Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 372

No electricity. No touch screen. No Internet connection. Just centrifugal force and joy.

The joy that a child can experience in a toy as simple as a top is something to behold.

 

Or even a stick on a ribbon, operating on similar principles:

 

Still in love

Watching and listening to my children talk and play together is probably my favorite thing in the world at this moment.

 

A bungled MVP presentation demonstrates a truth about storytelling. Also, I’m available for hire, Chevy. And you need me. Desperately.

As part of Speak Up, our Hartford-based storytelling organization, my wife and I teach storytelling and public speaking to large classes, small groups, and individual storytellers.

After watching the Chevrolet’s Rikk Wilde present Madison Bumgarner with the World Series MVP trophy, it’s clear that he could use our help.

It turns out that Chevy received far more attention for his bungled presentation. The video went viral and resulted in national coverage of the presentation and appearances for Wilde on late night shows like Letterman and Fallon.

But you don’ want to rely on a poor presentation going viral in order sell trucks.

I’d be happy to help. For a fee, of course.

This moment also illustrates something that I tell my Speak Up students all the time:

Nervousness is your friend. As long as you’re not so nervous that you can’t speak (which nearly happens to Wilde), nervousness can be endearing. It can make the audience instantly love you and want you to succeed. They root for you from your very first word.

Nervousness is a signal to an audience that you are one step away from being one of them. It could just as easily be you sitting in a seat, listening instead of speaking. That is a powerful connection that can serve a speaker well.

A storyteller who I greatly respect once told me that my greatest challenge in storytelling is my lack of nerves. “No one loves you when you start speaking,” he said. “You stand there like you own the place. So you have to have a great story every time.”

I think there’s some truth in that statement. I also think it’s why Rikk Wilde was so embraced by the American public. People could see themselves in Wilde. They presumed that they might perform similarly in the national spotlight. It made Wilde appear authentic and endearing.

In the end, it all worked out. Chevy got more press than it ever expected. They probably sold more trucks as a result.

This time.

But still, it would be nice for Chevy’s public figures to be able to speak easily and extemporaneously at times, too.

I’m waiting for you to call, Chevy. I’m ready to help.

My son wants attention. Just not from me. And it’s starting to hurt a little.

Almost every morning for the past year or more, my son has awoken from sleep and called for his mother. “Mommy!” He will shout this word for as long as it takes to get a response.

And almost every morning for the past year or more, I have been the one to pluck him from his crib, change his diaper, and bring him to his mother.

At some point, you’d think he would stop calling for Mommy and switch to Daddy, since it’s Daddy who responds to his call almost every single time.

But no. It’s always been Mommy. This morning it was Mommy.

Never Daddy. Not even once.

I know he doesn’t mean to hurt my heart, but I’m starting to wonder.

The vastly underutilized “You told me so.”

As I’ve made clear, I am an enormous fan of the “I told you so,” going to far as to have an “I told you do” calendar.

What I would like to see is more of the reverse “I told you so.”

For example, about ten years ago one of my friends began having children. As he talked about fatherhood, he described the frustration of having his children climbing into his bed all the time, essentially kicking him out. He told me how long it took to extricate his infant children from his bedroom and how there were weeks when at least one and sometimes more of his kids spent the night crowding him out of his bed.

I told him at the time that when I had kids, they would never sleep in my bed, and I would be sure that my infant children were in their own rooms as quickly as possible.

He scoffed at these notions. Told me that I was clueless. Laughed at my stupidity.

Fast forward ten years. I have a five year-old daughter and a two year-old son. Both were sleeping in their own bedrooms a few months after being born, and neither sleeps or has ever slept in our bed.

In fact, when we tried to convince our daughter to sleep in our bed after a head injury required me to check on her every hour, she refused.

My friend recently asked me how the sleeping turned out. He asked with a smirk on his face, expecting that his claims about my cluelessness and stupidity would be validated at last.

I told him about my kids. I told him that neither child has ever slept in our bed. I told him that both children were sleeping in their own rooms well before their sixth month. I told him that I had never been kicked out of my bed by my children. Not once. 

His smirk slid off his face. He said, “I’m surprised.”

That’s all he said.

After enjoying a decade of self-assurance and self-righteousness, all I received was an “I’m surprised.”

What I wanted to hear was something along the lines of, “It turns out that you were right.” Or “I guess I was the one who was clueless and stupid after all.” Or “I wish I could be more like Matthew Dicks and less like me.”

Or simply, “You told me so.”

The reverse “I told you so.”

The words that one should offer when you discover that you weren’t so smart after all.

Let’s all embrace this concept.

The two days that I will not miss my children and pets one bit

Someday, far into the future, there will be no children and no pets running around our home.

I will be deeply saddened by this.

Except on the mornings of Daylight Savings Time.

He can sing the Clean Up song. Does this mean he might actually learn to clean up someday?

Listening to my son sing The Clean Up Song is great. I have no idea where he learned it, but hearing him sing it is incredibly cute.

I’m just hoping that the ability to sing the song transfers over to the desire to actually clean up his toys.

Because it didn’t for his sister.

Resolution update: October

In an effort to hold myself accountable, I post a list my New Year’s resolutions at the beginning of each month, along with their progress (or lack thereof).

With two months to go, it’s looking like I will complete 15 of my 25 goals for sure, with an outside chance of completing as many as 5 more.

1. Don’t die.

Still kicking.

2. Lose ten pounds.

Stuck on seven down and three to go.   

3. Do at least 100 push-ups and 100 sit-ups five days a week.

Done.

4. Launch at least one new podcast.

Author Out Loud, my first podcast, is still yet to launch (and therefore still not my first). Once we have that podcast running smoothly, we can think about adding a second podcast.

Progress so far: The redesign of my website has begun, which will allow me to actually post future podcasts.

I’ve also secured a commitment from a cohost for that second podcast.

5. Complete my sixth novel before the end of the summer 2014.

Work on this book began last month and continues.   

6. Complete my seventh novel.

Work continues.  

7. Sell one children’s book to a publisher.

Three manuscripts remain in the hands of my agent. She is deciding upon which one to forward to editors and will do so in November.

8. Complete a book proposal for my memoir.

The proposal for a memoir comprised of 30-40 of my Moth stories is complete. The process of sending the book to editors has begun.

Work also continues on a memoir that focuses on the two years that encompassed my arrest and trial for a crime I did not commit. These two years also include an armed robbery, the onset of my post traumatic stress disorder, my period of homelessness, and the time I spent living with a family of Jehovah’s Witnesses.

It was a memorable two years.

Work also began on a new book which is part memoir and part how-to.

9. Host at least one Shakespeare Circle.

Nothing scheduled yet, but I’m hoping to schedule something over Christmas break.   

10. Write a screenplay.

Done! In the hands of my agent.

11. Write at least three short stories.

Nothing. I still hate this goal.

12. Write a collection of poetry using existing and newly written poems.

My agent has spoken. Not only does poetry not earn any money, but she doesn’t think my poetry is worth my time in terms of time and money. She encouraged me to send some of my better poems to journals and contests, which I may do at some point.

13. Become certified to teach high school English by completing one required class.

Still one class and $50 away from completion.

14. Publish at least one Op-Ed in a physical newspaper.

Done! Last Sunday I published an Op-Ed in the Hartford Courant about communicating with students in the digital world.

My second column in Seasons magazine also published this month.

I still await word from a major online magazine about a pitch that I made in August.   

I also published a piece in The Cook’s Cook, a magazine for aspiring food writers and recipe testers. You can read the April-May issue here.

15. Attend at least 10 Moth events with the intention of telling a story.

I attended a Moth StorySLAM in New York on October 8 at The Bell House in Brooklyn and finished in first place. It brings my total number of events for the year to 14.

16. Win a Moth GrandSLAM.

I have competed in five GrandSLAMs in 2014 in New York City and Boston, finishing second three times. When I didn’t finish in second place, I was  forced to tell my story from first position (the kiss of death).

It’s all terribly annoying.  

I have another GrandSLAM in New York in November, and that may be my last chance at a championship for 2014.   

17. Give yoga an honest try.

My friend, who is a yoga guru, has agreed to give me a lesson. I will schedule that this month.

18. De-clutter the basement.

Progress continues at a constant, slightly less than glacial, pace.

19. De-clutter the shed

Done! I dislodged a mouse family, filled the back of my truck with junk, and now I have an empty, organized shed.  

20. Conduct the ninth No-Longer-Annual A-Mattzing Race in 2014.

No progress.

21. Produce a total of six Speak Up storytelling events.

Done! We produced a sold out show at The Mount in Lenox, MA last month, bringing our total number of shows to seven. We have one more show planned for this year on December 6 at Real Art Ways

22. Deliver a TED Talk.

I delivered a TED Talk in March at Brooklyn Boulders in Somerville, MA.

23. Set a new personal best in golf.

Nothing close to a personal best last month, and I missed two golfing opportunities because of Patriots games. The season is sadly drawing to a close.

24. Find a way to keep my wife home for one more year with our children.

We still don’t know how we will afford this, but we made the decision to keep Elysha at home for one more year with our son.

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

Done.

Halloween has meant many different things to me depending upon the year. Have your Halloweens followed a similar trajectory?

Halloween is one of the few holidays that has changed completely depending on how old I am.

As a child, I donned a Halloween costume and went trick-or-treating, hoping to accumulate as much candy as possible in the allotted time. I learned to despise homeowners who gave us trail mix or Rice Crispie squares and adore those who were generous enough to offer full sized candy bars to children.

As a teenager, I became more enamored with the tricks and not the treats. Egging the homes and toilet papering the front lawns of deserving teachers and loathsome trail mix dispensers became the order of the day.

As much as I loved trick-or-treating as a child, this was better. More exciting. More dangerous. My favorite of all my Halloween experiences.

My car was once toilet papered by friends so completely that I walked right past it, wondering what poor sucker would be cleaning all that off his car before driving to work.

As a late teenager and twenty-something, Halloween shifted again. It became an excuse to throw a party. The importance of costumes returned, but instead of using them for trick-or-treating, they were an excuse to gather, flirt, and drink excessively. Bobbling for apples became quasi wet tee shirt contests. Princesses became sexy nurses. Plastic, super hero masks became costumes designed to demonstrate your cleverness and creativity to the opposite sex.

As I got older, the costume party scene began to evaporate. Sexy nurses got married. Excessive drinking lost its luster. Until I had children of my own, Halloween became an awkward time when a handful of colleagues dressed up in Halloween costumes during the  work day, and I spent my Halloweens at home, watching horror movies, handing out candy, and feeling lame.

Eventually, I became a teacher, and this filled my Halloween days with classroom parties, costume parades, and the childhood excitement of Halloween that I had long since forgotten.

In an attempt to embrace the excitement, I created short films for school assemblies that terrified children and upset kindergarten teachers. I devised stories to tell my students that (in the words of Mo Willems) scared the tuna salad out of them.

Then my own children came along, so once again I find myself walking the streets of my neighborhood, trick-or-treating. Nowadays, there is responsibility associated with Halloween. I have a peanut-allergic daughter, so I must remain vigilant when inspecting candy. I must be watchful for cars and creeps. I am required to shoot photographs in low light and carry tired children in my arms.

There is a sense of childhood joy in Halloween again, but there is also responsibility and obligation. Wariness and even a tiny bit of worry.

I love it, but it’s not the same as when I was a child. Not even close.

I probably have about a dozen years of this version of Halloween before my children are asking to trick-or-treat on their own. Perhaps the tricks will become more important than the treats for them, too.

I hope so.

I’m not sure what happens to Halloween after that. I would imagine that for many older adults, Halloween becomes an evening of answering doorbells and handing out candy. Little more.

I’ll have to find something better. Something joyous or thrilling or both. I see the excitement in my students’ eyes and my children’s eyes and want to hold onto that. Never let it go.

Maybe I’ll volunteer at a haunted house. Or attend a Rocky Horror Picture Show performance. Or take grandchildren trick-or-treating.

Or maybe I’ll just egg just a few more houses.  

People will still try to destroy you.

In my experience, this may be true, but it doesn’t mean that you are safe.

Fools and extremists may attempt to destroy you anyway.