file patterns and tar

[Jim Stapleton]

I want to create a backup of some parts of my system, but not everything

ex, I want to exclude /bin, and /usr/bin, but not /usr/local/bin -
same for *sbin, *lib, and *libexec

however, if I used

tar -jcvf test.tbz  \
      --exclude /bin --exclude /usr/bin \
      --exclude /dev --exclude /var --exclude /tmp \
      --exclude /root --exclude /proc / | \
tar -tf - | grep bin

I don't get /usr/local/bin files.

I coudln't find more help in tar, either through tar --help or man
tar, though I know it says that it is excluding leading slashes in
file names (which is probably causing this issue). What should I do,
short of running tars for /, /usr/ and /usr/local, or is that the only
real option? But then there is always the possiblility of missing
something because its name just happens to contain bin, or more likely
contains lib.

Thanks,
-Jim Stapleton