"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
I was a 35-year-old homeowner with two small kids who played around with moving out of LA but wasn’t particularly serious about it.
Sure, I talked about moving to Jerusalem but I promised my wife that we could put that off until after the kids were out of the house so that was more of a dream than reality.
Then came the idea about selling the house and moving to Texas but I wasn’t so sure about it.
I liked the idea of being able to sell my house in LA and using the cash to buy something much larger and nicer in Texas.
Hell, I loved the thought of being able to do that and still have a nice chunk of cash in the bank.
That seemed practical and smart, but it also was a little frightening and not something I was real sure of.
Didn’t matter that I was somewhat familiar with Texas, I was a creature of habit and liked my comfort zone.
Fast forward almost 14 years and the house I was hesitant about selling is long gone.
I fought with Wells Fargo about trying to refinance and they laughed at my desperation, all courtesy of the Great Recession.
Jack the high flyer went from the top of the pile to the bottom.
Lifestyle Changes
We went from ample cash and kids in private school to just scraping by.
Vacations disappeared and the savings that I worked hard to accumulate went along with everything else.
Most of it was taken in an effort to save that aforementioned house and for a long while Old Jack was a very angry man.
It wasn’t right and it wasn’t fair and it was hard not to be bitter. Hard not to kick myself for not having pushed to sell the damn place earlier when we could have walked away with plenty instead of nothing.
But that is how life goes and instead of living in LA mulling over whether it might be easier to live elsewhere we are in Texas.
Hell, this is my second time around living in Texas, so technically I have lived here for about 2.5 years.
So maybe this is how it was always going to be and the only question was when would I end up here.
Maybe.
****
Enough time has passed for me not to be pissed off at what could have or should have been and most of the time I am pretty happy with how life is now.
But it took some doing to get here.
Blogging Is A Game
I go back and forth between being the grumpy old man who is outraged about how many hacks blog for the swag and free trips and the guy who accepts blogging is a game.
Some days I want to do nothing but scream about it but considering I have done the product reviews, taken some of the trips and played the game it would be hypocritical.
Maybe it is jealousy. Maybe I am sorry I haven’t had the same success as others or maybe it is just my grumpy nature.
Maybe I am happier having something to complain about.
I don’t think I was always like this, hell I know I wasn’t.
Things happened, life happened and I changed.
If it wasn’t for blogging I might not be able to see it so clearly.
If it wasn’t for writing these thoughts down where I can revisit them I might not be able to track it.
Maybe some of these changes wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t gone through what I went through, or maybe they would have.
Hell, I ended up in Texas anyway, so maybe the 35-year-old was always going to turn into a grumpy almost 50 year-old.
Beams of sunlight are supposed to gently rouse your body from its slumber, but that is not always how it goes.
Maybe that is why some people use blackout shades or do things to help ease their way into a wakeful state.
I am not really looking out at the mountains or staring at the beach below.
I wish I was staring at either of those places and that I was the writer who had enough money and or resources to set up shop wherever I want to.
It is not because I think it would bestow magical powers upon my skills as a writer and storyteller.
No, it is a simple and selfish reason.
Because I think it would be cool and because my imagination tells me if I could afford to do that I would be a happier and more peaceful person.
It is a theory I’d like to test one day but I have a sneaking suspicion there is no truth to it.
Money and resources may ease some of my concerns but they are unlikely tofix all of them
It Won’t Make More People Read
It won’t make more people read my words here or at TheJackB.
Might make it easier to promote and reach more potential readers, but it is not going to make them stick around.
That doesn’t happen without providing interesting, engaging and entertaining content.
I know from experience that this is not a theory and that a good imagination can help take you a long way so maybe it is not really a big deal to not have those resources.
But damn, it sure would be nice not to have to worry about paying the bills once in a while.
I wanted to call this post 2011- The Year of The Motherfucker but then I thought that it might be better to write 2011- You Were a Real Motherfucker.
As you can see I opted not to use either headline and not because I was concerned that I would scare away the millions of brands that are pounding down my door demanding that I become one of their ambassadors. Nope, I like Words You Won’t Read better because it is more accurate.
That is not because I don’t have legions of readers who hang on my every word because I do and let me tell you that it is not always easy to have groupies. Groupies still think for themselves and sometimes that means that they do don’t as I wish they would. Minions are different.
Minions don’t think to do anything other than your bidding and that is kind of cool. But you have to be careful about that because as Uncle Ben Parker said, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Of course that didn’t prevent him from getting shot and killed but we won’t talk about that now.
Instead I am going to share a few thoughts with you.
I am waiting for my pals at Headway Themes to finish tweaking things so that I can migrate to the current version. That might involve small changes or it might involve big changes. I don’t know.
It makes me crazy to see how many of the videos I have embedded here are gone because something happened on YouTube’s end.
It makes me crazy to see how many broken links develop over time. That is just a hassle that I prefer not to deal with.
I am listening to Ray Charles sing “Mess Around” and dancing in my chair. When I am not dancing I am pretending to play my keyboard as if it is a piano. I keep hitting the keys and creating new words that look like gr-0uyghu-prfv and 0ifv80f4hr0cjw vnpln.
More than twenty years ago I worked at a camp outside of Toronto. We tried to convince the Canadians that “Combrodonate” was a word that everyone in LA was using and that it would be really cool if they did too. Most didn’t do it. I blame it on a short guy from cleveland named Mark who said that he had a cousin in LA and he had never heard anyone use it before.
Mark was an obnoxious prick. I asked him if he suffered from smoke inhalation back home. He pretended not to know what I was talking about, but I know he got it. Really, what clevelander isn’t going to acknowledge that the river bursts into flames every hour. It is sort of like their version of Old Faithful, except one is a natural geyser and the other was created by a bunch of guys…er…
I think that I am having more fun writing this story than I ever have. There is a point and a purpose to it that fuel my passion. All those ‘p’s make me proud.
Blog posts don’t have to have a purpose. Some people will read your prose because your passion is your purpose and that is the point of it all. I have written about 550 posts this year, give or take a few. Most were written because I had words that refused to remain bound inside my head.
Passion, point and purpose. I like those three words. I appreciate how by simply rearranging the order in which we use we can provide new meaning and intent.
Going to sign off now. In a few hours I’ll find out if these really were words you won’t read or not.
A number of years ago I wrote a post with my favorite recipe for cooking the Easter Bunny. For a time it was among the most highly trafficked pages in the blog and then things got a little bit ugly. First there were nasty emails about my posts on Santa. They moved from there onto a discussion of why The Salvation Army Bell Ringer doesn’t like me and suggested that maybe I am cheap because I don’ t like Tip Jars.
They told me that I am rude, obnoxious and uncaring. I made a point to respond with a note that said that two out of three isn’t bad.
But old Jack has a thick skin and a hard head so I persevered and kept on blogging away. I didn’t let the turmoil or tumult stop me from banging out new posts. Never took my eye off of the prize, not even when I received a letter from the Bugs Bunny Rabbit Preservation Society stating that I had been deemed a menace to society and marked as public enemy number one. Do you really think I worry about wascally wabbits that probably can’t wead. No fear here, no sir. I figured that even if they did find me I would find a way out of it. I have been stuck in bigger pickles.
Not to mention that as a child of the ’70s I am well versed in various forms of self defense. For example, Mel the Chef on Alice always said that the best defense is a good offense. He also said “dingy” a lot and a number of other things. Not to mention that he never let that sassy server Flo get to him. She must have told him to “kiss her grits” a million times. Come to think of it that is something that might have caused old Mel to get into trouble. Certainly he couldn’t say such a thing to fellow workers or employees today.
Just imagine what would happen if he did that today. How embarrassing would it be to be deposed by an attorney in a sexual harassment suit for telling someone to “kiss your grits” or to be berated on the stand for calling someone “dingy.” It might not be as upsetting as having Shirley from What’s Happening insult you, but that is a can of worms for a different day.
Today I am focused on the sad and sordid tale about what happened when PETA discovered my recipe for cooking The Easter Bunny. Â It started with a nasty note that was written on letterhead that had pictures of dead chickens on it. They told me that what I had done was wrong and shameful. They said that it was terrible to take such a stand towards a helpless animal. I sent them a response saying that I didn’t understand why they weren’t working as advocates for the International Union of Easter Bunnies. I asked them why they didn’t represent the poor rabbits who were forced to work in sweatshops painting eggs or those who were paid slave wages to deliver those eggs in baskets.
Apparently they don’t care about the workers in the animal world. They don’t care whether they receive a decent wage, have scheduled breaks or humane conditions. No sir, unless these animals are at risk of being eaten they don’t have a damn thing to say.
They don’t care if you have an award winning recipe for Easter Bunny. It doesn’t matter if the finest chefs in Europe cook it or if the chief of the Em Etib tribe in the Amazon spared your life because you cooked it for him. Nope, they will come after you with both barrels blazing and an army of attorneys paid for with donations from strung out Hollywood starlets. And though I am fearless and never give up a fight this is one that I had to walk away from.
I just didn’t have the cash to fight it. I haven’t ever been a successful sitcom/movie/rock star whose career has hit rock bottom and has consequently been forced to star in some cheesy reality television show. I am not an heir to a fortune. I grew up cooking and cleaning for myself so I couldn’t star in some silly show where I try to do simple jobs and make a fool of myself because I don’t know how to pump gas. Donald Trump won’t put me on the Celebrity Apprentice show and talk about what a great fan of mine he is. Although I really wish that he would so I could tell some silly stories about kites, kids and parents.
The point is that sadly I had to agree to remove my award winning recipe from my blog. Oh the shame of it all.
I can’t remember who said that there are many levels of Hell, but I know that there are many and that I have been to at least a couple. The Department of Motor Vehicles, The Mall during the holidays and most recently Costco and Trader Joe’s market on a Sunday afternoon.
It is common knowledge among the intellectual elite that venturing to a Trader Joe’s, home of Two Buck Chuck vintage wines and fine cheeses will involve solving a puzzle that is a prerequisite for entrance into Mensa. It is called parking. Some sick man/woman in their corporate office gleefully searches for store locations that cannot support the traffic that the store will bring, or so it seems.
I conducted an unscientific survey in which I drove to four stores and then polled the people there and the three dogs that were tied up in front of the stores about this. All of them agree that parking at any Trader Joe’s is an exercise in treachery and guile best left to politicians or those of low moral fiber.
But food is the way to my heart, next to the miles of veins and arteries interred inside my body and I decided that my family required sustenance. As the hunter-gatherer in the household I was required by nature to dare to traverse the challenges that this entailed.
So I ask the dear reader, was I just fool hardy on this errand or is it poor customer service to ask your customers to engage in demolition derby so that they can frequent your store in hopes of buying food. All I know is that the experience in the parking lot was merely a warm-up for what was waiting inside. As I approached the store I grabbed a shopping cart and bravely entered, armed for bear and ready for hand-to-hand combat.
Needless to say I was not surprised to find aisles packed with hungry shoppers all of whom had the same shopping list as I. Who would have thought that we all needed cheese, soy milk, crackers, cereal, chocolate, wine, juice and produce, more specifically blueberries. The same evil executive who designed the parking lot was surely chuckling as we banged and bounced off of each others carts and bodies. In my younger days I would have enjoyed the adventure, but now it just rubbed me raw.
After what felt like days I managed to check out and take my purchases home for deposit into the refrigerator and cupboards. But something in my skull must have been jarred during this experience, because I knew that my shopping was not done. Now I had to run the gauntlet and go to Costco.
You Must Run The Gauntlet
Costco, another parking nightmare not unlike Trader Joe’s, but on a much larger scale. Costco, where I knew that the primitives would lose their minds and trample me and small children in the fight to get the free sample of the seafood dip or the greasy slice of pizza. Costco where you go broke saving money by purchasing two tons of toilet paper at a time.
The good news is that you’ll never worry about wiping, but you may worry about wiping out your checkbook. That is assuming of course that you can get a parking space without being overcome by road rage. And assuming that you manage to win the fight to maintain composure there is still the very real chance that you may succumb to some other malady, some other shopping rage. There is only so much one person can take. You can’t be bumped and pushed a hundred times or prevented from reading the description of that new fruit drink they are offering. Heaven forbid, you might miss out on taking advantage of the deep discount they offer for a trough of butter.
Why oh why do the folks in Kirkland not understand that we want, no must have parking attendants in the lot, turn signals on the carts and signal lights on the aisles. How much more bruising can a person’s lower back take before Kirkland understands that shopping carts need padding.
Because the tragedy of this is that while you can shop at both of these stores online you cannot squeeze the pears, nor smell the sausage or appreciate the scent of a good melon. There are still some challenges that technology has yet to overcome. Oh the humanity of it all.
I am sitting here in a state of mild shock. a lonely tear carving a path down my cheek. Just moments ago I sat here listening to AFI’s 100 top movie quotes and found myself totally entranced by the images, sounds and memories the words and music.
That tear surprised me and not just because I typically do not cry. I am not completely sure what caught me, but I have my ideas. I suspect that part of it is because the combination did what it is supposed to do. That magical combination of images, sounds and music conjured up something majestic and beautiful inside my head. It made me feel and reminded me that I have a passion that remains bottled up.
I write these posts for a million different reasons. I write these posts because they serve as an exceptional creative outlet. I write these posts because they allow me to chronicle the lives of my children and the thoughts that I have. These posts provide a snapshot of my life during brief moments of time. These posts serve as markers for the journey my life has taken up to now and they hint at where it may yet go.
The Almost Warrior who remembers a past that never was and a future that may never be. I look at These Pictures of You and think that perhaps Lightning Strikes Twice. You don’t really know what life holds. Sometimes life is impacted by Timing or by the unexpected moments and events. There are things that happen that rock your world.
I write about the moments that touch me, those from the past and the present. I write about my dreams and my nightmares. I take the pieces of my life, the things I have seen and those that I want to see and weave my tapestry, I don’t always succeed. I don’t a;ways hit the mark, at least I often feel like I have fallen short. Sometimes I wish that I had an Instant Messenger that I could call upon to better convey my thoughts about how Johnny Was A Hero but it doesn’t always work that way.
Sometimes A Father’s Responsibility gets in the way. Sometimes The Pressures of Parenthood and the things that come with it make it difficult to remember that though you may be called dad, you have dreams that you still have chase. And somehow you have to balance your responsibilities to your family with those that you owe yourself.
So you stand up and remember that there is a A Love Song That Needs To Be Written and you will be the one to write it. At the end of the day I want to do something that provides an end result that is more than just words on a page. One way or another I am going to write that book. One way or another I am going to tell a story that is more than the 800 words or so I average on these posts.
2010 is many things. It is the year of Jack and the year of the Daddy Blogger. I am guest blogging over at Clark Kent’s Lunchbox today. Go say hi to my friend Ron and while you are at it let me know what you think of my post over there.
If you’re new here and you have read this far take a moment to go back through this post and click on the links. You’ll find that I have intentionally mixed in posts that contain part of a story I am writing alongside posts about being a father. And if I have done my job properly perhaps you’ll become a new reader and join the rest of us on this wacky journey through life.
Ok, I have babbled enough. It is well after midnight now and the morning will be here far too soon. Lailah tov from Los Angeles.
