IRREVERENT Magazine - Features

Distinguished guests, esteemed faculty, impoverished parents, and of course, deadbeat layabouts and fuck-ups...er...graduates. I come before you today at no great expense to myself. Indeed, thanks to The Dean of Students, a goat, and a roll of 36 exposure Kodak film, the great expense and astounding mini-bar tab is being picked up by this fine institution. Curious isn't it how you have paid nearly $150,000 to get your diploma, a mere B.A. and here I stand, a newly minted Honorary Doctorate of Letters clutching a briefcase with a quite substantial honorarium? Hell for $150,000 you should all be getting the kind of oral sex I got last night from a bright young coed who can recognize the value of a $50. Still what is college if not a learning experience.

Today marks the end of a journey that began for you 6 long years ago. If you can remember that far back, that was the day when, as you valiantly tried to recover from your first high school kegger of the night before, your parents flung an an SAT study book onto your mattress and sent an unmistakable message that you were expected to one day take responsibility for yourself. Of course had they known that they would now be sitting here, significantly poorer and facing the prospect of 10 more years seeing you around the house, they would have taken a glass bottle filled with gasoline, jammed in a few torn pages from the SAT book and firebombed your bed. Sad fools, they were filled with dreams of Harvard, Yale, and MIT and such high powered commencement speakers as Anna Quindlen or George Will. Instead you ended up here, the ultimate safety school for people whose grades couldn't get them into community college, and now your long suffering 'rents have to listen to me, a two-bit, eye strained -- writers haven't really been ink stained for generations -- wretch with a talent for candid photography, wink wink nudge nudge. The certificate you will soon hold in your hands will serve as a constant reminder of their disappointment.

[A] few RIAA lawsuits didn't keep you, God love ya, from downloading music at an almost criminal rate.Reports in the news are making much of your historical position as the first class to be educated in the Shadow of 9/11^TM. There were more important milestones during your time here, ones upon which you kept a closer eye. Britney Spears, wed, unwed, and wed again. Then, in a slap in the face of millions, got herself pregnant without showing her pre-baby goodies in Playboy. Those of you on the Five Year Plan^TM saw Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston go from blushing newlyweds to bitter divorced couple, thanks to the help of puffy lipped Angelina Jolie. Paris Hilton and The Other Chick^TM had a brief fling, but ended their relationship after The Other Chick decided to take up with that hip-hop Hassidim, Adam "DJ AM" Goldstein, or as he's know in the 'hood, "DJ Schlemiel." But through it all nothing pleased you as much as seeing your peers, the celebrities that are truly your generation, grow into the majority. Yes, all of those hours reading the books, badgering your parents for the videos, relentlessly fantasizing as your young hands strayed beneath the sheets, all of it came to fruition as Mary-Kate and Ashley finally turned 18. Sure they are a couple of classes behind you but what's age got to do with it?

Entertainment wasn't the only field that moved quickly during your college stint. Changes in technology occurred almost at the same speed as Jennifer Lopez engagements. Wi-fi hotspots, which used to be the domain of computer geeks suddenly became a paying proposition, especially once companies got around to locking down their wireless networks and stopped providing bandwidth to the masses. Microsoft became even more ingrained in your lives as Windows XP became the favored operating system for hackers, at least when it was installed on other people's machines, and the X-box helped you fill even more of your downtime when the bars were closed. At least for those of you in the chess club who couldn't manage to "hook-up" with the class slut. Your Apple I-Pod love affair seemed to last forever despite the fact that you had to convert your mp3's to m4p's to play them. Best of all, a few RIAA lawsuits didn't keep you, God love ya, from downloading music at an almost criminal rate. Thank God for BitTorrent eh kids?

That's right, Chuckles, all of your employability doesn't hinge on what you've learned here, but what have you done that relates to the job for which you've applied. Which is another reason why Miss Summa Cum Loud over there has a better shot at getting hired than the rest of you.Even the politics changed. What looked like a good ol' boy caretaker president who lacked a mandate turned into a super warrior, jumping into fury with both feet. Then when victory could have been his, when he could have planted his feet firmly on the moral high ground, he tried torturing his way out of an untenable situation. Of course Social Security reform turned out to be more intractable than he thought and George II discovered why it's the third rail of politics. For their part, the Democrats did their level best to ensure a Republican stranglehold on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. Somehow they found it in their hearts to vote for some of the greatest reductions in Civil Liberties^TM since World War II and called it patriotic to do so. Hell even Lincoln, in the middle of a Civil War, had to use executive privilege to suspend habeas corpus. If that weren't enough they fielded a presidential candidate with all the woodenness of a rain forest only with none of the charm. The lessons of the election weren't lost on our donkey friends, and as the date for this ceremony approached, the Democrats began to look even more like Republicans as Hillary cozied up to Newt Gingrich. In her defense, she simply followed the example of her husband who had already started sleeping -- not with interns -- but with George I in their work to relieve tsunami victims. Strange bedfellows indeed.

But what of the economic world? What sort of expectation should you have for gainful employment? That is after all why you needed a school, any school, to prove to your employer that, appearances at the interview aside, you are smarter than the average fence post. Well some of you need that. As I look out on all of your young shining faces I see a blond that could very easily get a job by giving one. Sadly not all of you have what I (and the football team) can assure you are her rather formidable talents. Well I wouldn't hold my breath on the whole job front, Spanky, and here's why: Despite what they told you in the admissions office four years ago, employers aren't looking for people with liberal arts degrees. The B.A. in any discipline is simply a way for employers to weed out applications from Joe Bum. Sadly for you, most people graduate from college these days and as a result many companies are beginning to use Master's Degrees as a filter for potential employees. Of course that's just to help them decide which applications to bother reading. When it comes down to it, the key, and once I tell you you're going to be sick thinking of all those internships you passed up because you wanted to "relax" each summer, when it comes down to it, the key question that any employer will ask is "have you ever done fill in the blank." That's right, Chuckles, all of your employability doesn't hinge on what you've learned here, but what have you done that relates to the job for which you've applied. Which is another reason why Miss Summa Cum Loud over there has a better shot at getting hired than the rest of you. Any job that somebody gives you means you're going to get screwed and if last night was any indication, she has a lot of experience at that.

For some of your generational cohort, the future is so bright they have to wear shades. For you not so much. Of course it was ever thus. The smart, quick, and socially advantaged will travel much farther than you. Your only hope is to work hard, dig deep, and dredge up that entrepreneurial spirit that can make this sad loss of four years of your life less painful as you slide slowly into lonely senility surrounded by packs of cats. Unless you majored in philosophy. In that case, since nothing else will help you, I would recommend the Socratic method. I'm told hemlock grows wild in these parts.

I can see by the blank looks on your faces that you have reached the stage in your hangovers that requires more drinking, and that I should stop using hard words like "cohort" and "cat." I'll conclude the encouraging and inspiring parts of my talk with the following words from Mr. Suntori's Book of Zen: "When you know the sound one hand clapping, check your wallet, for surely it is in the other hand."

Now it is also my duty, I wish it were also my pleasure, to present and recommend you for graduation to the esteemed highway bandits that have, for the last four years, lined their pockets with your parent's retirement. Had I the stomach for the kind of corruption, double dealing, and public malfeasance that these bastards have, I would be sitting with them. Since I don't, I can only follow the formula.

Members of the Board of Trustees, Mr. President, and Dean. As they somehow have met the "rigorous" standards set forth by you and the "independent" accreditation organizations to which you belong, I wish to present to you for your approval the 2005 graduation class of Ottsamatta University. May God have mercy upon their souls.