Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 438

My new favorite family

I watched a family of four purchase their entire dinner at 7-11 tonight.

This was not a mob of destitute, depraved individuals. They were a well-dressed, well behaved, jovial bunch who arrived to their restaurant of choice in a Lexus SUV. The father held the little girl’s hand while crossing the parking lot. The mother complimented her son for holding the door as they entered.

They ordered hot dogs, donuts, burritos, sodas and slushies. It was clear that they had ordered food at 7-11 before.

They were laughing as they left the store.

I loved these people. I loved them so damn much,

A tale of two story slams

On Thursday night, I performed alongside four other storytellers at The Wilbur Theater in Boston as part of a Moth Mainstage. We told stories to a sold out audience of 1,200.

It was an amazing night.

Last night I hosted a story slam at Word Up, a small, community bookstore in Washington Heights run by volunteers and stocked primarily with used books. Nine brave storytellers were courageous enough to stand on a makeshift stage of pallets and plywood to share their stories to an audience about about 40 people. Almost all were first-time storytellers.

It was also an amazing night.

The two events could not have been more different.

In Boston, five storytellers underwent weeks of revision and an evening of rehearsal with experienced and skilled producers in preparation for the event. We arrived at the theater early for a sound check and publicity photos. We enjoyed food and drink in a well-appointed green room, which was adjacent to the green room of Saturday Night Live star and future host of the Tonight Show Seth Meyers, who was taking the stage immediately after us.

Last night’s storytellers did not revise and rehearse their stories with talented producers. They did not have a mic check prior to the show, and as a result, they fought with the microphone stand all evening long. There was no green room. There was no Seth Meyers.

Two completely different shows in terms of scale and sophistication, yet I’m not sure which was better.

Yes, the stories in Boston were more polished, and the storytellers were better prepared and more poised onstage. The audience was enormous and enthusiastic. The laughter and tears were more plentiful.

But the storytellers in Washington Heights were incredible, too, despite their overall inexperience. They were honest. Compelling. Revealing. Amusing. Diverse. Surprising. At least two of their stories were more than capable of winning a Moth StorySLAM.

If given the choice, I’d always choose the audience of 1,200 over the audience of 40, but in the grand scheme of things, the size your audience or the opulence of your venue are irrelevant. In the end, it’s about the stories and the people willing to share them.

Everything else is window dressing.

If you’re critical of the National Football League, I understand completely. If you’re smug while doing so, you deserve to be kicked through a goal post.

Journalist Fuzz Hogan has decided to stop watching football this season. He cites head injuries, the the use of performance enhancing drugs and the way in which the NFL contributes to corruption in college football as his reasons for forgoing the game.

I have no problem with someone deciding that football is too violent to continue watching. The data on head injuries alone makes the danger clear, and if a football fan decides to stop supporting that violence, I understand completely.

I also have no problem with anyone who decides to stop watching football because of the use of performance enhancing drugs. When the integrity of the game is questioned, then its appeal is understandably diminished.

I’m not sure if the corruption in college football would end if the NFL did not exist as Hogan suggests, but I have no problem with this reason, either. If this is what Hogan believes, his decision to stop watching professional football is admirable.

While I don’t plan to stop watching the National Football League anytime soon, I am more than willing to acknowledge that my continued interest contributes to a variety of serious health problems for the players, and that a boycott of the game would be a noble thing to do.

I just love the game too much to stop.

My dispute with Hogan is based solely in the astounding level of smugness that he exhibits when describing his football free Sundays.

He writes:  

News flash: Watching football is a time-suck. Studies have shown there’s 11 minutes of action in a game that takes three hours. So even though I’ve tried to convince myself that I can be productive during the game—checking e-mails, folding laundry, even working out—that’s still a lot of wasted time trying to not waste time.

This is not a news flash. Football fans have known this forever. Many sports, including baseball and golf, are no different. But the game’s appeal does not lie in the eleven minutes of real time play alone. It’s the moments of critical decision making, the euphoric celebrations, the instant replay, the analysis of each play, the gamesmanship, the strategy and the conversation and camaraderie that fans enjoy between the plays. While Hogan is correct about the eleven minutes of play, his use of the phrase “New flash” and the underlying implication that he is dispensing new information on football fans make him sound like a smug jackass.  

Hogan then goes on to describe his football-free Sunday: 

So instead, on the NFL’s opening Sunday afternoon I cooked dinner—a real dinner, with different dishes and a complicated recipe. I helped the kids with homework, with the attention span to actually help. I found out how the other third lives … the third that doesn’t watch the NFL. It was enjoyable.

What a smug jackass. A real dinner? My wife made grilled cheese sandwiches with apples and bacon last night. We actually picked the apples last week just prior to the Patriots-Saints game. It is one of my favorite dinners, and the whole family loved it. It took her about 15 minutes to make.

Was this not a real enough dinner for you, Mr. Hogan?

Was the lack of complicated recipes disappointing to you?

And what if we decide to order pizza for dinner on Sunday while I watch the Patriots play the Jets? Should I feel like a bad parent or an ineffective human being? 

Is that how you will think of me?

Knowing that you are making a real dinner, from a complicated recipe, while we eat pizza from a box, should I assume that the way that you are spending your time is better than mine?

And what if I choose to help my children with homework after the game? Is this not also acceptable? Is there some premium placed on homework completion during an NFL game?

Hogan then says that his football-free Sundays have allowed him to discover how the people who don’t watch the NFL live.

Has he been watching the NFL while stuffed inside a cardboard box? Did he retire to the basement and lock the door in order to watch the game? Does some moratorium exist that prevented him from asking his friends and family what they were doing while he was watching the game?    

What a stupid, ridiculous, self-serving, smug thing to say. 

I have no problem with the criticism that the National Football League receives. I have no problem with the decision to boycott the game or stop watching forever. I even have no problem with criticism directed at me for supporting this violent game.

But smugness? That’s the worse.

Sometimes even golf can be stupid

And this is one of those times.

Unique golf courses and signature holes are lovely, but sometimes an idea is just too bizarre to even be considered golf, and this is one of those idea.

This also strikes me as a fairly elitist construct, perfect for the kind of jackass who likes to mention the name of his Ivy League school whenever possible.

Stupid.

All the financial advice you will ever need

All the financial advice you will ever need, written onto one side of an index card.

I am no financial expert, but this is a damn good list. I would argue that the 20% savings is high, and you could be putting more of that money to work for you (and enjoying a little more, too), but otherwise I’m in full agreement.

Have you ever seen two more perfect little boy photographs in your life?

My wife captured these two perfect moments from my son’s day.

First, his obsession with the construction equipment operating across the street from our home.

 

Second, his absolute love of books.

I can’t imagine two more perfect moments for a little boy or his big Daddy.

Clearly drunk

We ended our morning of apple picking on Sunday with a photograph with a cardboard cutout of a Belltown Hill Orchard tractor, complete with driver.

It’s impossible to get my daughter to look straight ahead in one of these photos.

 

More disconcerting, however, was the cardboard driver of the tractor.

Red nose. Red cheeks. Blood shot eyes. Slack-jaw smile.

That driver is clearly drunk. I don’t think there’s any other possible explanation.

Sometimes there’s a fine line between creepy and cute.

My family went to a pumpkin patch yesterday. My wife sent me some photos from their afternoon amidst the pumpkins, including this one.

She’s cute as a button, and I love the photograph, but I feel like this image could be interpreted in a lot of different ways. For example:

“Bright lights came from the sky and took my Mommy and Daddy away. I don’t think they’re coming back. Please help me.”

Or this:

“I see dead people. They’re living in the corn. Run.”

Or this:

“Don’t say no to me. You’ll make me angry. You wouldn’t like it when I’m angry.”

Products I can’t live without: 2013 revised

In 2010, I wrote my first list of products I can’t live without.

Last week I published the 2013 version of the list, but it sucked. I left off a whole bunch of things that readers were quick to point out. So here is the revised list.

It was also suggested that my original list was more or less a list of apps on my iPhone, but upon reflection, this isn’t really the case. While products like Hootsuite, Evernote and the Google products exist on my phone, I use many of them on a variety of platforms, including my laptop. In fact, I access products like Evernote on my laptop and work computer more often than my phone.

6-iron
Asus laptop
Audible.com plus Audible app
Bose speakers plus iPod Nano (white noise for sleeping)
Carbonite
Diet Coke
Egg McMuffin
Evernote
Gmail
Google Calendar
Google Chrome
Google Docs
Google Maps
Hootsuite
Instacast
iPhone 4S
Mint
Mophie Juice Pack
Motorola Bluetooth headphones
Twitter
WordPress
Ziplist

Greatest touchdown call ever

Unicorns! Show ponies! Where’s the beef?