Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 392

I’m a much better dancer than my son.

One of my favorite things in all this world is watching my wife dance.

At a recent family wedding, I had the chance to spend a lot of time dancing with my daughter. Watching her dance is pretty fabulous, too.

Despite my 17 years as a wedding DJ, with almost 400 weddings under my belt, I suspect that the women of our household will always be better dancers than the men. And at this point, I’m a much better dancer than my son, Charlie. 

He needs a hell of a lot of work.

 

Moth victories are so much better with my septuagenarian hipster in-laws in attendance

On Monday night, I competed in a Moth StorySLAM at the Bitter End in New York City.

Joining me was my wife, a friend, and my in-laws, Barbara and Gerry.

I can’t tell you how happy I am that Barbara and Gerry were in attendance.

Barbara is in her late sixties. Gerry is in his early seventies. As I note their ages, I am astounded, as I always am when I reflect on how old they are.

Barbara and Gerry run an eBay business. They are both as proficient with computers and technology as anyone I know. Barbara is a savvy marketer, salesperson, and social media guru. Gerry’s photographs of their merchandise (shot in the studio that he built in their basement) are so good that clients have accused him of using stock photos of their merchandise rather than actual photos of the items they are selling.

These are two people in their seventh decade of life, running an online business that continues to support them and serves customers around the world.

But it shouldn’t be surprising, because despite their age, Barbara and Gerry live their lives like people half their age. When I started telling stories for The Moth three years ago, they were quick to make the trek to one of the Moth’s many venues to see me perform. They have attended many Moth events since then and have become enormous supporters, promoters, and fans  of The Moth, Speak Up and live storytelling in general.

Attending a StorySLAM means driving into the New York or Boston. Fighting traffic. Standing in a line for nearly an hour. Squeezing into a bar or bookstore amongst a standing-room-only crowd. Staying out late. Trying something new.

I have so many friends who think of these factors as barriers to attending a Moth event. Or anything new, different, challenging, or logistically complex.

In many ways, Barbara and Gerry live their lives like people 40 or 50 years their junior, while some of my friends in their thirties and forties are already living life like sedentary septuagenarians. 

Barbara and Gerry are the models of the kind of person I want to be at their age.

It’s also great to have them watch me tell a story and compete in a slam because it’s not something that my parents have or will ever see.

My mother passed away before I ever published a book or told a story onstage. And to be honest, even when I was growing up, my parents never attended any of my baseball games, basketball games, marching band competitions, track meets, Boy Scout camping trips, or anything else.

I was a district pole vaulting champion, and my mother never even knew that I was a pole vaulter. She thought that I was a long distance runner.

Since moving out of my home at 18, I have lived in more than 1o different homes and apartments. Nether my mother (when she was alive) nor my father have ever visited me once.

I’ll never understand why.

Having Barbara and Gerry watch me perform and compete doesn’t make up for the absence of my parents in my life, but it’s a taste of what could have been.

What should have been.

It’s a hint of what it’s like to have parents supporting my efforts and taking great pride in your accomplishments. Before I had my own children, it was easier to dismiss my parents absence from my own life. Rationalize it. Minimize it. Now that I have kids, that has become impossible. I can’t imagine what my parents were thinking. I can no longer fool myself into believing that it wasn’t a big deal.

It was a big deal. It’s still a big deal. Barbara and Gerry can’t replace my parents, but they offer me some of the things that I have missed over the years.

Their interest and investment in my life and what I do means so much.

I won Monday night’s StorySLAM, earning my first perfect 10 from one of the teams of judges. When I took the stage as the winner at the end of the night, my very first thought was of my wife and her parents, and how happy I was that they were there to see me perform and compete.

I’ve won 12 Moth StorySLAMs over the past three years, and while every victory is thrilling beyond belief, it’s always so much better when my wife and her parents are in attendance.

A therapist once told me that one of the reasons that I am so driven is to earn the attention of my parents, even though my mother is gone and my father will never offer the support that I may seek.

This may be true, but I hope not. I’d hate to think that I am driven by something I can never achieve. But there is probably a small part of me yearning for my parents to witness my success and celebrate my achievements, as impossible as that may be now.

Barbara and Gerry are not my parents, but they are a close second, and I felt incredibly blessed to see them wedged into that corner seat in The Bitter End on Monday night, watching me perform.

Moth victories are so much better with my septuagenarian hipster in-laws in attendance

On Monday night, I competed in a Moth StorySLAM at the Bitter End in New York City.

Joining me was my wife, a friend, and my in-laws, Barbara and Gerry.

I can’t tell you how happy I am that Barbara and Gerry were in attendance.

Barbara is in her late sixties. Gerry is in his early seventies. As I note their ages, I am astounded, as I always am when I reflect on how old they are.

Barbara and Gerry run an eBay business. They are both as proficient with computers and technology as anyone I know. Barbara is a savvy marketer, salesperson, and social media guru. Gerry’s photographs of their merchandise (shot in the studio that he built in their basement) is so good that clients have accused him of using stock photos of their merchandise rather than actual photos of the items they are selling.

These are two people in their seventh decade of life, running an online business that continues to support them and serves customers around the world.

But it shouldn’t be surprising, because despite their age, Barbara and Gerry live their lives like people half their age. When I started telling stories for The Moth three years ago, they were quick to make the trek to one of the Moth’s many venues to see me perform. They have attended many Moth events since then and have become enormous supporters, promoters, and fans  of The Moth, Speak Up and live storytelling in general.

Attending a StorySLAM means driving into the New York or Boston. Fighting traffic. Standing in a line for nearly an hour. Squeezing into a bar or bookstore amongst a standing-room-only crowd. Staying out late. Trying something new.

I have so many friends who think of these factors as barriers to attending a Moth event. Or anything new, different, challenging, or logistically complex.

In many ways, Barbara and Gerry live their lives like people 40 or 50 years their junior, while some of my friends in their thirties and forties are already living life like sedentary septuagenarians. 

Barbara and Gerry are the models of the kind of person I want to be at their age.

It’s also great to have them watch me tell a story and compete in a slam because it’s not something that my parents have or will ever see.

My mother passed away before I ever published a book or told a story onstage. And to be honest, even when I was growing up, my parents never attended any of my baseball games, basketball games, marching band competitions, track meets, Boy Scout camping trips, or anything else.

I was a district pole vaulting champion, and my mother never even knew that I was a pole vaulter. She thought that I was a long distance runner.

Since moving out of my home at 18, I have lived in more than 1o different homes and apartments. Nether my mother (when she was alive) nor my father have ever visited me once.

I’ll never understand why.

Having Barbara and Gerry watch me perform and compete doesn’t make up for the absence of my parents in my life, but it’s a taste of what could have been.

What should have been.

It’s a hint of what it’s like to have parents supporting my efforts and taking great pride in your accomplishments. Before I had my own children, it was easier to dismiss my parents absence from my own life. Rationalize it. Minimize it. Now that I have kids, that has become impossible. I can’t imagine what my parents were thinking. I can no longer fool myself into believing that it wasn’t a big deal.

It was a big deal. It’s still a big deal. Barbara and Gerry can’t replace my parents, but they offer me some of the things that I have missed over the years.

Their interest and investment in my life and what I do means so much.

I won Monday night’s StorySLAM, earning my first perfect 10 from one of the teams of judges. When I took the stage as the winner at the end of the night, my very first thought was of my wife and her parents, and how happy I was that they were there to see me perform and compete.

I’ve won 12 Moth StorySLAMs over the past three years, and while every victory is thrilling beyond belief, it’s always so much better when my wife and her parents are in attendance.

A therapist once told me that one of the reasons that I am so driven is to earn the attention of my parents, even though my mother is gone and my father will never offer the support that I may seek.

This may be true, but I hope not. I’d hate to think that I am driven by something I can never achieve. But there is probably a small part of me yearning for my parents to witness my success and celebrate my achievements, as impossible as that may be now.

Barbara and Gerry are not my parents, but they are a close second, and I felt incredibly blessed to see them wedged into that corner seat in The Bitter End on Monday night, watching me perform.

My wife’s solution to the problem was to knock on a stranger’s door and ask to borrow clothing. Seriously.

My wife actually did this. About a year ago, but still.

She went to dinner at Max Burger in West Hartford, CT with our two children, a friend, and his two daughters. 

I was working. Our friend’s wife was out of town.

As the waitress brought over drinks, she spilled an entire glass of wine on our then four year-old daughter, Clara.

Clara was understandably upset.

Elysha took Clara to the car, hoping to find an extra set of clothes. She left our one year-old son in the restaurant with our friend and his two children.

She left her phone inside as well.

She found no extra clothing in the car. Clara was upset. She didn’t want to return to the restaurant soaked in red wine.

Elysha was worried. At the time, our son was seriously attached to her, often crying when she left the house. How was he behaving in this strange restaurant with a man he hardly knew?

Possibly wailing, Elysha thought.

And yet our daughter, covered in wine, was also wailing. Elysha didn’t want to bring her back into the restaurant dripping with wine, but she couldn’t leave her in the car, either.

And she had no way of communicating with our friend.

What to do?

Simple. Walk a block to a residential street. Knock on the door of a complete stranger. Ask that complete stranger for a plain, white tee-shirt that our daughter could wear so they could reenter the restaurant and retrieve our son.

The stranger obliged.

The only shocking thing about this story is that we weren’t having brunch with that stranger on the following Sunday.

My wife befriends just about every person she meets.

She must’ve been in a big rush.

The question all successful people can answer immediately: What’s your super power?

Serial entrepreneur Tina Roth Eisenberg says that all the most successful people she’s met have been able to answer this question immediately:

What is your super power?

From TIME:

John Maeda, who led the MIT Media Lab and Rhode Island School of Design, responded with “curiosity.”

Maria Popova, who curates the popular Brain Pickings blog by reading 12-15 books a week, said “doggedness.”

Eisenberg’s own superpower? Enthusiasm.

Knowing your superpower means you know yourself well enough to have a focus, and that’s the same competitive advantage that makes you so great at what you do. It’s the quality you’re most proud of, the one thing that makes you stand out, and what gives you an edge over everyone else.

My wife claims that my super power is productivity, but what she really means is efficiency. I get a lot done, but it’s in large part because of the systems of managing work that I have developed.

It’s not magic, as much as some people may think. It’s not even hard work (although it does require hard work). It’s a combination of focus, determination, and a willingness to spend time and effort developing streamlined processes for my work. 

But I would drill down even further and get even more specific. I think my real super power is my ability to rapidly and seamlessly shift between projects without a reduction in quality or loss of efficiency, which allows me to work on many things at one time.

On Monday, for example, I completed a re-write for a musical, finished writing the first chapter of a non-fiction book, wrote about 10 pages of my screenplay, worked on two different novels, worked on a story for a Moth event, and completed tasks for my DJ company and Speak Up.

I shifted between all of these projects quickly and without loss of productivity, and I didn’t require an artisanal latté, a communal table made from refurbished railroad timber, or any smooth jazz to do so. I worked in many different locales at times ranging from 4:00 AM to 10:30 PM.

That is my super power.   

My wife’s super power, by the way, is her ability to endear herself to every  person of every type almost instantly. People automatically love Elysha. It’s as if humanity’s default setting is almost instantaneous love for her.

I wonder if she would agree.

Three questions:

What is your super power?
Were you able to answer the question almost immediately?
If you know me well, do you agree with the super power that I have proposed?

So this happened for about 30 minutes yesterday. Should I be worried?

Should be concerned with my son’s ability to relentlessly repeat the same series of actions again and again for such a long period of time?

It was like being trapped in a Groundhog Day situation, except that my son isn’t nearly as funny as Bill Murray, and while I enjoyed his kisses, it wasn’t quite the same as being kissed by Andie McaDowell.

Resolution update: June 2014

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).

1. Don’t die.

Most important goal still looking good. 

2. Lose ten pounds.

Holding steady with three down and seven to go. With half of 2014 now in the books, this means I am failing this goal. 

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: I brought my Apple laptop home from work, though I’m starting to think that I may just use my PC instead.

I’m doing great. Huh?

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

Revisions on the next novel have continued to stall progress on the new one. It remains more than half finished.

6. Complete my seventh novel.

Progress continues on this one as well. In fact, I may finish my seventh novel before I finish my sixth, which makes no sense. 

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

Work continues on The Little Bad Wolf and two other manuscripts.

8. Complete a book proposal for my memoir.

The proposal for a memoir comprised of the 3o or so stories that I have told on stage for The Moth, Speak Up, The Mouth, The Story Collider and other storytelling organizations is complete. I await news of its sale.

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.

I’m also secretly writing another golf memoir that is going better than expected. Last summer, I wrote one almost by accident, and I think it’s some of the best writing I’ve ever done.

How could I not take another foolish stab at it again?

9. Host at least one Shakespeare Circle.

Nothing scheduled yet.   

10. Write a screenplay.

More than 20 pages written. It’s going well, I hope. My film agent will eventually tell me. I also met with my screenwriter’s group in June. It was a productive meeting.  

11. Write at least three short stories.

I am still nearly finished with one short story. I hate this goal. What was I thinking?

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

Done! The collection is complete and in the hands of my literary agent. I await her response.  

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

Still one class and $50 away from completion. My wife is actively looking for a place online where I can complete this relatively obscure requirement.

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

My first column in Seasons magazine published this month.

I also pitched a column idea to a major online magazine that is seriously being considered.  

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.

Neither of these are Op-Eds. Please ignore that fact in the event I need to use these in order to claim that I have completed my goal.

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

I competed (and won!) another Moth StorySLAM on the last day in June at The Bitter End in NYC, bringing my total number of Moth events in 2014 to nine. 

16. Win a Moth GrandSLAM.

I have a GrandSLAM scheduled in July in Brooklyn and August in Boston.

Based upon the previous 6 GrandSLAMs that I have competed in, this should mean to more second place finishes by the end of the summer.  

17. Give yoga an honest try.

No progress, though the co-writer of another book that I am attempting to write has offered to introduce me to this sport.

I also learned that competitive yoga exists. I’m thrilled.  

18. De-clutter the basement.

Small progress made.

19. De-clutter the shed

No progress, but it’s summer now. I really should be making progress on this goal.

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

No progress.

21. Produce a total of 6 Speak Up storytelling events.

Our total stands at four with our next show scheduled for July 19 and shows planned in September and December at Real Art Ways and October at The Mount in Lennox, MA.

22. Deliver a TED Talk.

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

I have also been contacted about speaking at two other conferences in the fall and am awaiting word on my pitches.

23. Set a new personal best in golf.

I played more than a dozen rounds of golf this year, failing to break 50 every time. 

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.

The ad has good intentions, but it doesn’t depict reality, and that could be more damaging to girls than no ad at all.

This new Verizon-sponsored ad, which was made in conjunction with Makers to show how parents unintentionally steer their daughters away from science and math, is receiving a lot of praise for the way it doesn’t focus solely on female body and beauty issues, as well as its willingness to shine the light on the role that parents play in the problem. 

Amanda Marcotte of Slate calls it a “blast of refreshing cool air.”

I understand why critics like the ad so much, but here’s my problem with it:

Are there really parents in the world as sexist and stupid as the ones depicted in the commercial?

I’m not sure. If there are parents like this, they are hardly in the majority. 

There are four incidents depicted in the commercial during which the girl is supposedly steered away from science.

First, while hiking up a mountain and through a stream while wearing rubber boots, her mother says, “Sammy, don’t get your dress dirty.”

On a hike? Up a mountain? In a stream? Is there some fine dining establishment at the summit with a strict dress code? Is this rocky, mountain trail also the path to Sammy’s kindergarten graduation?

Next, a slightly older Sammy is standing in a tidal pool, holding a starfish. Dad says, “You don’t want to mess with that. Why don’t you put it down.”

A starfish? Not an angry crab. Not a potentially poisonous sea urchin. Perhaps the most defenseless creature on the entire planet: A starfish.

Next, Sammy is hanging spheres decorated as planets over her bed. Her mother pokes her head into her bedroom and says, “This project has gotten out of control.”

Perhaps it’s the use of glitter, which should be banned from the Earth, that has gotten her mother’s knickers in a bunch. I could understand this concern. I’d even be willing to support the mother’s discontent. But other than the possible overuse of glitter, what exactly has “gotten out of control?” Was Sammy’s mother thinking that her solar system would consist of just eight planets, but Sammy foolishly made thirteen?

The last example is the worst. Teenage Sammy is drilling a screw into a model rocket while her older brother looks on. Dad shouts, “Whoa. Be careful with that (drill). Why don’t you hand it to your brother.”

Not a table saw. Not a weaponized laser beam. Not a nail gun. A drill.

I’m not saying that girls can’t use table saws, weaponized laser beams, or nail guns, but as a parent, I can understand the concern for any teenager (or me) using these tools. But a drill is one step removed from an egg beater. It’s one of the most benign of all the power tools. What damage could Sammy possibly do with a drill?

I believe that parents play a role in a girl’s decisions to turn away from science and math. I just don’t believe that it’s typically (or ever) done in such ham-handed, overtly sexist ways as depicted in this commercial. 

Most important, unrealistic and exaggerated ads like this make it too easy for parents to watch them and think, “I’d never do anything like that,” while ignoring the more subtle signals that we send to our girls everyday.

When we show parents the worst examples of parenting, we offer them the opportunity to feel good about themselves and their own parenting, when in truth, they may be just as guilty of the same kinds of behavior that this ad depicts, only in more subtle and realistic forms.  

Has there ever been a better big sister?

“Charlie, get on your vehicle and follow me! It’s crazy ride time! Race time! We’re going to drive fast and race hard! Let’s go!”

Hilarious. Genius. Not entirely safe for work.