Writing

The launch of the mighty sailing ship called The Jack B. was about 7.5 years ago or maybe it is eight or nine, who can remember.

Sure we could go into the archives and locate the date with ease if we wanted to or we could just say we started blogging in 2004 on a different site that was integrated into this one.

If you looked through the joints and removed the duplicate posts you’d probably still have around eight or nine thousand of them.

Based upon unscientific research that means I produced more content than most with a few of those posts falling into the good, very good and excellent categories.

Production levels were steady for the first decade or so and then courtesy of work and life responsibilities they slowed down to the current place of semi-hibernation.

Why is it important to mention?

Because writers don’t quit writing, but bloggers do.

I am a writer who is a blogger, not a blogger who just happens to write.

Stay Drunk

I have been drunk on writing for so long now I can no longer remember what it means to be sober.

There is no time I can remember where writing wasn’t on my mind or a part of me in some way.

Although there were and are times in which it was lower on the list of priorities it always occupied a spot on the list.

I am not sure I recognized its import when I was younger, but for certain I have and I do.

The hardest challenge for me now is to write with the complete freedom I wish to under my own name.

I come closer all the time, but have been holding back just a little, not always, but enough.

That will change.

Sometimes you walk under a moon lit sky searching for a missing shmata and sometimes you do the same under cloudy skies.

In light and in darkness you search because the echoes of the past reach into the present and the future and you wonder.

Wonder if what you hear is a lie told many times over many years or if it is the simplest and most powerful truth you’ll ever know.

Conflicted you stand in a field wondering if you’ll always wonder of if one day you’ll be able to say you know the truth without question or concern.

Once there were two souls…

I am another white guy listening to NWA’s Straight Outta Compton thinking about how I have run into Ice Cube twice.

Both times were at the same IHOP but we exchange greetings or acknowledge each other either time and it is not because we went to rival high schools.

Ok, that is not entirely true, we nodded heads at each other, me as I walked towards my table and he as he walked out of the restaurant.

Funny thing is when a neighbor asked me last week if I ever saw celebrities in LA I forgot to mention Ice Cube.

Didn’t think of the time I saw Bruce Springsteen, Tom Selleck or Diane Keaton.

The list is far longer than that and not made up, it is just proof  I don’t spend much time thinking about celebrities.

There are relatively few I really have significant interest in and most of the time I don’t feel like I am entitled to go insert myself into their world.

Where Are You Now?

I got some news today about stuff going on back in LA that reminded me that moving to Texas would present some challenges.

News that reminded me that while Ma and Pa Steiner aren’t old they aren’t young anymore.

There are things going on with them that reminded me of conversations I heard my parents have when they were around the same age I am now.

Makes me wonder where my grandparents are now and what sort of conversations we would have.

The past bubbles into the future and I hear my grandfathers telling me to do exactly as I have done, their advice no different from the words my parents shared with me when I told them I was going to take this position.

But I don’t think they would have appreciated my concerns about being part of a sandwich generation so I didn’t voice them.

Didn’t say that while I was obviously concerned about my kids I worried about them a bit more because they aren’t getting any younger.

Am I Killing Twitter?

Twitter and I were really tight.

We spent a lot of time together and I looked forward to my time there because I knew Twitter and I would have a lot of fun together.

But time passed and things changed and it wasn’t quite as it was.

I never did figure out if it was me or Twitter that changed.

Might have been both, but man from 2008-11 we had a lot of fun together. Hell things were probably still good in 2012, but the impact of whatever changed finally had its way with me.

Hell things were probably still good in 2012, but the impact of whatever changed finally had its way with me.

I started spending less and less time there but because I didn’t want to disappear I used automation to maintain a presence and to make sure my posts were still promoted.

Sometimes I jump on Twitter and I see sparks of the past and for a while I am live and around. I make comments and engage in conversation and it feels like it once did.

But eventually I get pulled away and I leave but the automation stays and I wonder if I am part of the problem.

My windows ache and there is a part of me that has gone missing. One day it will return but I don’t know when that will be.

****

Sometimes I forget how old I am and how much life experience I have.

It doesn’t occur to me that I have lived through John Lennon’s murder, the attempted assassination of President Reagan, two space shuttle catastrophes, a series of wars, terrorism, Rodney King, the LA Riots and OJ.

That is not a complete or comprehensive list either.

I suppose I could say I have lived through eight presidencies and am about to hit my 9th but I am not sure how significant that really is or isn’t.

Maybe what this really means is that I am working on getting my rhythm as a writer back.

Maybe it is because it is time to return to certain stories.

I am not  a priest or a rabbi but chances are good that just as many people look to me for absolution of their sins. Hell, probably more because I get the agnostics and the atheists too.

Don’t ask me to tell you when it started or how bartenders got a reputation for being the person you can spill your guts too because I don’t know and if I did it is probably not something I would talk about either. It would be like a magician telling you how he saws the girls in half- some things are trade secrets.

What I can tell you is a good bartender is more than someone who knows how to make the best Martini or the latest cocktail fad drink. A good bartender knows how to listen and when to speak. Sure, alcohol helps loosen the lips of the customers and makes it easier for them to tell us about whatever is on their minds, but that is not all.

They share with us because we don’t share what we hear and we don’t judge. We are like the Swiss bankers except our currency isn’t traded on Wall Street.

Some stories provide answers to questions and some stories just raise more questions.

When your windows ache and your doorknobs throb you always know it is the latter.

Don’t blame me for Twitter but don’t release me of responsibility either. The search for absolution is never so simple.