Last week I told a story for The Moth at the beautiful Brooklyn Academy of Music about the armed robbery that I survived back in 1993.
The story opened with an anecdote about a magic show that had taken place just a few days prior to telling the story. I managed to record a little bit of the magic show. Whether or not you ever hear the story, the magic show is worth a peek.
I have never entered a strip club.
Sitting beside my male friends and watching women who want nothing to do with me remove their clothes has never appealed to me.
Unified public, unsatisfied arousal is just not my thing.
I attended a bachelor party at a strip club once, but when we arrived at the establishment, I told the guys that I would be waiting in the car, reading Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle. They thought I was crazy, but when I told them that they could drink and carouse all they wanted, and I would be happy serve as their designated driver, they relented.
The one exception to my avoidance of strip clubs took place about 25 years ago in a McDonald's crew room, but in that case, it was sadly a strip club of my own making.
Here is the story:
These two circles say it all.
I wanted to tell stories. I was afraid to tell stories. I didn't know if I could tell stories. I was afraid to discover that I wouldn't be able to tell stories. I knew that standing on a stage in New York City to tell stories meant exposing myself to public failure.
So I decided to tell stories. Despite crushing self-doubt and enormous fear, I went to where the magic happens. And it did.
These two circles apply to so much that I have done in my life. The farther I stray from my comfort zone, the better my life gets.
This is also exactly how my wife became the consummate and beloved host of Speak Up, our storytelling show.
She wanted to have an integral and public role in Speak Up, so she knew that she had to host our show. But she didn't want to be the host of the show. She didn't want to speak to large groups of strangers. She was afraid to speak to large groups of strangers. She physically shook when speaking to large groups of strangers. She had nightmares about speaking to large groups of strangers. She didn't think she would be very good at hosting our show.
Then she decided to host our show, and it's no exaggeration to say that she is in many ways the face and the heart of what we do.
I tell a story at every one of our shows, and yet people see me in public and often say, "Hey, you're married to the Speak Up girl."
Yes, I am. You have clearly forgotten about me and my story, but you remember her, and I don't blame you one bit.
The following is a story that I told at a Moth GrandSLAM at the Somerville Theatre in Somerville, MA in March of 2015.
The theme of the night was Once in a Blue Moon. I told a story about a bee sting that changed my life.
I finished in second place.
I'm thrilled to have a story featured on The Moth Radio Hour and Moth podcast this week.
It's a holiday story about my car accident two days before Christmas when I was seventeen years old and the unexpected gift I received as a result.
Watch my most recent TEDx Talk, "Homework for Life," below.
In this talk, I discuss a simple strategy - stumbled upon accidentally - that you can use to slow down time, find greater meaning in your life, and give your future self one of the best gifts imaginable. And if you're a storyteller - on the stage or at the dinner table - there is an immeasurable bonus.
All I ask is for five minutes a day.
On December 29, 2014, I took the stage at The Moth StorySLAM at The Bitter End in Manhattan to tell a story. The theme of the night was Rewards. I told a story about an evening of stargazing with my students that went terrible wrong.
I finished in first place.
Here a recording of the story I told that night.
You can find all of my stories on my YouTube channel.
Dan Kennedy is an author, storyteller, screenwriter, and host of The Moth's podcast and their live shows. I first met Dan in 2011 when I took the stage for the first time and told a story at The Moth.
He was hosting that night. I took the stage, shook his hand, and told my story. I won that slam, and after he called me back to the stage to take a bow, he took a moment to tell me how much he liked my story. He told me that is was funny and honest and a little sad. "A perfect combination."
I still remember the moment like it was yesterday.
Since that day, Dan and I have been in many shows together, both in New York City and elsewhere. It's always an honor to share a stage with him. Though I adore all of The Moth's hosts, I feel a special kinship to Dan. I am saddened when he is not present to hear my story.
I tell my stories first for my wife, Elysha, but I think Dan is a close second,
Dan is also a great follow on Twitter, and yesterday he spilled some serious truth about writing and life that was worth capturing and sharing with you here.
@DanKennedy_NYC There are people who write every now and then. And there are writers who are people every now and then.
@DanKennedy_NYC Most movies about life depend on giant change, chapters ending, chapters beginning. Real life depends on sticking with things.
@DanKennedy_NYC When it comes to work, you're gonna end up doing what you want to do. Period. Spend 10 minutes or 30 years fighting it if you insist.
@DanKennedy_NYC Buy books for yourself and for other people.
If you're worried about the guy being a little earnest or intense, fear not. Earlier that day, he tweeted about eating pie over the sink in the middle of the night.
Funny, honest, and sometimes even a little sad.
Here's what I know:
Humor requires patience. The punch line is almost always the last thing to be said, and yet so many people want to say it first. They can't wait to get to the funny part, even though it's the waiting and the building that will make it funny.
When I describe my living circumstances in my early twenties, I say it like this:
"I lived with a family of Jehovah's Witnesses in a converted pantry off the kitchen with a guy named Rick who spoke in tongues in his sleep and the family's indoor pet goat."
A bad storyteller - or an unfunny person - always wants to get to the goat as soon as possible (because it's the funniest part) rather than building to it. They say the funny part first and then fill in the rest of the details when they no longer serve to increase the humor.
I hear this all the time. Both in regular conversation as well as storytelling onstage.
Considering all this, here is what I suspect:
People who make it a habit of interrupting other people are the least funny people I know. These are people who can't wait to speak. Can't wait to insert their voice into the conversation. Can't wait even a second to interject.
These are people who can't wait on a punchline.
But I'm not sure. It's just a theory.
Thoughts?
Last weekend, I performed 90 minutes of storytelling to a capacity crowd at Kripalu, a yoga and fitness center in the Berkshires. I spent the weekend at Kripalu, teaching a weekend-long storytelling workshop to about two dozen people, but the show on Saturday night was open to the general public.
The room was crowded and hot, but it went well.
My weekend stay at Kripalu included a room, meals, and all of the amenities that the facility has to offer. I actually participated in a sunrise yoga session and spent an afternoon hiking around the lake. Despite the fact that my workshop attendees began to refer to me as a "yogi" and repeatedly assured me that my philosophies about storytelling, productivity, and mindfulness fit perfectly into the Kripalu philosophy, it didn't take me long to realize that I didn't exactly fit into the Kripalu aesthetic.
The first thing I noticed was that I walked at least three times as fast as everyone else. I was charging through the hallways like a bull on fire while everyone around me was walking slowly and contemplatively.
When I looked at the extensive lists of breakfast options, I could not identify a single item on the menu. NOT ONE. Instead, I left the facility and enjoyed an Egg McMuffin and a Diet Coke at a nearby McDonald's.
I definitely swore more than anyone around me, and I am not a person who typically curses with any regularity. However, no one spoke a single swear word in my presence for the entire weekend, but in the course of my performance and my teaching, I swore a lot by comparison. During my performance, I fired off an expletive in the general direction of a couple people in the audience, causing Elysha to shake her head and offer me a disapproving stare.
Silent breakfast was impossible for me. It turns out that I make noise even when I'm not speaking. I sigh loudly. Hum. Laugh to myself. Tap my feet. Pound on my keyboard. Audibly scoff. Constantly.
Also, the concept of silent breakfast struck me as fairly insane.
But the clincher came at the end of my performance on Saturday night. When the lights came up, a long line of people approached to chat. One woman began to ask if the stories I had told were really true but stopped short, noticing the scars on my face and quickly realizing that the story about my car accident (and therefore the rest of the stories) were true. She traced the scar on my chin with her index finger and said, "You lovely man."
This is something that could only be said about me at a place like Kripalu.
Another woman approached and said, "I wasn't sure if I wanted to come for tonight's show. but you walked into the room carrying a Diet Coke, a McDonald's bag, and an aggressive attitude. These are all things we have never seen before at Kripalu, so I knew it was going to be good."
It was odd to be in a place that seemed so right for me and so wrong for me at the same time.
It's true that the teaching I do as it relates to finding stories in our lives, exploring their meaning, and bringing that meaning to bare in a performance aligns almost perfectly with the recent mindfulness movement (though the word "mindfulness" is kind of stupid and the movement tends to lack the kind of specific, highly targeted, easy-to-follow strategies that I teach). Though I didn't initially believe it, it's true that the philosophies espoused at a place like Kripalu align quite well to my own.
But at the same time, it's also true that I am happiest and most relaxed when I am doing something. Moving forward. Making progress. Affecting change. Eating a cheeseburger. Hitting a golf ball. Shoving an opponent under the basket. Tickling my kids. Hitting on my wife.
The quiet, contemplative, farm-to-table, macrobiotic existence is not for me. That level of quiet and thought, absence movement and action, makes me crazy.
At least for now.
On my most recent appearance on Slate's The Gist, I discuss the importance of stakes in storytelling and some of the tricks that I use to build and maintain them throughout the story.
Plus I tell the story of a time when I posed as a charity worker for less-than-charitable reasons and got a lot more than I bargained for.
The first gift that my daughter ever received was a stuffed ear of corn from our friend, Justine. It's been sitting on the corner of her bookshelf for the last six years.
She knows that it was the first gift she ever received - given to her before she was even born - but she's never asked why someone chose corn in lieu of a teddy bear or a baby doll.
There is a reason. A good one. It's also one that Elysha and I have never explained to her, nor do we plan on explaining it anytime soon.
The question is when? When do we tell Clara why a stuffed ear of corn made for the perfect first gift?
Watch this video of my Moth GrandSLAM winning story from earlier this year and you will better understand our predicament. Then offer your own suggestion about when we should tell our daughter this story.
As we were leaving the playground yesterday, a little boy approached my six year-old daughter and asked to be her friend.
I wasn't surprised. In the span of about an hour, Clara had organized the other four girls at the playground - all older than her - into a massive game of 'Neighbors" and had placed one of the girls in charge of her younger brother, Charlie. She was leading Charlie through the maze of tubes and holding his hand as he slid down the slide.
The boy must've seen Clara as some kind of organizational friendship savant.
Clara asked the boy for his name - which I can't remember - and then suggested this:
"You should ask your mommy and daddy, or your mommy and mommy, or your daddy and daddy if you can come over my house sometime."
Then she gave the boy our address, thankfully reversing the two digits of our house number. She asked the boy for his address, but he didn't seem to understand the question.
Then she said (as I feverishly recorded her words into Evernote):
"Do your parents ever go to Speak Up? That's a show that my mommy and daddy own, and they do shows all over the place, so maybe your parents know my mommy or daddy, because they know a lot of people and a lot of people go to their shows. And if they don't go, they should. It's great. Except I've never gone. I always have a babysitter, which is fun, too. "
At this point, the boy - who was about Clara's age - looked shell shocked. Too much information for him to process at one time.
Clara then reached out, hugged the boy, and said, "Maybe I'll see you here sometime. Go play with those girls. I taught them Neighbors."
She waved goodbye, and we walked away, leaving the boy looking a little lost.
"That was a nice boy," I said to Clara.
"Sure," Clara said. "But he didn't really talk much."
Her willingness to share our address with a stranger was mildly disconcerting, but otherwise, I couldn't have been more proud of my little girl. Her acceptance of same sex marriage always warms my heart, and her promotion of Speak Up was impressive.
But mostly, I am astounded by her ability to talk to strangers with such ease. Two nights ago, while eating dinner at a restaurant, she walked across the room to a table where a woman was eating dinner with her sister and her infant son.
From afar, I watched Clara chat with these women for at least three minutes for returning to the table to tell me that the boy's name was Nathan. He was three months old. He likes to eat. He doesn't cry much. This was his first time in a restaurant.
As we were leaving, the mother called me over to her table and told me that talking to Clara was like talking to one of her girlfriends.
Her mother gets the credit for most of this. Whether it's genetic or a learned behavior, she is slowly becoming the spitting image of Elysha.
Thank goodness. For a while, it was looking like she would be more like me.
Last month I competed in a Moth StorySLAM at The Bell House in Brooklyn (and won!).
Mashable was there, shooting a story for their website. The result is a beautiful look at The Moth and all it does for the art of storytelling.
It was also great to see StorySLAM manager and storyteller Robin Wachsberger featured in the video. Robin is a fixture at almost every Moth StorySLAM and GrandSLAM, ensuring that things are running smoothly and the event is trouble-free. Seeing her always puts me at ease, and you couldn't ask for a more supportive person of storytellers.
Audience members may not notice all that Robin does, but storytellers do, so it was nice to see her thrust into the limelight for this video.
I've also heard Robin tell stories on the stage, and she is an equally great storyteller.
While in Brazil, I spoke to audiences as small as 50 and as large as 500. Part of every talk was one more stories from my life, similar to the stories that I tell onstage for The Moth, Speak Up, and similar organizations.
I made it clear to every audience that the stories I tell are true. I explained that although there are storytellers who specialize in folk tales, fables, and other types of fiction, my brand of storytelling is personal and real.
While eating lunch with a group of adults following one of these talks, a person at the table told me that he liked my story a lot.
"I don't know how true the story was, but it was a good one either way."
This is a passive-aggressive means of calling a storyteller a liar, and these kinds of statements never sit well with me. There have been times when I have questioned the veracity of a storyteller, and while I might express my doubts privately to my wife or a close friend, I would never question the storyteller, especially in mixed company.
Even if I saw a reason to question the truthfulness of a storyteller (and I can't think of one), I would do so both privately and directly. Maybe if I was casting a show and unsure about the truthfulness of a story, I might probe a bit. See if there was a hint of falsehood in the storyteller's answers. But again, I would be discreet and direct.
Passive-aggressiveness is for cowards. It's not as vile or gutless as an anonymous criticism, but it's close.
My honesty as a storyteller was questioned once before. After telling a story in New York about cheating on a science fair project in high school, I went to the bar to get a drink. A man standing beside me in line complimented my story and then said, "I'm not sure if it really happened, but the way you told it was great."
I assured the passive-aggressive weasel that my story was true and returned to my seat. I was tempted to mention that I have a newspaper clipping that details my unexpected science fair success, and I have friends from high school who could attest to the veracity of the story, but I thought that doing so would be a waste of time.
But three years later, that stranger's comment still bothers me, as I expect the comment from the man in Brazil will, too.
Why?
I suspect that it has something to do with the seriousness that I apply myself to this art form. Storytelling is important to me. I work exceptionally hard to craft and tell a great story. While I've been known to take the stage on occasion after only a modicum of preparation, most stories take weeks or even months to prepare. Some stories can only be told after decades of reflection. The last thing I want is for someone to belittle my craft and my hard work by implying that I'm a cheat or a liar.
For me, storytelling is an opportunity to share a part of my life with an audience that is ready and willing to listen. It's a chance to speak a truth about my life that I might not normally share. Taking the stage means taking a risk. It's a moment in which I am most vulnerable and exposed.
Accusing me of lying in a moment like that sucks.
It would be easy for me to invent stories about my past in order to win over the crowd and the judges, but oddly enough, I think it would be difficult as well.
Easy because as a fiction writer, I'm sure that I would construct some fantastic bits of fiction for the stage if I really wanted to. I write whole novels based entirely in fiction. A five minute story would probably be a piece of cake.
But where's the fun in that?
But it would also be difficult because I can't imagine connecting emotionally to a fictional story onstage, which in my mind is one of the most critical elements to great storytelling. I would end up as a storyteller who says the words but doesn't feel or experience them as he or she speaks.
That's no way to tell a story.
Either way, I can't stand passive-aggressive douche bags of any kind, and both of these guys fit the bill perfectly.
If you doubt the veracity of a storyteller, keep it to yourself.
Or share your doubts with a friend or loved one privately.
Or question the storyteller privately and directly.
Anything else and you're comparable to the pestilential crud that sticks to the soles of your shoes after stumbling through the men's room at halftime of a Patriots-Ravens football game.
My most recent appearance on Slate's The Gist features my secret for finding great stories in your life, and even if you're not a storyteller, for changing your life for the better forever.
Filmmaker Kevin Smith argues that every time you are speaking to a group of people of any size, you have an obligation to be entertaining.
I could not agree more. Whether it's a staff meeting or professional development or a sales conference, you have a duty to engage and amuse your audience while transmitting the necessary information.
I think this rule can also be applied in other types of communication as well. Cleverly designed 404 pages that delight the reader and amusing road signs are two examples of opportunities to stand above the crowd and entertain your audience while also transferring the necessary information.
Here is another example of a sign that we see all the time, except in this case, it has been brilliantly written to delight its audience:
My dentist told me that I should have two of my wisdom teeth extracted. One of them has a cavity, and it's in a spot that is almost impossible to keep clean.
I asked what the extraction process entailed.
Dentist: We use some local anesthetic and some rocking back and forth, and that's it. Done in an hour.
Me: I have no idea what that means. Could you give me an actual account of the procedure?
Dentist: What do you want to know?
Me: I don't know what I don't know, so I can't tell you what I want to know because I don't know what there is to know. But a step by step description of what will actually happen would be a great start.
She looked a little annoyed.
Me: Look, the entire bottom row of my teeth were knocked out in a car accident when I was 17, and then they were jammed back into place and wired down in the emergency room, which was the worst part of the car accident, and that's saying a lot since I went through the windshield and tore my leg open to the bone. And about five years before that I was stung by a bee and had to be brought back to life via CPR and about 50 shots of epinephrine over the course of a week, so now I have involuntarily associated needles with death, which I know is a little crazy but is how I feel and my therapist - who I don't see anymore - said it's completely understandable. So I'm a little squeamish about my teeth and needles. So I want some detail.
Dentist: This won't be a big deal. People have wisdom teeth extracted all the time.
Me: Yes, but for me, it will only happen once, so it will be a big deal. When someone wants to pull a part of my body out of my mouth, it's a big deal for me, even if it isn't for you
Dentist: I meant to say that we do extractions all the time.
Me: I would hope so, but that doesn't really help me understand the procedure.
Dentist: Maybe I should just refer you to our oral surgeon.
Me. Great. Thank you.
Dentist: But don't look anything up on the Internet about the procedure until you meet him.
Me. Why would you say that? That does not inspire confidence.
I know I can be difficult, and it may seem as if I was being a little belligerent, but in this case, I just wanted some information, which left me thinking this:
Dentists need training telling stories. Had my dentist told me a story that was reflective of what what I could expect when my wisdom teeth were extracted, complete with an arc, a splash of humor, and some clear but not graphic descriptions, I might have been fine.
But glossing over the removal of two of the largest teeth from my mouth deserves more, at least for me. And I suspect most people would appreciate a clear picture of the procedure but are unwilling to press the matter to the degree I did.
So dentists of the world:
I'm available for hire. Let me teach you some storytelling strategies that you can use to make your patients more relaxed and informed. Very few of us enjoy our dentist appointments, and while this may be inevitable, part of our dislike for our visits is the fear related to what may or may not happen while sitting in that chair.
Alleviate some of that. Explain your procedures in engaging ways. Entertain and inform your patients. Tell stories.
Most of the time, your patients can't speak anyway. Instead of asking us how the kids are doing while we have a suction tube and an ice pick in our mouths, entertain and inform.
We have a right to know, and wouldn't it be better if we didn't have to pry the information from you in the same way you want pry my wisdom teeth from my gum line?
I'm often asked why storytelling has become so popular. Why do 500 or more people wrap around the block in hopes of getting inside a bookstore that can only hold 300 people in order to hear ten strangers tell stories.
There are a few reasons, but this photo speaks to one of them:
Storytelling is ephemeral. You have to be there or you have missed it forever.
Storytelling is appointment-viewing in an age when entertainment is available at any time and anywhere. We record television on DVRs so we can watch the shows when we want. We stream movies on our tablets and phones with the touch of a button. We carry access to millions of songs in our pockets at all times.
Nothing is primal or precious anymore because we can see and listen to our favorite forms of media at anytime, anywhere.
Storytelling is a singular event. Every time a storyteller takes the stage to perform, it's an important and not-to-be-missed moment because it will never happen this way again.
Just like watching an outdoor screening of "Jaws" on a big screen while floating with hundreds of other people in inner tubes in a murky pond at night.
These things don't happen everyday.
The Alamo Drafthouse, in honor of the film's 40th anniversary, hosted an outdoor screening of the film alongside a man-made lake at the Texas Ski Ranch, located between Austin and San Antonio.
I missed this singular moment in time. I missed my opportunity to watch this classic film in a way that it has never been watched before.
I have missed it forever.
This is one of the reasons - and probably not even the most important reason - why storytelling continues to gain in popularity. It's a must see event that is lost to you forever if you're not willing to line up around the block an hour or two before the show in hopes of finding space against a wall or between two bookshelves in order to hear the stories told onstage.
I began telling stories for The Moth back in 2011.
It's no exaggeration that my life changed on that July night when I took the stage at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe and told my first story.
The Moth recently aired that first story on the Moth Radio Hour. It's a good story, but four years later, I hear the imperfections when I listen to it. I may have won the StorySLAM that night, but I still had a lot to learn.
I still have a lot to learn.
I recently revised and retold the story for a special Moth event at the Soho Synagogue. was much happier with that performance, though based upon the post I wrote after winning that first slam, I was damn happy that night, too.
This week I was mentioned in a Newsweek feature on The Moth. It's a thrill to be mentioned and quoted in Newsweek, and it's even more thrilling to see Speak Up, our storytelling organization, mentioned as well.
You can find my mention and quote about two-thirds of the way down the piece.
But most thrilling is simply seeing my name so closely attached to The Moth.
Four years ago, I was still dreaming of taking the stage and telling a story for The Moth. I was a guy with a goal who was still too frightened to take that first step.
34 StorySLAMs, 13 GrandSLAMs, and a handful of Mainstage shows later, I am now a Moth storyteller.
It's no exaggeration that my life changed on that July night when I took the stage at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe and told my first story.