The best and the worst come together in Times Square

Did you hear about the massive swarm of bees that descended upon Times Square earlier this week?

From the New York Times:

"Thousands of bees swarmed part of Times Square on Tuesday afternoon, sending tourists and passers-by scrambling before the bees settled on the cart of a very unhappy hot-dog vendor at 43rd Street and Broadway.

The mass of insects was so dense it weighed down sections of the stand’s umbrella. 

The incident lasted all of an hour before the New York Police Department’s own beekeeping team vacuumed up the horde of honeybees and took them safely to a new location." 

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This story struck a particular chord with me.

I'm allergic to bees. They kill me dead if they sting me.

But hot dogs are my second favorite food item in the world, and one of my favorite things overall.

Bees and hot dogs. Friend and foe collide. A bizarre, incomprehensible combination of my favorite and least favorite things. 

It almost feels as if the universe is winking at me. Or threatening me. 

Storyworthy: The audiobook has arrived, narrated, perhaps unfortunately, by me

The audiobook for Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life Through the Power of Storytelling is now available for your downloading or compact disc pleasure, and for the first time, the book is narrated by me.

I'm afraid to listen. 

After spending three days in a recording studio in Grand Haven, Michigan, misreading words, tripping over my own sentences, and finding many words impossible to pronounce, I'm worried that I might sound terrible. 

The director and sound engineer were sitting in the adjacent room, of course, helping me correct my mistakes and trying to make me sound excellent, but still, I'm not a professional narrator, and my verbal limitations quickly became apparent. 

Having grown up in the Boston area with a pronounced Boston accent, it turns out that 25 years later, remnants of that accent still remain and can be especially troublesome when perfect pronunciation is critical. The letter R is still hard for me depending on where it's placed in a word, and particularly when multiple words contain multiple R's fall one after the other. 

And when an R and an L are combined in a word like "ruling" or "rolling," forget it. I can pronounce these words just fine when spoken independently, but attach them to other words, and the pronunciation falls apart.     

Other words that I do not pronounce correctly include "middle," "little," "Hartford," "park," and "sixth." 

And the word "horror?" Almost unpronounceable.  

Despite these struggles, I managed to complete four days of planned recording in just two days, allowing me to come home early and surprise Elysha and the kids. After the plane landed, I made my way to the restaurant where I knew she was having dinner with a friend. Appearing two days early with flowers in my hand at the side of her table is a good way to surprise your wife.

Although I often felt incompetent and foolish in the recording studio, my director and sound engineer thought I did exceptionally well, and since we managed to finish well ahead of schedule, I was starting to believe them.

Then I made the mistake of asking to listen to one of the professional narrators in an adjacent studio. I couldn't see the narrator but only hear her through headphones. She sounded like an elderly British lady, performing alongside about half a dozen other narrators. But when the door opened and the narrator emerged, she turned out to be a 23 year-old woman with a flat, midwestern accent who is capable of sounding like almost anyone from anywhere.

These audiobook narrators are remarkably talented.  

And my time in Michigan was not all spent alone in a soundproof booth.

I went swimming in Lake Michigan on one steamy afternoon. I ate the best salted caramel ice cream of my life. I saw three movies. I explored the area a lot. And I performed three standup sets at two different comedy clubs, including one night when the owner asked me to perform again after my first set.

I had to find ten more minutes of material in an hour, which actually worked well.  

If you plan on listening to the book, I hope you enjoy. And I hope you'll forgive any of my imperfections. I tried like hell. 

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Donald Trump lost last night, and I won.

On July 11 of 2017, I was walking with half a dozen teenage girls across the quad at Miss Porter's School toward the dining hall. They were my camp counselors - Miss Porters' students who were helping me teach about 25 other girls from around the world about writing, speaking,  and storytelling. We were heading to the dining hall in the waning sun of the late afternoon when I looked down at my phone and saw that Donald Trump had blocked me on Twitter. 

I had sent a tweet at Donald Trump earlier that day that read:

Proposal: If you take healthcare away from 23 million Americans, you must also give up your healthcare until those Americans have coverage.

Less than a minute later, Trump tweeted and then blocked me. I was probably near the top of his feed at that moment. My tweet had received hundreds of likes and replies and had already been retweeted 30 times. I also have a verified Twitter account (the blue check mark), indicating that I am a personality of sorts and an actual human being, making my presence weightier on the platform.

I was so angry, "Damn it," I said. I couldn't believe that the President of the United States had stopped me from receiving what he had already said was "official statements:" from the White House. My pipeline to power had been cut off, and I was enraged.  

One of the girls asked what was wrong, and I explained. Then they spontaneously burst into cheers and laughter, dancing around me, grabbing my hands and twisting me like a maypole. "I'm so proud of you," one of them shouted. "This is amazing," another one said. "You poked the beast!"

They turned that moment around for me pretty quickly. 

In the spring of this year, I joined The Knight Foundation's lawsuit against Donald Trump in an attempt to force him to remove his block on my account. I joined 41 Twitter users, including several journalists and writer (who I adore) Bess Kalb, in this attempt after the Knight Foundation had already won their first case on behalf of seven other plaintiffs in May of this year. 

Last night, on the eve before I begin my 20th year of teaching, I was finally unblocked by the President of the United States.

We won. 

I immediately sent this tweet: 

It's not much. I can read Donald Trump's tweets with ease and respond to him directly as I wish. Will he ever see my response?

Maybe. He's seen it before. 

But it's not much. It won't help the families who have been separated at the border or the middle class families who are being fleeced by the Republican tax bill. It won't save the environment that is being plundered and destroyed by Republican deregulation. It won't restore America's standing on the world stage. it won't honor the legacy of John McCain or restore the rights of my LGBTQ friends.

It won't keep white nationalists and Nazis off our streets, and it won't bring Heather Heyer back to life. 

But it's something. I agreed to stand up, make my name known, and stand in defiance to this ignorant, racist, self-dealing Presidency, and for a moment, Donald Trump was forced to capitulate. Stand down. Back off.

It felt good to know that a man who seeks authoritarian power and routinely ignores the rule of law was forced to do something he had previously refused to do. I played an infinitesimally small part in the course of his Presidency. For a moment, I made him do something he didn't want to do. I made him follow the rule of law.  

I annoyed him.

It's not nearly enough. But add it to the marches that Elysha and I attend with our children, our donations to organizations like the ACLU, our support of political candidates who stand against this administration, our phone calls and letters, and most importantly, our votes, and maybe it's something. 

Not enough on our own, but with enough of our fellow Americans standing alongside us, perhaps more than enough.  

It also felt good, and that's important, too. In this age of Trump, it's hard to feel hopeless, helpless, and useless. It's easy to hear about the latest atrocity committed by the President and feel like our country is spiraling into an abyss. It's so easy to just give up.  

Self care is important. Finding ways of doing good and feeling good are essential. This was one of those ways. 

I was a participant in a lawsuit against the President of the United States, and we won. 

I can't imagine a better start to my school year. 

The worst

Nuclear weapons
Unannounced pickles placed on plates without warning or permission
The Trump Presidency
Dress codes
Identity theft
The second and third Matrix films
Dance school teachers who perform in their students' recitals
The end of summer vacation
Incarceration for minor drug offenses
Parents who disown their children for choices of spouse or religion
Semicolons
The gun show loophole
Off-brand Pop Tarts
This sign

Things that should not exist in this world. 

Speak Up Storytelling #15: Roquita Johnson

Episode #15 of Speak Up Storytelling is now available for your listening pleasure.

Elysha Dicks and I talk about finding excellent stories in your everyday life using my strategy "Homework for Life," including moments that storytellers see but non-storytellers might not. 

Then we listen to Roquita Johnson's story about finding her calling, followed by commentary and critique, including:

1. The components of an especially effective beginning to a story

2. Outstanding use of dialogue in stories

3. Variations in tonality

4. "Seeing" your story

5. The best moments to add description to a story

6. Preserving surprise in a story

Then we answer listener questions about becoming emotional while telling a story, the past and present tense, and how to pitch a story to Speak Up.  

Lastly, we each offer a recommendation. 

If you haven't subscribed to the podcast in Apple podcasts (or wherever you receive your podcasts), please do. And if you're not one of the 60 or so people to rate and/or review the podcast in Apple Podcasts (who are the best people ever), we would love it if you did.

Ratings and reviews help listeners find our podcast easier, and it makes us feel better about ourselves and our work. 

Would you be more likely, less likely, or just as likely to marry your spouse today?

Interesting question posited by a friend recently:

Would you be more likely, less likely, or just as likely to marry your spouse if you met him or her for the first time today?

My friend believes that couples who were married when they were young would be less likely to marry their spouses if they met them today, because the person you are in your teens and twenties is oftentimes vastly different than who you are in your thirties and beyond. 

This doesn't mean that these people don't still love their spouse and want to remain married. It just means that they would be slightly less likely to want to marry their spouse if they were going on their first date today because their spouse has changed so much over time. 

I think she might be right.

"I thought I was marrying a reliable tax attorney who wanted three kids and a house on a quiet street. But since then, he's learned to play the drums and discovered a passion for death metal. Thanks to his band's rehearsals in our garage, the street isn't quiet anymore, and we have six children because he also discovered a love for babies, too. He wanted a dozen kids, but we compromised at half that."

You might still love the guy with all your heart, but if you met him today, you might think twice before marrying him. 

It turns out that this is not an easy question to ask your spouse.

"Hey honey, if you met me for the first time today, would you be more likely, less likely, or just as likely to marry me as you were on our wedding day?"

The answer to this question could be disastrous.

Still, I asked Elysha. She gave me the best possible answer. 

"I think I'd be more likely to marry you today. Though I don't know... I really, really wanted to marry you when we got married, too. I don't know."

Honestly the best possible answer. The best of both worlds. Spoken without calculation or consideration. Straight from the heart.

My heart soared. It's a moment I'll never forget. 

For the record, my answer is that I would be more likely to marry Elysha if I met her today. Had you asked me this question on our wedding day, I would've said that I couldn't love a human being more.

But then we had children, and I was able to watch Elysha become a mother for the first time - a brilliant, beautiful mother - and I found a new and even deeper love that I could've never before imagined.  

N-word bingo

It's not hard to avoid using racial epitaphs. Words that offend enormous swaths of humanity for justifiable reasons.

Despite this, people still do.

Sometimes it's because they are racist, and they use the word as a means of denigration. 

Sometimes they are thoughtless and inconsiderate, and they use the word without thinking about what it might mean to another person. These are the people who toss around the N-word because they hear others using it and therefore assume it's okay. 

Sometimes they are arrogant, ignorant pseudo-intellectuals who use the word to push buttons or claim some right that does not require claiming. These are the entitled white people, for example, who are angry that African Americans can use the word with impunity but they cannot, so they aggressively use the word in an effort to claim some linguistic territory because they have never been denied territory before. 

Think Fox News pundit. 

Mostly, though, they're just racists. People who believe that human beings of a certain skin color are lesser than them. Ignorant scumbags. Insecure, hate-mongering evil doers. Really, really, really stupid people. 

Like the President of the United States, for example. 

A new Quinnipiac University poll has found that 49% of people said they believe President Donald Trump to be a racist while 47% believe he is not. More Americans, and HALF OF ALL AMERICANS, think the President is a racist. The only thing more shocking is that 47% of Americans don't think he's a racist.

Apparently these are the people who don't read, listen, or watch the news, because there are only so many times that a human being can defend the Nazis in Charlottesville, retweet white nationalist conspiracy theories, attempt to ban all Muslims from our country, lie about Muslims celebrating on rooftops during 9/11, separate Mexican children from their families on the border, put brown children in cages, refer to Mexican immigrants as rapists and criminals, question the impartiality of Mexican-American judges, question the intelligence of African American politicians, entertainers, and athletes, and run an administration almost entirely bereft of people of color before the racism is undeniable.  

There may also be a tape of Trump using he N-word while on The Apprentice. If that tape ever surfaces (and when it comes to Trump, it seems as if every tape eventually surfaces), this clever, hilarious, and tragically accurate bingo board might be very useful. 

If you could recover a single object from your past, what would it be?

When I was 16 years-old, I went to Pasadena, California with my high school's marching band to perform in the Rose Bowl Parade. At the time, I had just begun dating my high school sweetheart, Laura.

Laura was traveling to Pasadena, too. Though she wasn't actually a member of the marching band, she had somehow finagled her way to California to watch the performance and join us on our various excursions to Disneyland, San Fransisco, and others. 

Our first kiss came in a hot, stinking stairwell in a hotel in Pasadena at about 6:00 AM. I tell a story about it. 

Since we were taking separate flights across the country, Laura made me three mix tapes for the trip. I expected them to be filled with the music she adored, but instead, Laura combined music with spoken word. She told me stories, read poetry, and even sang a little in between songs recorded off the radio.

I probably fell in love with her while listening to those tapes somewhere over the Rockies.  

I don't know what happened to those tapes. It's unbelievable that I lost them, but somewhere along the way, I did.

A bout of homelessness will do that to a person.  

But if I could recover one object from my past that has been lost, it would be those yellow, Memorex cassettes.

Laura passed away a few years ago after a battle with cancer, but before she died, she held me to a promise that we made on the steps behind our high school just before we started dating. We promised that no matter what happened in our relationship, we would always be friends and always take care of each other. When she discovered that she had cancer, she brought me back to those steps and made me promise that when her girls, Ava and Tess, are old enough, I would tell them the stories of Laura, the teenager, and our adventures together.

I will do this when the time is right. but I can't imagine a better gift to those girls than those mix tapes, filled with their mother's words and songs from a time long ago.  

If I could recover any object from my past, it would be those tapes.

Not for me, but for Ava and Tess.  

And for Laura. 

If you could recover a single object from your past, what would it be?

Little things made big

It's been a big summer for my son, Charlie. Lots of new learning and remarkable accomplishments. In addition to reading books for the first time and making enormous progress with his swimming and biking, he had a few interesting milestones as well. 

First, he learned to cross his eyes. 

Next, and perhaps even more impressive, he learned to skip stones on the water. 

But my favorite accomplishment of the summer, and perhaps his favorite, was his recent decision to count to 1,000. He began the journey in the car on the way home from an ice cream adventure, thinking he might count to 366.

"I'm counting to a leap year," he said. But as he closed in on his goal, he set a new one.

"I changed my mind. I'm counting to 1,000!"

Eventually he had to stop to go to sleep, so he noted where he left off on a sheet of paper and then resumed the counting the next morning. 

Yes, it was a little annoying to listen to him constantly count, but the results - the happiness, the pride, the sense of accomplishment - were well worth it. 

Quite the summer for our little guy. 

The exact opposite of a bridezilla

As a wedding DJ for more than 20 years, I've encountered my fair share of bridezillas.

Some of them have been absolute monsters.  

It's always such a shame. On a day that should be celebratory, joyous, and full of romance and love, brides (and the occasionally groom) spend so much of their time and energy obsessing over details that no one will ever remember and most people never cared about in the first place. 

I once watched a bride ask if a small tree could be chopped down so it didn't appear in her photos.  

I once listened to a bride complain about a bridesmaid who got engaged two weeks before her wedding, thus stealing some of the magic of her wedding day. "Guests will be congratulating her at my wedding!" 

I once saw a bride demote her best friend from maid of honor down to bridesmaid status because her best friend was "too thin" to be standing beside her in photos.

She stuck her best friend at the end of the line of bridesmaids, as far away from her as possible.    

The desire for some perverse form of perfection overtakes the desire to have fun at these weddings, and everyone suffers as a result.

This is why I loved this story and video so much. 

Unexpectedly fierce monsoons left many places in the Philippines flooded recently, but that didn't stop one bride from marrying the love of her life.  

Jobel de los Angeles left her family home in Sagrada Familia, lifted up her white dress and waded through ankle-deep water to reach the Santo Rosario Parish Church to marry Jefferson, the father of her two children and her partner of seven years. 

She waded down the aisle at the church, bouquet in hand, making the best of a terrible situation.

I often wonder what that groom was thinking when the bride demanded that the tree be removed at her wedding. Or the groom whose bride demoted her best friend to bridesmaid status because she was too thin. Or the groom who watched his bride cry over her friend's recent engagement.

Were those grooms having second thoughts? Foreseeing a future filled with unnecessary drama and expectation? Realizing that they might have made a terrible decision?

I bet the groom in the Philippines was feeling something entirely different as he watched his bride wade down the aisle. 

Making the ordinary a little more extraordinary should always be celebrated

The knife sharpener at the farmer's market that we visit almost every Sunday morning gave Elysha their card a few weeks ago. Rather than a collection of information on a small bit of card stock, they offered her this.

A band-aid with their name and phone number printed on the wrapper.  

Clever. Right? I always admire people who can turn the ordinary into something delightful. Something ordinary into something a little more extraordinary. 

It's almost as good as the playing card that appeared in the breast pocket of my sports jacket containing the contact information of world renowned magician David Blaine. I met Blaine at The Moth Ball in 2015, and after re-telling my story so he could record it on his phone, he said he wanted to speak to me further about storytelling and "gave" me his card.

It was already in my pocket. The king of spades, with his contact information woven within.

Remarkably, that was the least amazing of the magic that he performed for me after recording my story.  

$126 is not a lot of money

Have you heard?

Kevin Spacey’s latest film Billionaire Boys Club was exiled to video-on-demand in the wake of the sexual abuse allegations against the actor, and its theatrical release last weekend was less than expected:

$126 on Friday and $162 on Saturday. 

While I'm saddened for the hundreds of other people involved - actors, directors, producers, writers, and investors - who had hoped that the film would do better and had no idea about Spacey's alleged crimes when they were making the movie, I'm sure they were anticipating a less-than-stellar opening once they learned about their lead actor's history of sexual assault.    

I'm equally thrilled that someone who once wielded as much power and influence that Spacey once did is being made to pay for his alleged crimes, both financially and criminally, and in this case, in the court of public opinion as well. 

Stories like this give me hope that others in power (and one in particular) will eventually be made to pay for their crimes against those who are weaker, less affluent, and less skilled at obfuscation than them.

My hope is that the days of these invincible power brokers are numbered. 

Speak Up Storytelling #14: Renae Edge

Episode #14 of the Speak Up Storytelling podcast is ready for your listening pleasure.

Elysha and I start off this week's podcast by talking about finding and crafting stories in your everyday life using my strategy "Homework for Life." I talk about how small and seemingly insignificant a storyworthy moment can sometimes be unless you're keeping your eyes open and looking for those moments. 

Next, we listen to Renae Edge's story about an important moment in the front seat of a sedan. Then Elysha and I discuss the strengths of his fantastic story as well as suggestions for improvement, including:

1. The effective use of backstory in a story
2. Outstanding transition strategies to and from the past
3. The power of the present tense
4. The components of an effective beginning
5. Singing in storytelling
6. The potential power of specificity in a story

Finally, we answer a listener questions about flashbacks in storytelling and strategies for successful wedding toasts and offer our recommendations. 

If you haven't subscribed to the podcast in Apple podcasts (or wherever you receive your podcasts), please do. And if you haven't rated and/or reviewed the podcast in Apple Podcasts (who are the best people ever), we would love it if you did.

Ratings and reviews help listeners find our podcast easier, and it makes us feel better about ourselves and our work.

They also make Elysha so happy. 

An anonymous note about a possible murder

I arrived at Kripalu, a yoga center in the Berkshires, on Sunday night with a bag full of my novels, magazine columns, and comic books. I spread them on the table for my students to see, and then I stuffed them back into the bag and tossed the bag into the corner of the room.

It sat in that corner, untouched, for a week.  

On Friday, I grabbed the bag as I was packing up to leave. Tucked into my copy of Storyworthy was a sheet of paper. Written on the paper was this: 

Crazy. Right?

In addition to my ten students, the room had been used by several yoga classes, and on our final evening together, my students performed for a group of friends, family, and folks staying at Kripalu that week. I had also performed for a group of about 70 people earlier that week, telling stories and teaching lessons after each, including a lesson on the importance of telling stories. 

A lot of people on campus knew who I was, what I did, and where I could be found. 

There's no telling who left that note in my book or why.

But it seems as if the note might have been left for me and might apply to the work I do. In addition to our organization being called Speak Up, I spend enormous amounts of time convincing people that they have stories to share. Stories that need to be shared. Stories that the world wants to hear.  

This note would seem to fall along those lines. 

I cannot find a Rosalie Gomez who was murdered on the internet. Maybe this is referencing something that happened pre-internet. Maybe it's fiction. I have no idea who Rosalie Gomez might be or if she's even real. 

But I've often said that odd things happen when you begin telling stories. Strange coincidences. Surprising connections.

Earlier that week, while my friend and teaching assistant, Jeni, were swapping stories, we learned that I had been the DJ at her cousin's wedding 20 years earlier, and she had attended that wedding. She barely remembered the day, but I remembered a lot, including details that she couldn't believe I recalled.

"Just think," I said. "Twenty years ago, we were in the same room, at the same wedding. You were 17 and I was 27. Now we're sitting here today at a yoga center in the Berkshires as friends."

That kind of thing happens to me all the time. Tell a story to 100 or 200 or 500 people, and you will find someone in the audience who somehow connects to that moment for often than you would expect.

The world is a surprisingly small place.

But this note is beyond a simple coincidence or unexpected connection. It's something else. Perhaps a bit of fiction scribbled on a piece of paper and tucked into a book called Storyworthy on a whim.

Maybe something more. 

Sadly, I'll probably never know. 

Every time someone meets Elysha and says, "She's beautiful," this is what I think...

After spending a week teaching storytelling at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health, my ten students performed in a showcase on the final night of the week. Minutes before I was to take the stage and start the show, a woman who looked a lot like Elysha walked into the room.

It turns out that it was Elysha. She had driven up to Stockbridge to surprise me.

I was thrilled. After a week apart, I couldn't take my eyes off her. Couldn't stop kissing her.  

My students had just spent a week hearing a lot about Elysha. As a storyteller, it's inevitable. I tell stories in my workshops that serve as models for my lessons, and so many of those stories include my wife. 

Now my students were meeting the woman who they had only heard about before now. A fictional character of sorts had come to life. Whenever this happens, the response is almost always the same. 

"Elysha is so beautiful." 

But it's always said with a bit of astonishment, which leads me to assume that what they are really saying is this:

"Elysha is so beautiful. How did someone like you - a neckless neckless stump with legs for arms - manage to marry such a beautiful woman?"

I'm pretty sure that this is exactly what they are saying, and it never makes me feel very good. 

Hiring a coach so your child can play Fortnite better is ridiculous.

The latest trend is parents hiring professional coaches for their kids to help them win at the 100-player free-for-all video game Fortnite. Contracting sites like Sensei and Bidvine will outfit kids with professional tips to anywhere from $20 per hour to $50 and higher. 

I heard someone on a podcast defending this practice, explaining that Fortnite is the current social sphere of youth culture, so if you can't play well, your standing, popularity, and respect from peers is diminished.

Obviously I think this is insane. 

Every generation has a Fortnite.

Every generation has a social sphere in which they must compete and survive.

When I was a kid, social status in my town was determined by things like your ability to play basketball and baseball. Your talent on a musical instrument. The car that you drove. Your skill in the arcade. Your ability to punch another human being. Your ability to make people laugh. Your bravery in social situations.     

Teenagers who played basketball well, drove a Camaro, quoted Saturday Night Live skits with perfect comedic timing, and played the guitar were on the top of the food chain. 

But no parent was hiring anyone a private baseball coach. No one was receiving lessons on how to complete level 12 of Pacman or finish Dragon's Lair. We weren't getting tips on how to deliver a punch line or land a punch.    

Most of us were buying our own cars. With our own money. Learning to play musical instruments at school. Figuring out where to hit someone best through trial and error. 

Hard work. Practice. Hours worked. Time spent.  

Hiring professionals so that your child can play an online video game better and therefore be perceived by others as a more tactical, accurate, and lethal pretend soldier is dumb. It's coddling on a new and previously unimagined plane. It's an attempt to bubble-wrap a childhood in an arms race of guaranteed happiness and success. 

It's silly and stupid. Ridiculous.

Can you just imagine:

"Sorry guys, I got to run. My Fortnite coach is meeting me online in an hour. I'm learning how to shoot better so you guys will think I'm cooler and I can be more popular."

I better, safer alternative to lottery tickets

I watched a man purchase $50 in lottery tickets yesterday.

I see this all the time, and it makes me crazy. I've never played the lottery in my life. Never purchased a Powerball ticket or a scratch ticket. Never felt any compulsion to do so.  

This is because I understand the odds involved with playing the lottery.

I also know that a disproportionate number of people who play the lottery are poor, minorities, and often addicts. The lottery preys on the most vulnerable members of society. 

I hate it. 

But I also understand the importance of hope. I know how impossibly hard life can be when all hope is lost and any dreams that you once had are gone forever. Living in my car in 1992, awaiting trial for a crime I did not commit, unable to get work because I had no address or phone, cold and hungry and tired almost every day, I thought I would never have a home again. Never have a real job again. Never make any of my dreams come true.

I was 22 years-old and thought my chances of happiness were gone forever. It was crushing. The loss of hope is a terrible thing. Maybe the worst thing.

So I understand the desire for a little hope, as astronomically improbable as the lottery might provide.  

Still, it's such a waste of money. 

As I watched that man purchase $50 in lottery tickets yesterday, I wanted to take him aside and say this:

"Listen, I don't know why you're spending $50 on lottery tickets, but I have a better idea. Download Robinhood on your phone. It's an app that allows you to purchase stocks commission-free. Then take the $50 you're spending here and purchase a stock instead. Something big and relatively safe. Mastercard or Visa. Microsoft. Home Depot. Apple. Or an index fund. Your money will be relatively safe, but you'll still have the excitement of possibility. Will the stock go up or down? When will I receive a dividend? And you can experience that excitement on a daily basis. That $50 will continue to provide hope and excitement day after day. Hour after hour if you'd like. Even minute by minute. But your initial investment will be relatively safe compared to that lottery ticket, and at the end of the year, you'll have still have something to show for your $50."

I wanted to say this so badly.  

I know that the hope of a 12% annualized return on $50 isn't the same as a $32.8 million dollar payday, but if it's hope or excitement that these people are craving, maybe investing the $50 they are spending weekly on lottery tickets in the American stock market could offer enough hope and excitement to satisfy them and a $2,600 nest egg at the end of the year. 

Or $2,912 with a 12% annualized return.

Mind you, I don't advise people to invest without understanding what they are doing. I studied the market for 5 years before investing a dime, but if the choice is between $50 in lottery tickets or $50 in the stock of a relatively well known company, blindly investing in the company is the better choice every time. 

I suspect that the man purchasing lottery tickets yesterday wouldn't have appreciated my suggestion, and that kills me, too. A simple shift in spending could yield an enormous change in the quality of a person's life over time, and yet for so many, change is so hard. 

It appears that I might be less fallible than the Pope

Good news.

Pope Francis has declared the death penalty wrong in all cases. This is a definitive change in church doctrine. Traditionally, church doctrine accepted the death penalty if it was “the only practicable way” to defend lives, which was a ridiculous loophole exploited by church officials and politicians as a means of justifying the death penalty. 

But Francis said executions were unacceptable in all cases because they are an attack on human dignity.

It's about time. I've opposed the death penalty since I was in high school, which means I was about 25 years ahead of the infallible supreme pontiff of the largest church in the world.

Maybe I should've been named Pope. It would seem that I might be slightly less infallible than the supposed apostolic successor to Saint Peter. 

Just imagine if Elysha Dicks had to refer to me as "Your Holiness" or "Most Holy Father."

Amazing.

The Pope's reason for opposing the death penalty is all fine and good, but the reason for my opposition has always been far simpler and more logical:

Human beings are fallible. We make mistakes. Since 1973, 144 people on death row have been exonerated, which means that it's very likely that the United States has executed innocent people throughout its history. 

In fact. a study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2014 found it very likely that 1 in 25 death row inmates are innocent.

As a person who nearly confessed to a crime he did not commit and came close to being convicted of that crime, I know all too well how insidious the criminal justice system can be when someone believes that you are guilty. 

And I'm white American. Just imagine what might have happened to me had I been a minority or an immigrant.

The death penalty is dangerous. Its very existence endangers the life of every innocent American citizen who might end up in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

Frankly, this is a no-brainer. A slam dunk. An obvious decision, even though it took the Catholic Church about two thousand years to finally agree with me. The death penalty should be abolished immediately, as it has been in almost every European and Latin American country in the world. In fact, 95% of all known executions in 2017 were carried out in only six countries:

China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the United States, Pakistan, and Iraq.

We keep great company. 

Yet 55% of Americans still support the death penalty because they are incapable of imagining that any one of those 144 men and women exonerated while on death row could ever be them or a loved one. 

How many more death row inmates must be exonerated or even executed before we decide that human beings are far too fallible to allow the state to take our lives as a form of punishment?

I'm happy that the Pope finally agrees with me. Everyone else should follow suit. 

Insecure cowards are leading the most powerful nations on the planet.

Disney's latest film Christopher Robin has been banned in China. While no official reason has been given, government sensors have previously blocked images of Winnie the Pooh after bloggers used him to parody Chinese President Xi Jinping.

A particularly widely-shared post, which first popped up in 2013, shows a photo of Xi Jinping and Barack Obama alongside an image of Pooh and his friend Tigger.

It takes a special breed of thin-skinned, humorless coward to be so upset and afraid of being compared to a fictional bear that he must prevent a country of 1.3 billion people from ever seeing a film featuring the bear.

It's also so incredibly stupid. Banning the movie from China only brings attention to Xi Jinping's resemblance to the lovable bear. I had no idea that he looked anything like Winnie the Pooh, nor had the resemblance ever occurred to me, but now I can't not see it.  

So dumb.

People who are unable to laugh at themselves are sad and weak, and if they have accumulated power, they can be very dangerous.

We've witnessed this unfortunate truth in our country, too.

People like the Chinese President and Donald Trump do not understand that strength is not demonstrated through bravado, hyperbole, the strong arming opponents, the censoring of criticism, and an unwillingness to apology. 

All of these things are signs of weakness and insecurity. 

Truly strong people are capable of honesty, authenticity, and vulnerability. They are willing to make fun of themselves and are not afraid to speak about their flaws, foibles, and weaknesses.

They don't ban films, dishonor men and women of greater accomplishment than themselves, denigrate opponents through name-calling, and erupt into angry tweet storms every time someone criticizes them.

People of great strength are able to criticize themselves. Laugh at themselves. Admit fault. Apologize. Ask for forgiveness. 

They might not like the fact that they look like a cuddly Disney bear, but they don't shrink from the comparison. They laugh along with us and move on. 

It's tragic that the leaders of the most power countries in the world do not understand this.  

What the Heck? - Episode 2

As you may know, I've launched a third podcast called "What the Heck?" It's an occasional conversation with my kids, Clara and Charlie.

"What the heck?" is a favorite expression of Charlie. 

I launched this podcast grudgingly. The kids love podcasts and wanted one of their own, so I decided that recording their voices for posterity might make the effort worthwhile. 

Boy was I right. I can't tell you how excited they were to listen to their first two episodes, and I can't tell you how thrilled I am to be capturing conversations with them for the future. 

As a person who has about two or three dozen photos of his childhood in total, creating a meaningful record of my children's childhood has always meant a lot to me. This is one of the ways of making it happen.

Remarkably, we had about 100 listeners for our first episode, so I don't expect this podcast to blow up and become a hit, But the kids were thrilled about the audience, so if you were a listener to episode #1, thank you. 

But if you're interested in hearing Clara and Charlie talk about sports, princesses, and what they want to be when they grow up, you can listen here to episode #2 or subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.