Go ahead, ask me what I think and you’ll get Free Advice

/ January 2, 2015
(From Getty Images)

You get to the point and mouth off to me, I’ll lend my ear, everybody else can be nosy and delighted. (From Getty Images)

I’m not shy about sharing my thoughts on your blog. Yeah, I know that you know. I made that year-end Top Five commenter list on the Monkey Report for a lot of you, didn’t I?

Thankfully, as I made my way through the Happy New Years and glad-to-know-yous this past week — all heartfelt and a benefit of the time I put into building my community through markbialczak.com — I saw more than a few responses thanking me for my kind and generous spirit and gentle humor. Or words very similar to that phrase but of the exact sentiment.

Wow. Really? Thank you. I’m humbled. Just being me.

This got me to thinking more about an idea that’s been rattling around the brain for some time now.

I grew up reading the Ann Landers and Dear Abbys of the world, the twin advice-givers, the queens of newspaper syndication. These days my eyes gravitated toward the work of Amy Dickinson, a wonderful woman who lives in the Southern Tier of Upstate New York whom I got to interview once for a story when I worked for the big daily, then saw give a lecture and performace-art show in a Syracuse theater.

I always thought that I’d like to be on the giving end of that sort of thing. And that I could seriously put some humor and soul and everyday common sense into it.

So here goes. What the hey.

Free Advice will become a part of markbialczak.com in 2015 if …

Anybody out there sends me questions. Yeah, that’s a pretty humungous if.

I’m going to take it as seriously as I can. But my responses may be somewhat funny. (Gentle, remember above?) Letter writers can remain anonymous, of course, but the situations, dilemmas, problems, questions, should be real. Also, come up with a great psuedo name, won’t you please?

Da-da-dum.

Feel free to share this post with anybody more messed up than you who may be daring enough to send in a question. Ha!

My email address is markbialczak@gmail.com. I promise not to make any questions up. If you see a first installment of Free Advice, well, here we go.

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81 thoughts on “Go ahead, ask me what I think and you’ll get Free Advice”

  1. This sound FABULOUS!!
    I am already thinking up my questions. And, as I had suspected, would like to reblog when your first one is up. It sounds like a fun notion to spread across the bloggy wires.
    You’re a thinker, my friend!
    *wanders off to find the very best, most stump-filled question possible….

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  2. Pingback: Introducing a Few Blogs… | INSPIRING my EMOTIONS

  3. WOW, Mark! You never fail to entertain. What a fun idea! Perhaps you should direct a few of these posts to your local newspaper, then you can syndicate this idea into a column. I hope you’re enjoying your time off. Be sure to bring us back a souvenir! 😀

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    • That’s why I’m putting the anonymous portion of the questioners in there, Mark. Unless you mean even anonymously not fit for public consumption, in which case, send me the email anyway and let me decide. I won’t tell anyone nor judge you in anyway, I promise. 🙂

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  6. lol, I am so not going to send a Q to you, Mark! Never ask a fellow Sagittarius for advice 😉 Love that you’re doing this. Go get ’em, Mark.

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  7. I love this. Hope Mark has a chuckle when he logs back in. I agree with the earlier posts who are”they”.. we so use it to describe so many occasions that we have no idea what we really are talking about.

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    • Louise, here’s an example of why people are going to love Free Advice.

      We are they when society has run off the rails and a widespread consensus and behavior has come up with a bad plan or idea.

      But they are we when a great idea becomes commonplace and we all can smile and bask in the success an take credit.

      Get those questions in.

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  9. I just thought of a question Mark, but then i forgot it. I’ll have to keep a pen and paper beside my nest so I can write them down when they occur to me at 3 a.m., or you could send me your phone number and I could call you when they come to me. Seriously, this could be interesting, and a lot of fun to read.

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  16. I don’t need no advice. I just need consent. (This comment only makes sense to old movie buffs, I’m afraid. And by “old movie buffs,” that means either you are a movie buff and you’re old, or that you are a fan old movies, regardless of your age. Or perhaps that you’re both old and you’re a fan of old movies.)

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  18. Our own Agony Uncle Mark – great idea! But this year i plan to have no problems as there were just too many of them last year. 🙂 However, I love making up pseudo names.. I’ll have to get a new email address or you will know it’s me!

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  22. carl that is one for Jacke Wilsons’ site . he is looking for the inevitable questions. But hey i like it. Hope you had a nice break with your wife… How come men shave their faces but not their underarms, bikini lines, legs etc?

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    • Who is Jackie Wilson? How did you get your name, Louise? (It was my mother’s name, so I always notice people who share that beautiful name with her.) How come we shave our underarms, bikini lines, leg, etc.? Do you mind that I’m butting in like this? Doesn’t Mark have great ideas?

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      • Jacke wilson has a blog and he is currently asking for ‘the unanswerable inevitable question” Yes mark has great advice… Not taking that away from him.. Actually I wish he would part with advice on how to keep a relationship since he and his wife have been together so long.

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      • Ann you are a hoot! If I didn’t already know you are a psycho, oops, I mean a psychotherapist, I would think you might be a psychotherapist. But then, you are, so maybe I mean you need one. Do you have one? Why not? Do you need one?

        Uh, Mark, see what happens when you take a few days off, then put an idea like this out there? Your blog gets blog-jacked. Uh, post-jacked? Oh, whatever..

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      • Hi, Diana! In my professional capacity as a group therapist, I would say that this is like a group with the facilitator not there. That can definitely be fun!

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      • See Mark? Ann’s taken over your blog because she has bragging rights now. Bet you didn’t know that about her. And men are weird Diana. But really, would you want to see one with a shaved bikini line? That is beyond weird. I know swimmers do that to cut down on gravity so they can cut thru the water faster, and cyclists so they can cycle faster, but really, does a little bit of body hair make that much difference? Eewwee.

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      • actually for cyclists it saves them from road rash. When you fall off a speeding bike and have hair on your legs it makes your skin rip off. Ouch!

        Ok Ann and Kentucky Angel. Mark said he scheduled posts for while he’s away. I’m enjoying this taking over his blog thing – we should continue on every post till he gets back. It will help us not to feel so…so…empty without him!

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