When The Chronicle first emailed me telling me to get in touch with them over a matter of extreme urgency, I assumed that they had finally worked out who had set fire to their offices back in 1980. Not to name names, but Derek Smith, Tiberius Scott and Stanley Muggs were definitely all there dousing the place with gasoline before I set the spark. Are you out there reading this, guys?
As it turned out, the kids over at The Chronicle weren’t looking to bring me to court on arson charges but instead wanted me to write a guest column explaining my side of the story on the whole commencement speech debacle. Debacle—sounds like “de basketball”, right? Which, by the way, I don’t understand. Just wanted to make sure you knew that. Remember 1 John 2:28: “And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming.”
Now that I’ve cleared that up, let me address the point at hand. Although I guess I’m more sabre than epée. Get it? Epée. It’s a sword; it has a point. It was an informed joke. Can I get a shout-out for Duke Fencing? PTSD.
As many of you probably already know, some in the graduating Class of 2015—can I get a hand for the Class of 2015? Start clapping right now, wherever you are. If you don’t, Brodhead will find you and run you down with his Gandalf magic powers. He’s a maniac, you know. In any case, some were unimpressed with my speech at commencement. They claimed that my speech was rambling, long and lacked coherence or themes. To that I say: yes.
As any good speechwriter knows—where are you, English majors and Public Policy nerds? —if you spend too long on a single topic, you lose the listener’s attention. By ensuring that I have no topic at all, I am able to perpetually hold 100 percent of the listener’s attention. Where are you, James Bidding? They’re calling your name here at ABP, and you’re not coming to collect.
And besides, the message is there if you read between the lines. Duke grads now have a valuable piece of life wisdom: sometimes, you think the world makes sense but then out of nowhere respected humanitarians will suddenly begin hurling upsetting and problematic non-sequiturs at you. For example, imagine if you got stuck one day having been parachuted out of a plane into the Omani desert. “If the Sultan appoints a Prime Minister, his competencies and powers shall be specified in the Decree appointing him.” That’s the 48th Article of the Omani Constitution. Basketball is not very popular in Oman meaning I would probably fit in there because I too do not know basketball very well.
Do you see what I mean? Let me put my speech in foosball terms for you.
Point 1: the goalkeeper spins around eternally, sliding from side-to-side in front of the goal. That’s you trying to escape from my wisdom by squirming in your seat. Then there’s the player trying to hit the goalkeeper with small plastic balls. I’m the player obviously, and I’m trying to hit you with the plastic balls of my wisdom. The more I vary the color, size and shape of the balls, the more likely I am to hit you.
Also there’s a television in the corner of the bar where the foosball is being played that’s showing footage of the Baltimore protests. That’s a metaphor for the clumsiness with which I worked the genuinely incredibly important problem of structural racism into the speech.
Point 3: “Use a screwdriver to secure the leg firmly in place on the underside of the tabletop”—assembly instructions for the IKEA JÄMSUNDA DINING TABLE 87/114X35. Think about that for a second. I’ll come back to it.
So there you have it: my reasoning. My logic is undeniable in so far as it is also unfollowable. In that regard, it is like basketball which, I feel the need to tell you, I am not well versed in and do not follow. Please do not send me any MP3s, DVDs or YouTube links pertaining to basketball.
Congratulations Class of 2015!
Paul Farmer has woven the clues to finding his buried Sierra Leonean treasure into his commencement speech and has hidden the key to deciphering those clues in this column. Where are you, Nicolas Cage in National Treasure and National Treasure 2?
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