What I Learned From Toni Crowe and Hogan Torah in One Day

Where I am on the spectrum of authenticity?

I was talking to the brilliantly hilarious Toni Crowe yesterday. She knows everything. You just have to ask her. She wanted to know what was stopping me from recording my stories for YouTube.

She asked me if I didn’t like my voice. No, I like my voice, I said.

I have the advantage of having the exact same voice as my sisters. So, unlike a lot of people, who didn’t hear their voice until they first heard it on a recording device, I was surrounded by my voice from the day I learned to talk. Did I like it? Sure. Was there too much of it? Definitely.

What do you need? Toni asked me. What can I do to help? I wanted to grab her by the brain and the heart and have her accompany me throughout my life. What did I need? What a question. I didn’t take it lightly.

With what specifically? I asked. I gotta lot of issues.

With recording your stories, she said.

Ah that, I said. I’m intimidated by the tech.

She walked me through the tech, step by step. She’s an engineer, writer, parent, partner and an excellent human.

I need to practice my voice a little more, I said. I’ve been listening to Paula Poundstone a lot. I like the way she sounds.

Toni said I didn’t need to do that. She said the thing about your voice is it’s your voice. She said, as a Black woman from Chicago, who became an engineer and corporate executive of a multi-billion dollar corporation, she knew all about code-switching.

I like to use my own voice for my books, she said, because my voice is who wrote those stories. Who lived those stories. My voice is who I am. You don’t need to copy someone else's voice, Amy. These are your stories. You lived through them. Your voice was created through your experiences.

That’s not what she said line-by-line quote but the gist was I didn't have to pretend.

Then I read Aimée Gramblin’s interview in the Age of Empathy with the prolific hilarious creator Hogan Torah. I read it at 6 a.m. while I was still lying in bed so nothing else had messed with my brain yet. I was clear and paying attention.

Hogan said he didn’t want to just be another white boy online talking about recovery. It made me think about what I didn’t want to be. Was it an entitled white lady with white privilege who lived in the suburbs? Yeah, maybe I didn't want to be her. Maybe I did. Undecided, I would have checked in the box, had I been given an option.

Hogan Torah is a creation. Hogan Torah is more confident than his creator, Logan Mora. I wondered who my inner or outer Hogan Torah was. Was she more confident than I was? Was she a bad-ass ex-party girl passing as a funky mom? Blech. That sounded awful. Or did she lean into her bullshit hypocrazy poking the bear of her life? Who did I need to show up as when I wrote? Me or a version of me? Me or a better me? Me or a crazier me? Me?

I had a great friend in college who reminds me a lot of the Hogan Torah creation. We called him Crossword Joe because he could finish the New York Times Friday crossword in ten minutes. He was a recovering addict who wasn’t quite done with recovering. He was from L.A. with fancy ass parents and he dated a girl who was either out of his league or below his league. I couldn’t tell. Mainly, he wrote the script and we believed him.

Crossword Joe intimidated me the same way Hogan does. He made me question my authenticity. He called me on my shit but he was at an advantage. I was already calling myself on my shit. I was easy prey. I think it’s funny that L.Aa. people have that effect on me since so many of them question their own authenticity.

Then I thought about Toni Crowe. She was like, “You be you, Amy.” And the way she presented it to me, it didn’t seem so bad. I’d been me for such a long time — not that I always approved of me. Whoever the hell I was, I am a version of myself. Am I finished? No. Am I afraid of who I am? At 3 am, yes. I’m terrified. Am I authentic? God, I’m trying.

When I invite Toni Crowe and Hogan Torah into my brain on the same day, it gives me something to think about. They both challenge me. Together, they make me want to be authentic and curious, but also kinder to myself.

Do you like your voice? Toni asked me. I’m working on it.

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