Commencement Analysis 2010

As hundreds of thousands of graduation ceremonies unfold this weekend, most parents are probably thinking roughly the same thing: “Why the hell didn’t I wear something lighter? It’s hot out here!”

Well, that remains a mystery. However, as of today, approximately 10 million seniors have walked across the stage and received a sheepskin as reward for four years of rigorous high school academics and achievements. In order to better understand the best and the brightest of this lot, the Flannel Diaries has painstakingly transcribed and compiled the highest-frequency words of all high school valedictorian speeches across the country.

The following chart gives a valuable clue as to the new horizons and fresh perspectives the Class of 2010 will be giving to the world, and the legacy they have left behind.

--Average valedictorian speech length: 2 minutes, 30 seconds
--Average word count: 425

Word / Average number of word appearances per speech

Obligation--1

Future--2

Teachers--3

Books--4

Drill--8

Bong--12

Drink--15

Playstation--16

American Idol--29

Sex--29

What--112

The Limping Dogs Debut at Lamplighters (But First, a Word on Their Origins)

I'm in my basement trying to coax my mutant, mentally handicapped chihuahua out from under the couch so I can go to a rock concert. Typical drama in this household: it's 6 p.m. and I'm due at Lamplighter's in Palatine for the debut of an exciting act, a once-in-a-lifetime assemblage of musical talent and sensibility. And some serious balls, too--this is a trio of trend setting rock stars (if "trend setting" is a euphemism for "aging, irate drunkards who will play for beer pretzels") that are making their mark tonight. I have observations to record, quotes to obtain, Colt 45 to chug and beer pretzels to procure.

But my dog, bless his stupid little heart, is making marks of his own. Since I'm in a hurry to leave, after having dozed off in front of the TV and after he's gotten himself comfortable, my mutt with the brain of a fruit fly has decided that now would be a pretty good time to take refuge under the couch so as to trap me at home, swilling vodka and neglecting my journalistic responsibilities.

"Come here you little rodent," I growl in my most threatening voice (which usually sends hardened study hall delinquents into hysterics) and fishing at him with a broomstick. "Get out from under there or I'll popsicle you with this thing."

Batman sneers at me and lifts his leg threateningly. From past experience, he knows full well that the most violent act I'm capable of committing against him is a wagged finger in his face. Even that is rare--Batman tends to snap at anything he thinks might be food, and I need my finger. I love my finger. For reasons I will not get into here.

"Put that leg down," I warn him. "I told you--save that for when the band is here. They're not. They're at the bar and I've got to go cover them."

Batman growls, farts, and squeaks out a bark. The subtext is clear: Fuck the band. Stay at home and let me bathe your elbow with my tongue.

It's no use. I'm trapped. I don't dare leave him in the living room--he'll systematically tear every cushion in the house apart, and then pee on the remains. For Batman knows. He knows the power he holds over me, over the band, and over contemporary rock music overall. While I'm chasing him around, working up a sweat and wondering aloud whether or not I could make a good pair of gloves out of him, Chris Dewey, Bryan Park and Kim Laibach are taking center stage, howling their greetings and flashing three-fingered devil's signs at a crowd of adoring fans. The Limping Dogs are ready to rock.

A legend has been born.

---------------------------

It all started when Batman stubbed his toe.

I'd taken him duck hunting yet again, which was proving to be somewhat troublesome. Someone once told me chihuahuas are from the desert, don't handle water well and don't know dick about duck hunting, but I figured that was hooey. Every time my dogs so much as heard a geese honk, they were off running, barking their fool little heads off. So I figured they must be naturals. Oh, true, I had second thoughts the first time I put Batman in the marsh and he sunk up to his eyeballs and I had to fish him out and clean mud out of his mouth that he'd eaten in an effort to escape. But never let it be said that my dog's slow start is any mark of my own skill as a teacher.

This time, though, I'd dropped my duck hunting gun in the water, and since it was unable to fire, I'd resorted to using it as a club on any ducks within reach. Of which there were none. Besides, Batman was being a dick, insisting on avoiding the water and preferring to be carried in my flak jacket, grunting all the while. The one duck I did manage to get close to bit me on the hand, and it was then I decided I'd better go home and see what Kim, who is, after all, a doctor, could do about it.

When I came home, I found my wife-to-be at her drum set, with Dewey on the guitar, Park on the bass and Chris Tso blowing notes out of a hooch jug. This setup had become quite common over the past year and a half, as the four of them experimented with several kinds of music and talked idly about ditching their spouses, S.O.s and pathetic day jobs in order to rock the suburban open mic scene. I'd tried to be supportive by stepping around Dewey's gyrating guitar solos while doing laundry, or agreeing to experiment with LSD with Park in the backyard. But truth be told, this time I was in no mood to be accommodating. The duck bite was starting to fester, and the world was dipping and swaying alarmingly as I stepped up to the band. At the moment, Dewey was performing an electrifying guitar solo on a Fender Stratacast, Park was belting out Primus riffs, Laibach was doing a Keith Moon solo and Tso was weeping frustratedly on a nearby chair, jug dangling from his girlish grip.

"It just...it's just not coming out right," he sobbed.

"It's okay, man," Dewey said, making a halfhearted gesture of reassurance. "You've only been playing for four years."

"We need to start thinking about a schtick," Laibach announced, twirling a drumstick with one hand and stuffing a fig bar into her mouth with the other. "Something radical. Original. Groundbreaking. Moneymaking."

"How about we use old Celtic runes and do some songs about Tolkien and Arthurian legends?" Park suggested.

"How about we paint bats and what not on our faces and stick our tongues way out?" Laibach offered. "Also, we could set Tso on fire."

"I think we should do a hard-core Satan worshipping act," Dewey said. "It's what the kids are into these days, right?"

"I can't play this thing," Tso cried, chucking his jug into a corner and retreating into the kitchen to sulk by himself.

There was a lull in the conversation at this point, which is when they noticed me. "Hi," I mumbled. "You're all still here. Good."

"Who's he?" Dewey asked Kim absently.

"What do you want?" Laibach demanded. "We're really busy."

"Where's that roast duck you promised?" Park asked.

"My dog didn't retrieve it," I lied, putting Batman down on the floor. "All he did was stare at the duck, bark at a squirrel, run on the docks and poop." Batman, taking umbrage at my criticism, ran back towards me and peed on my shoe. I swore at him and made as if to kick him.

"He's limping," Laibach observed, taking a long pull from her bag of trail mix.

"He stubbed his toe on a duck that was already dead," I said. "Which reminds me. I got bit. Do I have anything to worry about?"

"How the hell would I know?" Laibach retorted. "I don't know human medicine."

"Well...it was a duck."

"Well I'm sure it'll be all right." Laibach squinted at Batman, chewing her lower lip thoughtfully. "He's limping," she repeated.

"You're right," Dewey said, his own gaze narrowing on Batman. "He is limping."

"I'm only asking because this duck was foaming at the mouth," I interjected. "Can ducks get rabies? I mean, I don't want to sound like a wimp or anything, but..."

"A dog...a dog that's limping," Park muttered quietly, his eyes riveted on Batman's trek across the floor in order to continue dribbling on my sneaker.

"He's a dog," said Laibach.

"A limping dog," agreed Dewey, catching on. "My God, that's too stupid not to work."

"He's a Limping Dog," Laibach announced. "And so are we."

"I think my hand is infected," I sulked.

"That's brilliant, Kim," said Dewey. "I mean, aren't we all Limping Dogs deep down inside?"

Park spun his bass in his arms and cracked open another one of my beers. "To the Limping Dogs!"

"Call an ambulance," I begged.

"To the LD's!" yelled Laibach.

"To the Limping Dogs!" announced Dewey.

"I got my hand stuck in the jug!" Tso yelled from the kitchen.

And thus, the legend began. No, really. For real.

-------------------------------------------

Of course, I'm not at the concert to enjoy it. The debut performance drew a crowd the likes of which Palatine had not seen since the Michael Richardson poetry slam of 2007. The earth moved. Records for standing ovations were broken. The Dogs managed to seduce an entire demographic with retro folk songs and Dewey's unbounded contempt for the crowd, sandwiched in between sets in the form of rambling, drunken monologues. And while Kim received three marriage proposals (seriously considering only one or two, she later assured me) and Park had a urinal memorialized in his honor by the bar owner, I was surrendering to the band's six-pound, blob-like namesake.

"Look, Batman, there's a bunch of crotches for you to sniff at the bar if you come out of there," I plead with him. "I've got a deadline, okay? Just come on out."

Batman bares his tooth at me and dribbles on the nearby remote control. "All right then," I grunt, utterly defeated. "You win. Animal Planet: Late Night Confessions it is."

Batman yips triumphantly and beings doing victory laps around the sofa.

"Help!" I hear from upstairs. A whiny, defeated tone to rival even my own. "Now I got my dick stuck in the jug!"

And thus, another legend was born. But seriously, the hell with that one. Go try your luck with the last legend--the Dogs are playing a bar near you soon, and the beers are going for half price.

The mighty Batman rests up after an exhausting afternoon of doing nothing. In front of him, the Limping Dogs perfect their opening number: "My Dog Hunts Ducks but My Man is a Dick."

My Interview with Sarah Palin Part III

Click here for the first dumb part | Click here for the second even dumber part

Again, all quotes taken from Palin's "book." Dramamine, necessary for a first reading, can be purchased at most drug stores.

ME: Ms. Palin, since we spoke last, you've given a rousing speech at the first National Tea Party Convention, where you made fun of our president for being a law professor at the lectern, and your foreign policy suggestion boils down to basically: "Reagan rocked. I say we win like he did." This is a pretty good sedgway to your own mind and how it works. You took some heat for not having enough of an intellect to tackle the job. You want to clear that up now?

SP: “[My qualifications go] beyond common sense conservatism and traditional values to the fact that [Todd and I] are everyday Americans. We know what it’s like to have to make payroll and take care of employees. We know what it’s like to be on a tight budget and wonder how we’re going to pay for our own health care, let alone college tuition. We know what it’s like to work union jobs, to be blue-collar, white-collar, to have our kids in public schools.” (221)

ME: That makes about 300 million Americans qualified for the job. Isn’t this democracy thing great? Still, I understand Katie Couric was a little dubious about your grasp of current events?

SP: “Over the past several months… I had been interviewed on energy and security issues by numerous national media outlets, including her hometown newspaper, the New York Times, for whom I had also penned an op-ed earlier in the year on another issue. Had she read those, I wondered?” (277)

ME: Probably not. But then, she was asking what you read, not what you wrote. Right?

SP: Yes. (44)

ME: Speaking of writing, there are some real gems of composition in your book. What was it you said about running that one time?

SP: “As the soles of my shoes hit the soft ground, I pushed past the tall cottonwood trees in a euphoric cadence, and meandered through willow branches that the moose munched on.” (102)

ME: [Pause] Ms. Palin, that is beautiful. I wish my kids could write shit like that. What else you got?

SP: “If God had not intended for us to eat animals, how come He made them out of meat?” (133)

ME: And if God had not intended for men to marry other men, why did He give them penises!

SP: …

ME: You want to see my penis?

SP: …no… (16)

ME: Okay. Too soon. Sorry. Let’s talk about your family.

SP: “Let’s debate ideas. Let’s argue about legislation and policy. Let’s talk about political philosophy. But leave my children alone.” (372)

ME: Right. Apologies.

SP: “It was reported nationally that a New York judge . . . blasted me for bringing Trig onstage during the campaign. . . No one told me that running for office means a woman candidate has to switch off her maternal instincts and hide her children from view. If that’s required, then count me out.”(372)

ME: But I thought you wanted to leave them out. Then why did you bring him…

SP: “Gossipmongers had been] spreading lies that Todd and I were divorcing…Dang, I thought. Divorce Todd? Have you seen Todd?” (352)

ME: I have, actually. Does he swing?

SP: Yes. (44)

ME: Excellent. [Makes note] But when did all this gossip happen happen?

SP: “A group of left-wing bloggers had been yakking about porn pictures and videos of me that they threatened would soon be released to the public.” (348)

ME: Okay, Ms. Palin. This is getting seriously hot. But if you don’t want to bring up your family, why do you keep bringing up your family?

SP: “[Being] married to Todd, I was also accused of literally being ‘in bed’ with the oil industry.

ME: Ah. Like with TransCanada Alaska.

SP: I had to explain that as a blue-collar union hand, a production operator wearing a hard hat and steel-toed boots, Todd wasn’t calling the shots for the corporate bosses in London. In fact, I told Alaskans, ‘Todd’s not in management. He actually works.’” (95)

ME: If he’s swinging with you, I guess he does. Any other family members you don’t want to talk about?

SP: “Lena [Palin, Ms. Palin’s grandmother-in-law] is a tough frontier woman. How many American women do you know who can weave a grass basket; sew squirrel skins into a garment and adorn it with intricate beadwork; haul a thousand salmon out of the ocean, get them to market in a sailboat, then take some home, fillet them, and serve them for dinner?” (119)

ME: [Pause] What the fuck are you talking about?

SP: “We felt our very normalcy, our status as ordinary Americans, could be a much-needed fresh breeze blowing into Washington D.C.” (221)

ME: Ah. I see. [awkward pause] You’re yanking my chain, right?

SP: “I hope you get a good laugh as well!” (405)

ME: I totally did! I actually took you seriously for a minute there! Ms. Palin, you realize you’re contradictory, shallow, full of party rhetoric that you barely understand the basics of and not even competent enough to helm a rowboat across the river. But you know what? I think this book, your grandstanding with the Tea Partiers and your Fox News schtick will actually do your political career some good. And that scares hell out of me.

SP: “[I am] so Alaska. I had to share. (405)

ME: And I’m forever glad you did. You sure you don’t want to see my penis?

SP: “God didn’t give me natural athleticism.” (30)

ME: That’s a very considerate turndown. By the way, your pipeline you’re always crowing about? The one you say is helping the economy already? It hasn’t been built yet. You knew that?

SP: “Oh. My. Gosh.” (51)

ME: Well, these mistakes will happen.

SP: “Dang, I must be getting old.” (401)

ME: Not old enough, unfortunately. Good night, Ms. Palin. And good night, America.

Fin

from politicalhumor.about.com. Sorry. Too lazy to do one myself.

My Interview with Sarah Palin Part II

Quotes taken from Going Rogue, just like always. Hey, I read the damned thing. Might as well make some use of it.

Click here for Part I.

ME: All right, Ms. Palin, I’ve had a chance to calm down and you’ve had a chance to Google economics, so we should be ready to start again, right? I’d like to get more into your tenure as governor. Now, what about this China bid thing? I understand you had an offer from them on the pipeline?

SP: “The bid, by Sinopec, bothered me. There was little doubt that the company could muster the manpower, technology, and funding necessary to do the job, but this proposal skated on the razor’s edge between the free-market and national sovereignty. An energy-thirsty Communist nation controlling Alaska’s natural gas reserves was not in the best interests of the state or our country.” (205)

ME: Unlike, say, oil deals with Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. So why didn’t you give them the deal? I guess you would have had to have an ostensible reason.
SP: “It turned out Sinopec’s application was incomplete anyway. (205)

ME: Yeah, the Chinese are notorious for being lazy s.o.b.’s when it comes to paperwork. So who got the deal after all?

SP: “[The] Calgary-based TransCanada-Alaska, a firm that had not only met every single enforceable requirement of AGIA but exceeded them.” (205)

ME: Wow, that company with all those ties to your administration? The one you all but solicited, according to the AP? That’s a pretty sweet deal.

SP: “[National media is] too lazy to sift fact from fiction.” (203)

ME: Bastards.

SP: “It was one lie after another—from rape kits to Bridges to Nowhere. All easy enough to disprove if the press had done its job.” (237)

ME: Hey, what about that bridge? I understand there was some confusion as to whether or not you took federal money for it? And that the record states that you did?

SP: …

ME: Hmm. Well, we’ll chalk that issue up for a possible sequel. Let’s change gears a bit here: Matt Damon lambasted you for believing that dinosaurs were around two thousand years ago and that science is bogus. So to get the record straight: What’s your stance on evolution?

SP: “’[Science] proves parts of evolution…But I believe that God created us and also that He can create an evolutionary process that allows species to change and adapt.’”(217)

ME: [Lighting a cigarette] Makes sense.

SP: “And, by the way, I saw nothing wrong with students debating the merits of evolution in the classroom. If William F. Buckley—a devout Catholic and a world-class intellectual—could believe in the divine origins of man, why couldn’t I?” (219)

ME: Off the top of my head, because he wasn’t teaching a high school science course, and you’re not a world-class intellectual.

SP: “God says in Scripture, ‘Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this, says the LORD Almighty, ‘and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of Heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.’” (22-23)

ME: That socialist prick! Sounds a lot like our current president, taking what we all have and distributing it to the poor.

SP: “I considered the Obama administration’s panicky effort to stimulate the economy by spending enormous amounts of borrowed money shortsighted and ill conceived.

ME: But doesn’t Jesus say, through Scripture, “If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me”?

SP: [The bailout] defied the lessons of history and common sense.

ME: So much for theologic/political consistency, folks.

SP: [Obama’s] nearly $1 trillion stimulus package was patently unfair both to future generations who will inherit our wasteful debt and to the everyday Americans who work very hard to pay the taxes that the administration seeks to spend at breakneck speed.” (357)

ME: Well, to be fair, President Bush did the exact same thing. He cut taxes and raised spending. And Senator McCain supported this, and so did you, if I’m not mistaken. That’s one reason the Democrats took the House and Senate in 2006, and another reason you guys lost.

SP: [Rahm Emanuel], now President Obama’ chief of staff, … crafted and executed the ruthless 2006 campaign strategy that won back Congress for the Democrats…” (370)

ME: Oh. I see. It had nothing to do with two wars, Hurricane Katrina, failure to find WMDs…cutting taxes on the wealthy and increasing deficit spending to fight overseas for dubious causes?

SP: “Servicing the $1.5 trillion debt is a huge annual expenditure in the federal budget. . . Our overspending today could destroy our children’s future.” (389)

ME: That must be why Senator McCain voted with the Republicans seven times to raise the debt ceiling. Gotcha. By the way, according to the Chicago Tribune, the bailout is a fraction of a fraction of the deficit. Just so you know.

SP: “That’s not entirely true.” (87)

ME: No, it is true. You can look it up on the Treasury page itself. Look at the figures on the wars, if you want to talk high spending.

SP: “Today our sons and daughters are fighting in distant countries to protect our freedoms and to nurture freedom for others. I understand that many Americans are war-weary…

ME: Nah. We love wars.

SP: “… but we do have a responsibility to complete our missions in these countries so that we can keep our homeland safe. America must remain the strongest nation in the world in order to remain free. And our goal in the War on Terror must be the same as Reagan’s: ‘We won. They lost.’” (393)

ME: Boy, if Reagan were around today, this whole mess would be gone. All he’d have to do would be to tell Karzai, “Mister President, get rid of those terrorists.”

SP: “I was in high school the day Reagan took the oath of office. On the same day, minutes after he was sworn in, a band of Iranian militants released fifty-two Americans, after having held them—and our national pride—hostage for 444 days. I had followed the Iran hostage crisis and remember wondering why President Jimmy Carter didn’t act more decisively.

ME: I think his retrieval operation was pretty decisive. Even if it sucked.

SP: From my high schooler’s perspective, I thought the question was, Why did he allow America to be humiliated and pushed around?

ME: And your adult perspective has led you to think…?

SP: “The new president being sworn in radiated confidence and optimism. The enemies of freedom took notice. In years to come, people would ask, what did he have that Carter didn’t? To me, the answer was obvious. He had a steel spine.” (46)

ME: I think that, if you’re going to exchange arms for hostages and fund contras, not to mention orchestrate campaigns that result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans, you have to have a steel spine. That pansy Carter would have been running off to weep at Stockholm at word of the first dead nine-year-old El Salvadoran refugee. Right?

SP: “…no…” (16)

ME: Well, maybe not. Let’s take a short break while readers look up our contradictory assertions and come to the inevitable conclusion that I’m right. Sound good?

SP: “I [don’t] put much stock in fickle polls.” (6)

ME: And I don’t put much stock in fickle minds. So let’s give each other one more shot.

Interruption in interview here. Palin heads to library, and the interviewer heads to a neighborhood Wasilla bar and gets the snot beat out of him for playing The Dixie Chicks on the jukebox.

Next week: The exciting conclusion!

My Interview with Sarah Palin

All Palin dialogue taken from her book Going Rogue: An American Life, available anywhere fine hardcover memoirs are sold.

Handsome, young, budding and incredibly talented reporter walks up to a rustic cabin surrounded by rustic folks field-dressing moose and saluting the flag as only rustic people can do. He knocks on the door and Sarah Palin answers.

ME: Ms. Palin, I want to thank you for your time. I know that, being an ex-governor, you probably have tons of it, but still, holla. [Fist bumps galore here.]

SARAH PALIN: “That’s not entirely true.” (87)

ME: And you’re not entirely Ms. Frontier Woman of the New Millenium either, so let’s call it even.

They enter Palin’s living room.

ME: Okay. Let’s start with the basics. Now, I read Going Rogue, and I checked out your Facebook page…

SP: “Isn’t Facebook a terrific illustration of the power of American ingenuity?” (400)

ME: And by the way, your Mafia Wars score is un-frickin’-believable. But I think we ought to begin at the beginning. Start fresh. So. Tell me how you got to where you are today?

SP: “’Before I became governor…I was mayor of my hometown. I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a ‘community organizer,’ except that you have actual responsibilities.’” (242)

ME: Ha ha! Take that, Martin Luther King, Jr.!

SP: “[An] individual’s commitment to his or her own business and family—that is significantly more important than any community leadership role.” (243)

ME: And take that, Jesus Christ!

SP: “[Government] experience doesn’t necessarily count for much.” (84)

ME: Well that leaves you in the clear all right. Now, you had a lot of people telling you you couldn’t be a mom and run for office, right?

SP: [Alaska Governor] Mukowski [when interviewing me for a Senate seat] …launched into a soliloquy on how tough it was on a family to serve in the Senate. It seemed to me that though he thought me competent enough to make his short list, the father in him felt compelled to protect me from the storm that is national politics.” (98)

ME: That sucks. Hell, you can prioritize, right? But then why didn’t you go for the Senate later, in 2006?

SP: “[Who would] be [my son’s] hockey manager?”

ME: But I thought you said…

SP: At that point in [my son Track’s] life, having an involved mom was more important to him—and to me—than having a mom with a powerful position in Washington, D.C.” (341)

ME: So a mom can do it, except when a mom can’t. Now, I understand these non-qualification qualifications didn’t really get the attention you felt they deserved? Particularly with the Katie Couric interview?

SP: “There was so much I could and should have said [to Katie Couric regarding foreign policy]…For instance that Alaska’s geographic position makes our relations with Pacific Rom countries of great strategic import, and that we’re the air crossroads of the world…

ME: Well, she was asking about experience, right? Not just situations, but your actual actions and decisions.

SP: That Russian bombers often play cat and mouse with our Air Force near Alaska’s airspace…

ME: Did you deal with that directly? What did you actually do?

SP: That I dealt with Canadian officials on a weekly basis and have signed agreements concerning everything from security to salmon fishing…

ME: Okay, you signed stuff. But what did you do?

SP: …and that NAFTA has significantly affected our economy…

ME: That’s what NAFTA does. Not you.

SP: That melting polar sea ice has created new trade routes but has also created security threats to North America…

ME: Look, I don’t think we’re communicating here…

SP: That Alaska takes on Japanese and Russian fishing trawlers that want to ravage the ocean floor…

ME: Goddamnit…

SP: That Chinese and Russian energy companies had both sought access to (and possible control of) our natural gas resources. That these and other countries were staking their own resource claims in Arctic waters while the U.S. sat on its hands.” (275)

ME: [Whining] Come on! In your years as governor, what did you actually do?

SP: “[The Governor’s mansion] came with a personal chef, but I unbudgeted the position. … The chef seemed so darned bored because the kids didn’t want anything fancy to eat.” (133)

ME: Ms. Palin, give me something specific or I’m hitting your baby.

SP: …

ME: Christ. Fine. Why don’t we take a break so people can check your non-rebuttal rebuttal out? And where are those little darlings of yours, anyway?

Click here for Part II of this completely idiotic thing.