Dicks on Stew

Summary

RISK! Podcast Episode Summary: "Dicks on Stew"

Podcast Information:

• Title: RISK!
• Host/Author: Kevin Allison
• Episode: Dicks on Stew
• Release Date: November 27, 2024
• Description: Hosted by the colorful Kevin Allison, RISK! features true, jaw-dropping stories people dare to share publicly. This episode delves into an unforgettable Thanksgiving story narrated by Matthew Dix, author of Story Worthy and Stories Sell.

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Introduction

Kevin Allison kicks off the episode by introducing Matthew Dix, highlighting his accomplishments in storytelling and his expertise as an author. Kevin sets the stage for a deep dive into Matthew's personal narrative, indicating that the episode will explore both the story itself and the art of storytelling.

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Matthew Dix's Transformative Thanksgiving Story

[03:15] Matthew Dix: Matthew begins by recounting his anxiety as a 19-year-old preparing to meet his girlfriend Lisa's father, Butch, for the first time. He describes the intimidating presence of Butch through vivid imagery:

"Shaking Butch's hands was like reaching into a bag of broken glass." ([05:25])

Matthew contrasts his own hobbies and interests—playing Ms. Pac-Man, Dungeons & Dragons, and the flute—with Butch's rugged handyman persona. This stark difference sets up the tension that permeates the encounter.

As the Thanksgiving meal progresses, Matthew reveals a shocking twist:

[10:XX] Butch: "What do you think of my stew?"

[10:XX] Matthew Dix: "It's great."

Butch then discloses that the stew contains rabbit, Matthew's pet, leading to a climactic confrontation where Matthew stands up to Butch. This moment marks a significant turning point in Matthew's personal growth:

"For a minute there, I was a man talking to a man." ([12:43])

Matthew's defiance not only alters his relationship with Butch but also signifies his transition from a hesitant young man to someone who can assert himself under pressure.

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Post-Story Discussion: The Art of Storytelling

After sharing his harrowing Thanksgiving experience, Matthew and Kevin shift focus to the mechanics of storytelling. They explore how stories are crafted to engage audiences effectively, discussing techniques such as omission, compression, and progression.

Omission: Matthew explains the necessity of excluding peripheral characters to maintain narrative focus.

"She's really in my periphery. I was aware of what she was doing, but she wasn't relevant to what I'm trying to say." ([34:14])

Compression: He discusses condensing time and events to streamline the story without losing its essence.

"I'm always removing people from stories who don't serve a purpose to the story." ([34:14])

Progression: The duo talks about ensuring the story flows logically, guiding the audience through transitions seamlessly without explicit explanations.

"Think of it like quick cuts in stories and we cause the audience to bring us from place to place." ([36:18])

They emphasize the balance between authenticity and narrative efficiency, highlighting how humor can alleviate less engaging segments:

"If it's the boring part, you have to try to make it funny." ([37:18])

Matthew shares personal anecdotes to illustrate these concepts, such as combining multiple characters into one for simplicity and maintaining audience interest through strategic storytelling elements.

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Personal Reflections and Growth

Throughout the discussion, Matthew reflects on his own journey in overcoming insecurities related to traditional masculinity and finding value in his unique skill set—particularly his storytelling prowess. He recounts interactions where he stood up for his beliefs, reinforcing his growth from the Thanksgiving incident.

[22:53] Matthew Dix: "There's not actually many human beings on the planet who could [speak to a thousand people, entertain them for an hour]."

Kevin echoes these sentiments, recognizing the importance of diverse talents and the significance of effective communication:

"These are very valuable tools too. These are things that other people can't do as well." ([18:56])

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Conclusion

As the episode wraps up, Kevin commends Matthew for his bravery and eloquence in sharing such a personal story. They touch upon the broader societal themes of role models and the challenges young men face in defining their masculinity.

Matthew emphasizes the enduring value of storytelling as a means of personal expression and connection, encouraging listeners to embrace their unique narratives.

Notable Final Quote:

"I have a skillset that has value, and it is not that traditional." ([23:42])

Kevin invites listeners to engage with the RISK! community, sharing their own stories and reflections, thus continuing the conversation beyond the episode.

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Key Takeaways

• Personal Growth: Matthew's story exemplifies a pivotal moment of self-assertion and maturity.
• Storytelling Craft: Effective storytelling relies on strategic omission, compression, and progression to maintain engagement.
• Diverse Skill Sets: Recognizing and valuing unique talents fosters personal confidence and enriches interpersonal relationships.
• Authenticity vs. Narrative Efficiency: Balancing genuine experiences with streamlined storytelling enhances audience connection without compromising truth.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Matthew Dix at [05:25]: "Shaking Butch's hands was like reaching into a bag of broken glass."
• Matthew Dix at [12:43]: "For a minute there, I was a man talking to a man."
• Matthew Dix at [34:14]: "The point of the story is it's a toe to toe moment."
• Matthew Dix at [37:18]: "If it's the boring part, you have to try to make it funny."
• Matthew Dix at [23:42]: "There's not actually many human beings on the planet who could [speak to a thousand people, entertain them for an hour]."

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Final Thoughts:

"Dicks on Stew" offers a compelling blend of personal narrative and insightful discussion on the art of storytelling. Matthew Dix's heartfelt recounting of a transformative Thanksgiving serves as a profound example of vulnerability and growth, while the subsequent conversation with Kevin Allison provides valuable lessons for aspiring storytellers and listeners alike.

For those seeking authentic, heart-wrenching, and hilariously real stories, this episode of RISK! is a must-listen. Fasten your seatbelt and prepare to walk on the wilder side with tales that dare to reveal the depths of human experience.

Transcript

[Matthew Dix]

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[Kevin Allison]

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[Matthew Dix]

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[Kevin Allison]

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[Matthew Dix]

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[Kevin Allison]

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[Matthew Dix]

Find the perfect shoes for you and.

[Kevin Allison]

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[Matthew Dix]

You by US Cellular.

[Kevin Allison]

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[Matthew Dix]

Visit us cellular.com for.

[Kevin Allison]

This is Risk, the show where people tell true stories they never thought they'd dare to share. I'm Kevin Allison and this is one of our Conversation Story episodes where someone tells a story to me and we chat about it. Today, we're sharing a story that Matthew Dix told me recently about an unforgettable and transformative Thanksgiving from his younger days. Matthew is the author of Story Worthy and Stories Sell, two absolutely fantastic books about storytelling. I can't recommend enough. Now, at a certain point in my chat with Matthew, we got a little off topic, a bit into the weeds on the art of storytelling itself. So that might not be so interesting to some of you, but you storytellers out there might enjoy hearing some talk about the craft. So at the very end of the episode, after the closing music, stick around if that interests you. Now, I should say there is some harm that comes to an animal in this story. So without further ado, here I am with Matthew Dix, who shared this story. We Call dicks on stew.

[Matthew Dix]

All right. Well, I'm sitting at a dining room table eating a cookie. My girlfriend Lisa is sitting next to me and she's talking to me, but I don't hear a single thing she Sundays. I'm a 19 year old boy. I'm sitting in her home and I am getting ready to meet her father for the first time. He is about to walk in the front door and I'm just not prepared for this. I am not good with fathers of girlfriends. It's a fraught relationship that I have with all of them. And I know this one's not going to go well either. And so he walks in, steps in the door, and I put the cookie down and I step up to meet him in the middle. And already I know it's bad. I can tell just by his hands. As he reaches out and we shake hands, I can feel the calluses on his hands and I can see the grime in his fingernails. It's like shaking a Brillo pad. These are hands of a man who can build and repair things. You know, he's the kind of guy who fixes plumbing when it goes wrong and changes his own oil. He's the kind of guy that can take a tree down and then if necessary, he can put it back up again. You know, these are man's hands. And I don't have those hands. Like I know what he feels, you know, which is the opposite of what he has. These are hands that play Ms. Pac man at the arcade on Friday night. You know, I roll 20 sided dice on card tables and basements while playing Dungeons and Dragons. I play the flute. You know, my hands do not build and repair. They purchase and replace. And this is not, I think, what he was hoping for when, you know, when he was about to meet his girlfriend's current boyfriend. And I know it's going to go bad for me because this has happened before. My high school sweetheart, her name was Laura, and her father's name was butchered, which was. And he was like the dictionary definition of that name. I met him in his driveway. I stood between his dump truck, his bucket truck, and what I would later learn was a stump grinder.

[Kevin Allison]

Wow.

[Matthew Dix]

Shaking Butch's hands was like reaching into a bag of broken glass. When Butch, you know, when I met Butch, I said, what do you do for a living? I'll never forget. He said, whatever needs to be done, you know, And I'm not a guy who can do whatever needs to be done. I'm a guy who hires people in order to get things done. So it didn't go well with Butch, either. And it sort of spoiled the relationship I had with Laura. Because more than any woman I've ever known in my life, she respected and loved her father. And I just could never be a Butch. I was always, sadly, going to be me. And so I feel like I'm already behind the eight ball with Lisa's father. And I've got a lot of problems. Like, six months ago, I was driving a Chevy Malibu. A 1976 Chevy Malibu with a 371 V8. I don't know what any of those numbers mean, but I knew that car. Guys like those numbers. But now I'm driving a powder blue Toyota Tercel. He takes one look at my car, and I swear he wants to punch me in the face just over the car. He asked me where I live. I tell him I live in Attleboro, Massachusetts. But it's a place he can never come to because it is a. It's a townhouse for boys. It has Bart Simpson posters all over the walls. We have these two rabbits that we treat like cats. They use the litter box. They hop around the house. We got them because they. We thought it would attract girls. Or at least keep them in the apartment long enough. It actually works. Like, it's not a bad strategy, but it's not great for some guy to come and visit. And we have hamsters. We have 20 or 30 hamsters. And we've built these habit trails with these tubes all over the house. It's like steampunk Hamsterville. Like, wherever you are in the house, there's a tube over your head and there's a hamster in it. So to imagine this man ever coming into this house is unimaginable, right? So I make a plan. Cause I wanna win him over. The first thing I do is he's Portuguese. So I decide I'm gonna learn everything I can about Portugal. Which in 1991 is a really big deal. Because in 91, if you want to know anything, you have to go to a brick building during office hours and find a card catalog and pull a drawer out and find a card marked Portugal. And then take a book. And none of the books are equipped with the Control F feature on a computer. Which means you have to read the whole book just to find the facts that you want to impress your girlfriend's father. Which I do. I get books on Portugal, and I learn about that country. And then eventually I run into a problem with the rabbits. Because although they're wonderful. They start eating through the cords. They knock out our tv, and we're poor. Like, once the TV is gone, it's gone. There's no more tv. And so we need to figure out what to do with the rabbits. And I see that Lisa's father has this enormous hutch of rabbits in the backyard. So one day when I'm over there, I say, hey, I have these two rabbits, and they're sort of causing us problems. Would you like the rabbits? And he says, sure. And when I bring the rabbits over to his house and I hand them to him, it's almost like we take a step closer together. You know, it's not that we become friends, but we sort of become friendly. And it's through these little. These little steps that I start to get a little closer to this guy. And so then Thanksgiving comes, and I'm invited to the house for Thanksgiving, which is enormous for me. Cause I've been on my own. I got kicked out of my house when I was 18, and I haven't had a real Thanksgiving in a long time. My Thanksgivings have been the Dallas Cowboys, dominoes and despair. You know, just really sad times. There was a Thanksgiving last year, the year before this moment happens where I sat in an empty movie theater and watched a movie by myself. So the fact that I'm gonna, like, go to a place where people gather and presumably eat turkey and stuffing and things like that, I'm so excited about this day. And so when it comes, I enter the house, and he's sitting at the table, and he has a spot for me next to him. Lisa's father. And I haven't had a father since I was seven when he left. And so he's not going to be my father, but it's just nice to see a grown man offer me a spot at his table right beside him. And so I end up sitting between him and Lisa on Thanksgiving. And it's great. There's food, and there's football. There's all the things I want. And I'm eating turkey and stuffing and stew. And in the middle of the meal, he turns to me with a smile and he says, what do you think of my stew? And I say, it's great. Why? And he says, it's your rabbit. And he's smiling. Now, I don't understand at the time because I didn't get to that chapter in the book, but the Portuguese eat rabbits like I eat chicken. You know, they're just. They're just an animal you eat. But he knew that was My pet. He knew that that rabbit lived in my home and hopped around my living room. And he knows it because he's smiling. He thinks it's funny. And there's a moment that feels like it's still going on right now. A really long moment where I stare at this man thinking about what I'm going to do. And then I stand up. And for the first time in my life, the 19 year old boy for a minute becomes a 19 year old man. And for the first time in my life, I speak man to man to some man who is more of a man than I will be. I tell him exactly how I feel about what he's done. I swear at him at his Thanksgiving Day table. And I look to Lisa to see if she was sort of in on this deal. And I can see that she's horrified too. She sort of can't believe what her father has done. And he stands up and we're just toe to toe at Thanksgiving. It's the first time that I tell a man, an actual man, what is in my head and my heart and none of it is good. And when I'm done, I leave. I just walk out of that house and get into my car and return to the land of the Dallas Cowboys and Dominoes in despair. But you know, there's these moments in your life when you just feel like you found two inches that you didn't have before. You know, that somehow you grew up real fast in a short period of time, you know, that you waited forever to become something. And when it happened, it was almost instantaneous. That was that moment for me. It was the moment where I just felt like, wow, for a minute there I was a man talking to a man. Now my hands are still as soft as they were that day. You know, I still can't do any of the things that that guy could do. My son, who is 12, makes most of the home repairs at this point and he does things that I cannot do. But you know, it's. The first moment was me as the 19 year old boy started to feel like that maybe someday I could be that man that I had dreamed to be.

[Kevin Allison]

Wow.

[Matthew Dix]

Yeah.

[Kevin Allison]

That is such a trip. Stick around and find out how many Matthew Dixes it takes to change a light bulb. We'll be right back.

[Matthew Dix]

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[Kevin Allison]

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[Matthew Dix]

This episode is brought to you by Etsy. Oh, hear that?

[Kevin Allison]

Okay, thank you.

[Matthew Dix]

Etsy knows these aren't the sounds of holiday gifting. Well, not the ones you're hoping for. You want squeals of delight, happy tears?

[Kevin Allison]

How did you.

[Matthew Dix]

And spontaneously written songs of joy?

[Kevin Allison]

I am so happy. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh, ye. Um, okay, the song needs a bit.

[Matthew Dix]

Of work, but anyway, to get those reactions, make sure everyone on your list feels heard with handmade, handpicked, and designed gifts from small shops on Etsy. Gifts like personalized jewelry, custom artwork, cozy style items, vintage pieces, and home decor to celebrate all of your favorite people and their specific kind of special. For original gifts that say I get you, Etsy has it. We are back.

[Kevin Allison]

I first heard that story so long ago, and I forgot that you were 19, that you were that young. I remember being impressed with you for taking a stand in that moment, but especially at the age of 19. It's really impressive.

[Matthew Dix]

Thank you.

[Kevin Allison]

And one thing I didn't know. You said that your father left your mother when you were seven.

[Matthew Dix]

Yeah, my. Well, my mother. My mother got together with another man, and so my parents got divorced. A stepfather moved into our house almost instantaneously. A Real terrible person who ruined a lot of my childhood. Didn't ruin my. I loved my childhood, but he did not make it easy. But my father left and sort of never came back through shame and imposed poverty. And, you know, he was a Vietnam vet who, my uncle once told me, never came back the same way as when he left. A lot of things went on, but essentially at that point, I lost my father.

[Kevin Allison]

Yeah, so you probably had a really, you know, some shakiness about relationships with older men or, you know, how you were dealing with the idea. I mean, this is such a universal theme of the era we're living in. You know, young men, all of this. Our society concerned about young men having good role models and knowing how to be a good man.

[Matthew Dix]

Yeah, I felt that way for a very long time. You know, and it really. It's interesting because I have friends who can do things that I could never do. You know, I got a buddy who rebuilt a Corvette. I remember there was a day I was playing golf and I heard my two buddies talking about how he had planted his trees too close to the foundation of his house, and so he had to move them. And I thought to myself, I can't plant a tree. I didn't know you could plant it too close to a foundation. I don't know how to move a tree. Like, there's all these conversations that I sort of can't involve myself in because I've just never been that person. But the way that I figured out how to sort of feel good in those moments was actually through my voice. You know, I remember I had a. I had a girlfriend years later whose father was pretty racist and would say some terrible things. And I had that moment of, like, how am I gonna handle this? And because I was with her for a long time, the way I handled it was whenever he started speaking that way, I left the room. And he figured it out eventually. So he chased me down one day, you know, and he said, I know why you're leaving the room. You don't like what I'm saying. And I said, you're right. I said, I'm not gonna be rude in your home because you've invited me in here, and I don't wanna be disrespectful, but I'm also not gonna respect what you're saying, and I'll just choose to leave the room and we'll deal with it that way, if it's all right with you. And he was mad at me, but I just remember feeling very confident in saying that to him, like, I wasn't worried at all. And that was another guy who could sort of like slide under a car and fix a carburetor. And again, it's always that thing I can't do. But I've just managed to find my way to negotiate those situations with my voice by saying the thing that I want to say and getting sort of around these issues whenever necessary.

[Kevin Allison]

Yeah, I really like that you said that because I've realized myself that a big part of my, whatever personality structure is envying other people, thinking, oh, well, that person has that figured out or I can't do that. But coming back to stuff like this, being able to tell stories and communicate around things, these are very valuable tools too. These are things that other people can't do as well, you know?

[Matthew Dix]

Right. They're just, they're not attached to masculinity traditionally. Right, right. So like, I'm an elementary school teacher. I teach fifth grade. You know, I spend my days in the company almost exclusively of women. Almost all of my colleagues are women. I went to an all women's college to become a teacher. I sat in classes with women all the time. And so while I have lots of buddies, you know, lots of friends who are men, I tend to fall into places that are occupied primarily by women. You know, even as a novelist, you know, when I was in college as an English student, I was always in a room full of women. There was very few English majors who happened to be men in college at the time. All those humanities leaned or skewed female and never skewed masculine in terms of what we traditionally think of as, you know, a masculine man. And I've just never been that. I just can't, like, you show me an ikea, like IKEA directions. I can't actually understand what they say. My wife builds all of our furniture and she understands. She was like, he just can't see like in the world visually how things work.

[Kevin Allison]

Oh, yeah, yeah. I think, you know, when I asked for someone to help run Risk as a business and JC Cassis came on, I just laid it out there. I was like, I had not been diagnosed as having severe ADHD yet, but I knew myself well enough to know I'm not going to be able to learn how to do this well enough for it to get done well. So I really do think that not enough emphasis is put sometimes on matching people together with skill sets that help one another out. I think that that is so key because some people just, you know, are going to be brilliant at, say, creative Stuff or whatnot. But, yeah, like, I'm pretty. You know, My friends were like, you should not drive a car. You're just as bad behind a wheel as you are on, you know, a football field or whatnot, you know?

[Matthew Dix]

Yeah.

[Kevin Allison]

So, yeah, I think it's. It's. There's really something to be said about making people feel included and finding people good, complimentary folks to work with in teamwork ways instead of making people feel like, oh, you're useless if you can't do this or that, you know?

[Matthew Dix]

Yeah. I think part of it is just sort of coming to terms on your own. My friend Jeff, who's one of these guys who built his own home, there was a lamp that was broken in my daughter's room one time, and I tried to fix it and couldn't and handed it to him and said, could you fix this? He came back the next day and said, I changed the bulb. And I thought. And then, Kevin, I swear this happened three years later, I went to him with the same lamp and said, I checked the bulb. This time it's something else. I gave it to him. He came back the next day and he said, no, it was the bulb. And I felt so stupid, and I could. He sensed that I felt stupid because he knows that I can't do any of these things. But I'll never forget. He said to me, listen, he said, you can't do any of these things. Like, you know, he's the guy who restored his Corvette, built his house. He's like. He said, but you know what? There's a lot of people who can do what I can do. He said, but I've seen you stand in front of a thousand people and speak without notes for an hour.

[Kevin Allison]

Yeah.

[Matthew Dix]

And he said, there's not actually many human beings on the planet who could do that.

[Kevin Allison]

Right.

[Matthew Dix]

So he said, all of my friends can change their own oil. He said, you have my only friend who can stand on a stage and speak to a thousand people, entertain them for an hour, you know, And I. Whenever I'm feeling less than, you know, in these situations, I go back to that moment, and I remember what he said. And I say to myself, like, I have a skillset that has value, and it is not that traditional. My hands are never going to feel like you're shaking broken glass, you know, But. But there's value in what we have. And you're right. If we pair off with the right people, you know, when there's a problem in my house, when I had to have my pipe snaked whatever the hell that means. Jeff was in my house snaking my pipe because I've got a buddy who knows how to do that and I can do things for him in return.

[Kevin Allison]

Yeah, that's awesome. Do you remember, like, what you. When you were telling him off, were you fairly eloquent or were you just like cursing left and right?

[Matthew Dix]

You know, I like to think I was eloquent, but I think what we really do is we put the best version of our story in our head, you know, and go tell our buddies what we said. I remember I went home and told Benji what I said. You know, I think what I did was I built, you know, I remember standing up and being a little nervous at first, you know, and saying like, you know, that was a wrong thing that you did. But I remember feeling like it was a small fire in my belly that just got really big, really fast in a way that had never happened with a grown ass man before.

[Kevin Allison]

That's amazing. That's really, that's really, really cool to like observe those moments of, oh, shit, some growth happened here.

[Matthew Dix]

There was a sprout.

[Kevin Allison]

Yeah.

[Matthew Dix]

I felt so good driving away. I also felt so uncertain because I thought, did I just end my relationship with Lisa?

[Kevin Allison]

Did you?

[Matthew Dix]

No, I didn't. And I thought, am I ever going to come back to this house again? Which I did. And when I came back, he came out to the driveway and he came up to me and he said, you know, I'm not going to apologize to you. And I said to him, I'll never forget. I said, thank you for that apology. And then he just turned and walked away.

[Kevin Allison]

Wow, what a trip.

[Matthew Dix]

But we got along, you know, after that. We got along and, you know, I'm still friendly with Lisa to this day. Wow. Yeah. So it worked out. You know, I think actually this is probably just me conflating, but I'd like to think that maybe I earned a little respect that day by showing him that I was willing to stand up for something that I believed in.

[Kevin Allison]

Yeah. Yeah, I'd like to think that too. I think we'll just agree that that's the truth and it's amen.

[Matthew Dix]

It doesn't always work that way. There was a Thanksgiving I had with another girlfriend years later. And, you know, I don't believe in eating anything that you don't like. I think you should never eat food that you don't find tasty. Life is too short. And so her father came to the table wearing a chef's hat like it was a big deal. And he starts passing around these dishes, and some of them I'm not going to eat, you know, I'm not going to eat your squash. And so I take the squash and I pass it to this woman, and it's a slightly older woman, and she says, you're not going to take the squash? And I said, no, I hate squash. And she said, but don't you think it's polite to take it? And I said to her, life is too short to eat food you don't like. And she said to me, she goes, you know, I'm like 50, and I have been eating food I don't like to be polite. You're right. And then suddenly the whole table, they sort of heard that conversation, and everyone started talking about it, and everyone started passing dishes away that they didn't want to eat all of a sudden. And I saw the father lose his ever loving mind. He couldn't believe that I had sat down, and now I had everyone just passing on dishes that he planned on everyone eating. And that one did not end well. That father encounter never worked out. And my girlfriend was mad that day, too. She's like, so you started a conversation at the table about why we shouldn't be eating some of my father's cooking. And I said, I fundamentally believe it. I hate turnips. Why am I gonna put turnips in my mouth on Thanksgiving if I hate them? I'll eat all his potatoes and carrots and stuffing. But, boy, that guy was so mad. I'll never forget with the chef's hat just staring me down like, what have you done to my thanksg table? Yeah, I just thought of that, too. Kevin. The beauty of storytelling is I had forgotten about that moment until right now. And now it's right back in my head.

[Kevin Allison]

I forgot because I started thinking about, when we're recording this, we're in the lead up to the 2024 presidential election, and Tim Walz has been using this line about, hey, can't we get back to having Thanksgiving together without everyone ripping each other apart over politics? And it got me thinking, oh, yeah, I guess when I was younger, there was a lot less of that. But then I thought of, like, I think it was John Kerry, someone in the Catholic Church, some archbishop or bishop or whatever, had signaled him out as well. He shouldn't be able to get communion at Mass if he's for abortion. And one year I was like, why don't I see What? Attending Thanksgiving at my brother's. He married an Italian American woman in Staten island with A huge Italian American family. And this issue came up after a lot of wine had been consumed. And I was kind of, you know, this the white boy from Ohio just sitting there, you know, just quietly observing while the room just, like, fell to pieces of people screaming at each other over who should be allowed to get communion or not.

[Matthew Dix]

You know, honestly, if only we were still fighting about those things today, you know?

[Kevin Allison]

Oh, God, yeah, yeah.

[Matthew Dix]

Remember Obama's tan suit? The disaster that was. If only we could get upset about the wardrobe choices of our presidents instead of what we are now worried about today.

[Kevin Allison]

Oh, my goodness gracious. Wow.

[Matthew Dix]

I agree with Tim Walls, though. I think I would rather be fighting over eating my rabbit at Thanksgiving than fighting with some father over politics. I just.

[Kevin Allison]

Oh, my gosh.

[Matthew Dix]

Over.

[Kevin Allison]

Yeah. Oh, my goodness.

[Matthew Dix]

Which is ridiculous because it doesn't go anywhere. I'm constantly telling people that when you engage in politics. I've never met anyone in my life who I've sort of made a political argument to them, and they've gone, oh, my God, you're totally right.

[Kevin Allison]

So especially on something like Facebook or Twitter.

[Matthew Dix]

Yes, yes.

[Kevin Allison]

Oh, Lord. And that's that. Listen, I was saying before that, you know, Matthew has won a lot of moth slams. I'm reading here 61 times and nine times a grand slam champion. It's just ridiculous. I told you about his phenomenal book Story Worthy. He is also the CEO of a company called Storyworthy that produces online storytelling instruction and workshops. You can find Matthew dix online@matthew dix.com have you got a story from Thanksgiving time? Let me know. We would love to have you on and have you tell it to me. You can chime in on the Risk Podcast fans discussion group on Facebook or post on the R Risk podcast subreddit, or you can email me directly@KevinRisk Show.com now remember to stick around to the end if you want to hear Matthew and me talking about storytelling, the craft of it all. Oh, and by the way, that was a trick question in the middle of the episode. It turns out no amount of Matthew Dix's can change a light bulb. And with that, I say to you folks, today's the day. Take a risk. You know, one thing I was talking to. What's the name of the fellow who does the gist?

[Matthew Dix]

Mike Pesca.

[Kevin Allison]

Yeah, I was talking to Mike. That's my buddy.

[Matthew Dix]

He's great.

[Kevin Allison]

I love Mike.

[Matthew Dix]

Yeah.

[Kevin Allison]

A couple months ago, and I was remembering, we were talking about you appearing on his show, and I think it kind of went viral when you were talking about this idea of four lies that commonly occur in stories. You know, lie being a strong word.

[Matthew Dix]

Right.

[Kevin Allison]

Let's see. I remember they were omission, you know, leaving something out because it doesn't really help assumption. That's where, you know, you can remember this detail and that detail, but can't remember quite what happened on the day in between or whatever. Oh yeah, it must have been the end of summer or, you know, whatever.

[Matthew Dix]

You know, you make a reasonable assumption. Exactly, yes.

[Kevin Allison]

Compression. I always think of a story where I had a large group of friends that when I was in seventh grade and we went out and did pranks and there were two guys who kind of. They were pretty similar. So I just made them one. Right.

[Matthew Dix]

I usually do it with time. So like something happens over the course of two days. It's just a better story if you jam it all into one day.

[Kevin Allison]

Yes.

[Matthew Dix]

So that too.

[Kevin Allison]

Yes, absolutely. And then progression where maybe something happens on day one and then day two and you're tempted to be like. And then on the third day when in fact there was a day in between and it was on the fourth day, you know.

[Matthew Dix]

Right, yeah, yeah, yes, yeah.

[Kevin Allison]

So can you think of any things you. Any of that that happened in this version of this story?

[Matthew Dix]

Well, I can think of people that were excised from the story for sure. So like Lisa's mother actually played a role in that moment. When I was toe to toe with the father and we were fighting, Lisa's mother was trying to deescalate the situation. You know, she didn't want her Thanksgiving Day ruined by this. And I wasn't sure what side she was on. You know, I suspect she knew it was the rabbit cause she was doing some of the cooking. But who knows? There was a hundred rabbits back there. But she did a lot of effort, you know, she efforted to try to bring us back together. And I felt like that's not the point of the story.

[Kevin Allison]

Right.

[Matthew Dix]

The point of the story is it's a toe to toe moment. She was really in my periphery. I was aware of what she was doing, but she wasn't relevant to what I'm trying to say.

[Kevin Allison]

Right.

[Matthew Dix]

So she definitely was prominent and yet was removed entirely from the story because of that. Just for simplicity and because I'm trying to point at. At a singular thing. You know, my buddy Benji was my roommate. He owned a second rabbit. He owned one rabbit. I owned one rabbit. And you know, he played a big role in terms of just being in my life at the time, you know, And I sort of like, make him become a roommate rather than a real human being because he doesn't sort of carry through the story.

[Kevin Allison]

Right.

[Matthew Dix]

So someone who I think is. I see in the story as a very important person who introduced me to Lisa. And his rabbit also was sort of sent to slaughter. And that upset him and all of these things. But he's not relevant in the story. Essentially, he's just the roommate who agreed to get rabbits with me. Even the hamsters, they're his hamsters, you know, they made me crazy with the hamsters. I didn't want the hamsters. I didn't want to live in hamster land like that. But those details all go away because the point of the hamsters aren't that I'm living with hamsters. The point is this father would see this as silly and childish.

[Kevin Allison]

Yeah.

[Matthew Dix]

And that's why they're there. So I'm often removing people from stories who don't serve a purpose to the story.

[Kevin Allison]

Right.

[Matthew Dix]

And I tend to compress a lot of time. You know, there's a story I tell about riding my bike off the barn roof. And my sister's involved in it. And when she heard me tell the story the first time, I'll never forget, she said, you screwed up that story. We put the bike on the roof on Saturday, but you didn't ride it off until Sunday. And I told my sister, so I should have told them. So after we got the bike up there, I went night dinner and then I went to bed. And then I woke up in the morning and I got out of my pajamas and got into my clothes. Like, that's what happens, though, to people all the time. If they don't, you know, think about what the audience wants. I always say that those lies are never for me. They're always in service of what the audience needs, wants and expects from a story.

[Kevin Allison]

Yeah. I'll never forget there was a very eccentric editor at the New Yorker. And everyone was. This was back in, like, the 40s, 50s, and everyone was so impressed with what he brought in. But people were bewildered by how off in the clouds he was. And John Cheever handed in his first story, which is now considered a big classic. Something about my brother, my brother something. And the note that the editor left in the side of the story was, no one in this story uses the bathroom. It's like, okay, I'll remember that for the next one.

[Matthew Dix]

Sounds like a good story, though, then. When I'm teaching people storytelling, I always call this process language. I say, think of it Like a movie, something happens in a location, and then we are now in a new location. And you allow the audience to presume you got in your car and you drove to the other place. But we don't want to hear that. That's boring. And we don't give the audience enough credit to link the scenes in a way that people can do in their mind without us sort of like leading them, you know, down the primrose path. I just. If we think about it as quick cuts in stories and we cause the audience to bring us from place to place, that just makes a story work so much better.

[Kevin Allison]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I always tell folks that, you know, Hitchcock talked about, when you're getting to the part of the story that's a little dull, you know, the stuff that has to be there, get through that quickly. Then when you get to the stuff that's really intense, slow down your storytelling. Pay attention to every detail.

[Matthew Dix]

Yeah, yeah. I often tell people, if it's the boring part, you have to say, try to make it funny.

[Kevin Allison]

Yeah.

[Matthew Dix]

People will forgive boring if they're laughing.

[Kevin Allison]

Right.

[Matthew Dix]

You know, it's sort of. I say it's sort of like a. It's fake because you can only get away with it for so long before people, I think, detect that you're being funny because what you're saying isn't interesting. But you're right. There are times when you think like, I gotta teach them how to do this thing so that they understand why it doesn't work. But teaching people is pretty boring. As a teacher, I can tell you teaching is boring unless you entertain the children in some way. Same thing with audiences.

[Kevin Allison]

Yeah, that's great. Well, anyway, it was great to. Great to finally revisit this story. It's so much fun to hear.

[Matthew Dix]

Thank you. I was nice to. It was nice to revisit it. I'm sure you're the same way. When you tell a story, are you sort of like right back there in your mind's eye? Are you.

[Kevin Allison]

Yeah, there's. And I worry about that sometimes because. Well, I just took this hypnotherapy intensive in San Diego with this psychologist who is, like, world renowned. People come from all around the world for three weeks of all this trance work with this fellow, and he described how he was trained back in the late 60s by Milton Erickson, who is considered, like, the father of hypnotherapy and was a real genius up there with, like, Carl Jung and people like that. And he said, I never took a note. He said, I just Absorbed from that guy the whole time he was teaching. So that's what I did. And I didn't record any of anything that happened to me that week. And I came home and I was like, I had so many trance experiences that were just magical. Magical. And all sorts of active imagination. It was basically a lot of waking dreams that I was having that I was learning all sorts of things about. And I came home and I'm like, I don't remember what the fuck any of those were. During the time I was taking the intensive, I was like, I don't want to sit down and record this, lest I ruin it by putting it to words, because that might box myself in and I might start making sense out of it. It's that funny thing where once you tell a story, you can start to wonder, how true is that? That's why I like revisiting stories sometimes to, like, you know, see if anything might be tweaked in any way based on how I understand my life now.

[Matthew Dix]

Yeah, I like that. Yeah.

[Kevin Allison]

Yeah.

[Matthew Dix]

Just telling that story to you. I saw things that I had forgotten because I occupied the space in my mind's eye again. And I always have that challenge of, oh, should I mention that? Because it's interesting to me. And I go, nope, it's not interesting to the audience. What you find interesting, what the audience finds interesting, are very different. But I love that about storytelling, in that I get to go back to a place and sort of occupy that space in a way by revisiting the story. So totally.

[Kevin Allison]

Yeah. The very first story I ever told on Risk was. It became infamous. I go back to my apartment on Ludlow street with a fella, and we have what I didn't know. I was only like, 18 or 19 at the time, and I didn't know this was going to turn into a sort of a kinky date. And I was completely. I had no idea what the hell was going on. I was bewildered by this fella. And it's a very funny story of a fish out of water, basically. And I went back to Ludlow street to look at that place. A fellow let me in, and to look at my old apartment. And while I was in there, I realized, oh, wait a minute. I compressed two different people in that story. I didn't even remember that I had turned two different dates into one. And in telling the story over the years, I think I had maybe forgotten that I had originally done that when I first composed the story. So you gotta be careful with yourself.

[Matthew Dix]

Yeah. That's why they say it's true, as the storyteller remembers, which I believe, as long as it really is what you think is true, then we're all good. You know, we're speaking the truth. And I think, honestly, you compressing two people into one, I think you're probably still speaking a truth. And somewhere in that subconscious part of your brain, you were sort of doing some crafting to simplify and to find meaning in a way that didn't require as many details as reality had.

[Kevin Allison]

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Hey, folks, there's so much more of Risk in the holiday season. Risk is always publishing new episodes and new stories, as well as holiday favorites. This holiday season, don't forget, click on Risk.