My daughter's editorial proclivities bring me such joy for one special reason.

One of the unexpected joys of parenthood is discovering that your child does something that you have done in the past, without any prompting on your part. 

Recently, I've noticed that my daughter, Clara, changes the names of the people in the problems that her teacher assigns to her own name. 

I did the exact same thing when I was a kid.

My wife, Elysha, had seen what appeared to be squiggle marks over the names, but because she had not engaged in this practice as a child, she didn't understand what it meant. 

I knew immediately.  And I love it so much. 

This might be the worst deal in baseball history. Or at least the most ridiculous.

On the eve of game three of the World Series (in which the Royals lead the Mets two games to none, I wanted to highlight this incredible bit of information that was included in ESPN's 20 Worst Dead Money Deals of All Time. 

Though there are deals that cost teams more, this deal seems especially stupid, especially given the last sentence of the paragraph.  

“19. Bobby Bonilla, New York Mets, $29.8 million

The deal actually wasn’t that bad for Mets, but because of how far the payments were extended, Bonilla has become the poster boy for deferred or dead money. Simply put, the Mets could have just paid Bonilla the $5.9 million they owed him when they let him go in 2000. Instead, they worked out a payment plan that will net Bonilla $29.8 million from 2011 to 2035. The Mets’ owners thought they would come out ahead over time because of what they could make by investing the money instead, but it turns out they had been counting on what turned out to be fictional returns from Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme. As a result, Bonilla is getting $1.19 million from the Mets every July 1 until 2035. This year he made more than many Mets players, including pitchers Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom and Noah Syndergaard.”

— http://espn.go.com/moresports/story/_/id/13994794/in-honor-charlie-weis-notre-dame-20-worst-dead-money-deals-sports

Hindsight is rarely 20/20, so stop saying otherwise.

We need to stop saying that hindsight is 20/20.

If this were true:

• My friend from high school wouldn't have married a seemingly endless string of deadbeats.
• The United States military wouldn't continue to invade nations in the Middle East hoping to affect meaningful and productive change.
• Poker players wouldn't continue to play ace-queen like it was ace-king.
• Organizations wouldn't continue to hire ineffective leaders.
• Financial institutions wouldn't continue to make risky bets.  
• Students wouldn't continue to forget to put their homework in the backpacks.

Human beings are highly adept at repeating their mistakes. Through bad habits, unrecognized flaws, denial, and self deception, many people are incapable of looking back on their lives with anything approximating 20/20 vision.  

Even historians disagree when examining the historical record. They debate the wisdom of political decisions, campaign strategies, and military maneuvers. 

At best, hindsight is occasionally 20/20.

That's not as catchy as the conventional "Hindsight is 20/20," but at least it's true.   

We encourage children to seek truth and knowledge in this world except when it comes to this.

A friend of mine posted this to Twitter a while back.

If any religion was real, we'd set kids loose in search of truth rather than trying to indoctrinate them into any "faith”.

As a reluctant atheist who wants to believe in a much more benevolent God than the one portrayed in the Bible, I wish this statement sounded like bunk, but unfortunately, he makes a damn fine point.

I actually came close to adhering to this model. As a child, I was set free in order to seek my own truth. I came home after my first CCD class declaring that I was done with Catholicism. "I'm not going back," I told my mother.

In response, Mom allowed me to choose my religion. She told me that I had to adopt a new faith, but it could be whatever one I liked best.

I chose Protestant Congregationalism. I liked the children's sermon, the lack of finery and ritual, and the Wonder bread and grape juice.

Unfortunately, it didn't stick. 

Look what you can do with a full head of hair.

Oh, how I long for the days when I had enough hair to have this level of hat head.

Not really, but still, it's cute. Right?

Verbal sparring: "A bad day" is not an excuse to behave badly.

You don't get to treat people poorly because you're having "a bad day."

A bad day may cause you to be more emotional or temperamental than normal, but it doesn't mean that you're allowed to be rude, disrespectful, deceitful, unprofessional, mean, or abusive.

That is not a thing.

In fact, one of the best ways to judge a person's character is to observe their behavior when they are having a bad day. Anyone can pretend to be a decent person when the sun is shining and the bird are signing. The true test of character is to continue to act like a decent human being when nothing seems to be going right.  

In short, "I'm sorry. I'm having a bad day," is not an excuse for acting like a jackass. If someone attempts to excuse their behavior for this reason, push back on this nonsense. 

Push back hard. 

3 petty bits of nonsense that should never bother you (unless you are equally petty)

1. Friends or relatives who name their baby the same name or a similar name as your child

You don't own the name.
You didn't invent the name.
The name is not a reflection of you (even if you'd like to think otherwise).
Most important, the kid will never give a damn if someone else shares his or her name.

Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, so be flattered that someone liked the name that you chose for your child so much that they decided to do the same. 

2. Failure to receive a thank you note

We don't send gifts in order to receive thank you notes. Sending a gift with the expectation of receiving something in return is called a trade, and in this case, a gift in exchange for a thank you note is a tragically inequitable trade. We give gifts because we love a person or at least like a person. We should be giving gifts free of obligation or expectation. To do otherwise is petty and sad and cloying.   

3. The cost of a gift given to you

If you are spending even half a second contemplating the price of a gift received or (even worse) comparing the cost of a gift given to you by a friend to the cost of the gift you gave to that friend, it is time to start volunteering in an orphanage or a leper colony in order to find some meaning in your life. Gift giving is not a dollar-for-dollar exchange of goods but a heartfelt offering unrelated to expense.

Music is not the most important part of my job as a wedding DJ.

Last night I wrapped up my 19th year as a wedding DJ.

When we first launched the business back in 1997, I thought that music was going to be the most important part of my job. Learning to mix songs together with great precision and playing just the right song at just the right moment seemed paramount to me.

And yes, it's true. The primary reason I am hired as a wedding DJ is to play music, but every DJ can play the music. Some are better at mixing music and matching beats, but every experienced, professional DJ can play the music with an acceptable level of skill. 

I have learned that the secret behind our success hasn't been the music but all of the other things that we routinely do during a wedding. 

Last night, for example:

1. I met with the justice of the peace, who was officiating a wedding ceremony for the first time. She was nervous and unsure about certain parts of the ceremony. I've married more than two dozen people over the past ten years (and have watched hundred of other wedding ceremonies), so I was able to iron out some of the wrinkles in her plan and put her more at ease. 
2. I met with the best men, who was delivering a toast later that night, and revised his plan a bit, thus ensuring that his toast would be well received and the bride would not feel insulted.
3. I bustled the bride's dress when she lost a button on the back during the reception.  
4. I tied the ring bearer's tie after his mother gave up in frustration. 
5. I fixed the jammed popcorn maker, thus endearing myself to the dozen or so children at the wedding.  
6. During the cake cut, I extricated a small but exceptionally persistent boy from the scene - and therefore from the photographs - by handing him a microphone and encouraging him to turn it on and play with it. By the time he realized that the microphone was never going to work, the cake cut was complete and the problem had been averted.
7. I brought a drink to a father who had been sitting in the same chair for more than two hours with his sleeping toddler flower girl draped over his shoulders. The look of gratitude on that man's face was priceless.
8. I brought the father of the bride his jacket and suggested that he wear it just prior to his dance with his daughter. He thanked me profusely later in the night. 
9. I extricated the bride and groom from a lengthy conversation with a "friend of the family" - which often means a friend of the mother and father - by recognizing their desire to escape and providing them with an excuse to do so. The looks of gratitude on their faces were even better.

And yes, I played the music, too. It went well. I actually closed out the evening with a series of six well chosen songs that packed the dance floor, including Sweet Caroline, Jessie's Girl, and Don't Stop Believin'.

I would've normally played popular songs from the previous year at the end of the wedding, but I recognized early on that this was a sing-along crowd, meaning they were the kind of people who liked to sing on the dance floor as much as they liked to dance. As a result, I ditched the latest Katy Perry and Meghan Trainor songs in favor of more lyrically ubiquitous tunes. It worked perfectly.  

Music matters. It's just the easy part. 

Despite our best efforts to retire, we have already booked two weddings for 2016 and more are likely on the way. We no longer advertise or even maintain a real website, but we're the preferred vendor at two of our favorite wedding venues, so we continue to book weddings via these vendor lists. Otherwise, brides and grooms need to know us and be referred to us by a former client or friend in order to book us.

It's not the 40-60 weddings a year that we once did. Instead, it's half a dozen Friday or Saturday nights spent with my best friend doing something that we have become quite good at over the course of two decades. 

And mostly because of the little things that we do to make the wedding day a little better for everyone involved.  

My daughter betrayed me. I'll say it doesn't hurt, but truthfully, it hurts a lot.

My daughter - who is in first grade - told her friends at school that I was a DJ.

Her friends, most sensibly, were impressed. They made the motion that DJ's make when scratching records and asked, "Does he do wiki-wiki?" 

"What'd you say?" I asked.

"I told them that you weren't that cool." Then she looked me in the eye and said, "You're not that cool, Daddy."

What the hell does she know? She's in freakin' first grade.

For the record, I can certainly scratch as her friends described, but I do so digitally and not often. I'm a wedding DJ. It's more about management of the wedding, establishing fast and productive relationships with people, and coordination of services.

Much less about my slick mixes and cool jams.

Is this real?

I really, really hope so.

Little girl makes little boy's dream come true.

It's nice to have a big sister who is willing to build you a jet pack that you can wear around the house. 

The Moth: Sex and Frozen Corn

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. 

Management: Please stop signing your signs. It looks ridiculous and serves no useful purpose.

This sign was posted beside a plastic lion at Safari Golf, an excellent mini golf course near my home. 

The message itself is fine. Sadly, it's probably necessary to remind brain damaged teenagers not to sit on the pretend animals.

But here's the problem: 

What causes business owners to think that they need to sign their signage with phrases like The Management? To what purpose does this serve? Was it worth the additional expense (because it absolutely made the sign more expensive)?

Was management concerned that customers wouldn't take the sign seriously without an indication of where the message originated?

Did they worry that customers might think the sign had been placed there by someone other than management? A prankster, perhaps? Or maybe some strange offshoot of PETA that protects artificial animals?

Do they believe that the mention of management confers additional authority to the sign and therefore increases the chances of adherence.?

If any of this were true, then Stop and Yield signs would be signed by the federal government. Speed limit signs would feature the signatures of the local cops. Placards on airplanes would be signed by the pilot.  

Not every message needs to be signed. I barely sign my emails anymore. I agree to terms and service all the time simply by checking a button. 

We definitely don't need our signage to be signed. It doesn't make a sign more effective. It doesn't make it look more professional. It just makes the person who purchased the sign seem a little silly.   

13 Principles of Teaching

During my current book tour, I have been asked repeatedly about my teaching philosophy - probably as a result of a story that I tell about a high school English teacher. After 17 years of teaching, I could write a book about my philosophy (and perhaps someday I will), but for now, here is a list of my most strongly held beliefs. 

1. If you haven't given your students an authentic reason to learn, don't even bother teaching the lesson.
2. The most effective tool for assessing student progress is absolute honesty.
3. When it comes to discipline, you must only say things that you are willing to do.
4. The first step to planning every lesson is to determine how it will be fun for students.
5. Teachers must be reading and writing on a regular basis in order to be effective teachers of reading and writing. 
6. The student's voice should be heard far more often than the teacher's voice. 
7. Teachers must think of parents as full and equal partners in the education of the child.
8. If your students are not laughing at least once every hour in your classroom, you have failed them.
9. The most important lessons taught by teachers often have little or nothing to do with academics.
10. The best administrators understand that teachers are more knowledgeable about instruction than they could ever be.
11. Time is more valuable in the classroom than anywhere else in the world. Waste not a second. 
12. It is almost impossible to set expectations too high for students.
13. The single greatest assessment of a teacher's effectiveness is their students' desire to come to school every day. 

A man who is proving that nothing is as complicated as people think or want it to be.

A phrase that I say often and believe strongly is this:

"Nothing is as complicated as people think it is or want it to be." 

That second part of that statement is the one that people don't always realize but is tragically true. There are people in this world - hordes of them - who revel in complexity. Processes. Systems. Norms. Checklists. PowerPoints. Agendas. Forms. 

Complexity is like a blanket that they wrap themselves within in order to feel safe and accomplished. Creativity, inspiration, and genuine problem solving are replaced by the physical evidence and meaningless detritus of marginal and oftentimes meaningless progress.   

Here is a man who is proving that nothing is as complicated as people think it is or want it to me. One man in the comfort of his home is accomplishing more than enormous government agencies and helping humanity in the process.  

5 new rules of etiquette in the digital world

Nick Bilton of The New York Times wrote a piece examining the shifting norms of digital etiquette. Among the issues he addresses are: 

• Thank you notes
• Voice mail messages
• Email subject lines
• Greetings and closings in email messages
• Asking for directions

For the record, my position on some of these changing social norms is thus:

1. A thank you note sent via email is perfectly acceptable and often preferable. While I routinely send hand-written thank you notes, I acknowledge that they are probably a waste of time, energy and resources. Much more often, I send a thank you message through email.

I also embrace the digital thank you note because I know how angry they make the socially entrenched person who believes that hand written thank you notes curry favor, adhere to implacable social norms, and/or increase their social standing through a traditional, well-written thank you note.

They don't. But making a self-righteous person angrily self-righteous is incredibly amusing.  

The truth is that I can say more via a digital thank you note than through a hand written note, and it's content - not contrivance - that is king in this regard. 

2. Voicemail messages should only be left if your fingers have fallen off and you therefore cannot send a text message or email. 

3. Email subject lines should be written such that I know exactly what the email is going to say minus the details.

Also, people who write highly effective email subject lines deserve reward and acclaim. There should be Academy Awards and Nobel Prizes handed out to these amazing people.     

4. Greetings and closings in emails are optional and oftentimes best avoided.

Furthermore, If the email that you are writing is part of a string of emails between you and another person, greetings and closing must be left out after the initial email.  

5. You may only ask for directions if you are in a place with spotty and unreliable cellular service or your phone has been eaten by a bear.

How to graduate with an Associate's, Bachelor's and Master's degrees without ever taking the SAT or completing a college application (or paying tuition!)

The New York Times writes about how some colleges and universities have stopped requiring SAT scores when applying to their schools.

“For all the gripes some people have with the SAT and ACT as gauges of aptitude, the tests are certainly standardizing forces in one regard: taking them has become a shared moment of anxiety — a rite of passage, in its way — for students wishing to go to a United States college or university.

Yet some students defy this rule. The list of colleges and universities dropping the admissions requirement of standardized test scores continues to extend each year, and with it, a growing number of prospective applicants are treating the testing process as an optional exercise.”

— http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/01/getting-in-without-the-sat/

I have never taken the SAT.

In fact, I have never completed a college application or written a college essay, despite the fact that I have an Associate's degree in liberal arts from Manchester Community College, a Bachelor's degree in English from Trinity College, a teaching license from St. Joseph's University, and a Master's degree in educational technology from American Intercontinental University.

Three degrees and a teaching license, and yet I have never taken a standardized test and never completed a college essay.   

You could do this, too, if you followed the same path I did. 

1. Attend a community college. 

For me, it took me five years to finally make it to college following high school. You don't need to wait five years, but for me, I had no choice. Poverty, a lack of parental support, homelessness, post traumatic stress disorder following a violent robbery, and an arrest and trial for a crime I did not commit prevented me from attending college any earlier.

I suggest you skip all that and just go to college.

Community college does not require an SAT score and does not require students to complete formal applications like four year institutions. 

2. Do exceedingly well in community college.

For me, this meant an 3.92 GPA. I was also Treasurer of the Student Senate and President of the National Honor Society. I was also a Truman Scholarship finalist, a USA Today Academic All American, and the Connecticut debate champion for two consecutive years.

This is not an impossible task. I also worked more than 40 hours a week managing a McDonald's restaurant while attending community college. If I could work full time and still do well, I am convinced that most students could do the same if they truly applied themselves and had a modicum of parental support. 

3. Accept an invitation to transfer to a four year institution.

Upon graduating from Manchester Community College, I received scholarship offers on the strength of my community college performance from several Connecticut schools, including Trinity, Wesleyan, and Yale. I accepted the invitation and scholarship from Trinity because the school had a program designed for nontraditional students like myself and was close enough to home and work to make travel convenient. I would still be working full-time while attending Trinity (and would soon add another 20 hours a week in the Student Writing Center as a paid tutor), so proximity to home and work was important. 

If I didn't have to work in order to support myself, Yale would've been my first choice, but it was not meant to be. I still have the letter from Yale inviting me to attend and offering me a scholarship, but that was as close to the fabled university as I would ever get until I told a story at Yale last year for The Moth as part of a conference on storytelling and began working with other departments on communications and storytelling.     

4. Don't complete an application. Don't write college essays.

It turns out that if a college invites you to transfer to their institution, they don't require you to apply. I filled out a few forms in the Registrar's Office, but it was about 15 minutes of paperwork and a small fee. All but one of my classes from Manchester Community College transferred to Trinity, making me a junior when I arrived. It would take me three years to complete my Bachelor's degree at Trinity, but this was only because I also completed a teaching degree at St. Joseph's University in addition to a degree in English.   

5. Graduate.

It should also be noted that my teaching license - which amounted to a second major - came thanks to a consortium of colleges in the Hartford area. Students from Trinity, St. Joseph's, and the University of Hartford were permitted to take classes at each other's schools. Most students never took a class via the consortium, and those that did took one or two classes at most, only when the class was not offered at their school or did not fit their schedule. 

I took advantage of the relationship between the schools and completed a full major's worth of educational classes at St. Joseph's in order to graduate with both a degree in English and a teaching license. As a result, I did not need to complete an application for St. Joseph's University, since the grades for those classes appeared on my Trinity transcripts.

My Master's degree was completed at an online university (though several credits came from Trinity College and Central Connecticut State University), and the online university did not require SAT scores or a formal application.

Just a large tuition payment.

It should also be noted that I attended Manchester Community College for free based upon my financial need, and thanks to the scholarship offered by Trinity, I paid almost nothing to attend that school (and therefore St. Joseph's University as well).

So... want a path to college that eliminates the SAT, college applications, college essays, and tuition?  

There you have it.

It wasn't easy, and I acknowledge that it might not work for everyone, but if you don't have to work 40-60 hours a week supporting yourself as you make your way through college (while also launching a DJ company in that time), it might not be too bad.   

First they dance. Then they attack. Kind of viciously.

The worst thing about parenting just got a whole lot better.

My daughter, Clara, can now buckle herself into her car seat, which is barely a car seat anymore. It's simply a platform that raises her body to a safe level in the backseat. No more fighting with anchors or straps. It simply sits atop the backseat.  

Yesterday, when I picked her up after dance class, I climbed into my seat behind the wheel as she walked around the car, opened the door, climbed in, closed the door, and buckled herself. 

Parenting has officially become easier by at least two degrees of magnitude. 

As you probably know, I am highly averse to the constant complaining from parents about parenting, but when specifically asked what is the worst thing about parenting, my answer is always the same:

Car seats. They are truly the worst.

If Steve Jobs were still alive today, I would write to him, requesting that he address the astoundingly terrible design of car seats. 

At last my daughter is free, and with her new found freedom, so am I.  

One down. One to go.

An observation about the movie Stormpiercer that will blow your mind. Maybe.

It's the Quentin Tarantino version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. 

Right?