POMP & CIRCUMSTANCE
A keynote graduation speech

My Dear Graduates,

I look out at you and am jealous. You have had the past four to seven years together. Years of happiness and sorrow and everything in between, which I shall call "haprowness." Some people may say that the only reason I am speaking to you today is because I am a superstar celebrity athlete actor. This is not the case, as the description of me leaves out references to the great amount of real estate I hold. I am pleased and honored and haprowed to give this graduation speech, and I thank the Senior Class Committee and Judge O'Malley for arranging for me to speak as part of my court-ordered community service commitment for fraud and drunken driving and attempted murder.

Still, you may be wondering why I would be jealous of you. After all, while you were paying thousands of dollars to have some teaching assistant give you a B+ on a paper you recycled from high school, I turned pro and have been making millions of dollars. People wear my jersey when they go out, even though it has my name, not theirs, stitched nicely across the back. While you have been trying to figure out what you will do with your life when you have your degree, I have been able to create my own moral code, in which I answer only to my own desires. While you have been worrying about accumulating debts and whether you will be able to afford a car in the winter, I have enough money from the past two seasons to take care of me for life, should I get injured in a game. And that's even after my opulent lifestyle has drained several millions of dollars from my accounts, as have the so-called friends who live off of my largess.

But yes, I am jealous. I am jealous of your innocence, and I am jealous of your hero worship of me. Who am I to worship, now that I have surpassed my former idols in publicity, salary, and fan base? I am also a jealous person in general, which explains in part my legal troubles with the fraud and the attempted murder. I am jealous of most of you having clean records. And you are jealous of me, to be sure. Jealous little rats, you all are. That is why we have so much in common -- we are all jealous. Only I have the funds and fame to follow through on my jealousy with relative impunity. Also, most things I envy soon become mine. This luck will not be the case for you.

Some of you are still asking why I am speaking to you today. In fact, I can hear many of you ask this question aloud, such as the gentleman over there on the right with the dark, horn-rimmed glasses. Sometimes, life is cruel, and it plays one big joke on you. It reminds me of the one-joke movie I was in, for which I was paid so much money I had to open another bank account. That's a joke, see? I don't need a degree to make jokes that people will laugh at. Does that make you upset? I also upset easily, as I am used to getting my own way, and my agent and I won't tolerate it any other way. I am speaking because it draws in the alumni and corporate donors for your school, which makes it possible for them to recruit more people like me, which means that the school will suffer the benefits of having a money-making sports team at such an academic institution. Which means that many people like you will not be able to attend this school in the future. I am here to tell you that.

In addition to my product endorsements, I am further haprowed to say that I also have a children's charity foundation in my name. Sorrowed that taxes demand it, and happy that it's good press. How many of you can say the same? Now, I never finished my math requirements, but, by my calculations, the answer is zero. Some of you who have or will have degrees in things like non-profit work may end up working for a foundation in my name. Again, I am jealous of you. I am jealous that you know how that makes you feel, but I will never really know how that makes you feel. Seems to me to be an ironic shame, no? Some of you sitting out there may be thinking, "He just misused the word 'ironic,'" but keep in mind that it doesn't affect me or my fame one way or the other.

I sense there are still grumblers out there who are not happy to have me bring to a close their graduation after these years of hard work. People who hoped for someone educated and erudite and pertinent. But what is it that you really want to see? Someone successful. That's who I am. Someone inspiring. Yes, that's me. Or I. But what, years from now, do you want? You want to have had somebody memorable. Someone to brag about. You will not remember a theme to my address, you will not remember the things I have said. But you will tell your children that I spoke at your graduation, and somehow, you think, that will make you cool. Just thinking of it -- you trading off of my coolness to improve your own -- is enough to make me bittersweetly jealous all over again.

A personal story to illustrate a point: One game, I was sweaty and tired, and the ref had called a number of fouls on me. I was mad, mad and violent, and Coach benched me. I sat there, fuming, almost wishing I had chosen a quiet profession like so many of you will, when my agent leaned over and said to me, "Hey, don't forget, the movie sequel films tomorrow, and you have to report to make-up by six. Also, I just signed a commercial deal with Coke that will play in Europe to the tune of nine million dollars." At that moment, exhausted and drained, I realized that I had every advantage ahead of me. There is no way in hell I would trade places with any of you. Maybe you have trouble relating, but the point it, it reminds me of a story I heard, but I forget the ending, and whether the whale lived and was meant to represent transition.

As life continues on its humdrum course for you, as you struggle in your meaningless tasks in your dingy little lives, you will find yourself looking back on your time in the sun. That time is now. Or, rather, that time just ended. You will look back on this moment and the end of it all, and you will remember that I was a part of it, the climax of it. You will try to live vicariously through your kids. Remember, though, that the best way to live a full life is to live jealously. Be true to yourself, unless it keeps you from getting ahead. In that case, change who you are, and be true to the new self. My advice to you is: teach your greedy children self-promotion and to play sports. Fame conquers all.

And if you manage to come into some fame yourself, let's hang out some time. Thank you, graduates. I now gladly accept my honorary degree that you spent the last few years working for. I may be good only for putting points on the scoreboard and selling products or tickets to movies, but deep down, we are all the same. For no good reason, and despite many reasons to the contrary, we all love me.