"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
Got less than three minutes to throw a few things down upon the page. A chance to try to put down the words I can’t write or can I.
Maybe I ought to use music and let it speak for me and then agonize over whether the songs tell the tale as I want, hope and wish it to be told.
It is not easy getting older, now is it.
The ape ought to jump off the page and slap some sense into me.
He ought to tell me to give up, move on and walk away from some things but he won’t and it probably wouldn’t matter.
I am going to do what I am going to do until my gut says I don’t what had to be done.
It is not just because the heart wants what the heart wants either but because I hear music and I am following it.
In the interim I have undergone one hell of a battle to recover and restore this place. Came within a heartbeat of losing every damn thing here.
Given the lackluster efforts to keep the doors open and the blog breathing you might wonder if I care.
The answer is I do and I suspect a few others do too.
So if you stick around I expect you’ll see some movement here…soon.
Your friend Traveling Jack hasn’t given up blogging or forgotten about you and the joint that started the ride.
He still lives, breathes and writes albeit in other places but not without regard or thought for those who only know him here.
Sometimes he thinks about writing with the sort of blistering honesty he hasn’t used in quite some time.
It is not because he doesn’t want to or hasn’t felt the need in forever because he has but there are consequences to opening yourself up in that manner.
Consequences that you can’t control or predict with the sort of accuracy one would like.
You could end up as Ozymandias or the Passionate shepherd–maybe both.
So here at The Undying Blog we reaffirm that which we haven’t said in forever.
We say that those who remember the days of Judy, Hamilton Guy and Willie remember a love that doesn’t just flame out and go away no matter what others may say.
We say that ring of fire burns and that you have to make an active choice to follow or ignore.
The decision isn’t simple or easy and at this time doesn’t require a life long commitment nor does one decision preclude making another.
But that is now and who can say what we will experience down the road.
Maybe the words of the prophet shall come back to haunt us or maybe they shall lead to healing.
And let us say, “amen.”
Let us say some loves last and some fizzle but even those that fizzle can spark up again and remind us of the warmth they can provide.
And that warmth can be felt and seen, like a star in the night sky it can help you find your way back.
Confusion may accompany it, but only that caused by a refusal to take action.
Some of you know Jack Steiner is not my real name and that January 1 is not my real birthday.
When I started blogging in 2003 or was it ’04 I wanted the ability to write freely without concern about some things.
Not because what I had to share was so controversial or crazy but because I just wanted to write and not be questioned by family/friends.
I wanted to just let go and be free.
For the most part I have done that but like many things in life there have been moments that changed me.
I am not the same 35-year-old guy who followed a wild impulse and started blogging.
While much is different there are things that have changed and it is fair to say that what you read here is generally my real belief or feeling, provided you aren’t reading fiction.
There is a lot of that here, far more than my other blogs.
When I first joined Facebook I thought it would be helpful for old Jack Steiner to have a Facebook page.
Since he was me, but not me I gave him an arbitrary birthday of January 1, never thinking that I would get a bunch of birthday greetings.
I am grateful and appreciative for them.
They are a reminder to me about the good and kind people in this world, not that this is limited to those who share the aforementioned greetings.
That is certainly not a requirement for goodness or kindness.
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I don’t update this blog or the Jack Steiner Facebook page with the same regularity I used to.
That is not news to those of you who have stuck it out here.
Most of the updates go to the other places and IÂ don’t know if I see that changing.
Nor do I know if that means I am going to shut this down or wrap it into the other blogs.
It is too important and has too much meaning to me, but I do know I am thinking hard about what I ought to do.
Am considering whether to continue to keep this standing as it is or make changes.
There won’t be any rash decisions made on New Years day, but not because of the date but because I need to think hard about what I want and what I need to do.
This place is similar to the others but it has a different feel and audience and probably a bigger footprint.
That is because it has been around a lot longer and when I had more time it received an awful lot of attention.
Maybe it will again, we shall see.
In the interim, Happy New Year to you All and may this be our finest year ever.
It is a damn good thing I am a blog doctor and am able to self-diagnose and treat.
I have been suffering from a bad case of blog avoidance and am working on the cure as we speak.
Don’t mistake it for writer’s block because it is not, it is different.
In the interim dear reader you are welcome to share your thoughts and ideas for future posts in the comments.
They asked me to describe this joint as it stands today and I said it is the mightiest dad blog.
“What does that mean Jack?”
“It means I might publish today or I might publish tomorrow. Or I might not publish for a week and then I might publish every day.”
In other words this place isn’t dead, haunted or dying–it is evolving.
And when you are in a state of transition you try to be the smart guy who understands you have to let things unfold and play out.
I suppose it is worth mentioning that I haven’t slowed down my writing in general.
Hell the other blog is moving at warp speed, but this one is a bit more like a teenager in some ways.
It is moodier and more likely to surprise you with fits of unexpected rage or profound insight.
This place is where you’ll come to find stories of fights with Santa Claus, clowns and tales of how to talk to kids about death.
And it is where you’ll see posts and pieces about the growth of those kids and get just a little insight into what happened to the boy who helped push me into blogging and the teen he has become.
But as with all good blogs there are boundaries and we follow those carefully here until we don’t.
You just never know what you will or won’t find because when you stay drunk on writing all things are possible.
That is truth and not fiction– search for the write stuff and you might just find it…maybe.