Me: The TED Talk
The podcaster asked, and I delivered--in 90 seconds. Is that a lifetime? WRITTEN & ILLUSTRATED by PETER MOORE
EVER SINCE I SIGNED ON TO PODCASTGUESTS.COM, I’ve spent a lot of time talking about my days as articles editor at Playboy. My adventures with Barack Obama and Matt Damon, when I was with Men’s Health. That time I pissed into a volcano, back when I was just myself, and not defined by my media career. (FYI: It’s a bad idea to define yourself by your media career, when your media career goes up in smoke.) But until recently, nobody wanted me to deliver a a TED-style talk about myself, in 90 seconds.
Then The Story Samurai podcast asked me to do just that. How to sum up six decades in 254 words? Leave out the boring bits, and most of the failures. They take so much time! So, here is the residue of my life—the ring around the coffee cup that marks the extent of the full drink.
When I taped the segment, I was surprised that an eleven-year old girl put the questions to me. On the internet, nobody knows you’re eleven!
I’ll post the pod when it goes live, but that won’t have fun drawings, and I don’t do anything on here without fun drawings. I hope you enjoy—or at least tolerate—my reintroduction of myself.
And, I’d be very pleased to meet you, as well. Introduce yourself!
The podcasters also invited me to answer the famous ten questions posed by James Lipton, of the Actor’s Studio. I was going to post my responses today, but it turned out to be way too much fun to draw the answers. So come back on Saturday for my ten answers…if you can stand to learn that much about me.
Part One:
PETER—THE TED TALK
[SCENE: A tiny unremarkable human with a nervous tremor in his ink-stained hands steps into the TED spotlight, clears his throat five times, and then begins to speak. The crowd murmurs: Who is this guy? They’ll know, in 90 seconds.]
Covid put a full stop to the career I’d been pursuing since college—books, magazines, freelance articles.
I had been good at all that, but Covid didn’t care.
In the depths of my uselessness, two friends called my bluff: “You’ve been talking about working on a memoir for as long as we’ve known you. So shut up and write.”
I did: 100,000 words flowed out of me, recounting my coming-of-age in Paris and all that it presaged for me in adult life—my relationships, my work, my enthusiasms for food and language.
But after the draft was done, I caught a creative wind. I was always a fan of the Hablot Knight Browne illustrations in Dickens novels.
I had been taking art classes for years, to distract me from my wordy career. So I worked on drawings to accompany the chapters in my memoir, and those turned into spot illustrations dropped into the text. Suddenly I was a double threat as a writer illustrator, and a whole new world opened up for me.
Based on that work, I have launched peter.moore.substack.com, which now has 13,000 subscribers and followers, and I’ve taken on new gigs as a cartoonist and columnist for the Colorado Sun, and a commentator and animator for NPR.
And none of that would have happened had I not hit a big zero in life, and had to find a new way to lend meaning to my days. Rock bottom is a great place to start, because from there, every way you turn is up.
"I am so self-aware that I often catch myself talking to myself about myself." —Taylor Swift
Last week my new pal
, a writing coach and book editor who writes The Unmentionables here on Substack, invited me to a cool event. Here’s her writeup:“Side Quest – Turn your travel adventures into paid bylines with Dylan Thuras, NYT bestselling author and co-founder of award-winning travel brand, Atlas Obscura. Learn how to write awe-inspiring travel pieces editors will pay for and pitch yours live. Plus: recording & slides, list of paying pubs, pitch guide, and template. $37 with code PM10OFF”
I’ll be there. You?
So glad we’re sharing this big beautiful planet together.
Well, that is…I’m glad to be sharing it with most of you.
Loved this!
You in that trampoline is very fun!