"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
People say the links below contain some of my best work so I thought I’d share it again because some of you haven’t had the chance to be exposed to this sort of not quite Pulitzer or Nobel prize winning work.
Blog Cancellation Fees- The Easy Way To Monetize
How To Use 5000 Pounds of Bananas To Terrorize Noisy Neighbors
Been speaking with The Shmata Queen about many things and even gave her a nudge to restart her blog but I don’t think that is happening.
At one point in time I knew the password and login information so in theory I could restart it myself but I am not where said information is so that is unlikely.
And hell, I am having trouble doing more than monthly updates here so does it make sense to light a fire somewhere else?
Probably not but somethings about life don’t make any sense to me now so who is to say that taking unexpected action wouldn’t yield positive results.
Of course it could lead the other direction too and that wouldn’t make me happy to maybe I ought to play it safe in at least one area…maybe.
Told the queen we always should pay attention to who walks through fire for us and to pay special attention to those people because there are only a few and some of them are extra special.
Maybe special enough to write about or to inspire writing and that is worth noticing.
The real and true muse of our lives, they are meaningful and significant if only we have the sense to listen.
If my Gmail is to be trusted I purchased the current theme of this blog almost eight years ago.
Given that I don’t know when I will change it again I ought to say it is Myth by Meanthemes. That may or not be familiar to the readers but should I read this post again at some future date it will provide context.
I changed because I got word the old ‘new’ theme was updated and figured I was ready for a new look here again.
Don’t know if it will increase the frequency of my posting but don’t know it won’t either. This current phase is the slowest it has ever been and given that I used to update multiple times a day throughout the week it really has been slow.
Quantity doesn’t always reflect quality and though I feel the overall production has been solid it is time to reflect, reframe and refocus.
The biggest challenge isn’t finding things to write about but time and determining where to prioritize what I have.
Given I still have multiple blogs that time is divided further so the question becomes what provides me the biggest return.
Not in a financial sense, but in satisfaction.
Because each of the blogs is different, but not all give the same oomph.
So now I reflect and that provides it is own satisfaction.
I put the question mark at the end of the headline for the sole purpose of attracting attention as I think more people will come visit than if I don’t use it.
Been blogging for about 19 years now and if I am not mistaken been at this particular location since about 2010.
I imported most of what was written elsewhere so this serves as a pretty good collection of things I have written but it is still incomplete.
Don’t write here as often I as I used to but it is very important to me for multiple reasons and it is absolutely the first self-hosted blog I ever had.
Since I got into the game earlier than many and built up a decent reader base I don’t have to post every day to maintain traffic but there is no doubt it is nothing close to what it once was.
That is ok with me and I am not sure if I could get it back to that level even if I wanted to. It is not because of an inability to push multiple times a day or even daily because if I wanted to it would be easy.
But because there are 10 million other distractions now.
When I started there wasn’t any competition from Twitter, Facebook, Medium, Pinterest, YouTube, TikTok or so many other content providers and news sources.
Comment sections were wildly active and if you put a little effort into engaging with others online you could build your own community.
It is much harder to do that now, though not impossible.
The answer for me is to post as often as it feels comfortable, reasonable and important.
I write here less than before because of time constraints and focus on other things and because some things get different coverage than they do elsewhere.
There is nothing I couldn’t cover in these other places because semi-anonymity means recognizing that some people know I am not Bruce Wayne or Clark Kent in real life.
Not all of them would recognize me on the street but they know me and plenty who know me in the important ways do too.
Writing is a profession, hobby and tool for my sanity. Sometimes it is nice to blow off steam and mull over thoughts and feelings in print in a place where I am less likely to be challenged and questioned.
Not afraid to be challenged or questioned on almost anything but if I am writing it down here chances are it is because I am working on something.
If I want or need someone to know my thoughts and feelings you can be assured I will find them and make sure they know it.
You can’t do what I do and be shy.
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Anyhoo, the real purpose of this post is tied to the headline and that is to say you ought to post as often as it serves the purpose of your blog.
If you are interested in building a community, acting as a brand ambassador and or anything related you probably need to be consistent.
Or at least consistent enough that your target audience knows how often to visit to receive new content.
BTW that Golda Meir quote is a personal favorite and a reminder to myself that no matter how good I think I am not everyone will see me that way.
Blogging brought that to the forefront to me because I have seen some very popular blogs that I thought had awful content.
Used to make me crazy to see some of them do so much better when I knew my work was better. Might have some typos and errors in it but it wasn’t riddled with crap.
But I learned that sometimes there are other things and some had it where I didn’t. Just part of life.
Consider this a personal note to come back and work on this piece, there is potential.
That is how this writing gig goes, you produce content, work, rework and do it all again. If you somehow catch fire you run like hell and hope it keeps up and continues.
So that is what this is about catching fire and rolling on through the deep.
So much good material and so much not so good, but so it goes. Keep plugging away and and find the magic.
If you are new here and looking through the archives keep digging. You have 18 years or so of material and some of it is pretty good, some less so.
But there are some gold nuggets. Keep digging.
They asked me if I have ever called the Shmata Queen a broad or a skirt and I asked them to answer their own question.
They came back at me in multiple places and I provided multiple answers because I could. It was that simple and that complicated.
“But Jack, I don’t understand. Tell me more about you two.”
Good old Datingmaster Jerusalem, haven’t a clue where he went but if I said this post was about him he would get very excited.
It is not, he isn’t referenced there and probably hasn’t been in years, though I could be wrong about that.
Blog issues prevent me from checking easily because the comments on older posts don’t seem to want to load. Not sure why they are hidden because if I try to edit the posts I can see them.
Sometimes it bothers me because some of the best content came from or was in the comments section.
Apparently, it doesn’t bother me enough to spend time researching a fix, but who knows what the future holds.
Anything can happen somewhere down the road because even though I can smile without you I just want to spend that weekend in New England.
Ten points for anyone who catches one reference there and 25 if you aren’t confused by the mix of artists and songs.
And here we go, more music.
One day I’ll tell you the story about drinking pulp-filled orange juice at a work function and what happened when someone said be careful not to swallow the seed.
Hell if that didn’t come this close to turning into an HR moment for multiple people, including myself and I wasn’t the one who said it.
Someone said I was getting bolder with my commentary in reference to some comments I made to the boss and it was construed by another as having been a reference to the whole swallow the seed mishegoss.
As a side note, I like orange juice but I generally don’t like a lot of pulp in it, but I digress.
Most of the time I am relatively fast on my feet and adept at talking my way through situations but this one was harder than most.
Why?
Because the people involved were certain about what they thought had been said and uninterested in being told there had been a misunderstanding.
Cue more music.
Got so much more to say but listening to Bruce sing is taking me to other places and I have to stop typing long enough to enjoy the ride.
But not before admitting some of this stuff touches those places and spaces where the skin isn’t thick and maybe never was nor will be.
Regret, hope and a dash of optimism that fights the what ifs of the time are sitting on my shoulders, asking that I take a hard look at certain situations and acknowledge the truth of what is and the possibility of what isn’t.
Not such a bad thing, is it.
