Matthew Dicks

I will marry you.

From a New York Times piece entitled The Officiant Among Us:

FOR generations, getting married meant solemnly standing before an authority figure charged with upholding the rules of civil society or religious traditions.

But when Amity Kitchen wed Matthew Saucedo in January, a gregarious family friend, Chris Coughlin, officiated. Mr. Coughlin’s credentials for performing the ceremony? He clicked his mouse at a site offering ordination as a Universal Life Church minister, joining the ranks of Web-blessed clergy who are becoming an increasingly popular choice to preside over weddings.

“Neither Matt nor I are very religious,” Ms. Kitchen said. “The thought of just randomly picking someone to perform this meaningful ceremony, that just didn’t make sense.”

I became an ordained minister of the Universal Life Church thinking that someday there might be a client of my DJ company also in need of a wedding officiant, and I might be able to fill this role for them as well.  To be honest, I thought the chances of me being hired as a minster were slim, but since becoming ordained in 2002, I have presided over a dozen wedding ceremonies, including the ceremonies of two close friends and three baby naming ceremonies.

One family actually considers me their family minster.  

And when Elysha and I were married in 2006, a friend also ordained by The Universal Life Church married us.

So I fully support the shift from traditionally ordained religious folk to less formal but more personal officiants, but I also advise using caution when choosing a friend or relative to preside over your wedding ceremony. After providing the music for more than one hundred ceremonies over the past decade, I have seen some less than stellar performances.     

When choosing your officiant, I believe that three important qualities should be considered:

1. The volume of the officiant’s voice:

As a DJ, I have seen far too many ceremonies marred by a minister or justice of the peace who cannot be heard by the guests.

Sure, the officiant could use a microphone, but then you suffer the disparity of volume between the officiant and the bride and groom and anyone else speaking or reading.

You could also provide a microphone for everyone speaking at the ceremony, bride and groom included, but this adds a level of complexity that almost guarantees a problem. Either you are placing a lavaliere microphone on the bride’s dress (never a good idea), shoving a microphone in her face as she speaks (even worse), or she is holding a microphone during her ceremony. All bad options. 

There are plenty of people who can officiate a wedding. Why choose a wizened old man or a grandmotherly old lady?  Instead, choose someone like me who can speak in a voice that can be heard loud and clear.

2. The ability of the officiate to speak extemporaneously:

Too often I have seen brides and a grooms choose a friend or relative to officiate a wedding, only to see the officiant bury his or her head in the  the book, never to be seen again. You want an officiant who can speak to an audience with a level of comfort that allows for frequent eye contact, an occasional smile and a relaxed disposition.

As much as you might love Cousin Henry, if he can’t get his head out of the book, it won’t matter if he is officiating your wedding since no one will ever see him.

3. Experience:

Choose an officiant with a modicum of wedding experience, even if that experience is as a guest at many weddings. I have seen people officiate ceremonies who have attended so few wedding in their lifetimes that the basic structure and flow of a ceremony is a mystery to them. Not only does this often make for a stilted, uncertain performance, but it does not allow the officiant to act quickly with good judgment when something goes wrong, as it often does.

It’s one of the most important days of your life. Don’t trust it to a complete amateur. 

Guessing game gone awry

I play a game when standing in line. I listen to the people behind me as they speak and try to envision what they look like based upon their voice. Once I have a clear picture in my head of the person behind me, I turn around and compare my prediction with reality.

It’s actually a game I thought everyone played, but when I told my wife about it recently, she said that she had never played the game but thought it sounded fun.

Over the years, I’ve gotten quite good at this game. While actual physical features are often impossible to discern, the age, size, race and even style of dress can often be predicted with reasonable accuracy by simply listening to a person’s voice.

Then there are the moments like yesterday, when I guess the size, age, race and even style of dress precisely, but I get the sex wrong.

This happens exceedingly rarely, but when it does, I feel rotten about it for the rest of the day.

My very first library book: Desperately seeking the title

When I was a child, there were very few books in our home, and almost no children’s books whatsoever, so when I was finally able to ride my bike to the public library and receive my first library card when I was ten, it was an important day for me.

I remember that first visit to the library like it was yesterday. My hometown library was little more than a single, poorly lit room in the lower level of the town hall, and while it contained more books than I had ever seen, it only consisted of about half a dozen aisles of books.

Today, the library occupies the building that was once my middle school. It is enormous, modern, multileveled and bright. I did a reading there a few years ago when my first book was published, and while it is vastly superior to the library that I had growing up, I still love the thought of that small, dimly lit room that opened the world of literature to me.

I still remember the first book that I checked out of the library, but I cannot remember the title, and for years, I have been trying to find it.  It was a pre-dystopian science fiction story in which the tallest buildings in the world begin to liquefy, starting with the Sears Tower in Chicago, the tallest building at the time. The very tip of the building first begins to liquefy, and as the height of Sears Tower comes even with the second tallest building in the world, that building begins to liquefy as well.

Eventually all the buildings of the word begin to liquefy at exactly the same rate, throwing the planet into terror and chaos.

Ultimately, it is discovered that this is the work of an alien race that feels obliged to ensure that mankind does not advance technologically beyond a point that is considered safe. By keeping building no taller than six stories, the aliens believe that the technological advancement of the human race will be curtailed. Ultimately, every building of the world is liquefied to this point.

Thirty years have passed since I read that book. While I’m sure that it is out of print and nearly impossible to find, I would at least like to know what the title of that first library book was.

If you happen to know the title, could you let me know?

And if you know a librarian or someone who might know, would you mind inquiring for me?

I would be forever grateful.

Bun Head’s lesson to a bad boy/future teacher.

I recently told a story onstage as part of a joint venture between The Story Collider and the New York Academy of Sciences.

It’s a story about my high school biology teacher, Mrs. Murphy, and her John Wayne style of classroom management.

This was the story I told on the night when my brother returned from the dead.

That story has been released in podcast form and can be listened to or downloaded here.

It can also be downloaded for free from the iTunes store by searching for the Science and the City podcast.

The evolving sadness of my mother’s death

St. Patrick’s Day would have been my mother’s 62nd birthday. She passed away in 2007.

Losing a mother is never easy, and losing one so early in life is especially hard. I have found that the loss of a parent never gets easier regardless of how much time passes, but I have also discovered that the ways in which the loss impact me changes over time.

When Mom died, I was consumed with my own personal grief. I did not have a mother anymore, and in some ways, I felt more alone in this world than I had ever felt before. The person who brought me into this world and raised me was no more, and it felt as if I had lost a piece of myself in the process.

It’s a feeling that never goes away, but as time passes, new emotions get layered atop this original sadness, complicated things and adding weight to the loss.

First came the realization that the loss of my mother also meant the loss of my past. The person with the most intimate knowledge of my childhood was gone. The untold stories, forgotten memories and the most complete knowledge of my personal history and the history of our family was gone forever. The computer that was my mother’s brain was no longer operating, and all of the precious data that it possessed could never be recovered.

When my wife gave birth to our daughter, this sense of loss became even more profound. As my daughter rolled over for the first time, started sucking her thumb and took her first steps, I wondered about my own infancy and toddlerhood.

Did I also reject the pacifier in favor of my thumb at an early age?

What kind of sleeper was I as an infant?

Was I as enamored with other babies as my daughter is?

Where did I take my first steps?

What was my favorite toy?

These are things I never thought to ask before I had a child of my own, and now I will never know the answers to these questions.

This realization led me to begin writing to my child everyday, and ever since we learned that Elysha was pregnant, I have not missed a day. I was and remain determined to preserve the memories of my daughter’s childhood forever.

The birth of my daughter also brought about a new sense of loss: One for my daughter. As I watch Clara play with my wife’s parents, I am constantly aware of the time that she never had with my mother. For Clara, my mother will always be one of those people who died before she was born. Mom will be little more than an intangible assortment of stories that Clara will learn but never truly  know.  My mother would have loved Clara with all of her heart, but that love is something my daughter will never have the chance to experience.

Recently, an even deep sense of loss has consumed me. It is the keen and persistent awareness of all that my mother has missed out on since her death. While my personal sense of loss remains, this newfound sadness over all that my mother will never see or hear or touch has become almost overwhelming. It towers over my personal grief, casting an ever-growing shadow in my life.  

My mother never met my daughter. She did not have the opportunity to sit nervously in a hospital waiting room, anxiously awaiting the news of the delivery. My mother-in-law says that the moment I emerged in that hospital corridor and announced that it was a girl was one of the most unforgettable moments of her life. My mother never had the chance to experience that joy. She has missed out on all the joy that Clara has brought us over the last three years, and soon, she will miss out on our newest bundle of joy as well. 

Nor did my mother ever have the chance to read any of my novels. She never knew that her son would one day become a published author. In just five short years, she has missed out on so much, and every day that list grows longer. There is so much more to come that my mother will never know.

They say that death is hardest on the living, but I do not agree. The living remain behind. The living possess the promise of future happiness. They have the opportunity to learn more of the story.

The living get to see how things turn out. 

No, death is hardest on the dead.

Not a day goes by when I am not saddened over the loss of my mother, but this sadness now pales in comparison to the loss that my mother experienced on the day that she died. The memories of the last five years pile atop her grave, forever lost to her, and this awareness breaks my heart more than I could have ever imagined.

The death of my mother was a sad and terrible moment in my life, and that sadness will remain with me forever, but my mother’s loss is endless and tragic.

It’s immense. It’s heartbreaking.

Put yourself out there

About a year ago, I suggested on this blog that I might make an excellent professional best man and offered my services to anyone interested.

Last week I received my first inquiry from someone interested in hiring me in this capacity.

__________________________

Three years ago I decided to become a life coach after listening to a woman with a great deal of training but very little life experience describe how she was graduating from a life coaching training program at a local college and starting her business. Listening to her describe her qualifications, I decided that I was  more qualified than she.      

Today I have two clients, and this morning, a third inquired about my services.

__________________________ 

Fifteen years ago, my best friend called and asked if I wanted to become a wedding DJ. We had no experience in the music or wedding industries, nor had I ever considered this line of work, but he had been unhappy with the DJ at his wedding and thought we could do better. I explained that I had a paper to finish for my English class, but sure, I’d give it a shot.

As we prepare for our seventeenth wedding season, Bengi and I have entertained at nearly 400 weddings throughout New England, and I have enough wedding memories to fill three books. The DJ business eventually led me to become an ordained minister in order to marry clients, and to date, I have married a total of twelve couples and officiated three baby naming ceremonies.

One of my closest friends and fellow Patriots season ticket holder is also a former DJ client.

__________________________

Ever since I began listening to their weekly podcast, I had wanted to tell a story for The Moth, a storytelling organization based in New York that features true stories told live in a competitive format. For years, I considered starting my own version of The Moth here in Connecticut rather than facing my fear of a New York City audience. Eventually I realized that I was being stupid and drove to New York one night to compete in one of The Moth’s weekly StorySlam competitions.

And I won. I competed in a subsequent GrandSlam championship, where I placed third. I have competed in two more StorySlams and attended two other StorySlams as a member of the audience since then.

Last week I won again.

And just like that I have become a member of The Moth community. I have developed friendships with fellow storytellers that have led to other opportunities to tell stories to live audiences, and I have even become a recognizable figure to Moth audiences.

All I ever wanted to do was take the stage, tell a story and walk away feeling like I had accomplished something. Instead, I feel like a small part of something much bigger and more meaningful.  In less than a year, I have become a part of their storytelling community and met some remarkable people in the process.

__________________________

Why am I writing about these things?

Because I almost didn’t do any of them.

When my daughter is old enough to understand, I will try my best to impart to her the value of putting yourself out there and trying as many things as possible in life, regardless of how difficult or frightening or absurd they may be.  Too many people, myself included, fail to take risks in life and blaze their own trails. I have learned that I find my greatest joy and sense of accomplishment in trying something new, and the more outlandish, frightening or absurd that thing may be, the better. 

Not everything that I propose has worked out. My desire to become a double date companion and grave site visitor, for example, has not worked out yet. But I have not given up hope.

After my most recent Moth victory, a friend in the publishing industry suggested that I consider teaching classes on storytelling, for would-be storytellers as well as corporations who need to be able to communicate more effectively. A couple other people in the business world agreed with her suggestion, insisting that there would be a market for this kind of service, and so I am considering giving this a shot.

Do I expect much to come of it? Probably not. I was forced to turn down my first professional best man client because he lives in the UK, and I’m not sure when and if another client will come along, but just knowing that one person was interested in my services is enough for me to push this career path a little more.

So maybe I will make millions becoming a storytelling consultant for corporations around the world who need to communicate clear, meaningful and  memorable messages to employees and customers.

More likely, I will end up teaching a few people about effective storytelling for more familiar venues like author appearances and The Moth.

Actually, most likely nothing will come of it.

But I’m putting myself out there, as I have done so often in the past, because when these things work out, it can be a thrilling ride.

Our romantic evening with the engineer

Yesterday, I detailed our unfortunate experience on Saturday night in our NYC hotel room.

After many queries regarding the end result of our evening with the engineer, I thought I’d briefly update you.

The hotel handled the situation well. The woman with whom we spoke would have been more than happy to refund the full amount of our stay, but we booked the room through a third party website, making that impossible. Instead, she removed the parking, Internet and room service charges from our bill, which totaled $100. 

She also gave us her card and offered to upgrade our room and “take care of us in every possible way” the next time we stayed with them, which we are likely to do. 

We still have the option of pursuing a full refund through the third party website but will probably not. We feel that the hotel did as much as it possibly could, and while the situation was unfortunate and disappointing (and bizarre), it was not caused by any neglect on the hotel’s part.

We’re still disappointed with the results of our evening (this was supposed to be Elysha’s birthday present), but it just gives us an excuse to return to the city sooner than originally planned for another weekend of fun.

I won another Moth StorySlam, and this time my wife deserves all of the credit.

On Wednesday night I won The Moth’s StorySlam at The Bell House in Brooklyn. The theme of the night was Theft, and I told a story about stealing shoes when I was nineteen years old.

I’ll order a video recording of my performance and eventually post it and all of my previous Moth performances on a YouTube channel for you to see.

In July of last year, I competed in and won my first Moth StorySlam, and I was ecstatic. Beyond excited. It was one of those moment you never forget. My feet didn’t touch the ground for days.

Last night marked the third time I have competed in a StorySlam, and the excitement over winning was at least equal to my first victory, if not greater. I couldn’t be more thrilled. Nothing will bother me for days. 

Sometime this summer, at a date still to be determined, I will have the honor of competing in another Moth GrandSlam championship.

I can’t wait.  

And I learned an important lesson from my performance on Wednesday night:

My wife always knows best.

Unfortunately, I had about five stories that I could have told that would have matched the the theme of Theft perfectly, and that didn’t even include the three stories in which I was the victim. I had stories of petty theft, grand larceny, embezzlement, theft for the sake of a prank and more. I have a theft story that actually includes an arrest and prosecution, complete with trial and acquittal. 

But right form the start, Elysha told me to tell the Kid Shoes story. I considered using that story briefly but then dismissed it, thinking it lacked the gravitas I desired. Instead, I decided to tell a story about a time when I was forced to misrepresent myself as a charitable worker in order to acquire the proceeds needed to get home.

I’m being deliberately vague because I still may use this story someday.

But the problem with the story is that it was too long. When I first wrote and spoke it, it was ten minutes long, twice as long as allowed at a StorySlam. In the week I spent preparing the story, I began cutting out unnecessary material, eventually getting it down to the five minute limit. 

That was the story I was going to tell when I awoke on Wednesday morning.

But as I began running through the story in my mind during lunch on Wednesday, something felt wrong. Too many of the pieces of the story were now missing, and though the audience wouldn’t know that the story has been edited and condensed, I knew, and it felt as if I had stripped the story of its heart.

My wife had read the story earlier in the week, and her reaction wasn’t sitting well with me, either. She liked the story, but the enthusiasm that she usually has for my work was not there, and I knew it. 

So about eight hours before the StorySlam, I decided to forgo a week of preparation and switch to the Kids Shoes story, as she had originally suggested. During my lunch hour, I wrote the story as quickly as possible and then began running through it in my mind, editing and revising on the fly. I told the story aloud just twice before the StorySlam: once in the car for my friend, Shep, who accompanied me to the show, and once in a McDonald’s in Brooklyn so that I could time the story and ensure that I was under the five minute limit.

And it worked. Though the story was not nearly as prepared as the first one, the great thing about The Moth is that you’re always telling a true story, so it’s not as if you can forget the details. The story may not come out as eloquently as you’d hope, but it’s not as if you will get lost along the way.

It was a great honor to win on Wednesday night, as I ended up competing against some of my favorite Moth storytellers, men and women who are considerably more experienced and skilled than me. I squeaked out a win by a tenth of a point, but there were two or three other stories from that night equally deserving of victory. 

I owe my win to my wife, who always seems to know best, and who I try to listen to whenever I can.

I’ll just listen a little harder and a little sooner next time.

Near-death understanding

At the risk of sounding condescending, I’m not sure to what degree anyone can live every day as if it’s their last unless they have actually faced death firsthand.

Having survived two near-death experiences and a robbery at gunpoint that included the firing of an empty gun into my head, I truly believe that I come as close as possible to living every day as if it’s my last. Literally not a single hour goes by that I do not think about my mortality and strategize ways of extending my life while making as much of an impact on the world as possible during my short time here.

One of my life coach clients knows a near-death survivor, and he once told me that I have a great deal in common with this person. “You both talk and act so much alike,” he said. “You both live the same way. You’re always on.” He went on to say that he wished that he could have a little bit of whatever we have.

This made a great deal of sense to me.

I know that many people would like to live their lives as if today will be their last, and I know that some even try to do so. And to a degree, I believe that many people accomplish this goal.

But unless you have actually experienced the prospect of death firsthand, I don’t think you can ever truly understand what someone like me feels on a constant, ongoing, unrelenting basis.

This weekend the StoryCorp podcast featured Grant Coursey, a boy who faced death while battling cancer, and the way he spoke about his near-death experience rang so true to me.

“Life is so good. If you’ve been close to death, you understand life more. If this had never happened to me, I wouldn’t understand how much life means.”

Even though he is only eight years old, he gets it.

I would never wish armed robberies, near-fatal car accidents or anaphylactic shock on anyone (and some of the after-effects of these experiences are admittedly less than pleasant). I’m not even sure if I would wish the extreme and omnipresent awareness of one’s own mortality on someone.

Thinking about death hundreds of times a day can be taxing.

But I do wish that I could convey the understanding that my experiences have provided me to the people I love most. 

I like to think that most of them are wise enough to understand already and to think otherwise is shortsighted and condescending, but I just don’t believe that anyone possessing that degree of understanding without life teaching you the lesson firsthand.

I suspect that Grant Coursey would agree,

No one tried to kill me last night. For a change.

I had a dream last night that my friend, Charles (who is a physicist), and I were attempting to disprove Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle.

Just before I awoke, Charles declared that we were “really onto something.”

Damn. With a little more sleep, we might have changed the world.  

Not only does this dream make me feel supremely intellectual, but it’s a huge improvement on the vast majority of my dreams, in which someone is always trying to kill me. 

Of course, ever since I saw this video, I have always considered physics to be far more terrifying than the bad guys who try to kill me every night.

Watch at your own risk.