In October of 2015, I won a Moth StorySLAM at The Bitter End with a story about my first date with Elysha. Shortly after the date, she drew this for me.
Last week, I found the image on my hard drive. It captures the day perfectly.
Such memories it brings back. Such wonderful, heady times.
Here's the story if you're interested.
It’s time for the Democrats to wage a two front battle on protecting voting rights:
This strikes me as a no brainer.
I'm also more than willing to run for President in 2020 if they need me, but this might be a tougher sell.
Next month I will be teaching storytelling at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health. This will be my second year teaching at Kripalu and I'm already scheduled to teach there in 2017 as well.
The fact that I teach at Kripalu astounds many. Though my students at Kripalu have assured me that my teaching and beliefs closely align to Kripalu's philosophy and mindset, there are also many way in which I do not seem to fit:
I skip their world class meals and pick up burgers and fries and Egg McMuffins at McDonald's instead.
I was told that I "walk aggressively" and swear more than anyone in Kripalu history.
At silent breakfast, it turns out that even when I don't speak, I still make more noise than anyone else in the room.
Though I take advantage of their sunrise yoga class, I found the whole thing slow, tedious, and devoid of any competitive incentive.
This has been my problem with yoga:
No one wins at the end of a class.
In fact, it's the competitive element of The Moth that probably helped me to initially fall in love with storytelling and eventually turned me into a teacher of the craft. It's always an honor and a thrill to stand on a stage and perform for an audience, but when my performance is assigned a numerical value and there is a chance to win or lose, I tend to enjoy the experience a lot more.
In fact, if given the chance, I think I'd rather compete in a Moth StorySLAM than perform in any other show. Give me a couple hundred New Yorkers crammed into a used bookstore with teams of strangers poised to judge my story over a beautiful, acoustically pristine theater filled with a couple thousand attentive audience members and zero competition.
Crazy. I know. But probably true on most nights.
This is why I was thrilled to discover the sport of competitive juggling. No longer are jugglers permitted to just stand and entertain. Juggling is now a full contact physical sport, complete with strategy, teamwork, and body-on-body physicality.
Competitive juggling is tough. And there are winners and losers after every match.
See for yourself:
I opened the pantry this morning, and this is what I found.
Apparently his bedroom isn't big enough.
There’s been much fear and consternation over the potential loss of the polar bears as a result of the rapid melting of polar ice. Many environmentalists have adopted the polar bear as their symbol of the dangers of global warming.
With this in mind, I think that it might be prudent to revisit the Oslo Agreement, which permits the hunting of this vulnerable species. The treaty allows hunting "by local people using traditional methods," although this has been liberally interpreted by member nations. All nations except Norway allow hunting by the Inuit, and Canada and Denmark allow trophy hunting by tourists.
More than a thousand polar bears per year are killed under the auspices of this treaty.
While I believe that the preservation of longstanding Native American traditions is a good thing, there are certain customs that we may want to put the kibosh on. For example, scalping was a common practice for certain tribes of North American Indians, but we don’t allow this sort of thing to take place today.
If we are really concerned about the possible extinction of polar bears, why not keep the bullets and arrows out of their heads?
Hopefully this will not happen. It's probably a lie or a false innuendo or just plain bluster.
But if Trump actually follows through with his campaign promise to register Muslims, we'll all just register as Muslims.
Right?
One of the problems with being a reluctant atheist is that there is no one to thank for much of my good fortune. I was born a healthy white male in the United States in the late twentieth century. That alone provides me with advantages that billions of people do not enjoy. In the grand scheme of things, these facts alone are the ones that have made the greatest impact in my life, yet it was only blind luck that made it happen.
Had I been born in parts of Africa, the Middle East, South America, Asia, or hundreds of other locales, I would’ve likely faced hardships that I will never know as an American. Disease, hunger, a lack of basic human rights, Third World economic limitations, and millions of other factors could have hindered my success.
Had I been born a woman, I would have spent my life battling against the proverbial glass ceiling, sex discrimination, unfair wages, the threat of violence, perpetual chills regardless of room temperature, and the stupidity of high heels.
Had I been born a minority, I would’ve undoubtedly faced prejudice and racism throughout much of my life.
Had I been born earlier than 1971, I might have faced combat in Vietnam, Korea, or in the European or Pacific theaters during either of the World Wars. I might've suffered through the Great Depression or the Civil War, or been subjected to untold numbers of diseases that have since been eradicated.
I was born at the dawn of the Internet, a member of the last generation of human beings who spent childhood without the Internet but entered adulthood during its emergence. As a result, I enjoyed an offline childhood but an online adulthood.
Perfection in my opinion.
I'm also healthy and intelligent. I don’t require a great deal of sleep. I have have exceptional blood pressure.
Without even mentioning my remarkable wife, my perfect children, or my assortment of amazing friends, I am already ahead of billions of people on this planet, and it was through no real effort of my own. It was simply a geographic, genetic luck of the draw.
Unlike so many of my idiot white male counterparts who were born on third base believing they hit a triple, I acknowledge the home run that I was born into.
I feel incredibly fortunate, but I'm left with no one to thank for some of my greatest blessings. I can feel thankful for my good fortune, but there is no one to thank.
Religion provides some people with the notion that God has placed them in this place, in this time, for a specific purpose. Fate and chance had nothing to do with their birthplace, the color of their skin, or the period in history in which they were born. For the devout, God had a hand in all of these decisions.
At least they have someone to thank.
While I'm envious of the idea that a life is not determined in great part by luck, I also find it inhumane and cruel to believe that an all-powerful deity has blessed a person with such great fortune ahead of billions of other human beings who are doomed to a life of poverty and subsistence living.
What would God say if he was generous enough to place you in America during a time of relative peace and prosperity only to find that you spent 30 hours a week watching television?
If he’s the Old Testament God, watch out for the trapdoor that you’re likely standing on.
I would love to give thanks to someone for being born where I was, when I was, and as I was, but in the end, it was nothing more than dumb luck.
First words spoken by my daughter at 6:14 this morning:
"Daddy, when I have a baby someday, I'm going to make sure that I have plenty of diapers in the house. And you know what? I'm going to buy Pampers. You know why? Pampers are the number one choice of hospitals."
Three thoughts:
I speak to the stumps of long lost trees that I once loved. I tell them how much I miss their leaves and shade and majesty.
Yes, I speak to these stumps aloud, and yes, I use the word "majesty."
Not always, but sometimes.
There are three of these stumps in the world that I am currently speaking to on a regular basis. One is on the golf course where I frequently play. Another can be found on the playground of the school where I work. The third is in a local playground.
Sometimes I sit on the stump if I have a moment to chat.
As I've said before, I'm basically a walking, talking nostalgia machine that suffers from a permanent existential crisis.
Here is the photo of the Republican Senators and members of Congress following the election:
It reminds me of the photo taken by Paul Ryan this summer of Republican interns, but I can't qwhite put my finger on why.
I've been performing onstage for more than five years and producing shows for more than three, and here is something that has become abundantly clear to me:
Humility is a quality to be prized, and it is sadly lacking in many.
As a performer, I oftentimes find myself listening to fellow storytellers lament the ineptitude of the judges at a story slam or the stupidity of producers who refuse to cast them in their shows.
As a producer, I find myself reading emails from storytellers who think it necessary to explain their enormous degree of talent and accomplishment and sometimes even insist on being cast in one of our shows based solely upon that talent.
None of this makes any sense to me. None of it makes me ever want to cast these storytellers in my show, even if they are truly talented and accomplished. I never do.
I am not suggesting that there is a problem with possessing confidence or even assertiveness. But when you lack humility, three things become abundantly clear to me:
1. You will be difficult to work with. Your willingness to accept criticism and collaborate will be seriously compromised by the size of your ego and the certainty of your talent.
2. Your lack of humility demonstrates a fundamental disrespect for your fellow performers. When you complain that the judges were ineffective or wrong, you denigrate the rest of the storytellers competing in a slam and imply that the winner was undeserving. When you argue that the producer of a show should've cast you, you disrespect the storytellers who were chosen instead of you.
There is nothing wrong with thinking that you should have won. There is nothing wrong with confiding with your closest friend that you should've been cast in the show. But announcing your perceived slight to the world demonstrates a fundamental lack of humility that only causes people to distance themselves from you and never want to work with you again.
3. Anyone who needs to compliment themselves repeatedly and publicly - absent of any irony or humor - possesses the thinnest of skins and will invariably be an unpleasant and difficult person to work with.
Here's a rule to teach my fifth graders that would serve many adults in this world (including our President-elect) well:
Compliment others. Allow others to compliment you.
It sounds like common sense, but for many, it is almost impossible.
My agent once told me that she would turn down a project from a writer if she felt that the person would be difficult to work with, even if she knew the project would be profitable. I thought she was a little nuts at the time, but now I understand completely.
Give me an inexperienced, hard working, receptive storyteller willing to accept feedback and looking to improve over any naturally gifted or experienced storyteller who can't stop blustering about his or her talent or what he or she deserves.
Substitute "toilet paper" with "Donald Trump's skin" in this bit by Ellen DeGeneres and you will have a perfect description of the man's inability to accept feedback or criticism of any kind.
The description of no one in particular seems incredibly apropos in this historical moment.
It turns out that I tend to be exceptionally calm and collected when under pressure. I'm not sure why this is the case. Perhaps my previous experience with pressure packed, life or death situations has inoculated me from panic.
While this ability to maintain my composure under pressure can serve as a great asset, it also frequently frustrates and even angers friends and colleagues when my response to a inflammatory or high stakes situation is less than urgent.
Sometimes I know that I can seem aloof, dispassionate, unconcerned, or even uncaring. While that's not usually the case, I understand that I can appear this way.
But this composure has also assisted me tremendously on many occasions. Two in particular.
Back in 2007, a bit of something got caught in my throat while eating a bowl of soup in a restaurant. Struggling to breathe, the paramedics were called. I was rushed to The University of Connecticut Medical Center, where doctors attempted to extract the object from my throat with forceps and a trans-nasal endoscope that was passed through my nose and into my throat.
After hours of repeated attempts without success, doctors decided that surgery was required. My chest would need to be cracked in order to open and remove the object from my trachea before it found its way into my lungs.
About ten feet before we reached the doors to the surgical ward, I demanded that the gurney be stopped. "Wait," I said. "This is crazy. Before you crack my chest, is there anything we haven't tried. Think outside the box."
After a moment, one of the doctors said, "Well, we've never tried to use the endoscope that we sent through your nose directly down the throat."
"Could it work?" I asked.
Fifteen minutes later, I was surrounded by half a dozen excited doctors, including one who was operating a video camera, ready to film the procedure. It would be the first time that a trans-nasal endoscope would be used down a patient's throat, and if successful, this would be a big moment for everyone involved. Two doctors held me down in order to counteract my gag reflex and two more went to work, forcing the endoscope down my throat.
A couple minutes later, a large bay leaf emerged from my throat at the end of the endoscope.
The doctors were excited. They had found a new use for a old tool.
I was excited. My chest was intact, all because I forced everyone in their haste to stop and think.
When the stakes are high, slow things down. Stop the action. Give everyone - including yourself - time to think.
The other time this ability to stop and think while under intense pressure probably saved my chances at a teaching career and kept me out of jail.
That is a story I told onstage earlier this year:
Just watch this.
I'm doing the final segment in Seasons new television show Seasons Up Close. It airs on Sunday mornings locally in Connecticut about six times a year.
Here's the first episode, which airs last week.
For 17 years, I worked alongside Mrs. Gosk, the real life version of the teacher from Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend. Donna retired from teaching last June, and not a day has gone by this year that I haven't walked in the direction of her old classroom, anxious to ask her a question or tell her some new idea.
Then I remember that she's gone - probably playing golf - and a part of me dies all over again.
Donna was old enough to be my mother. In fact, I'm the same age as her middle daughter. Yet throughout my teacher career, I counted Donna as my best friend and closest confidant. The 30 years that separated us in age felt more like 30 minutes.
Donna taught me how to stay out of trouble early in my career, and then she and I got into lots of trouble together later on. Like me, Donna was not a rule follower. Not afraid of a little trouble. She was a nonconformist. A teacher who knew what needed to be done and did it regardless of the current swing of the academic pendulum or latest administrative whim.
Donna taught children to love to read. This was her greatest gift. Her super power. The thing she did that changed the future for so many kids. Changed the world, really.
Then she taught me how to get my kids to love reading.
Donna taught children to be good citizens. She taught them about John and Abigail Adams and quoted both often. She read then The Witch of Blackbird Pond and beseeched her colleagues to do the same. She insisted that students sit up straight and speak in a clear voice. She marched through her classroom with a meter stick, claiming it was her "meter beater" and threatening children who did not behave.
Adult occasionally cringed at these antics, but these were adults who didn't understand children. Students loved Mrs. Gosk. They revered her. They never thought for a minute that she would strike them with her stick. They understood and appreciated the value of theater, bluster, and outrageous humor.
Donna and I taught poetry together for years. We took children on field trips and into the woods for days at a time. We golfed together. Read books together. Laughed together.
We stood together on 9/11. We propped each other up on the morning of Newtown. We held each other when each of us lost parents. Donna stood beside me like a rock when evil people tried to take away my teaching career. We watched so many good friends come and go, leaving to raise babies, take on new challenges, or breathe easy in retirement.
We mourned the loss of these dear friends and marshaled on.
Donna used to call teaching "life on the aircraft carrier." It was a good analogy. A school is like a universe to the people who work within its walls. It possesses its own culture. Its own norms. Its own way of being. In many ways, the brick and stone of the schoolhouse wall insulates its occupants from the rest of the world. Buildings fall and the world changes forever, but on the aircraft carrier, subtraction lessons and science experiments continue like nothing has happened. Colorful books are read to small children in cheery voices. The recess bell rings. Lunches are served. Allegiance is pledged to the flag. As the world outside flails and wails and sometimes falters, the hallways of a school continue to ring with the sound of laughter and learning.
Donna stepped off the aircraft carrier last June, and it hasn't been the same for me ever since. She is one of a growing list of teachers who I have loved who are no longer sailing with me. The list includes my wife and some of my closest, dearest, most respected friends, but the one who I worked with on a constant, daily basis for 17 years was Donna.
Donna was one of the best teachers who I have ever known. This is not to say she was not without her flaws. She was never on time for anything. She spent most of field day in a lawn chair. She could not be bothered to learn new technologies. She has a hard time not laughing when she was being scolded. She had little time for parents. She sometimes misjudged the sharpness of her tongue. She may have smacked a principal once in a angry fit.
But she was one of the finest teachers in the land. She was a teacher who children clamored to have and parents prayed to get. She earned every bit of her retirement, but children have suffered with the loss of Donna from the teaching ranks.
I suffer.
Teachers like Donna are irreplaceable. Their loss is a goddamn tragedy. They move onto a life of ease and leisure and leave us behind a little less whole. A little less prepared for each day. A little bewildered by the idea that someone so good at teaching little children will no longer be teaching anymore.
I miss my friend. I have a picture of her on my desk. She is standing in a field, her fist raised defiantly. I look at it many times during the day. I speak to it. Raise my fist in return. Move on because that is what Donna would tell me to do.
Still, nothing has been the same without her.
I sometimes ponder the fate of my books.
Will anyone read them a hundred years from now?
Will libraries still have them on their shelves?
Will they even exist?
One of my friends recently suggested that my books are merely an attempt to negate my mortality and live forever. This is not true, of course.
Books aren't even close to a suitable replacement for my desire to live forever.
Worse than ceasing to exist or never being read, what if my books end up in a place like this, alongside titles like these:
I overheard a woman telling her friend about a Spotify playlist that her new boyfriend has curated for her. She practically swooned as she rattled through the list of songs. And yes, she used the word "curated."
I rolled my eyes, not because I don't approve of young love or romantic gestures or the power of song. I rolled my eyes because of how easy it is to create a playlist on Spotify. My seven year-old daughter has been making playlists using Spotify for years.
The greatest romantic gestures are the ones that require time, effort, creativity, inspiration, and perseverance.
Spotify playlists require almost none of these.
But the mix tape required all of these things.
Back in the days before the Internet, MP3 players, and streaming services, there was the mix tape: a compilation of music, typically by different artists, recorded onto a cassette tape and imbued with love.
The mix tape was one of the greatest romantic gestures of all time. It required the creator to sit beside the radio and listen, waiting for the perfect song to come on, hoping against hope that the goddamn DJ would not speak through the song's opening bars. Mix tapes in the analog age took hours to create. They demanded that the creator make difficult and instantaneous decisions. Space was at a premium. Song choice was often limited and random. There was no means of editing. No way of eliminating gaffs unless you recorded over the last bit with something new.
The mix tape was difficult to make and impossible to do well and therefore the ultimate romantic gesture.
I received mix tapes from two girls in my day.
A girl named Nicki Blais made me a mix tape to listen to on the ride home after spending a weekend in New Hampshire with her. I heard "Smells Like Teen Spirit" for the first time on that tape and feared that my '80's metal bands were doomed. I also heard Trisha Yearwood's "She's In Love With The Boy" for the first time, a song my kids and I still sing to this day.
My high school sweetheart, Laura, made me three mix tapes to listen to while we flew to California with the marching band in separate planes. 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 wish I still had those mix tapes today. They were that precious to me.
The Spotify playlist is easy and unrememberable. A person could make hundreds of them in no time.
The mix tape was unforgettable.
