Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 280

I'm never this angry. I swear.

My four year old son, Charlie, drew a picture of his family at preschool last week.

Here is his creation. See anything wrong with it?

When he handed it to me, I couldn't help but notice how angry and mean I looked. When I asked him why I look so mad, he said, "You're not mad, Daddy. That's just what you look like."

Didn't make me feel any better.

Details matter. They matter a hell of a lot.

This was the fundraising letter sent to supporters upon Trump's announcement of the new travel ban, which was thankfully halted by a federal judge last night.  

The failure of communication from this administration is astounding. 

The first bullet, for example:

Temporarily Restricting immigration from six countries comprised by radical Islamic terrorism: Sudan, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, and Yeman

The sentence doesn't make grammatical sense. "... six countries comprised by Islamic terrorism?" This is a failed sentence. The very first sentence used to describe the purpose of Trump's travel ban has no actual meaning because of its poorly constructed grammar.

Also the first two words of the sentence are capitalized, which also makes no sense. 

The first two words of the next bullet are also capitalized, but not the first two words of the third bullet. 

This is a mess. And the actual content isn't much better. 

Despite Trump's argument that this is not a Muslim ban, he indicates in this letter that these countries were chosen specifically because they are "comprised by" radical Islamic terrorism, which clearly implies (if you can get beyond the grammar) that one religion is being targeted over another (which is one of the very reasons the federal judge halted the ban), even though the majority of terrorist attacks in this country are committed by Americans.

In fact, no act of terrorism has been committed on American soil by anyone from these six nations since 9/11, and Saudi Arabia, where almost all of the 9/11 terrorists originated, is not on the list. 

And Iraq, the very center of ISIS activity in the world, has now been removed from the list. Logic would dictate that if your travel ban is essential for keeping terrorists out of America, the first country on the list should be Iraq. 

Of course this is a Muslim ban. Trump referred to it as a Muslim ban many, many times on the campaign trail and after the election. His own words have doomed these Executive Orders right from the start.

You may say I'm nitpicking here. Who cares about grammar and capitalization? But details matter. When a President who is attempting to change something as complex as the American healthcare system, details matter. They matter a lot. They are the difference between the elderly having access to affordable healthcare and the ultra-wealthy receiving massive tax breaks as part of the proposed plan.

For many Americans, the details in this healthcare plan will be the difference between whether they live or die.

Details matter. 

This administration doesn't seem to think so. 

Trump's Housing and Urban Development Cabinet chief, Ben Carson, recently referred to slaves as immigrants.

His chief White House counselor Kellyanne Conway introduced the world to the notion of an "alternative facts."

His national security advisor, Michael Flynn, was an agent for a foreign power who lied about communication with the Russians during the election - facts which Trump knew about for weeks before finally firing him. 

Trump accused a former President of wiretapping based solely on a right-wing report based upon the unsubstantiated claims of a right-wing talk show host. He claimed - once again - that his Electoral victory was the largest since Reagan, only to be corrected by a White House reporter again.

His response: "I was given that information. We had a very, very big margin."

"Given that information?" By who? The President's team can't conduct a simple Google search? Or more likely, Trump was either lying or spitballing because details don't matter to this administration.

His Electoral win, by the way, was not as large as George Bush, Bill Clinton, or Barack Obama. In fact, it was one of the narrowest Electoral victories in American history. 

Details matter.

But when you have the resources of the Republican party and the United States government at your disposal and you can't produce a letter that is grammatically correct, you make it clear that details don't matter at all to you.

This might be the most frightening aspect of the Trump administration.

Say no to "more details."

Parents and teachers often tell students to "add more details" when commenting on student writing. 

It's one of the least helpful things that you can say to a writer. 

Have you ever finished a novel or essay or memoir and wished that the author had included "more details?"

Teachers and parents say this to students because so many of them are not writers and do not seriously engage in the writing process. As a result, they simply don't know what to say in the same way I could say nothing to a apprentice carpenter or a beginning skier.

If you don't engage in the craft, you will have little to say about the craft. 

So rather than talking about craft, parents and teachers see quantity as quality. They believe - with all their heart - that an argument that be effectively made in 250 words is automatically made more effective if written with 500 or 1,000 words. 

It makes me insane.  

To this end, young writers should remember this:

Don't seek quantity. Seek quality. Rather than waxing on for paragraphs about a person or place, find the two or three words or phrases that capture the essence of the person or place, and leave it at that.

The best writers don't choose the most words. They choose the right words.  

It is only snow and nothing more.

As I write this, it is snowing outside. Meteorologists are referring to the storm as a blizzard. Much of Connecticut is shut down (though I just returned from a successful trip to Dunkin' Donuts) and apparently the grocery store shelves are empty, but here's the thing:

Tomorrow, less than 24 hours from now, the storm will have ended. The sun will shine high in the sky. The roads will be clear. And though we may have a foot or two of snow on the ground, we have certainly seen this much snow before in New England and will see this much snow again.

Probably more. 

I despise the ongoing, never-ending, relentless conversations about the snow, the impending snow, the snowfall projections, and the incessant complaining about the snow. One of my primary goals in the teaching of storytelling is to make the world a more interesting place. If people know how to tell great stories and know the right stories to share, then the world becomes a more entertaining, connected, and meaningful place to live.

I believe this with all my heart. 

Conversations about the weather are the antithesis of this of an entertaining, connected, meaningful world. They are the death of good conversation. They are the enemy of the interesting.

My humble suggestion: Avoid these conversations at all costs. Change the subject. Do not engage. Walk away if necessary.

You will be the happier, and the more interesting, for it.

Stories are so damn important.

Few things have felt truer to me than this quote from the late Alan Rickman:

I cannot tell you how many times a person has told me at the end of one of our shows that they feel like they have been renewed by an evening of storytelling. Their heart has been filled. Their mind has been put at ease, at least for a couple hours, and perhaps longer. 

Storytelling is magic. It is medicine for the mind. Food for the soul.

I've been telling stories all over the country and the world since 2011, and here is one of the strangest things that has happened to me in the course of my travels:

Twice I have stepped off the stage after telling a story at The Moth in which I expressed great vulnerability and been approached by a woman who needed to tell me about her recent miscarriage. In both cases, the woman had yet to tell anyone in her life about her loss but had somehow decided in that moment that I was the right person to tell.

When I told Elysha about this craziness (the second incident happened just recently), she said that it wasn't crazy at all. There is unknowable amounts of emotion wrapped up in the tragedy of a miscarriage. Grief, guilt, shame, despair, and unspeakable loss. Women oftentimes have great difficulty talking about a miscarriage, even to people who they know and love most.

In both of these instances, Elysha explained, these women likely saw me as a person willing to open my heart and share something sacred about my past. I shared a story about my life in a way few people are willing to do so openly. In the eyes of these two women, I became the perfect person to unburden themselves of their secret. Someone who they could trust. Someone who possessed an open heart. But also someone who they would never see again. In that way, I was safe. They could speak their truth and then leave it behind. 

Admittedly, I was surprised and confused when these women revealed their secret to me, but each encounter ended with a hug and many tears. And perhaps a bit of relief from something that these women were carrying alone before they met me.

Rickman was right. We need to tell stories about who we are, why we are, where we come from, and what might be possible.

Now more than ever.

End the scourge of the additional anus

I'd like to propose that we permanently retire the phrase "tore me a new one" and all its its variants as a means of describing a situation in which a person or persons have been savagely berated or abused by another person. 

The idea that someone would be berated or abused so badly that it would result in an additional anus is not only illogical, but it's fairly disgusting.

There are better ways to describe situations like this without adding to the digestive system in the process.  

Can we all agree that there is no place for this unfortunate phrase in our modern day lexicon? 

Rules of Self Praise by the Brilliant and Handsome Matthew Dicks

Rule: If you have to say that you were the smartest person in the room, you were not the smartest person in the room. 

Not by a long shot. 

Corollary: Always allow others to sing your praise. Self praise is almost always disgusting. If you don't feel like you're receiving the credit you deserve, you haven't earned the credit you deserve. Try harder. Do better.

Corollary to the corollary: If you engage in self praise, please know that people will most assuredly disparage you when you are no longer present.   

Addendum to the corollary: Self praise is permitted in the private company of spouses, significant others, and in salary negotiations. But even in these cases, it must be deployed with grace, humility, and moderation.  

Additional addendum to the corollary: Sarcastic, exaggerated, tongue-in-cheek self praise is permitted when done to be amusing because humor trumps all.

Note about the additional addendum to the corollary: Donald Trump has permanently tainted the use of the verb "trump." 

Only in New York

It's snowing in New York today. This man is my hero. 

Michael Bloomberg on succeeding in business

Michael Bloomberg - three term mayor of New York and eighth richest man in the world - recently offered his insight in a New York Times piece entitled Michael Bloomberg on How to Succeed in Business. 

He said a few things that I liked a lot.

“Nobody remembers where you went to school. The first job they may ask, by the third job they won’t remember to. People put too much emphasis on that. It’s much more important that you go to a place where you fit in and which has decent academics. ”

I have watched students and parents twist themselves into knots trying to get into this school or that school, when it's absolutely true:

No one will remember where you went to college unless you're the douchebag who brings up your time at Princeton whenever possible.  

Bloomberg is right. Find a place where you fit in and that has decent academics. 

My wife attended Smith College. It's an excellent school, but more importantly, it was a place where she felt completely at home, and she remains closely connected to the school even today.

I attended Trinity College for my English degree and St. Joseph's University for my teaching degree - two well respected schools - but the best education I ever received was the three years I spent at Manchester Community College. My years spent at Trinity and St. Joseph's pales in comparison to the instruction I received at the community college.   

“The part that’s most important in an education is how to deal with people. There’s no job I know that you do by yourself, and I learned as much from the two guys I worked for at Salomon Brothers, Billy Salomon and John Gutfreund, as I’d learned at Harvard. In the end, it’s people skills that you need. ”

The greatest eduction I ever received in terms of dealing with people was the ten years I spent managing McDonald's restaurants, beginning in high school and continuing through college. Learning to train, manage, and motivate a vast array of employees ranging from pregnant teens, paroled felons, non-English speaking immigrants, college students, empty nesters, and everything in between taught me more about management than any MBA program could.

I have always believed that companies would be wise to identify highly effective McDonald's managers in inner city restaurants and steal them away for whatever management positions they may have. When you can operate a fast food restaurant in the inner city profitably, you can do almost anything.     

“What disturbs me is you talk to kids applying today and they invariably say, “I cured cancer, I brought peace to the Mideast.” Spare me. How about, “My father never existed, my mother is a convicted drug dealer. I worked three shifts at McDonald’s.” That’s the kind of kid I want — with an ethic of taking care of his family — because then he’ll take care of others. Some of us don’t have much prenatal intelligence, but nevertheless go out and try and have a decent chance of surviving. I’m not the smartest guy in the room, but nobody’s going to outwork me.”

I couldn't agree more.

I recently met a person who recently graduated from a prestigious university after attending a private boarding school in high school. He managed to land a dream job in New York and was telling me about how lucky he felt to break into a tough industry so early in life.

Lucky?

His parents sent him to a prestigious private school. He had all the advantages that a person could imagine as a boy. Then he attended a prestigious university on his parent's dime. He spent his summers interning in his chosen field. No part-time or summer jobs. He's traveled the world, studied abroad, and graduated without any debt.    

Landing that job was not lucky. His entire life was designed to land that job. 

Give me the kid who had to claw and scrape his way through college any day. Give me the kid who has faced enormous adversity and came out on the other end stronger, wiser, and with a perspective that will serve him well. Give me the kid who wasn't supposed to make it as opposed to the kid who had no choice but to succeed.

This position may reflect a personal bias, but Bloomberg agrees with me, so it can't be all about my own experience.

I broke my promise to my wife: The origin story of The Perfect Comeback of Caroline Jacobs

The paperback edition of my fourth novel, The Perfect Comeback of Caroline Jacobs, is finally out! If you didn't have an opportunity to read the hardcover, now is the time to purchase the paperback with it's brand new cover.

Order online or purchase in your local bookstore. And if your bookstore isn't carrying the paperback, please be so kind as to request it. When readers ask booksellers to stock a book, it makes a difference. 

The origins of the book are interesting, and they include a broken promise to my wife.

Years ago, Elysha and I were lying in bed, talking about our childhoods, when Elysha told me about small but apparently memorable moment of cruelty. A friend was sleeping over her house, lying beside her bed in a sleeping bag, when she said, "Emily Kaplan's bathroom is bigger than your whole bedroom."

The words were probably not meant to be mean, and they certainly aren't excessively cruel by any standards, and if you ask Elysha today, she will adamantly report that this was no big deal.

Except it was a big enough deal for her to remember the moment more than 20 years later. So it was something...

I said, "Wouldn't it by nice to find that girl and say the things you wish you had said that day?"

Truthfully, Elysha didn't feel the compulsion for revenge, but I knew that many people would feel differently. I knew that there were lots of people who would love to find their schoolyard bully as adults and really let them have it. "That would make a good book," I said, lying beside her in the dark. "Don't you think? A girl who is bullied in high school goes back to her hometown, finds her bully, and says the things she's always wanted to say."

"Sure," Elysha said, wanting to go to sleep.

I agreed. I added it to my list of book ideas, and years later, I wrote that book.

As I was writing the book, I chose the name Emily Kaplan for Caroline's bully in honor of the book's origin story. When Elysha began reading the manuscript, she asked that I change the name, particularly because Emily Kaplan had done nothing wrong in her childhood story except live in a home with a large bathroom.  

I agreed. I promised I would. Then I didn't. As I continued to write, Emily Kaplan became Emily Kaplan, and eventually it became impossible to change the name because she had become real in my mind.

As real as any other character who I have created. 

I didn't tell Elysha about my failure to change the name until the book was in production, at which point the change would have been impossible. 

She was rightfully annoyed. Not angry, but not pleased, either. It might be the only promise I have ever broken to her. 

But it was done in the noble pursuit of literature, and that makes it okay. Right?