Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 161
May 21, 2021
A night of poetry ended in the kitchen of a dentist
Elysha and I are looking forward to hosting our first live storytelling show since February 2020 at The Hill-Stead Museum in Farmington, CT on August 18, 2021.
The show will be outdoors, but it’s our first step to returning to normal life once again.
We can’t wait.
You can purchase tickets here:
I have a long and storied past with the Hill-Stead Museum. Over the years, I have officiated and DJ’d many weddings on the grounds of the Hill-Stead, taken poetry and writing classes with renowned writers in their barn, and spent many a night under the stars listening to poets perform as a part of their famous Sunken Garden Poetry Festival.
In fact, the last time Elysha and I were at the Hill-Stead, it was to listen to poet Billy Collins perform back in the summer of 2017.
That evening was especially memorable for two reasons:
A sudden downpour caused us to hide under our blanket in a feeble attempt to stay dry.
More memorable, I had a cracked wisdom tooth earlier that day. I was taking Tylenol and Advil to manage the pain, but it wasn’t working. Halfway through the reading, the pain became pretty unbearable that I had tears in my eyes. We were sitting with another couple at the time – people I didn’t know all that well – which made things pretty awkward in addition to the indescribable agony.
I sat on our blanket and whimpered quietly.
The pain became so bad that while listening to Billy Collins read, Elysha called a dentist for help.
She knows everyone.
An hour after the reading was finished, well past the dentist’s bedtime, we were standing in his kitchen as he wrote a prescription for a more powerful pain medication.
I remember him wearing pajamas, but that might not be accurate. Maybe it was just sweatpants and a tee shirt.
From there, I took my prescription to a 24-hour pharmacy, where I finally received the pain medication and some blessed relief.
This was doubly important because my procedure to remove the wisdom tooth wasn’t scheduled until Monday, and I had to teach an all-day storytelling workshop with Elysha the next day.
At one point, I accidentally took too many pain pills and found myself unable to stand while teaching.
This was also the workshop where a formally incarcerated person asked me, “So where did you do your time?”
When I informed the man that I had been in jail before but never in prison, he said, “That’s funny. You have a prison look about you.”
Given the pain I was still dealing with at the time, that compliment came at just the right moment.
May 20, 2021
Join me at the upcoming virtual Moth GrandSLAM!
I kicked that ice cream machine’s ass. But no more.
About 13,000 McDonald’s across the country are now using the Taylor C602 digital ice cream machine for making their shakes and sundaes. Unlike the machines of yore, these machines are designed to avoid the daily disassembly required by typical ice cream machines.
The problem:
According to McBroken.com, which monitors the operating status of McDonald’s ice cream machines, at any given time 5 to 16 percent of McDonald’s locations aren’t serving ice cream and shakes because the machines are broken, and because they’re designed to be a black box, repairable only by authorized distributors, and if any part isn’t working the whole machine is useless.
I find this rather dispiriting.
During the years I spent managing McDonald’s restaurants, I became an expert at disassembling, cleaning, reassembling, and repairing these machines. It was a task that needed to be done every day, and if you could do it quickly and efficiently, you were invaluable to your restaurant.
I managed eight different restaurants in my time with the company, and at each one, I would use a stopwatch to time my assembly of the machine, establishing a benchmark for others to try to beat. I would post my time on a sticker the back of the machine, and whenever the record was broken, I would make a big deal of the accomplishment.
No one ever beat me. The only person breaking my record times was me.
Not that many didn’t try. The more I taunted my coworkers, the harder they tried. Employees would beg to disassemble, clean, and reassemble the machine, just for a shot at my record. They would offer to stay late just for the opportunity to best my time.
But there were many others who never tried to beat my time, seeing the competition as purposeless and foolish. At one restaurant, a young man named Vance asked me why I was investing so much time in trying to beat my own meaningless record. “You’re going to college,” he said. “Who cares about a stupid shake machine.”
I tried to explain to Vance that setting goals and seeking excellence is never a bad thing. Challenging yourself is good for the soul. Ascending to greatness, even in simple contests like shake machine assembly, can be fulfilling to you and inspiring to others.
I also tried to explain that attempting to complete a task quickly is the opposite of wasting time. I was desperately trying to preserve time.
Vance didn’t buy it. He believed in conserving his energy for only those tasks that would result in tangible rewards.
This strikes me as an excellent way of avoiding excellence in life.
Years later, I would meet people who dreamed of one day writing and publishing novels who refused to begin working on their books until they had a literary agent and maybe even a book contract in hand.
I tried to explain to these would-be authors that the best way to find a literary agent and land a book deal is to write a book, but they disagreed. Like Vance, they refused to expend energy until they were guaranteed a tangible reward.
I strongly suspect that none of those people ever published a book.
You either want to be good at what you’re doing – regardless of what that thing is – or you don’t. You either take pride in all that you do or you don’t.
This is why I find the new Taylor C602 digital ice cream machine so dispiriting. In all my time spent managing McDonald’s restaurants, I was the fastest at assembling shake and ice cream machines. No one ever beat me.
Now that accomplishment is moot. Technology has eliminated the need for someone like me. It has taken something I had mastered and rendered it obsolete.
How annoying.
It’s not that I wanted to step back into the McDonald’s ring and defend my title any time soon, but when you ascend to the top of the mountain, you don’t expect the mountain to one day disappear completely.
Oh well. I’ll try to set a new record for number of multiplication tests I can correct in 10 minutes today.
There’s always another mountain to climb if you’re willing to look.
May 19, 2021
The Little Utz Girl is not what she seems to be (to me)
Please note The Little Utz Girl in the photograph below.
Little Utz Girl is the actual name of the character on the bag of my student’s potato chips. Customers in the 1920’s began calling her The Little Utz Girl, and the name stuck.
What do you see when you look at her?
If you’re a normal person, it’s likely that you see a little girl reaching her hand into a bag of chips, but if you’re like me (and this may say something very specific about me), you see a maniacal young girl holding a doubly-serrated knife, dripping with a black substance.
Hopefully it’s not just me who sees this. It’s no fun being crazy on your own.
You might’ve also noticed the name “The Crab Chip” and the indication that the chip is made with Chesapeake Bay crab seasoning.
I won’t get into the odd use of quotation marks in the product’s moniker, but I wondered what the hell crab seasoning might be.
In fact, I asked my student why she was eating gluten-free potato chips sprinkled with the desiccated, pulverized husks of executed Chesapeake crabs.
It proved to be an excellent vocabulary lesson.
It turns out that Chesapeake crab seasoning is actually Old Bay seasoning, which is a mix are paprika, celery seed, salt and black pepper. The marketers at Utz apparently think it advantageous to refer to the well known, much beloved Old Bay seasoning as crab seasoning on their packaging.
Far be it for me to tell the Utz people how to run their company (though this has rapidly become the reason many companies are hiring me to consult with them), but as a consumer, Old Bay sounds a hell of a lot more appealing than crab.
Then again, when I look at The Little Utz Girl, I still see a little girl holding a poorly designed knife dripping with black goo, so what the hell do I know?
May 18, 2021
Where were you when?
I was born after Kennedy’s assassination, so I’m not in the company of people who remember where they were when the announcement of his death was made.
That said, people born after the generation that remembers the Kennedy assassination have their unforgettable moments, too. Those singular moments in history that are so burned into your heart and mind that you can remember precisely where you were standing when they happened or when you learned that they had happened.
So I made a list:
March 30, 1981: President Reagan is shot. My mother told me about the shooting after getting off the bus from school, then I watched coverage on television while eating my after-school snack.
January 28, 1986: The space shuttle Challenger explodes. I was sitting in algebra class, watching on a television alongside my classmates. Our teacher, Mr. Offen, was a longterm substitute and not equipped to manage a class of students who had just watched seven astronauts die.
November 7, 1991: Magic Johnson announces that he is HIV positive. I heard the news on the radio while pulling into an Almacs grocery store in Attleboro, MA and shared it first with the young, female cashier who rang up my order.
April 19, 1995: The bombing of the Alfred P Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. I learned about the bombing from a customer in the McDonald’s drive-thru less than an hour after it had happened, then I watched coverage of the bombing a couple hours later on a television in the student senate office at Manchester Community College alongside my fellow student government officials.
October 3, 1995: OJ Simpson is acquitted of murder, inciting riots in Los Angeles. I watched the news on a television in the student lounge at Manchester Community College with friends and fellow students.
September 11, 2001: Terrorists crash planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and Shanksville, PA. I received a phone call in my classroom at Wolcott School alerting me that a small plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. I watched the towers fall and learned of the Pentagon attack on a small television in the principal’s office shortly thereafter.
February 1, 2003: The space shuttle Columbia breaks apart upon reentry. I was driving south on the Berlin Turnpike after picking up donuts at Dunkin’ Donuts when I heard the news on the radio.
June 25, 2009: Michael Jackson dies. I was on a beach at Wood Pond in West Hartford, CT, celebrating the end of the school year with my students and their families when someone learned of the news on their phone.
January 6, 2021: The Capitol insurrection: I was sitting at my desk at school, watching live coverage on my laptop.
I also wonder if I will always remember where I was when:
November 7, 2021: The networks call the Presidential election for Joe Biden. I was sitting in my office, speaking to a client in Romania when Elysha walked in, pulled my notepad across the desk, wrote, “Biden wins!” in black ink, and kissed my cheek.
April 20, 2021: Derek Chauvin guilty verdict is announced. I was sitting in my office, speaking to one of my corporate clients via Zoom when Elysha shouted the verdict for us to hear from the kitchen.
Did I miss anything? I was ten years old in 1981, so anything before that is probably beyond my recollection.
Elysha mentioned OJ Simpson’s Ford Bronco chase, which was memorable, for sure, but I was working a double shift that day at McDonald’s and didn’t arrive home until after midnight, so I only learned about it well after the fact. For me, it wasn’t happening and it hadn’t just happened. It had already happened the day before.
Anything else?
Maybe make a list of your own?
May 17, 2021
Slowly, carefully emerging from hiding
Exciting news. Elysha and I will be producing our first Speak Up storytelling show to an audience of actual people after more than 18 months away from the stage.
August 18. 6:00 PM. Tickets are limited and available here. If you plan on coming, don’t delay. Buy now!
We couldn’t be more thrilled about the venue:
The Hill-stead Museum in Farmington, CT. The Hill-Stead is set on beautiful grounds and is the location of the famous Sunken Garden Poetry Festival ever summer. Elysha and I have enjoyed many nights under the stars at this event, as well as many tours through the museum and its grounds. I’ve also worked as a DJ for many weddings at the Hill-Stead and taken poetry classes in their barn.
We’ll be performing from the veranda that night, and our audience will be seated on the lawn.
The thought that I might tell a story and hear an audience react to my words is thrilling.
America seems to be slowly, carefully emerging from its pandemic cocoon. Here in Connecticut, infection rates have been about 1% for the past two weeks, and nearly 70% of residents have received at least one shot of the vaccine, including our daughter, Clara, on Saturday.
Things are starting to get normal again.
In fact, I worked as a DJ for the first time in 19 months last night, emceeing and playing music for a wedding that was supposed to have happened more than a year ago. It was a smaller crowd due to the pandemic, and most (and perhaps all) of the guests were vaccinated. The wedding also took place in a large barn with enormous doors that remained open all night long, and many of the guests spent a significant amount of time outside.
My partner, Bengi, and I worked in the loft, high above the crowd, but even knowing that we were both vaccinated and the guests were vaccinated, it was strange to see 75 people congregate in one space to eat, dance, and celebrate.
Lovely and wonderful, but also strange.
I suspect that it’s going to take some time getting accustomed to normal life again.
May 16, 2021
Cast a wide, open net
I was consulting with a client about a series of projects that she’s working on, including a solo show, a possible TED Talk, and other things. At one point, she asked what her long term goal should be.
“What is my target?” she asked. “My endpoint?”
I suggested that she avoid that thought like the plague.
I’m a believer in casting wide nets into the unknown. Make stuff. Then make some more stuff. Then make some more stuff.
See where it takes you.
More than a decade ago, when I first started driving to New York to perform and compete in Moth StorySLAMs, friends would ask me about my ultimate goal.
“Why drive three hours to New York to maybe perform on stage for five minutes? For free?”
“They’re selling tickets to these shows, but they’re not paying you to perform? What is wrong with you?”
“Couldn’t you be using your time better?”
Back then, I told them that I was telling stories because it was something I loved. Each time I found, crafted, and performed a story onstage, I had made something new and refined my craft just a little bit more.
Did I think anything would ever come of my storytelling?
Had you asked me that question ten years ago, my honest answer would’ve been, “Maybe?”
The only thing I really knew was that I was doing good work. Getting better every day. Winning. Getting noticed. Becoming known.
But did I know that two years after telling my first story, Elysha and I would launch our own company? Did I know that we would ultimately produce shows for hundreds of people at a time? Launch a podcast? Work with nonprofits to help them tell their stories?
Of course not.
Did I know that magazine and comic book editors would watch me perform in New York and offer me jobs writing for their publications?
Did I know that I would one day I would write a book on storytelling? Teach storytelling? Consult on communication and strategy? Work with Fortune 500 companies, advertising agencies. universities, hospitals, and Santa Clauses on storytelling?
Did I know that one day, I would travel to Canada to teach storytelling on a Mohawk reservation north of Toronto? Sit around a campfire with a dozen rabbis, drinking whiskey and teaching them to tell stories? Preach sermons for ministers on vacation?
Did I know that storytelling would lead me to speak to prosecutors in Indiana, engineers in Brazil, politicians in Florida, librarians in Iowa, and performers in Seattle?
Of course not.
None of these things were imaginable to me when I took my first stage and told my first story.
What I knew was this:
I was making stuff. Learning to make better and better stuff. I was performing for hundreds of people every night on well known, respected stages in New York City and later Boston and gaining invaluable experience every time.
Maybe something would happen.
Eventually, it did. Again and again.
Cast a wide net, I say. Make good stuff and see what happens. Don’t limit yourself to a single vision. Don’t map out a single road. There’s nothing wrong with having a direction and a dream, but don’t narrow your focus to just one endpoint. Don’t define success as a single goal.
I’ve taken the same approach to many of the things I’ve done in my life.
I started writing a blog back in April of 2003, and since then, I have not missed a day. Did I have a goal when I began? Did I know that I would still be writing that blog 18 years and 6,530 posts later?
Nope. But I knew that I was writing. Honing my skill. Putting words into the world. Finding an audience. Becoming a better writer with each passing day.
The multitude of strange, amazing, and unexpected things that have happened as a result of writing my blog could never have been predicted. The multitude of strange, amazing, and unexpected things still waiting to happen also can’t be predicted.
Was there a perceived endpoint when I started writing musicals with my friend? Learning the piano? Playing poker? Podcasting with a friend and later Elysha? Investing in the stock market?
No. In each case, I was making stuff. Studying the craft. Getting better.
There’s no telling what the future might bring if I remain open to its possibilities.
There’s nothing wrong with a dream. Nothing wrong with a direction. But don’t define your success by a single endpoint
Make good stuff. See what happens. Be open to any possibility.
May 15, 2021
Look! It’s my My great grandparents!
I’ve said it before. I’ll say it again:
Put stuff into the world. You never know what will come back to you.
Case in point:
Yesterday I wrote about an essay – recently discovered by my aunt – that my maternal grandmother wrote back in 1939.
A few hours later, I received a message from a former classmate asking if this photo, posted on the Facebook page “Blackstone, Past, Present and Future” a month ago, included my family.
Remarkably, it does.
The caption under the post read:
Arthur & Hilda Dicks, April 14, 1921. 100 years ago. This photo was their 50th celebration (taken in 1971). Pictured from left is Hilda’s uncle Fred Bailey, aged 97, Harry Dicks, Hilda, Frederick Dicks, Arthur. Photo taken at the Parish Hall on Main Street, Blackstone.
The photo includes my paternal great grandparents, Arthur and Hilda, along with my grandfather, Frederick, and my great uncle, Harry.
Yes, Harry Dicks.
It turns out that the photo was posted by my maternal uncle, who married my paternal aunt.
My father’s sister married my mother’s brother.
I grew up next door to my paternal grandparents, so I knew my grandfather well. My great uncle Harry also lived in that home until the end of his life just a few years ago, so I got to know him fairly well, too. I also remember my great grandfather, who also lived in that home until his death when I was still a boy. Great Grandpa sat in a chair in the family room, and as far as I can remember, never moved from that chair for as long as I knew him.
I never knew my great grandmother, Hilda. She has passed away too early for me to remember her, so this is the first time I’ve ever seen her.
Incredible. Right?
Half a century ago, members of my family gathered in celebration in a parish hall that I know very well. I’ve bobbed for apples on Halloween, played basketball as a teenager, and attended weddings in that same parish hall.
Little did I know that my family once celebrated there, too.
Who knows? Maybe my mother brought me to the party. I was two months old at the time. Perhaps I made an appearance.Little did my great grandparents know that half a century later, their great grandson would be staring into their faces, looking for clues about what they were thinking and feeling on this day of celebration.
Thanks to Christine Lavallee Bolduc for sending me this photo and all these memories.
Put stuff into the world. You never know what will come back in return.
May 14, 2021
My grandmother was a writer. Thank goodness.
My aunt found my grandmother’s high school yearbook, which contained an essay written by my grandmother back in 1939.
I can’t tell you how thrilled I was to receive this essay in the mail.
This is the magic of writing. As Stephen King argues, writing is time travel. It allows you to speak to the future with perfect clarity. My grandmother passed away almost 20 years ago, yet thanks to an essay she wrote as a teenager, her words and ideas have found their way to me more than 80 years later.
Her spirit truly lives on.
I like to imagine my grandmother as a 15 year old girl, penning this essay at her kitchen table, unaware that nearly a century later, it would be read and loved by one of her future grandchildren.
I also love what she’s written here. I’m shocked to see how much we have in common.
My grandmother essentially makes two arguments in this essay.
The first:
It’s fun to know that you’re better than other people.
She writes, “I have been taught that fun is learning to do something, and doing it so well as to be proud of one’s self some day for doing that certain thing better than someone else.”
Also, “If I succeed in doing this better than someone else, I find myself proud of it and try to do still better afterwards.”
I had no idea that my grandmother was ruthless and relentless. I never would’ve guessed that she found joy in destroying the competition. Climbing to heights never before achieved. Maybe even kicking the competition back down the mountain in the process.
My grandmother took pleasure in knowing that she was the best or striving to be the best.
We have so much in common. She was probably a lot less loud and jerky than I am about it, but our philosophies are remarkably similar.
My grandmother also offers advice on becoming popular, and I think it’s brilliant. She writes:
“Find something that is interesting to you, and study it.” She argues that people who don’t attempt to excel in life will not be “pleasing to their friends.”
In other words, people are drawn to those who seek excellence. Popular people are passionate about things and strive to achieve greatness.
I think this is great advice. Brilliant advice.
It also turns out that my grandmother was a lover of reading and writing.
She liked to write. I had no idea.
My aunt is retiring from teaching next month and plans to spend more time researching our family history. I’m thrilled. I hope she finds more. I remember my grandmother as a sweet, old lady who laughed a lot, listened patiently to others, and loved my mother.
Discovering this other side of her has made me so happy and has me wondering what other mysteries are still waiting to be uncovered.
May 13, 2021
Titles be gone!
During Michelle Obama’s appearance on The Late Show this week, she asked that Stephen Colbert refrain from calling her Madame First Lady and simply call her Michelle.
I was so happy to hear her say this.
I think it’s very stupid that after leaving political office, we continue to address and refer to people like Michelle Obama with their previously held titles.
Former Presidents, mayors, Senators, Cabinet members, and Congresspeople are customarily addressed by their previous titles even though they have stopped doing that job.
Why?
Were their jobs really so important that we can’t risk allowing people to forget what they once did?
Do former Presidents think themselves so special that even after they leave office, they still need to be referred to as Mr. or Madame President lest they be reminded that they have ceased being the leader of the free world?
Does someone like Rudy Giuliani really need to be referred to as Mr. Mayor, even though it’s been two decades, one failed Presidential bid, one Four Seasons Landscaping press conference, and one attempted insurrection since he was mayor of New York City?
Admittedly, I am not a fan of titles. I find them pretentious and stupid much of the time.
It think it’s weird that teachers are referred to by students using titles that signifies their gender and/or marital status rather than simply using their first name.
Mr. Dicks is a title that only signals to children that I identify as male.
What’s the point?
I’ve been told that the title is a sign of respect, but if you’re relying on a gender or marital signifier to earn the respect of your students, you have bigget problems.
I’d much prefer that my students refer to me as Matt.
Unfortunately, I am in the minority. Or, as I prefer to think of it, at the tip of the spear.
I also think it’s weird that someone who went to college for a long time to study sixteenth century literature gets to be called a doctor, but the paramedic who saves lives or the crossing guard who keeps children safe or the farmer who keeps us fed gets no title because they neither has the desire nor the capacity to linger on a college campus for nearly a decade reading obscure poems by Anne Askew.
A farmer’s knowledge of the dairy industry can be just as extensive (and probably more important) as the person who studied literature, yet one is conferred a title of distinction and the other is not?
Stupid.
So hooray for Michelle Obama for tossing aside that silly political title and using the name that her parents assigned her at birth.
She doesn’t need a title to earn the respect of Stephen Colbert and the vast majority of Americans.
