Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 84

Stop using religion as rationale

The Toronto Blue Jays cut pitcher Anthony Bass last week after he drew backlash for reposting a video on Instagram that called Target and Bud Light “evil” and “demonic” for supporting the LGBTQ community.

Toronto’s general manager Ross Atkins told reporters that the move to cut the relief pitcher was primarily driven by his performance this season, which could be true, or might be a way to avoid backlash from the bigots of the world, or might be a combination of the two.

Either way, good riddance.

But situations like this always baffle me.

I understand bigotry, ignorance, hatred, and fear. These are all terrible but understandable reasons for a small-minded fool to oppose human beings based on their skin color, sexual orientation, and the like.

But according to Antony Bass, his rejection and repudiation of the LGBTQ community is based on religious grounds.

Essentially, the Bible made him do it.

And while the Bible does include passages that forbid homosexuality, it also includes so many things that people like Anthony Bass, a significant segment of the Republican party, and religious leaders like the Pope choose to ignore.

The Bible is filled with laws that religious people never follow.

I know. I’ve read the book, cover to cover, three times.

Leviticus – the same book of the Bible that condemns homosexuality – also states with absolute clarity that “If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife, even with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and adulteress must be put to death.”

Did you get that? The Bible unequivocally calls for the execution of anyone who cheats on their spouse, as well as the person aiding and abetting in the cheating.

It also says, at least twice, that you cannot work on Sunday and specifically calls for the death (by stoning) of anyone who does so.

As a professional baseball player, Bass has definitely worked on Sunday. Thousands of times.

If anyone – even members of your own family – suggests worshipping another God, they must also be killed.

If you discover that a city worships a different god, you destroy the city and kill its inhabitants, including children and animals.

Did you get that? Kittens must die if their owners worship a God other than the one in the Bible—and not just some kittens.

All the kittens.

The Bible also unequivocably states that:

Enslaved people must be submissive and obedient to their masters.Women must be submissive to their husbands.Clothing of two or more fabrics can never be worn.Hair cannot be cut, and beards cannot be shaven.

All of these laws are unequivocally stated in the book, which is reportedly the word of God. It’s the same book that feckless, hateful morons like Anthony Bass, a majority of Republican lawmakers, and the Pope use to oppose things like same-sex marriage and transgender rights.

It’s ridiculous. It’s Bible Buffet at its worst.

If you oppose the rights of LGBTQ people because you’re a bigot, just say you’re a bigot.

If you oppose same-sex marriage because you’re afraid, ignorant, hateful, or following your parents’ and neighbors’ uninformed belief system, just admit it.

If you hate gay people because you can’t imagine loving someone of the same sex and being different is bad for you, just say so.

But stop basing your ignorant, cowardly hatred on the Bible because that book is filled with hundreds of laws that you willfully ignore while – for some creepy reason – you and your religious leaders are obsessed with the laws about genitals and where we put them.

It’s weird, Also inconsistent, hypocritical, and nonsensical.

It’s frankly stupid.

I’d rather you simply be a bigot than some Bible-brandishing moron who either doesn’t know what that book contains (probably in the case of Bass) or is choosing to ignore the inconvenient parts (in the case of religious leaders like the Pope).

Better but still not there

Last year, I suggested that McDonald’s add variation to the messages on their drive-thru menu screen.

Rather than simply offering the message “Mmm, great order!” they could easily add a multitude of messages to extend their branding and, more importantly, be surprising, amusing, and engaging.

All the things a great storyteller knows to do.

This month, they finally changed that message, but once again, they switched to a single message, displayed again and again and again every time you visit.

This time, it’s Grimace, a purple being of indeterminate species, telling me that my food looks really good. It’s fine, but again, once you’ve seen it twice, it becomes wallpaper:

Irrelevant, boring, and forgotten.

It can’t be that hard to add a series of randomly rotating messages to these drive-thru boards to bring surprise and delight to customers. Can it?

Again, without much effort, I’ve come up with a list that McDonald’s could at least start rotating through the system:

“Wise choice, eater of food!
“Exellent eats, bruh!”
“You’ve got great taste!”
“You chose wisely.”
“The Force is strong in you, hungry one.”
“Yummy choice!”
“Your tastebuds rock!”
“Spectacular decision! You should be President!”
“Delicious collection of calories!”
“Tasty eats, hungry person!”
“Scrumptious!”
“Sapid! I bet you didn’t know that means delicious!”
“Quite the palatable assemblage of food items!”
“A meal fit for a king! Or a queen! Or court jester!”
“Mouthwatering goodness!”
“Delish!”
“Piquant! Which means yummy!”

New photo of Mom

I was sent a new photo of my mother last week, which is a joy for me.

Mom passed away in 2007, and the number of photos I have from my childhood and of my mother is very limited, so a photo even as grainy as this one means the world to me.

The picture was probably taken in the summer of 1971. Mom is carrying me in this photo, and my aunt Diane, probably not yet a teenager, is walking beside her. They are walking through the backfield behind my grandfather’s garage, which can be seen in the background.

I grew up next door to my grandfather, so I spent many, many days playing in that field. There were basements of old, burned-out homes in the first on the left edge of the photo, and my siblings and I would spend summer days exploring those basements and the forest beyond.

When I started going to high school, I would come home after track meets or band practice through a path in the forest that eventually opened into this field. I walked the steps my mother is walking in the photograph so many times.

It’s like home to me.

I can’t be sure who took the photograph. Though I would ultimately grow up next door to my grandparents, we weren’t yet living in that home in 1971. Instead, my parents owned a home in a nearby town in Rhode Island, just down the road from Spring Lake, so Mom must’ve been visiting my grandparents on this day.

My father could’ve taken the photo since they were still together back then, but I had seven aunts and uncles back then, and at least a few were still living at home, including my aunts Diane and Sheila, who was even younger than Diane.

The photographer remains a mystery, but the place is as familiar as the back of my hand, and my mother, so young and presumably filled with hope while carrying her first child, looks just how I remember her in those days.

Staring at a photograph like this is so achingly bittersweet. To steal another glimpse of another moment in my mother’s life is so precious to me, but how I wish I would find a way to open the window on this photo and step through to that day, at that very moment, and see the world for what it was. Just a few moments to speak to my mom and aunt – both now gone – and gain the full measure of the past.

The fact that we haven’t invented a time machine yet is infuriating.

2013?

As a former manager of restaurants, I inherently monitor our food inventory carefully.

It’s second nature. Without any real effort, I always know what we have and need. I also organize and rotate the pantry and refrigerator with regularity.

All of this is to say that I was confused and appalled upon finding an item in my refrigerator that had expired a decade ago. I realize that expiration dates are very loose approximations of when a food is no longer ideal, and “Best by” dates are even less absolute. Still, when you find an item in the refrigerator nearly as old as your son, who is entering sixth grade, something has gone terribly wrong with your system.

Dirty underwear and a kitchen floor on the way to greatness

Jennifer Garner – actor, spokesperson, business owner, philanthropist, and seemingly all-around wonderful human being – wanted to be an actor.

So early in her career, she journeyed to a theater in a strip mall in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where she performed as a nonequity actor because earning less money than equity actors allowed her more stage time.

Inexpensive actors are more affordable and, therefore, easier to cast in low-budget shows. So while most actors are chasing their equity card in hopes of bigger paydays, Garner avoided it for a long time in hopes of exchanging a larger paycheck for more onstage experience.

In exchange for a room in Fort Lauderdale, Garner was responsible for the laundry for all 35 cast members while performing eight shows per week for three months.

“All I did in my free time was wash and iron clothing,” she says.

After the show ended, she was driving to a Shakespeare company in Utah, hoping to land a similar part, when she got sidetracked to New York City, where she was hired for several small, nonequity jobs. Eventually, she got the part as an understudy in an off-Broadway production, which led to her waiting tables while working onstage for several years in the city.

She was “super broke” for a long time but eventually got a small part in a miniseries, which sent her to Los Angeles for her first television appearance.

After the miniseries, Garner returned to New York, where she was once again broke for several more years while performing and understudying. She would pay $20 to stand at the back of Broadway theaters to see and learn from as many shows as possible.

For nine months during her second stint in New York, she rented space on a woman’s kitchen floor in her studio apartment.

Garner was 29 years old when she finally got her big break, landing the lead role on the hit television show “Alias.”

She’s been a star of the small and big screen ever since.

Many people dream big, but few are willing to spend the greater part of a decade broke to chase that dream.

Fewer still are willing to wash and iron the dirty laundry of their castmates to perform a small part on a stage in a Florida strip mall.

Even fewer still are willing to rent space for nearly a year on a stranger’s kitchen floor in hopes of finding that first big break.

An enormous amount of preciousness exists in the pursuit of artistic dreams. People want to make and do great things but are often unwilling to sacrifice time, money, and energy to make it happen. People can’t imagine spending most of their twenties penniless while pursuing a dream. They want to achieve greatness but can’t imagine climbing out of bed before sunrise every day to make it happen. They want to be the best at their craft but would never deign to wash the underwear of their three dozen castmates to take the next small step forward.

For those unwilling to make those sacrifices, I’m not sure what is true:

Do they not want it enough?Are they physically, mentally, or emotionally incapable of making the sacrifices required?Are they simply unwilling to trade their time, energy, and money for the unlikely possibility of greatness?

I don’t begrudge anyone who chooses certainty and stability over uncertainty and improbability. Many people just like Jennifer Garner, making the same sacrifices, never make their dream come true.

Big dreams are hard.

But I worry that people who dream big don’t understand the sacrifices often required in order to make those dreams come true. They see someone like Jennifer Garner and assume that her rise was effortless and meteoric, failing to account for the decade of struggle required to get to where she is today.

Can vs. may

A young person asked, “Can I have a juice box, please?”

The adult answered, “May I have one of those juice boxes, please?”

The chastened young person then repeated the adult’s response, replacing their “can” with the adult’s overemphasized “may.”

Only then did the child receive their juice box.

My impression of the moment – witnessed last week – and all moments like these:

It’s true. The word “may” is more polite than “can”, particularly in instances like these. But “can” isn’t at all impolite. It’s a perfectly reasonable way to ask for something, and it’s used by people all the time.

It’s an absolutely acceptable means of making a request.

But do you know what’s incredibly impolite?

Refusing a request until the person making the request switches from “can” to “may.”

Do you know what’s incredibly impolite?

Requiring someone younger than yourself to conform to your minor shift in vocabulary such that their request is marginally more polite and more aligned with your personal preference.

Do you know what’s downright rude?

Responding to someone’s thirst with an unnecessary lesson on manners.

C’mon, people.

Father’s Day 2023

A handful of times over the course of Father’s Day, Clara asked about her and Charlie’s first Father’s Days.

“What did we do?”

“What were they like?”

Happily, I wrote about each one, of course, on Greetings Little One, a blog where I wrote to my children every day for the first eight years of their lives. That blog was turned into enormous, beautiful, hardbound books that reside in our dining room for the kids to read, but the blog also exists, so I sent a link to the family that contained the entry from each of their first Father’s Days.

My kids are fortunate to have me.

In the spirit of holding onto our days, I decided to write about this year’s Father’s Day, which was a spectacular day for me. It’s admittedly not the most scintillating narrative, but holding onto our memories for our future selves is important, as I was reminded by being able to find posts about my children’s first Father’s Days.

So this amounts to that. It includes two fistfights, the use of Elysha’s superpower, and Darth Vadar, so it’s not entirely mundane.

I started the day (after a couple of hours of writing) by playing golf with a friend and his father at 6:30 AM. I’ve played golf with these two men before, many times, including on Father’s Days of the past. I love both of these men dearly and had a great time, but it is always a little bittersweet to watch a father and son play golf when my own father remains so outside of my life and far afield.

I parred three holes on Sunday and boogied two others over the course of nine holes, which is quite good for me, yet I scored a 53, so you can imagine how badly I played some of those other holes.

After golf, I went home and received homemade cards from the family and a gift:

Tickets to a Yankees game in July. I was thrilled by the gift, but I think Elysha was even more excited, which made the gift even better. Charlie gave me a card that cracked me up, which pleased him beyond compare.

The boy lives to make me laugh.

After the presentation of gifts, the family and I went to the Coventry Farmer’s Market, where we ate egg sandwiches and scones, listened to music, shopped a little, and visited with regular vendors we know. At one point, Charlie and I were punching each other in the grass, and a woman walking by us gave me the most withering stare possible, so I punched Charlie again. Later, I threw his flip-flop into the forest for good measure. We had a grand old time.

We listened to one of our family’s Spotify playlists on the way to and from the market. Elvis Costello’s “Every Day I Write the Book” came on, and Charlie said, “Hey, Dad, this song is about you!”

I liked that a lot.

Upon returning home from the market, the family sat down for two episodes of The Simpsons. I paused the episode several times to offer the kids cultural, historical, and comedic lessons. I later told the family I would love to teach a high school or college history class based on Simpson’s episodes. It would be entertaining as hell and informative and engaging beyond compare.

After The Simpsons, I climbed atop my indoor bike for an hour of exercise, but 45 minutes into the session, the pedal broke off the bike in a rather spectacular fashion. I called the repair service, left a message, and hope they can repair it quickly. It was the only sour moment of my entire Father’s Day.

With my workout cut short, we headed out to play mini-golf at one of our favorite spots. Elysha befriended an immigrant family behind us who had never played mini-golf before and talked to them quite a bit while we waited. Clara and I scored the only holes-in-one of the day, and I scored three under par for the best mini-golf score of my life.

Then we went to Fork & Fire, a restaurant we like very much, for dinner. Our reservations were fouled up, which forced us to sit at an awkward table by the kitchen and restrooms. We remained at that table for about three minutes before Elysha very politely had us moved to one of the best tables in the restaurant, which is one of her many superpowers.

After dinner, we went for ice cream cones. We met a friend who, more than a decade ago, I helped better understand fatherhood upon the birth of his first child, which made things feel somewhat circular for me on this Father’s Day. He has three incredible kids now, but that first one threw him for a tiny loop one day, and I was so happy to be able to help.

Charlie and I continued to punch each other on the street, garnering us withering stares from two women passing by.

Clara shouted that we were ridiculous.

We ended the day watching Jumanji, a film I have seen before but the family has not. I recently learned that there are two other Jumanji films, and according to at least one source, they are excellent. I did not believe this, of course, so I watched the first sequel while riding my now-broken bike and discovered that it’s outstanding. I decided to watch the third movie with the family after they watched the first two.

We began that process last night.

They liked Jumanji very much. Clara offered a critical film analysis from a storytelling perspective, and Charlie commented on the subpar but still respectable CGI.

They were all astounded by the surprise ending, which is one of the things I most adore about the film.

After the kids were sent to bed, Elysha leaned on my shoulder as we watched a little television before heading to bed.

Apologies. Not exactly the kind of post that causes you to laugh, think, or rise in opposition, but a decade or two from now, it will be something my family and I will be grateful that I had written.

So write. Record. Preserve your memories. Your future self is hoping that you do.

Drag queens not nearly as dangerous as this group of people

I know there is a lot of concern about drag queens these days and their negative influence on the young.

Not from everyone, of course. Mostly just the dummies and the monsters.

But in light of this concern, I’d like to remind people:

Thousands of priests, including an Ohio priest accused last month of sex trafficking young boys for the last 15 years, have been credibly accused, arrested, convicted, imprisoned, and successfully sued for the sexual assault and rape of minors over the years.

Thousands.

The John Jay Report, a 2004 report by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, based on surveys completed by the Roman Catholic dioceses in the United States, found that about 4% of all 109,694 ordained clergy active in the United States during the time covered by the study had been credibly accused of sexual assault.

Adding to the problem:

The church itself concealed this criminal behavior for decades, allowing these child rapists to travel from town to town, raping and sexually assaulting minors again and again.

In light of that horrific, evil history, which sadly continues to this day, I’m not sure that it’s drag queens who we should really be worried about when it comes to child safety.

Unless you’re a dummy or a monster.

Researching my public nudity because I can

A week ago, I wrote about a time in 1990 when I was naked onstage while under hypnosis. The post was written after someone sent me information on a naked stand-up show in New York City, which caused me to reflect on a time a few years ago when I was invited to perform in a naked storytelling show in Boston.

In the midst of all of this possible nudity, I thought, “Wait! I’ve already been naked onstage once before!”

My second thought was this:

Have I ever written about that before? So I searched my blog and found that I had. Back on February 25, 2011 – more than a decade ago – I wrote about the incident. As I read through the decade-old post, I was fascinated by its level of detail. It felt as if the post had been somehow sourced.

So I thought:

Did I write about this contemporaneously in one of my journals?

So I went to my office, pulled out my stack of journals, and found an entry from April of 1990 that recounted the evening in great detail.

After finding a 12-year-old post about the event online, I also found a 32-year journal entry about the same event, filled with the details that the post contained. Twelve years ago, I must’ve used this contemporary account of that night to write the post on my blog.

I found a primary source document about me, written by me.

My point?

Write.

I have written every single day without exception since November 30, 1988.

I have written a blog post every single day since December 10, 2005.

I’ve been doing Homework for Life every single day of my life since August 5, 2013, and less consistently for two years before that.

In the past 14 years, I’ve published six novels, two books of nonfiction, and more than a hundred columns for Seasons and Slate magazine.

Maybe you don’t need to write as incessantly and relentlessly as I do but write. Just a little bit each week would be amazing. Or begin doing Homework for Life, a task that takes five minutes per day that will change your life. Or start keeping a journal, recording the moments of your day, as benign as they might sometimes feel.

Just write.

It was joyous to recall a moment from my life – naked onstage – and be able to dive back into the written record to find entries about that night from sources two decades apart.

Thank goodness the younger version of myself was taking care of the current version of myself by taking the time to write. Allowing me to remember. Ensuring that my life would feel full and rich and multitudinous.

We walk through life discarding the memory of our days like they are meaningless. We assume that we will remember the important moments of our lives, but like all memories, those, too, will fade if not recorded.

My in-laws recently celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. I asked about the music played at their wedding. “What did you dance to?” I asked.

They couldn’t remember if there was music at their wedding. My father-in-law’s sister, who also attended that wedding, could not remember. It’s not because they have poor memories. It’s because even the most important moments of our lives – our wedding day – are lost to us if not preserved.

We leave behind entire years of our lives as if they weren’t worth remembering.

Don’t allow this to happen to you.

Write.

You can scroll through the lives of others on social media. You can watch another television show that you will soon forget. You can stare at another YouTube or TikTok video while the world passes you by.

Or you can sit down every day and write a little about what you’re doing, how you’re feeling, and where your life is taking you. What are your hopes and dreams? What do you fear most? What did you see today that you have never seen before? Who do you love? What memory filtered into your mind from the past?

You can toss away today like everything that happened was meaningless, or you can write about it.

Just a little.

If you’re doing Homework for Life, very little.

Your future self will thank you. I promise.

Two winners on Tuesday

A red letter day for our family on Tuesday.

Clara’s middle school promotion ceremony was beautiful. She and her select group of acapella singers opened the event by singing the national anthem, and about half an hour later, she received her certificate of promotion from middle school.

We also knew that Clara would receive an award of some kind because a letter was sent home a week before alerting us that she had been chosen for a special honor. The program handed to us at the door listed about two dozen awards that would be given out that morning, so I scanned the list to see what award she would most likely receive. The writing award seemed most likely given her affinity and skill, but I thought the best award was the Humanitarian Prize, given to a student for “demonstrating in a significant and sustaining way, service to others and concern for fellow human beings.”

My thought when I saw that award was this:

“Whatever kid gets that award is someone I want in Clara’s life.”

Then she won the prize.

What a beautiful moment for Clara. Maybe an even better moment for Elysha and me.

Actually, the first best moment of the morning came when Clara received her promotion certificate. They announced her name:

“Clara Susan Dicks”

I hadn’t expected to hear her middle name – my mother’s name – and I was instantly overtaken with emotion. It felt as if my mother was quietly attending the ceremony, too.

Mom died in 2007, two years before Clara was born, so hearing my mother’s name and thinking about the role she played in getting me to that place, at that time, was both unexpected and a little overwhelming.

Quite a morning for our family.

Later in the day, Charlie played in the Little League championship game. In his final at-bat of the season, he singled down the third base line, stole second, and scored on a hit by a teammate.

Nevertheless, his team lost 12-6, which was disappointing, of course, but Charlie hustled for the entire game, constantly patted his teammates on the back, and relentlessly encouraged them, which was better than watching him win. I was rooting for a victory, of course, but I think you can learn a hell of a lot from losing – perhaps a lot more than from winning – and I think that was the case for Charlie on Tuesday night.

Still, winning would have been pretty great.

Charlie’s Little League teams have played in three championship games in the six seasons that he’s played and have yet to win a title. They also played an entire season without winning a single game, so his Little League experience has been quite interesting.

But it’s not the baseball that’s important. Character, spirit, teamwork, and sportsmanship are what matter most, and Charlie has learned so much of this while swinging the bat.

Clara won the best award on Tuesday morning.

Charlie lost his chance at winning a title that evening.

But it felt like everyone in our family won on Tuesday.

A day we won’t forget.