and not about the conflict he felt about an impulse buy.

And I am sure that it never would have occurred to him that this mystery man would think about whether this song was used for commercial purposes before because he wondered if maybe he had stumbled onto an interesting marketing idea.

Goodbye Millions

Anyhoo, that is neither here nor there because I am not going to try to sell Apple or the Android manufacturers of the world upon using that song as the basis of an ad/marketing campaign.

Instead, I’ll say I got tired of my Droid’s failing me after 18 months and purchased an iPhone today.  It wasn’t exactly an impulse buy, but it wasn’t as well researched as many of my purchases are.

It was a ‘damn I’m sick of my ‘Droid not working I heard Target is offering a $250 gift card for people who buy the iPhone maybe I’ll take advantage of it.’

So I set out for the local store, asked if they had the 64GB version and when I heard no decided to buy the 16GB even though I was nervous it wasn’t enough.

You should know I called three other stores to ask if they had  any in stock and was told no, so I hitched up my pants and said ‘screw it.’

I am resourceful, I am good at making things work.

Figured there was no reason I couldn’t make decision work for me too, but that didn’t stop me from posting a question on Facebook just to see if anyone thought that 16GB was a good idea.

Almost everyone told me it was a mistake to go with 16GB, I did it anyway.

Nothing like a good challenge to whet my whistle.

Old Jack Steiner will swim upstream, pour gasoline over his head while dancing in fire and challenge Zeus, Apollo and Athena to fights without any concern about whether it is sensible

Do As Dad Says, Not As He Does

The kids have heard me tell them more than once to focus on working smarter and not harder.

They have heard me say sometimes it makes sense to take a deep breath before rushing into things and to take a moment to look around.

Hell, they have heard me tell them that when it comes to technology there is always something bright and shiny to chase after and that there are new deals daily.

Most of the time they have seen me follow those suggestions but today I had enough and I just went for it.

So why am I writing a post that sounds like I am second guessing myself?

Because I sort of am, I am a bit nervous about it. I am sort of wondering if I made a mistake in changing phones because that memory thing could be an issue.

But I am not always the biggest fan of change and this is one that has some impact upon me. I am a heavy user of cell phones and if this doesn’t work because of memory issues I’ll want to kick myself for not having handled it differently.

That being said I am also the guy that tells the kids to remember that sometimes anticipation is the worst part.

Sometimes you can’t know how something will be until you experience it.

It is not a life sentence, it is just a cellphone and I don’t have to limit my belief or expectations to those of the crowd because sometimes the wisdom of crowds isn’t always so wise.

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Sometimes I Miss Simple

Sometimes I miss the simplicity of the old days when setting up a new phone meant plugging it in, checking the cables and listening for a busy signal or dial tone.

It didn’t require hours to make sure each app was downloaded and each screen was organized for maximum efficiency.

My middle schooler likes to try and tease me about having grown up during the olden days.

“Daddy, you were born in the sixties and that makes you old.”

I laugh and say it doesn’t faze me, doesn’t feel old or all that long ago.

“Daddy, you went to high school in the eighties.”

I laugh again, “dear daughter, I have spent my entire life teasing people about anything and everything. A rookie like you doesn’t ruffle my feathers, now pass the neon shirt I am going to the John Hughes marathon at the drive-in.”

****

“Daddy” used to dislike change quite a bit.

My girl’s ‘old man’ worked at trying to keep life fairly stable because I knew what I had and didn’t feel the need to try and improve it.

It was better and easier to maintain the status quo than to shake things up.

Well you all know that life doesn’t always cooperate and that mine was shaken and shook up. You know I had to learn how to roll with the punches and accept changes that once were irritating.

I maybe be a bit uncertain about the new phone, but I have perspective.

It is just a phone. Just another tool and the utility of a tool is always based upon the skill of its user.

All I need to do is figure out how be maximize its utility by doing my best to learn how to use it.

It may or may not become the best fun I ever had, but for now I am going to focus on loving the one I am with.

You Will Enter Through The Back Door

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Long before I participated in writing groups in which I would write about Lazy Guardian Angels, Lovers or the Birth Of a Murderer I had another blog.

It was called A Barbaric Yawp, a name I can’t say is particularly original, but the tagline was all mine.

Always and Forever, The Uncivilized Barbarian

I was and I still am that Barbarian.

I was given that particular moniker by the best friend of an ex-girlfriend.

Why?

I made her so angry she punched the wall and consequently that made me An Uncivilized Barbarian.

Don’t ask why the 16-year-old girl who punched the wall wasn’t gifted with such a cool name or question why I liked it then and still like it now.

Just know that once upon a time I used it as inspiration for a blog that no longer exists because WordPress took it down because someone said it violated their TOS.

Write about politics and you might piss people off enough to come after you, especially if you are motivated, relentless and don’t fear conflict.

You Will Enter Through The Back Door

Got Hole playing Violet on the old headphones now, not entirely sure why I picked it but it reminds me of an apartment that no longer exists.

My first place, the one that was mine and mine alone, no roommates, first job and the place I hung my hat at nights.

A bit of a dump but a place with character.

Crazy neighbors that worked in the music and entertainment industry.

The guy at the end of the hall would blast this song day and night, door and windows wide open, fans blowing smoke out into the courtyard so that passerbys had a shot at a contact high.

Seven years older than I, he once invited me to go to a party at Stevie Nick’s house. She wasn’t there, but one of her backup singers was house sitting and she said we could hang out.

I didn’t believe she was who she said she was and then I saw her on television backing up Stevie.

Somewhere in the mists of memory I can hear them both speaking to me, see them beckoning me to come down the hall and hang out with them.

“Jack, it is cool. You should come with us, it will be fun. Don’t be nervous, think of it as networking, sometimes you get where you want to be by going in through the back door.”

I see them laughing, don’t tell them I got the reference, I am almost 25, old enough to know what they are talking about.

Confident But Unsure

Sometimes I watch my kids and remember the days of being confident but unsure. Watch them and see so much of me as I was but more of who they are.

Can’t tell them about the real reasons I didn’t go to Stevie’s place, how I wanted to but was unsure about what I would do.

Wasn’t afraid of drinking or getting high, but some of the harder stuff made me nervous, wouldn’t touch it and avoided being around it.

Never saw my neighbor do it and didn’t think it was his thing, but didn’t want to find out. Didn’t want to drive myself and have to leave my car there because I was too messed up to drive home.

Did that enough times in college to pray for forgiveness now.

I was lucky but so VERY STUPID.

These days I don’t hit the confident and unsure crossroads with much frequency because I have lived and loved a little bit.

Life experience goes along, long way.

Today I look around at the things around me, take inventory and then ask myself if I am surrounded by people and things that will help or hurt me.

Not because I want to be a taker and user but because I hear a clock ticking and don’t have time to waste.

Give Back & Receive

That is what I tell the kids, give back and you’ll receive more than a few gifts that you can’t get without giving of yourself.

I believe it and do my best to live it.

But I also know there is a clock ticking and that even if I live another 80 or 90 years as I suspect I might I need to focus my energy and push in a certain direction.

I look at the multiple projects I have going on, the work I am doing and the people I am with and ask if this is the right path.

Will these people and these things help me move from dreaming my life to living my dreams.

If the answer is yes they stay and if the answer is no, well I have to make an adjustment.  Have to refocus and adjust so that I can get where I need to be.

It is how life is, how it goes.

Some will be there for the entire journey and others for a part or portion of it.

Readers Come & Go

This is why readers come and go.

Some of you will always find value in my words. Some of you can hear the song I am singing and will chose to sing it with me and others…won’t.

Maybe for a time you’ll be a part of the chorus, perhaps you’ll even take the lead or just harmonize with me.

But not all of you will stay.

Some of you will leave and all that will remain are echoes of what was and maybe we’ll meet again.

You never know if you’ll find them again in the echoes of the future or if you’ll round that been and see a fossilized footprint where you expected to find a fresh trail.

I tell the kids to remember it is a giant adventure and to have fun. My daughter finds an old letter and asks me why someone would call me an uncivilized barbarian.

“Daddy, were you eating with your hands, or just pissing girls off?”

“You are not quite 12, why would you say that?”

“Daddy, you know that sometimes you can be the greatest, but you also know how to make people crazy”

I wink and smile, “not everyone is meant to walk the whole way with you. I want you to remember that when you feel like you are trying your hardest to get somewhere and you don’t make any progress you might have to try something different.

Sometimes you have to go in through the back door.”

The Lazy Guardian Angel

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The bus missed the mother holding her toddler and the baby in the stroller next to her.

It flew another 100 yards down a crowded sidewalk without hitting the couple sharing an ice cream cone, the old lady with the walker and the teenager texting his mother.

The policeman, the news reporters and the guys from the office of the building it came to rest in front of all talked about how incredible it was that more people weren’t hurt.

Guardian angels must have been working overtime is what they said.

All except mine, I guess that’s just my luck.

*******

I participated in the 100-word challenge again It is hosted by Tara at the Thin Spiral Notebook.
“ the prompt was LUCK.

100 Word Challenge

How Much Is Failure Worth?

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Sometimes I look back at old posts and see a man I know is me but no longer recognize.

I look at the guy who asked if people suffer from blog envy and see a kid who thought he had been through a few things but had no clue just how much was yet to come.

It was before the floor fell out on some things and the world changed so I can’t really blame him for thinking he had experienced a lot because he had, but not to the degree he thought he had.

No surprises there.

If you were to go through my life and speak with me at five-year increments in time there is a good chance I would mention how much older or more experienced I feel compared to the time before it.

Don’t lose time asking why I felt like that was true, just know I was consistent about it and that now I am positive it is true.

That is part of what happens when you’re well beyond the fresh out of college, barely been married, young parent stages of life; especially when you have been through a thing or two.

About fear

The 17 long time readers of the blog know I am the guy who pushes his limits and crosses over blurred lines.

Some of you have written and or spoken with me about this and asked what it is like to be unfiltered and to be the guy that might say or do anything.

You have said wish you have/had my guts but I always warn you to think about what happens when you get what you ask for.

We live during a time when it is cool and trendy to say you haven’t let fear of failure prevent you from taking risks but I am here to tell you to be measured and aware about what that really means.

Why?

Because sometimes failure leads to tremendous learning experiences and growth but it can be really fucking painful.

Try getting fired a few times and having to figure out how to pay your bills when you have no money coming in and you can’t find a job.

It doesn’t matter whether you were let go because you are incompetent, your contract expired or you got caught in a reorganization.

Your ego and sense of self take a beating and you begin to question things about the world and your capabilities that you never wondered or worried about.

Cue Helter Skelter, and listen to Paul:

When I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the slide
Where I stop and I turn and I go for a ride

It is a hell of a ride and I have had the pleasure of riding that show pony a few times.

But the thing about it, the really special thing about confronting failure head on is that you learn how to deal with adversity and prove to yourself that you have a special skill set that you can call upon as needed.

It is how I learned how to not just walk, but dance upon the razor’s edge without fear of severe bloodletting because I know I can survive the nicks, pricks and slices.

Hell, I have had the blade shoved between my shoulders and twisted and that didn’t stop me from doing what was required.

How Much Is Failure Worth?

Long before I got my own private tour of Hell in the bed of a pickup truck filled with gasoline I made a decision to let my children fall and fail.

That is a fancy way of saying when they were little I didn’t go running every time they fell down. I took a moment to see if they were really hurt and if they weren’t I let them figure out how to stand back up.

I did it because I wanted them to learn from an early age that they were capable of figuring out how to deal with adversity.

It is a practice I have continued to engage in throughout their lives.

The challenge has been trying to make sure their ego and self esteem wasn’t destroyed in the process. I never want them to feel like I don’t have their back and won’t support them.

But I don’t want them to expect me to rescue them every time things get hard. There is value in learning how to be resourceful.

I think it has worked because they are well adjusted, independent and good students.

Let’s hope that is accurate and I am not one of those parents who is blind to the reality of who and what their children are.

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I turned on Johnny Cash so I could listen to his cover of Hurt.

Been focusing on putting everything inside my head onto these pages again, partly to understand what I think/feel and partly to exorcise a few demons.

That old fire in my belly never stops burning but it burns harder and higher when I am angry and I am angry now.

But I am happy and scared too.

So there is this odd combination of happy, angry and frightened floating around inside my head.

 

That anger is mostly frustration with myself and some other people. You could say that the fear is intermixed in that all too.

But that happy spot, well that is there because I look back at where I was and see how I overcame to get back to this place.

There is this song in my head that only I can hear, a path only I can see that I am following.

I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t failed and I hadn’t paid a price, but I wouldn’t appreciate all I have and accomplished either.

 

Now we go onto the next steps and determine if the value meets or exceeds the price I paid.

That is part of the joy of the journey, it is different for us all. What do you think?

Do People Really Get What They Deserve?

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Ma & Pa Steiner taught me long ago that life isn’t fair and not to take “what goes around, comes around” as being the literal truth.

Experience taught me there are grains of truth in that particular field so I passed it along to my children.

“Some people will lie, cheat and steal their way into destiny, but they have to live with themselves, you don’t.”

The kids asked me what that meant and I said some people don’t have a conscience.

When they grew older and became capable of more sophisticated conversation we pulled it apart and talked about how our understanding and interpretation of that inner voice impacts our behavior.

“Dad, have you done things that you don’t feel good about?”

I nodded my head and said that everyone does but we didn’t get into specific details or how we sometimes find ourselves in situations we never expected to be in.

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When you have lived a life and I have lived, you find yourself in those peculiar places that make you understand you must make a choice.

A choice to view the world as a series of black lines that cannot ever be crossed or even stepped upon or an understanding sometimes you’ll have to be like Max and go where the wild things are.

If you are like me, well you’ll throw your head back and roar, you’ll join the wild rumpus and do your best to live hard.

And then at some point you’ll climb a tree or find some quiet place to look around and think about all you have seen and done.

Because you’ll look at the tightrope you were just walking upon and wonder how it was you didn’t fall only to discover you’re standing on a different one.

Maybe you’ll throw your head back and catch raindrops on your tongue, dance in the storm and take joy in the moment.

Or maybe you’ll scream with rage at the sky, dare the lightning to strike you and pretend that stomping your feet brings down the thunder.

Do People Really Get What They Deserve?

I grew up in what people would describe as an upper-middle-class home but surrounded by money.

I knew from a very young age that we didn’t have as much as others who had bigger houses and more toys.

I knew I was lucky to have as much as we did and that my parents always made sure we went on a family trip each summer.

But I also remember when we didn’t have any furniture in our living room and that while my schoolmates were boarding planes to Hawaii, Europe, Israel or wherever my vacation meant being jammed in the station wagon with my sisters.

Some of those kids were what is the term, oh yeah, entitled assholes, but not all.

Won’t say, can’t say that I wasn’t ever jealous or that I didn’t compare my life to the other kids but I can say that whatever my parents said about not comparing my life to others worked.

Can’t say what words they used, I just realized I’d never be happy if I compared myself to others and I have done my best to pass that along to my own children.

 

Some people have nothing and are always happy and some have everything and are never happy.

But none of that really touches upon whether people get what they deserve.

*****

Most days I try not to spend much time hoping or wondering whether Karma will kick the ass of those who need its special ass kicking services.

It is too easy to ask why some really bad people have done so well for themselves and why some really good have done so poorly.

Too easy to look at my life and say WTF to the sky because though I have done my tap dance on, over and around those lines I am a decent guy.

Too easy to look at my kids and then back to the sky and ask why they didn’t get better because they are just kids and their slates are cleaner than my own.

So I focus on what I can control and teach them to do the same, work hard and do your best to live in a way that lets you sleep well at night.

newton people

More Flotsam & Jetsam

Got The Association singing Never My Love in my ears and a series of thoughts and ideas surrounding You Should Slap The Devil & Sleep With His Wife.

Not sure how many people did more than click on the link before moving on to the next bright and shiny object.

Heard from some people who said I make their head hurt because these posts are chock full of layers and layers of…stuff.

Told them no one forces anyone to read anything here and then laughed because it made me think of my audio post about blog cancellation fees.

Heard from another guy who said that I am not really a dad blogger anymore because I don’t write like a dad blogger.

Told him that since he got a vasectomy he is not a real man and he said that I misunderstand what happens during a vasectomy because his balls weren’t cut off.

Responded by telling him that having a set isn’t a requirement for being a man and then because I am filled with enough testosterone for 98 men I said if we got in a fight I would slap him because he didn’t deserve my knuckles.

Ok, I didn’t say to this particular guy, but I have told men that before.

Why?

Because when you slap the devil and sleep with his wife you don’t settle for a simple “fuck you” or “fuck off.”

No, you want to make them think about what you said.

Sometimes it is worth reminding ourselves not to take life too seriously, the whole damn thing is fucking absurd.

Our understanding of time is rough our perception of a moment is flawed.

So instead of trying to control other people and all that happens around me I focus on doing my best to be the conductor of my life and to not fear taking risks.

Life isn’t fair, but if you’re willing to live it can be a hell of a lot of fun.