This Is Joyous News

I apologize in advance for the length of this post, but blog downtime has led to a slight buildup of waxy, blog-like residue. Please excuse some excess volume in the next couple of days.

Two things:

1. Thanks to the efforts of one Tom Day, esquire, the Mustache Blog is up and running. Apparently thanks to the vagaries of the new blogger switch (and the fact that this blog's creator was sort of, um, ousted due to curmedgeonly old man behavior), the blog only switched when the last contributor did, and that last switcher, Tom Day in this case, becomes the new "owner."

So if Tom's the owner, I guess Kurt can be the GM.,Kubas will be head coach, and I'll be the prima donna athlete. Bundy can be....Vice President in Charge Of Blogging Affairs.
Or maybe the Bus Driver.



2. As you all know by now (despite my best efforts, as I am a very modest person), I'm pretty sure I get to give a speech at graduation (although when I asked him about it today, Mr. Heise waffled like a regular Slick Willy, or Slick Eric, as the case may be)

Finally, a chance to make some sort of impact on this Dullsville of a ceremony.

Now we all know that whatever I'll do, I'll immediately regret it afterwards as either too wild or too tame. That said, there's no reason I shouldn't start worrying about it now, right? On a related note, I guess I'll just start every sentence in this paragraph with a dependent clause, okay?

The way I see it, I have three basic options:

1. Straight grad speech.

Our class was special, we'll miss these great teachers, this is only the beginning, blah blah blah.
Right now, I'm thinking this is just not an option. No doubt Logan will put together a world class page-and-a-half of the usual rigamarole, and hopefully deliver it with great gusto (he is a terribly DRAMAtic perosn after all), and nobody needs to hear more than 8 minutes of this in one 24 hour period.

Possible caveat: I could just do my sister's speech word for word. That'd be funny to about 6 or 7 people at the ceremony (who's planning on going, by the way?), making it, by this standard at least, terribly funny.

2. The JFK speech I mentioned earlier this year.

Pro: It would be really funny if I could pull it off, i.e. get it approved and actually orate it in a fashion fitting its majesty.

Con: It's really long, and kinda weird, and I'd probably crack up and break the atmosphere, and I don't think I could do it justice without a lot of practice, which I'm hoping to avoid. I mean, I'd have to study fuckin' game tape of JFK delivering this thing for weeks to do it right.

3. Something completely different.

A poetry reading? A single haiku? 1 minute of silence? A number from the Music Man? Juggling? Trumpet accompaniment from Andrew Kubas? Andrew Kubas as a guest speaker? The Gettysburg Address? A beach ball distribution phase? An enemies list? Sunscreen? A snare drum to keep the beat? A boombox with God Bless The USA playing? The very first mustache post?

One constant: I definitely want to get the phrase "Hitch your wagon the stars" in there, and I need to open with "As I look on this sea of smiling faces..."


Now then, pardon me while I think myself into a corner:
Who am I writing this for? For myself? Then maybe I should just write the traditional, stuffy, long-winded speech, outline my philosophy and spout some encouraging aphorisms, shake heise's hand, and go back to my seat. I mean, I assume such a speech would be for me. I'm not doing anybody else any favors with this, except perhaps the staunch traditionalists in the crowd (with their steel gray hair and huffy demeanors). On the other hand, what I really want to do is please the crowd and break up the potential bore-fest. Or do I just want more attention for myself?


This is all very complicated. Thoughts?