Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 245

I performed in the dark. Without amplification. The results were surprising.

The worst experience I ever had while telling a story was on election night 2016 at a live show of Slate's The Gist. I was telling the story about my run for the Presidency of my college when things started to turn in the election returns and eyes quickly shifted from me to phones. 

Trump was winning. The world was ending. People were literally hugging one another in the audience. And I was still blabbering onstage. There was a moment in my story when I nearly said, "I should stop. This is ridiculous. You don't want to laugh. I want a hug, too."

I persevered, but I'm quite certain that no one has the faintest recollection that I performed that night. Deservedly so.   

My second worst onstage experience was during the Mayor's Charity Ball years ago. I was emceeing the event, and while the entire evening was lovely, but no one was terribly interested in what the emcee had to say. It was nearly impossible to get anyone's attention, and once again, I'm fairly certain that no one has the faintest recollection that I was even there. 

I thought that last night might go just as poorly. I was scheduled to tell stories at a benefit for a local television network, but strong wins from the Northeaster had knocked the power out about an hour before I was set to perform, depriving me of a microphone or any light save candlelight. The room, which I have performed many times as a DJ, minister, and storyteller, isn't easy even with a microphone. It's long, cavernous, and unforgiving. 

Trying to get the attention of 200 people with no amplification in the dark was not going to be easy.

One of the organizers proposed that we just scrap my performance. People were laughing, drinking, and having a good time already. No sense in disturbing their fun in these conditions.

"Yes!" I thought. "Cancel me. This isn't going to work!"  

Ultimately it was decided that I should give it a try, so reluctantly, I slid two wooden boxes over to the center of the room, climbed atop them, asked a few people to point their cellphone lights at me, and I started speaking.

Loudly. 

Instead of telling three stories covering 30 minutes, I told two stories that filled about 15 minutes before my voice wasn't going to allow me to tell a third. Though I didn't capture the attention of the entire room, I managed to grab a sizable portion and made them laugh with two stories that I punched up on the fly.

I wasn't great, but it wasn't terrible either. People listened and laughed.

When I was done, I sat down beside a woman who I know but hadn't seen in years. It turns out that she hosts a show on the TV network now with three friends. She asked me appear as a guest.

As I was leaving the building, an attorney stopped me in the lobby and asked if I would be willing to consult on storytelling and communications with his firm.

Someone in the parking lot then stopped me and thanked me for the laugh. A tree had fallen on his house that night, and he was heading home to inspect the damage. "I didn't think I'd be laughing at all tonight. I really appreciate it."

I'm constantly counseling people to say yes when an opportunity presents itself, even when that opportunity is less than ideal. I know people who would've refused to perform under those conditions last night, and honestly, I wouldn't have blamed them. It was an awkward, almost impossible situation. Had they asked me to cancel my performance, I would've happily obliged.

But I agreed to entertain an audience, so when they proposed that I give it a shot, I said yes. I stood up on those precarious wooden blocks, spoke with all the volume I could muster, and told two funny stories 

It wasn't perfect, but people laughed and enjoyed the performance. I received an offer to appear on a television show, an offer to consult at a local law firm, and I brightened the evening of a man who was having an otherwise very bad day. 

Not bad for performing in the dark, without amplification, under the light of a handful of phones. 

One of the best podcast episodes of all time

I started listening to podcasts when podcasts first became podcasts. 

Way back in 2005, as Elysha and I were moving from an apartment on one side of the street to an apartment on the other, I was listening to podcasts. In the beginning, I was listening primarily to This American Life and tech podcasts (which were popular and plentiful back then, given that listening audiences required a background in technology in order to download episodes onto MP3 players and pre-iPhone cellular phones).

After listening to tens of thousands of hours of podcasts, it's impossible to choose a single best episode of all time, but this episode of the very excellent podcast Heavyweight is one of my favorites of all time. 

I cannot recommend it highly enough. 

If you're wondering what Heavyweight is about, it's hard to say. From Gimlet Media's website:

Maybe you’ve laid awake imagining how it could have been, how it might yet be, but the moment to act was never right. Well, the moment is here and the podcast making it happen is Heavyweight. Join Jonathan Goldstein for road trips, thorny reunions, and difficult conversations as he backpedals his way into the past like a therapist with a time machine. 

Resolution update: February 2018

PERSONAL HEALTH

1. Don’t die.

I had the flu in February, but I recovered in less than three days. Record time.  

2. Lose 20 pounds.

Still four pounds down. After a great start in January, no progress in February.

3. Eat at least three servings of fruits and/or vegetables per day. 

I had three servings of fruits and/or vegetables on 19 of 28 days in February.  

4. Do at least 100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, and 3 one-minute planks for five days a week.

Done. 

5. Identify a yoga routine that I can commit to practicing at least three days a week.

No progress.

6. Stop using the snooze button.

Done. And I must tell you, I feel so much better when I climb out of bed when that first alarm sounds or I simply wake up.

Science is right. Snoozing is a terrible practice that you must end immediately.   

WRITING CAREER

7. Complete my seventh novel before the end of 2018.

I'm in the process of revising my next novel for the UK, so the launch of this novel has not yet commenced.

However, I sent a long document to my agent outlining all of my ideas. She and I will decide on the next book in the coming week.  

8. Complete my second middle grade/YA novel.

I'm in the process of revising my next novel for the UK, so the launch of this novel has not yet commenced.

9. Write at least three new picture books, including one with a female, non-white protagonist. 

No progress. 

10. Write a proposal for a memoir.

No progress. Once my revisions are complete, my agent and I will discuss which of these memoir ideas should be written first.

11. Write a new screenplay.

No progress.

12. Write a musical.

Initial talks for the plot, characters, number of songs, and deadlines have begun.

13. Submit at least five Op-Ed pieces to The New York Times for consideration.

I submitted one piece to The New York Times for consideration. It was a piece of advice for millennial. They passed, so I revised and posted to my blog.

14. Write a proposal for a nonfiction book related to education.

No progress. 

15. Submit one or more short stories to at least three publishing outlets.

No progress.

16. Select three behaviors that I am opposed to and adopt them for one week, then write about my experiences on the blog.

No progress. I'm also looking for possible behaviors to adopt. Suggestions welcomed. 

17. Increase my author newsletter subscriber base to 2,000.

4 subscribers added in February. 67 overall. At this pace, I will hit the goal by December.  

18. Write at least six letters to my father.

None written in January.

19. Write 100 letters in 2018.

Twelve letters written and mailed in February. Recipients include students, my fellow performers in Kansas City, and letters of thanks to a local business, and a person at The Moth, and a friend.

20. Convert Greetings Little One into a book.

No progress.  

21. Record one thing learned every week in 2018.

Done! My favorite from February:

Robert Lincoln, first son of Abraham Lincoln, was coincidentally either present or nearby when three presidential assassinations occurred.

Lincoln was not present at his father's assassination. He was at the White House, and rushed to be with his parents.At President James A. Garfield's invitation, Lincoln was at the Sixth Street Train Station in Washington, D.C., where the president was shot by Charles J. Guiteau on July 2, 1881, and was an eyewitness to the event. Lincoln was serving as Garfield's Secretary of War at the time.At President William McKinley's invitation, Lincoln was at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, where the president was shot by Leon Czolgosz on September 6, 1901.

I learned this after reading a fascinating book about the assassination of James Garfield entitled Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President.

STORYTELLING

22. Produce a total of 12 Speak Up storytelling events.

We've produced one show so far in 2018. 

23. Deliver a TED Talk.

I'll be delivering a TED Talk at both Wesleyan University and The Birch Wathen Lenox School in New York City in April. 

24. Attend at least 15 Moth events with the intention of telling a story.

I attended two Moth events in February: a StorySLAM in Queens and a GrandSLAM in Boston.

25. Win at least three Moth StorySLAMs.

Success! I won my 35th StorySLAM last night in Queens. One down. Two to go. 

26. Win a Moth GrandSLAM.

Done! I won my fifth GrandSLAM in Boston in February. 

27. Produce at least 25 episodes of our new podcast Storyworthy. 

Logo created. Format decided. Now we just need to record.

28. Perform stand up at least four times in 2018. 

No progress. I had to cancel my paid standup performance in February due to the flu. It is rescheduled for March. 

29. Pitch my one-person show to at least one professional theater.

No progress.  

30. Pitch a new Moth Mainstage story to the artistic director of The Moth. 

No progress.  

NEW PROJECTS

31. Write a syllabus for a college course on teaching. 

No progress, but I am frustrated, annoyed, and disappointed by developments with a local college in terms their curriculum for student teachers, so I'm doing a lot of thinking on this issue. 

32. Cook at least 12 good meals (averaging one per month) in 2018.

No progress. 

33. Plan a 25 year reunion of the Heavy Metal Playhouse.

No progress. 

MISCELLANEOUS

34. Pay allowance weekly.

Done! I was one day late in February, but I was in Maine and unable to pay the kids until I returned.

35. Ride my bike with my kids at least 25 times in 2018.

No progress. 

36. I will report on the content of speech during every locker room experience via social media in 2018. 

Done. I spent 20 days at the gym (including the locker room) in February, and I did not hear a single comment related to sexually assaulting women.  

37. I will not comment, positively or negatively, about physical appearance of any person save my wife and children, in 2017 in an effort to reduce the focus on physical appearance in our culture overall. 

Done. Once you stop commenting on physical appearance, you quickly realize how pervasive it is in our culture. I don't think it's a good thing at all.    

38. Surprise Elysha at least six times in 2018.

I surprised Elysha once in February, though she anticipated the surprise (dinner and a movie) by attempting to plan for the same movie on the same night. She was more surprised that I was trying to surprise her, but it counts.  

One down. Five to go.

39. Replace the 12 ancient, energy-inefficient windows in our home with new windows that will keep the cold out and actually open in the warmer months.

I've received some more reasonable estimates for this project. It might actually be doable.     

40. Clean the basement. 

I threw away a handful of items in February in preparation for a full cleaning later this year.  

41. Set a new personal best in golf.

No progress. 

42. Play poker at least six times in 2018.

I was forced to cancel my February game because a lack of players. A March game is scheduled. 

43. Spend at least six days with my best friend of more than 25 years.

No progress.   

44. Post my progress in terms of these resolutions on this blog on the first day of every month.

Done.

I killed a whale. Also, I played golf in the snow.

I've been reading Slate and listening to Slate's podcasts for about 15 years. Though I've had the honor of appearing regularly on two of the podcasts, I've always dreamed of writing for Slate.

For years, The New York Times and Slate have been my white whales. 

Yesterday, I killed one of those two whales.

I published a piece in Slate entitled "Batting? Average. - Why I procrastinate by researching the fates of middling baseball players."

It's a piece for their Rabbit Holes series on the nature of procrastination. 

I've published four novels and have four more books on the way.

I've published work in The Hartford Courant, Reader's Digest, The Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor, Parent's magazine, Seasons magazine, and The Huffington Post.

I've written comic books for Double Take Comics. 

Still, it was a thrill to see my byline on the piece. May I never become jade about these little dreams coming true. 

If you're interested, my latest Seasons column, on the time I played golf in the snow, is also out now. You can read it here, on page 49.  

Anatomy of a friendship: Shep

In a recent interview, someone asked me how I've met some of my closest friends, and it occurred to me that although the path to friendship is oftentimes as simple as "I worked with the guy" or "She was a friend of my wife," sometimes the path is far more unexpected, circuitous, and odd.

Take, my friend, Shep.

Shep is my seat mate at most Patriots games. He is the first reader of almost anything that I write. He is the person who I want most at the poker table. If forced to choose one person to accompany me on a drive  across the country, I would choose Shep. 

How did we meet?

I met Shep at a bridal show about 20 years ago. He was hunting for a DJ, and I was hunting for clients. Things worked out, and my partner and I became the DJs at his wedding. Though I knew we had a lot in common and would likely get along well if we were friends, the wedding ended and we went our separate ways. This was before social media had any chance to keep us connected beyond real life encounters.

More than a year later, Shep and his then wife, Kelly, attended another wedding where I was working again as the DJ. We reconnected at the end of the night, and in the process of catching up, I invited Shep and his wife over to my home to hang out and watch television.

The actual show escapes me.

Survivor, maybe?
Or possibly the Thursday night lineup of Seinfeld and Friends?

I'm not sure. Either way, Shep and his wife accepted my invitation, and soon they were making the weekly trek from Norwich to Newington - almost an hour each way - to spend an evening with me watching TV and hanging out. 

Around this same time, the librarian in my school, who was also a Patriots season ticket holder, began selling me her tickets to games. Needing someone to join me at the games, I asked Shep, and so began our excursions to Foxboro to watch the team we both loved.      

Shep and his wife ultimately divorced. He and I remained friends, continuing to attend Patriots games, adding card games and eventually my writing to the mix. 

About 15 years ago, Shep's cousin-in-law, Tony, was able buy two new Patriots season tickets, adding them to the season tickets he already partially owned with friends. He offered to sell them to Shep and me, and we agreed, becoming seat mates, tailgating professionals, and denizens of Gillette Stadium during the single greatest period of football in NFL history.

Shep and I have attended seven AFC championship games together and untold numbers of playoff games. 

We are in the process of writing a memoir of our 20+ years spent in Gillette Stadium.  

Odd to think that had Shep and his then wife not stopped by the DJ booth at the end of the wedding, and had I not invited Shep to hang out and watch TV with me, and had he and his then wife not agreed to make the almost hour-long drive to me home, much of the last twenty years would've been very different for me. 

And not nearly as good.

A bit of unsolicited, surely unwanted advice for my millennial friends

I have, on occasion, offended a millennial friend by making a gross generalization about their generation. I know that generalizations can be annoying, inaccurate, and offensive. I know that I should avoid them whenever possible. For that, I apologize.

But here's the thing:

I am a member of Generation X. When I was in my late teens and twenties, generalizations were made about my generation, too. We were called lazy. Shiftless. Aimless. Cynical. Disaffected.

“Slackers” was the word used most often. It was used a lot.

Movies like Dazed and Confused, Singles, Reality Bites, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, The Breakfast Club, Clerks, and Slackers were specifically made about us. They showed young people going nowhere, doing nothing, and not really caring about their lack of upward mobility. We were forced to listen to the Baby Boomers and the Greatest Generation before them deride our unwillingness to work hard, take life seriously, respect authority, and advance society. 

But here is the difference between my experience and what I have seen from my millennial friends thus far:

My generation didn't care. We didn't give a damn about what the previous generation said about us. We never concerned ourselves with what people a decade or two older than us thought. We were never offended or outraged by these descriptors, because we knew how to ignore them. Like the hippies before us, we did our own damn thing and let the haters hate.  

My generation popularized the phrase, "Whatever."

We paid money to watch those movies that portrayed us as slackers and losers. We loved those movies.

By contrast, my millennial friends, and even millennials in the media, seem so deeply offended by the mere suggestion that their generation might not be ideal. That perhaps they possess some fairly universal flaws. They lose their minds over the notion that the response to my latchkey generation was one that was coddled, bubble-wrapped, and perhaps not-so-ready to take on the world. They characterize any bit of disparagement as a possible hate crime.

They are the generation that popularized the need for trigger-warnings and coined the phrase “micro-aggression.”

Perhaps these generalities about millennial are also unfair. Maybe some of these assumptions about this latest generation are way off. Maybe millennials are poised to save the world.

If so, excellent. I wish them the best. We need all the help we can get. 

Either way, I just wish they would stop caring so much about what others think of them. I understand that millennials are the generation of digital approval - the like, the follower, the subscriber, the friend request, the participation ribbon - but enough already. I realize that they grew up in a culture where parents cheered at every single soccer game regardless of the weather and a failing grade was call for an immediate parent-teacher conference, but it’s time to let go of the need for praise.

Not everyone is going to like you, my millennial friends. A lot of us think you should grow up a little. Or a little faster. Either do so or just ignore us.

Or perhaps try on a little Gen-X cynicism. Become slightly more disaffected. Maybe spout off the occasional, "Go to hell, old man!" or "Why aren’t you dead yet?"

Or perhaps a simple, "Whatever." 

Robbery fail leads to great cheer and a smidgen of empathy

As the victim of a violent, armed robbery that began with bricks through the windows of a McDonald's restaurant and led to a lifetime of post traumatic stress disorder, this video gave me some cheer. 

As a human being who understands that not all decisions are made in a vacuum and a person's worst decision should never define them forever, my heart also went out to the man who stood in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

I said this to someone who thought I was insane. "He got what he deserved." 

Apparently I was speaking to an entirely infallible, perpetually righteous human being who had never found himself in a state of desperation.

How lucky for him. 

"Once or twice" is the sign of a lie

I overheard someone say on a plane last night say he had visited Africa "once or twice."

I didn't believe this person. I almost never believe someone who claims to have done something "once or twice."

There's a big difference between doing something of significance (like visiting Africa) once or more than once. Had the man said, "I've been to Africa three or four times," I would've accepted his statement. Even "two or three times" would've been okay with me.

But to be uncertain about doing something of import once or more than once?

No way. I don't buy it. 

 I think that when someone says they've done something of meaning and significance "once or twice," they've actually done that thing just once but want to give the impression that they may have done it more.

My daughter's art features an unusual and unexpected element

We were thrilled to find our daughter's piece of abstract art was hanging at the front of her school, in a position of great prestige. 

Then we noticed the top right corner of her piece, which appears to feature two cocktails. 

Anytime an alcoholic beverage appears on the work of a third grader, you have to wonder what is going on at home. 

It should at least give pause. 

But I almost never drink, and Elysha and I don't drink in the home or even at restaurants when our kids are with us. Clara has never seen her parents drinking cocktails. and as far as I can tell, she's ever even seen a cocktail, except she apparently has.

If so, where? And why has she placed them so prominently in her work of art?

The President of the United States relied on scripted empathy

Just in case you missed it, a Washington Post photographer managed to take this picture of the notes that Trump was holding while speaking to the parents of victims and survivors of gun violence in America's schools. 

Note #5 on the list:

"I hear you."

This is real. It's also terrifying.

Trump must rely on scripted empathy. Apparently a phrase like, "I hear you," was not immediately available to him. The narcissistic, egomaniacal, thin-skinned ignoramus is apparently not capable of expression empathy without the help of a staff member. 

Can you imagine another human being on the planet who would need help empathizing with the survivor of the Parkland shooting or the parent of the Sandy Hook victim?