Welcome to JackJams

Welcome to JackJams.

Wait wait wait. Just hold on a second. Like, please, let’s take a step back.

First, is JackJams a very tenuous pun based on the once (still?) popular sports arena song compilation “Jock Jams?”

Yep, that’s exactly right. I was born in 1987 (duh).

Second, is this newsletter written by a person named Blake and not Jack?

You’re two for two, I’m impressed.

Jack is my son, a 3 ½ year old ball of curly-blond-haired energy who loves ice cream, finding crabs at the beach, and turning his grandmothers into the poop emoji on FaceTime.

Third, while those two things make some sort of sense, how do they work together to create the need for yet another newsletter by yet another parent about yet another kid who is “the world’s cutest and smartest?”

Fair.  

And so, 175 words later, we’ve arrived at the thesis. On the surface, JackJams is about our relationship with our kids and music. But it’s really about the ways we help children see the world, and how we inevitably do it through our own very specific lens.

Case in (very long-winded) point: I spent most of my formative years writing music reviews for websites of various importance and viewership levels, mostly dedicated to the punk, alternative, emo and rock genres. I was never paid. I was never famous (obviously). But it was my entire world. Music was the thing that gave me purpose and made me feel special. As someone who has always had trouble connecting with other people, writing about this specific breed of hyper-emotional and serious music gave me a way to build connections and mature in a time when the world was revolutionizing itself every couple of days. But really, it gave me a way to understand the world around me and make sense of my budding adulthood.

And then, life hit overdrive. The website I wrote for was literally deleted, along with most of my reviews. The site that took its place lacked soul and heart. It hastened my metamorphosis from boring Internet writer to boring Internet user. 

And oh yeah, I got married. I had a child. I bought a super old house. I got laid off. The insatiable search for new music was replaced by the insatiable search for a few minutes to stare at the wall my phone. Don’t get it twisted, those developments were the ABSOLUTE best things that ever happened. Music might have got me here, but my wife and son gave me a future.

And so.

JackJams.

A newsletter about music and parenting and how we can’t help but imprint ourselves onto our kids. And also a place to share a living, breathing, always-being-tinkered-with playlist that currently makes up Jack’s favorite jams. 

Each week I’ll highlight some updates to the playlist, share some stories from my more musical and pop culture-obsessed days, highlight the weeks parenting ups and downs, and probably include one or two (thousand) too many pictures. Heck, maybe we’ll invite some other parents to share their kids’ favorite songs too.

While I worked in the newsletter media industry for a while, helping to pump out literally thousands of these things, I am truly super excited to see what I can do with this platform. 

At the very least, it’s nice to have a place to write that’s just for me.

For now, check out Jack’s current favorite jams.

See you next week,

BLAKE