Apples are possibly the least relevant part of apple picking
/Sometimes I think that the sole purpose of our annual apple picking adventure is the apple picking photographs that we bring home.
My 1992-1994 culture gap: Two years without television, movies, or music
/If you haven’t heard, Twin Peaks is returning to television. For me, it will be my first chance to watch the show. Though I was alive and well when the show first aired, I didn’t watch it because it fell between the years of 1992-1994.
My lost years. My cultural blind spot.
I’ve had many tough times in my life, but the period from 1992 through 1994 were probably my toughest. I was homeless for a period of about four months. This was followed by 18 months spent living in the home of Jehovah Witnesses, working two full time jobs – 18 hours a day, six days a week – in order to pay for my legal defense in a trial for a crime I did not commit. I was also the victim of an armed robbery during this time, which resulted years of post traumatic stress disorder.
As a result, for more two years, I watched no television, saw almost no movies, and listened to very little new music.
For at least two years, I was completely detached from popular culture.
The television, film, and music that I missed during that time was vast, but certain things are more prominent than others. Some cultural touchstones and ubiquitous references pop up more than others.
Things that I missed during that time are and have almost no knowledge of as a result of this culture gap include:
- Twin Peaks
- Northern Exposure (which I thought was the subtitle to Twin Peaks)
- Wings
- Saved by the Bell
- The Fresh Prince of Bel Air
- The State
- Boy Meets World (though I doubt I would’ve watched this show anyway)
- Whoomp! (There It Is) and Whoot There It Is (and the fact that both songs were released and played on the radio at the same time)
- Reality Bites
- Glengarry Glen Ross
Some things, like NYPD Blue and The X Files debuted in these years but lasted long enough for me to catch up years later in syndication.
And I eventually watched many of the popular films released in those years and listened to the most popular songs, but when you don’t catch these things in their moment of greatest cultural relevance, they often fall a little flat.
I was once a bank teller, waiting on Mark Wahlberg, writing sonnets, and battling my idiot manager.
/Among the many jobs that I have had over the course of my life, I was once a teller at a bank for South Shore Bank in Randolph, Massachusetts, working in the drive-up window whenever possible.
Mark Wahlberg actually banked with us back when he was known as Marky Mark and couldn’t keep his pants up on stage. Over the course of about 18 months, I waited on him several times. Despite his overnight success, Wahlberg and I are the same age, so we always had things to talk about while I processed his transactions.
I chose to work in the drive-up window whenever possible because it was the busiest station in the bank, so it was the best way to avoid boredom.
It was also the most universally despised station in the bank, so my coworkers were happy to let me have it. But I was working two jobs at the time – more than 18 hours a day – so I didn’t have much entertainment in my life. Anything I could do to keep my mind active was a plus.
At one point, the high customer volume of the drive-up created a problem for me. When bank tellers reconcile their drawers at the end of the night, they are allowed to be plus or minus a certain amount of money.
A small amount, of course, but mistakes happen.
Things may be different today with the ubiquity of computers, but back then, we were working on more primitive teller machines, so errors were common.
My drawer was consistently off by more than my coworkers – not by much, but enough to be noticeable – so my manager called me into his office one day to reprimand me and threaten my job.
I pointed out that if I was processing 500 transactions a day and my coworkers were only processing 50 transactions (which was about the ratio at the time), it was only natural that I would make more errors.
He disagreed. He was an idiot.
Even with the high volume of the drive-up, I found a lot of time to write while sitting there, waiting for customers. I would work on short stories, poems, and letters to friends, for which I was also later reprimanded.
Even though I had no customers when I was writing, I was told that I should look ready at any moment to help a customer and should therefore not have my head down, scribbling on paper.
It wasn’t the easiest time in my life. It was also the time in my life when I was sharing a room in the home of a family of Jehovah Witnesses with their pet goat while awaiting trial for a crime I did not commit.
It was also during this time that I was the victim of an armed robbery that would result in years of post traumatic stress disorder.
My idiot manager was annoying, but he was the least of my troubles.
When my wife sent me photos of my son working in the pretend bank at the local library, and specifically in the pretend drive thru, it sent shivers down my spine.
Rightfully so.
The stuff of my wife’s childhood is alive and well in the hands of our children, and I’m so jealous.
/I tease my wife’s parents for their inability to throw anything away. Their basement is filled with artifacts from decades long since gone.
And while it’s true that they are a little obsessive when it comes to saving things, I’m also envious of the results.
My children love to go to their grandparents’ house and play with the questionably safe toys from my wife’s childhood. I can’t imagine how it must feel for my wife to be able to watch her kids play with some of her favorite toys from her youth.
A baby blanket from her childhood recently made its way into our home, and even though it’s a simple, pink blanket, our kids love it. When my daughter isn’t snuggling with it, our son is using it to play peek-a-boo.
The idea that my children are playing with a blanket that my wife once slept under as a child in unfathomable to me.
The only thing I own from my pre-adult life is a stuffed dog resembling Snoopy that I was given on the day I was born. It’s wearing a shirt that I stole from one of my sister’s dolls.
It’s ancient, fragile, and can no longer be played with. It sits atop a dresser in our bedroom alongside a teddy bear that my wife was given as a baby.
The stuffed dog is all I’ve got. The combination of an unexpected divorce, sudden financial ruin, an evil stepfather, the foreclosure of the family home, and a general lack of sentimentality in my parents have left me without treasures from my childhood.
Instead, I watch my children play with my wife’s childhood treasures and try to imagine how that must feel for both her and them.
A Christmas Story, brought to life through animatronics and a lot of love
/On a recent trip to Indiana, I spent some time in Hammond, the hometown of Jean Shepherd, the writer and narrator of A Christmas Story. The person most responsible for planning my trip is a big fan of the movie.
Perhaps the biggest fan ever. This woman likes the movie a lot.
She took me to the Lake Country Visitor’s Center in Hammond, where there is an elaborate, animatronic display of the most famous scenes from the film, complete with a real life Santa Claus and a pile of fake snow for the kids.
The scenes are exceptionally well done. Incredibly detailed. Slightly surreal. A tiny bit creepy.
Jean Shepherd died in 1999 at the age of 78. He led an exceptionally successful life in radio, print, television, and on the stage.
Still, I’m saddened that he didn’t live long enough to see this annual homage to his movie.
Death is the worst.
As a writer and performer, I can only hope that one of my stories becomes beloved enough to live on in some small way like the people of Indiana have done for Shepherd’s film.
Either that or a Matthew Dicks action figure. That would be fine, too.
Canned, jellied cranberry sauce will not go the way of the dodo (or the Twinkie) if I have anything to say about it.
/For the lovers of canned, jellied cranberry sauce, here’s some terrifying news:
It would appear that this Thanksgiving Day staple is on the decline. When I went to the grocery store yesterday to pick up several cans of the stuff, I found it relegated to a two foot section of bottom shelf space in the baking aisle.
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And half of those three feet were occupied by the ugly stepchild of jellied cranberry sauce:
Whole berry cranberry sauce in a can.
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In addition, there was only one brand from which to choose, and only 12 cans in all. And before you propose that the limited quantity had something to do with Thanksgiving Day approaching, the entire area of shelf space afforded to canned, jellied cranberry sauce was filled.
There was only room enough for about 12 cans.
Whatever evil at work here must be stopped.
I have since learned that canned, jellied cranberry sauce is much more popular than I ever imagined. I apparently travel in foodie circles who view almost anything from a can as dog food. The typical cranberry sauce that I see is a homemade variety made from organically grown and personally harvested cranberries, mixed in with nuts, seeds, and other ingredients that have no business standing alongside cranberries.
Outside my food snob circles, though, canned cranberry sauce sales are not declining.
I only pray that canned, jellied cranberry sauce is not like the Twinkie:
Universally beloved but rarely purchased.
A world without canned, jellied cranberry sauce would be too much to bear.
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18 reasons for me to be thankful on Thanksgiving 2014
/1. My children, who are my greatest blessing in life. I find joy in everything that they do. Many people warned me about how difficult parenting would be. They were wrong.
2. My wife, the ideal mother and best wife. I married the pretty girl and the smart girl, and I still can’t quite believe it.
3. In these not-so-easy economic times, I am thankful to still find myself with the means of providing for my family.
I’m in my sixteenth year of teaching and love it today as much as I did when I began so long ago.
My DJ company remains successful after 19 years in business.
My writing career continues to prosper. My fourth novel will publish in November of 2015. My fifth is nearly complete, and I’ve also completed a memoir about a season of golf and an essay collection based upon my Moth stories. I also have a on-the-side novel that I am pecking away at that I like a lot, and a couple other writing projects, including a screenplay and two musicals.
I’m also fortunate enough to be paid for tutoring gigs, speaking gigs. and a variety of other side jobs. Finding work is not been a problem for me, and I know how fortunate I am for this.
4. I am thankful for The Moth, the storytelling organization that allows me to take a stage and tell stories. Since I began telling stories in 2011, I’ve competed in 26 StorySLAMs, 8 GrandSLAMs and two Mainstage shows. My stories have appeared on The Moth’s Radio Hour and their weekly podcast, and I’ve been fortunate enough to win 15 StorySLAM competitions so far.
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This success has opened doors to storytelling opportunities with organizations like The Story Collider, Literary Death Match, The Liar Show, TED, The Mouth and more. The Moth made me a storyteller.
5. I’m grateful to the supportive and enthusiastic audiences who have made Speak Up possible. I first proposed Speak Up about four years ago in an effort to avoid trying my hand at The Moth, and when we finally launched it in 2013, I thought that we might get 30-40 people per show.
We have since sold out every show and now have partnerships with outside venues and schools to bring Speak Up to them. None of this would be possible if not for our audience, who fills our theater and welcomes our storytellers with rapt attention and enormous support.
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6. I am thankful for my friends, a collection of honest, direct, intelligent, successful people who miraculously accept me for who I am and stand by me in times of trouble. Many are like family to me.
7. I am thankful for the Patriots, who are playing well and giving me reason to cheer on Sundays.
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8. I am thankful for my students, both past and present, for making every day an adventure. It has been such an honor to get to know them like I do.
9. I am thankful for canned, jellied cranberry sauce. We should eat much more of this throughout the year.
10. I am thankful for Bluetooth headphones and the limitless supply of podcasts and music that pour forth from them on a daily basis.
11. I am thankful for pickup basketball and the occasional collisions in flag football. I’d be thankful for tackle football if I could find someone to play with me.
12. I am thankful for Kaleigh, a dog who can admittedly annoy us to no end but is the only other living being willing to climb out of bed at 4:00 AM with me and head downstairs to work. Almost every sentence that I compose is written with Kaleigh underfoot.
13. I’m thankful for Owen, our twenty pound bulimic house cat who wakes us in the middle of the night and bites us from time to time but accepts all of our children’s poking and prodding and full-body hugs with patience and love.
14. I’m thankful for our many babysitters, and especially Allison, who take such amazing care of our children when we are gallivanting about.
15. I’m thankful for my literary agent, my film agent, my editor, the booksellers of the world and all the other bookish and entertainment professionals who make my sentences sound gooder and help my stories find their way into readers’ hands.
16. I’m thankful for golf. Oh so thankful for golf.
17. I’m thankful for my family. A father who I am finally beginning to know. A brother who is back in my life after many years apart. A sister who should be writing more. Aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews and cousins who my children are getting to know. And my wife’s family, who have taken me in and made me feel like a part of their family.
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18. I am grateful for possibility.
Perhaps I will always be a slightly-less-than-midlist author who publishes a novel every year or two, and if that is the case, I will be a happy man.
I am doing what I love.
I have often said that I would like to someday write for a living and teach for pleasure, and while I am certainly not ready or able to give up my teaching salary, I am closer to this dream than I ever thought imaginable.
Really, really far away, too, but still closer than I ever thought possible.
But with every book comes the possibility for greater success. A larger readership. An opportunity for more prolific career. The dream of a best seller.
In short, possibility.
In addition, all three of my books have been optioned for film or television. This does not mean that anything will ever happen with any of them, but once again, it represents possibility.
Then there is a memoir, a book of essays, a rock opera, a tween musical, a screenplay, my speaking and storytelling career, and more.
My life is filled with many unlikely ways to make my fortune. Retire young. Travel the world. Give my family everything they want.
None of this will probably never happen, and that is okay. I love my job and my students, and I feel incredibly lucky about the life I lead.
But I feel blessed with the ability to genuinely hope for so much more when so many cannot.
The MRI boutique: My next great business idea. Who wants to be my first investor?
/New business idea:
A shop where you can get an MRI scan at any time.
One of the classic examples:
A spectator is hit in the head with a golf ball at a PGA event, and during his examination by paramedics, a lump in his throat is found which turns out to be thyroid cancer. The man has no idea that he even had a lump in his throat, and as a result, it is likely that the cancer would have spread before he even knew that there was something wrong.
This really happened.
As a person who fears death (and you should to), the idea that I could have something growing in me that will ultimately kill me with no means of detecting it unless I’m hot by a bus and stricken with pneumonia bothers me a great deal.
How many lives could be saved with early detection?
Enter the MRI boutique.
For a fee, you can receive a full body scan and analysis of the film at any time. Enjoy the peace of mind of a weekly, a monthly, or a biannual scan of your body, without having to be struck by a golf ball or needing to see a doctor for any other reason.
You don’t even need to tell your doctor that you’re getting the scan. No prescription required. Scan yourself as often as you’d like. No questions asked.
This may seem excessive and unlikely to detect problems in the vast majority of customers, but when it comes to your life, why not be excessively cautious? You’ve only got one.
Why not take care of it by any means possible?
The MRI boutique. My next great business idea.
Who wants to invest?
Cooler than his father ever was or will be
/Part of me thinks, “That’s my boy. You go, kid.”
The other part of me thinks, “What a jerk. Who the hell does he think he is?”
The 8 lowest forms of human communication (2014 update)
/In 2012, I proposed the four lowest forms of human communication.
Today I update that list with four new items. If you’d like to suggest an addition to the list, I’m all ears.
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2. The absence of a thank you note complaint
3. The “I’m angry at you and will write an email rather than speaking to you in person or calling you” email
4. The anonymous critique or attack, in any form
5. The read-aloud PowerPoint slide
6. Any meeting agenda item that could’ve been conveyed via email or memo
7. The disingenuous, disinterested “How are you?”
8. The personal tragedy one-upmanship
Coincidence? I don’t think so.
/The Patriots beat the Lions, 34-9 on Sunday, which marked fourteenth anniversary of quarterback Tom Brady’s debut in the NFL.
On that same day in 2000, the Lions beat Tom Brady and the Patriots.
Final score: 34-9.
Coincidence? No way.
Glitch in the matrix. Bug in the program. Virus in the machine.
A sign that we are all living in one enormous computer simulation.
Interstellar should be a TV show
/For the record, someone should adapt Interstellar for television. There was about 49 hours of content squeezed into a little less than three hours.
It would be an amazing TV show. Perfect for HBO. A&E. Netflix.
Also, I’m more than willing to be the one to adapt it, in the event that you’re a show runner looking for a writer.
High school students wrote and produced raps based upon one of my books
/Students at Gavit High School in Hammond, Indiana read Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend in English class, and a group of them wrote and produced raps about the book.
I’ve never been a huge fan of of rap, but these two songs are definitely an exception:
Bread bags on your feet was apparently a thing. Not just my family’s desperate attempt to keep our feet dry in the snow.
/Staring at the photographs from the enormous snowfall in Buffalo, I was reminded of the Blizzard of ‘78 in Massachusetts. I was only seven years-old at the time, but I remember it well.
My hometown of Blackstone and the surrounding towns of Lincoln, Smithfield, Woonsocket, and North Smithfield were the hardest hit, reporting more than 40 inches of snow.
I spent days outside with my father, shoveling trenches from the front door to the car, and from the car to the street. Truthfully, I was probably more of a nuisance than anything else, but I remember feeling like a man for the first time in my life.
We were ill equipped for the winter, as was the case throughout most of my childhood. We wore old socks on our hands in lieu of mittens. Hand-me-down winter coats.
I didn’t own a pair of snow pants until by friends bought me a pair a few years ago for my birthday so I could stay warm at Patriots games.
I didn’t own a scarf until a girlfriend bought one for me when I was in my twenties.
We didn’t own any winter boots, a fact that my evil stepfather would later use in an attempt to drive a wedge between me and my father. Instead, we wore three or four pairs of socks and then wrapped our feet in bread bags before putting on our sneakers.
I thought this was something that only my family did, but when I mentioned the bread bags in a tweet last week, three people responded, saying they did the same thing as kids.
Bread bags used as waterproofing.
Apparently it was a thing.
Budo loves Max
/Readers are truly the best people on the Earth.
I went to the movies and met an amazing young woman and a loud-mouthed racist.
/I went to a late showing of Interstellar last night. I’m in Indiana and alone, so I figured, “Why not?”
It was a good movie
The cashier who handed me a Diet Coke and a box of Junior Mints was a young, black woman. As she poured the soda, I asked her if she had seen the movie yet, hoping for an informed opinion.
“No, not yet,” she said.
“But you get to see the movies for free,” I said. “Right?”
“Yeah,” she said. “But I have four jobs, and I’m a fulltime student at Purdue. So when I come here, I do my job, and get back to my homework or one of my other jobs. No time for movies. Or anything else other than work and school. At least not yet.”
I told her that if I lived in the area and owned a business, I would hire her on the spot. As someone who worked 50-60 hours a week while double majoring at Trinity College and Saint Joseph’s University, I know the amount of effort, tenacity, and determination required to put yourself through college all too well.
I wished her luck with her studies and headed to my movie with a bounce in my step. I felt like I had spoken to someone special. Someone who would do great things with her life.
I sat down in front and to the left of two middle aged, white couples. The trailers for upcoming movies came on. We watched the trailer for Selma, a Martin Luther King, Jr. docudrama about the civil right’s marches in Alabama.
One of the men to my left scoffed and said, “Another damn nigger movie.”
“Jim!” the woman (presumably his wife) sitting beside him whisper-yelled. “Don’t talk like that in public.”
I wanted to tell Jim and his wife that if I owned a business where they worked, I would fire them immediately.
Frankly, I wanted to drag Jim out of the theater by the scruff of his red neck and introduce him to the cashier who was working four jobs and attending school fulltime. Tell him that she was already more than he would ever be.
I didn’t say anything. I wanted to so badly, but the voice of my wife spoke to me, reminding me that my repeated confrontations with strangers will one day land me in a lot of trouble.
If I’m going to end up in trouble, at least let it be in my home state.
But my respect and admiration for the cashier whose name I wish I knew grew tenfold. While she and I both fought our way through college by working like dogs, I didn’t also have to deal with the Jims of the world.
Racism was not an obstacle for me.
The five years that I spent in college, two at Manchester Community College and three at Trinity College and Saint Joseph’s University, were hard enough without racists and bigots blocking my path and clouding my world.
I can’t begin to imagine how hard that must be on someone like that cashier.
I can only hope that when that young woman graduates from college and is ready to shed her four low paying jobs for one good one, there are fewer Jims in the world than there are today.
And for the Jims who are still standing when that day comes, I hope that they at least listen to their racist wives and keep their hateful remarks at home where they belong.
Farmer Charlie
/I grew up on a horse farm until my parents got divorced when I was about seven years-old. I often wonder what might have happened had they stayed together.
Maybe I would’ve grown up looking something like this.
One of my fictional characters has found his way into math class
/A tweet from a student:
I wrote Budo in my math project. <3
As an author, a teacher, and a lover of the subversive, this made my day.
How much would you pay for one more hour in your day. Hint: There is a correct answer, and most Americans got it wrong.
/A new survey says that more than half (58%) of Americans are willing to pay cash in exchange for one more hour in their day, and that the average amount that these people are willing to pay for that extra hour is $2,725.
From the TIME piece:
The fact that people are willing to shell out that kind of cash is, well, sad, but also indicative of a larger problem that is unfortunately hard to buy your way out of: An out-of-whack work-life balance.
Am I the only sane person left in this world?
Only 58% of people would pay money to add an hour to their day? What the hell are the other 42% thinking? Do they have any idea how valuable an extra hour a day could be?
Sorry. Stupid question. Clearly they do not.
Time is the most precious commodity on the planet. More valuable than oil or diamonds or fame or even cold, hard cash. Time is a tragically finite resource for which there will never be any replacement.
Time is the great equalizer. We all have 24 hours in a day. No more. No less. If you can get an extra hour on everyone else, you would be an idiot not to pay for it.
If given the opportunity to purchase anything in this world, you should always purchase time first, and then time again and again and again.
Yet 42% of Americans would apparently not spend even a single dollar for an extra hour a day.
Clearly traumatic brain injury is a more serious problem than I ever imagined.
Next, let’s look at the amount that the average American would be willing to spend for an extra hour a day: $2725.
Have these people also been hit in the head by large objects?
An extra hour a day for the rest of you life isn’t worth the price of a motorcycle? Season tickets to your favorite baseball team? One-fifth of the average kitchen remodel in America?
I would pay as much as I possibly could for an extra hour a day. I would take out a second mortgage on my home for an extra hour in my day. I would forfeit a year’s salary for an extra hour every day. I would have another child with my wife just so I could trade my third-born child for an extra hour in my day.
An extra hour a day amounts to an extra 15 days a year. That’s an additional year of life every 25 years.
An additional year of life is worth less than $2,700?
People are insane. Stupid and insane.
Lastly, let’s look at the rant of TIME writer Melissa Locker again:
The fact that people are willing to shell out that kind of cash is, well, sad, but also indicative of a larger problem that is unfortunately hard to buy your way out of: An out-of-whack work-life balance.
Sad? Has Locker been struck in the head by a ballpein hammer, too? Does she not understand the value of an extra hour a day for the rest of your life?
Sorry. Stupid question again. Clearly she does not.
The desire for an extra hour in the day is not sad. It’s not indicative of an out-of-whack work-life balance. Desiring an extra hour every day (and being willing to pay for it) is common sense. It’s logic. It’s an understanding of time on an economic level. A clear-eyed view on how short and precious life is and how valuable one hour a day, seven hours a week, and 365 additional hours every year would be.
Sad to be willing to pay for an extra hour every day? I don’t think so.
What’s truly sad it how people don’t realize how fragile and tenuous our lives really are. How fleeting our days on this planet will prove to be. How much they will they will have wished for those extra hours when facing the specter of death.
An extra hour every day would be the greatest opportunity imaginable. And the greatest bargain of all time at $2,7o0.