Patton Oswalt’s Brilliant, Politically Incorrect, Graduation Speech

As a former principal, I always had great concerns at graduation time about the contents of the speeches of those given the opportunity to speak. Having heard numerous tales of irreverent and inappropriate diatribes ruining the evening of many a ceremony, this culminating event to the school year always came with a sense of apprehension.

Would this be one of the years where one of the chosen few would stray from the script, set aside their pre-approved, typed speech at the podium, and begin to deliver an impromptu talk that would raise the hair on the back of a principal’s neck? And if so, at what point would I dare intercede, knowing full well that a power struggle in front of a crowd did little to help anyone’s image?

A Few Nervous Educators
The teachers and faculty of Broad Run High School, and most certainly, the school’s principal, had to be feeling some of those very concerns when guest speaker Patton Oswalt began delivering his oration at this year’s commencement.

One of the most famous graduates of the school was a natural choice to address another generation of Broad Run seniors. But this, according to his own web site, is how he began addressing his audience:

“First off, I want to thank the teachers and faculty of Broad Run High School for first considering and then inviting me to speak here. It was flattering, I am touched and humbled, and you have made a grave mistake.

“I’m being paid for this, right? Oh, wait, there’s some advice, right off the bat – always get paid. If you make enough money in this world you can smoke pot all day and have people killed.

“I’m sorry, that was irresponsible.

“You shouldn’t have people killed.”

Those concerned about the messages we give to our youth had to wince as he continued, even if it was meant to be humorous:

“Boom! Marijuana endorsement eleven seconds into my speech! Too late to cancel me now!

“It’s dumb-ass remarks like that which kept me out of the National Honor Society and also made me insanely wealthy. If I move to Brazil.”

And for those who are concerned with being politically correct, Oswalt soon sent a message that he was unconcerned about such matters.

“I graduated from Broad Run High School 21 years ago. That means, theoretically, I could be – each and every one of you – your father. And I’m speaking especially to the black and Asian students.

“So now I’m going to try to give all of you some advice as if I contained fatherly wisdom, which I do not. I contain mostly caffeine, Cheet-o dust, fear and scotch.”

Getting One’s Attention
Of course the first key teaching point for any speaker is to be sure to gain the attention of your audience. Given that criteria, we suspect the comedian had the attention of every one seated, students, parents, teachers and administrators.

Some might have been simmering but they no doubt had to be awaiting what would come next. It was yet another attempt at outrageous humor.

“The week before graduation I strangled a hobo. Oh wait, that’s a different story. That was college. I’m speaking at my college later this month. I’ve got both speeches here. Let me sum up the college speech – always have a gallon of bleach in your trunk.”

At that point, the principal in me wonders what he might have done had I been seated there. But, oh what a speech was yet to follow.

Lessons Versus Advice
The comedian then got the ball rolling, beginning with a story of a scholarship banquet when he was about to graduate and his being given some advice by a banker at his table. Oswalt’s frank acknowledgment of his own self-absorption and his description of the “myth of myself” is such a dead on descriptor of how our youth conduct themselves had to have the adults nodding in agreement.

He recites the man’s advice:

“And then this banker – clean-shaven, grey suit and vest – you’d never look twice at him on the street – he told me about The Five Environments.

“He leans forward, near the end of the dinner, and he says to me, There are Five Environments you can live in on this planet. There’s The City. The Desert. The Mountains. The Plains. And The Beach.

“You can live in combinations of them. Maybe a city in the desert, or in the mountains by the ocean. Or you could choose just one. Out in the plains somewhere, perhaps.

“But you need to get out there and travel, and figure out where you thrive.

“Some places you’ll go to and you’ll feel yourself wither. Your brain will fog up, your body won’t respond to your thoughts and desires, and you’ll feel sad and angry.

“You need to find out which of the Five Environments are yours. If you belong by the ocean, then the mountains will ruin you. If you’re suited for the blue solitude of the plains, then the city will be a tight, roaring prison cell that’ll eat you alive.”

Oswalt insists the advice was sound:

“He was right. I’ve traveled and tested his theory and he was absolutely right. There are Five Environments. If you find the right combination, or the perfect singularity, your life will click…into…place. You will click into place.”

As he continues to mix in references to his extreme self-absorption, he certainly offers lines that a student or two most likely repeated later.

“I got ripped on absinthe in Prague ….. sank a pint next door at The Ten Bells ….. I cried my eyes out on the third floor of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam …… have eaten crocodile in the Laneways of Melbourne Australia …… been to hidden, subterranean restaurants in New York with the guys from Anthrax …… eaten at L.A. taquieras with “Weird” Al Yankovic …… held the guitar that Hendrix torched at Monterey Pop …….. watched Woodstock ’99 burn to the ground.”

However great his examples, my fear is that he lost the students as he offered his real message, one that was fraught with a need for experience and a knowledge that the world does not revolve around you alone.

“I missed the banker’s lesson. 100%, I completely missed it. In my defense, he didn’t even know he was teaching it.”

Oswalt goes on to explain the difference between advice and a lesson.

“Advice is everywhere in this world. Your friends, family, teachers and strangers are all happy to give it.

“A lesson is yours and yours alone. Some of them take years to recognize and utilize.

“My lesson was this – experience, and reward and glory are meaningless unless you’re open and present with the people you share them with in the moment.”

The Lesson Learned
Oswalt delivers his personal lesson eloquently, one that a trip into adulthood may be required before it can truly be grasped:

“I completely ignored the deeper lesson which is do not judge, and get outside yourself, and realize that everyone and everything has its own story, and something to teach you, and that they’re also trying – consciously or unconsciously – to learn and grow from you and everything else around them. And they’re trying with the same passion and hunger and confusion that I was feeling – no matter where they were in their lives, no matter how old or how young.

“Please don’t mistake miles traveled, and money earned, and fame accumulated for who you are.”

And just once more to reiterate his lesson regarding the self-absorption of youth and the real meaning of life, he states:

“First off: Reputation, Posterity and Cool are traps. They’ll drain the life from your life. Reputation, Posterity and Cool = Fear.

“Let me put that another way. Bob Hope once said, ‘When I was twenty, I worried what everything thought of me. When I turned forty, I didn’t care what anyone thought of me. And then I made it to sixty, and I realized no one was ever thinking of me.’

“Secondly: The path is made by walking. And when you’re walking that path, you choose how things affect you. You always have that freedom, no matter how much your liberty it curtailed. You…get to choose…how things affect you.”

He finished in superb form:

“And lastly, and I guarantee this. It’s the one thing I know ‘cause I’ve experienced it:

“There Is No Them.

I’m going to get out of your way now. Get out there. Let’s see which one of you is up here in twenty years. If you’re lacking confidence, remember – I wouldn’t have picked me.”

Education, Wasted on Our Youth
There is a notion among the adult community that perhaps education is wasted on our youth. I couldn’t help but think of that expression as I contemplated the amazing words of Oswalt.

But I wondered about the students and whether or not they were able to grasp the profound message of what the comedian had to say. Would the throwaway lines, unfortunately, form the major portion of what each student took home?

I also wonder how I would have felt had I been there, how I would have handled the irreverence, the politically incorrect sentences and those throwaway lines. I also thought long and hard about how the other adults in the audience likely reacted, especially the grandmothers and grandfathers, debating to myself whether they could dismiss these troubling aspects so as to be able to hear the message delivered.

Learning of the speech over the Internet, reading it slowly and digesting it, is certainly not the same as sitting and listening to it as it is delivered. And not being able to gauge audience reaction also leaves one wondering.

Reading it, there were many times the speech made me wince. At the same time, for every time I cringed, there were at least three occasions where I nodded in agreement. When I was done digesting, I had to say that Oswalt, at times extolling messages that an educator would prefer he not mention, may have actually given the speech of a lifetime.