Conan O'Brien's Commencement Address to Harvard

Conan O'Brien's commencement address at Harvard---hilarious.
I'd like to thank the Class Marshals for inviting me here
today. The last
time I was invited to Harvard it cost me $110,000, so you'll
forgive me if
I'm a bit suspicious. I'd like to announce up front that I
have one goal
this afternoon: to be half as funny as tomorrow's
Commencement Speaker,
Moral Philosopher and Economist, Amartya Sen. Must get more
laughs than
seminal wage/price theoretician. Students of the Harvard
Class of 2000,
fifteen years ago I sat where you sit now and I thought
exactly what you are
now thinking: What's going to happen to me? Will I find my
place in the
world? Am I really graduating a virgin? I still have 24
hours and my
roommate's Mom is hot. I swear she was checking me out.


Being here today is very special for me. I miss this place.
I especially
miss Harvard Square - it's so unique. No where else in the
world will you
find a man with a turban wearing a Red Sox jacket and
working in a lesbian
bookstore. Hey, I'm just glad my dad's working. It's
particularly sweet for
me to be here today because when I graduated, I wanted very
badly to be a
Class Day Speaker. Unfortunately, my speech was rejected.
So, if you'll
indulge me, I'd like to read a portion of that speech from
fifteen years
ago:
"Fellow students, as we sit here today listening to that
classic Ah-ha tune
which will definitely stand the test of time, I would like
to make
several predictions about what the future will hold:
"I believe that one day a simple Governor from a small
Southern state will
rise to the highest office in the land. He will lack
political skill, but
will lead on the sheer strength of his moral authority."
"I believe that Justice will prevail and, one day, the
Berlin Wall will
crumble, uniting East and West Berlin forever under
Communist rule."
"I believe that one day, a high speed network of
interconnected computers
will spring up world-wide, so enriching people that they
will lose their
interest in idle chit chat and p*rnography."
"And finally, I believe that one day I will have a
television show on a
major network, seen by millions of people a night, which I
will use to
re-enact crimes and help catch at-large criminals."
And then there's some stuff about the death of Wall Street
which I don't
think we need to get into....


The point is that, although you see me as a celebrity, a
member of the
cultural elite, a kind of demigod, I was actually a student
here once much
like you. I came here in the fall of 1981 and lived in
Holworthy. I was,
without exaggeration, the ugliest picture in the Freshman
Face book.
When Harvard asked me for a picture the previous summer, I
thought it was
just for their records, so I literally jogged in the August
heat to a
passport photo office and sat for a morgue photo. To make
matters worse,
when the Face Book came out they put my picture next to
Catherine Oxenberg,
a stunning blonde actress who was accepted to the class of
'85 but decided
to defer admission so she could join the cast of "Dynasty."
My photo would
have looked bad on any page, but next to Catherine Oxenberg,
I looked like a
mackerel that had been in a car accident. You see, in those
days I was six
feet four inches tall and I weighed 150 pounds. Recently, I
had some
structural engineers run those numbers into
a computer model and, according the computer, I collapsed in
1987, killing
hundreds in Taiwan.


....
After freshman year I moved to Mather House. Mather House,
incidentally,
was designed by the same firm that built Hitler's bunker. In
fact, if Hitler
had conducted the war from Mather House, he'd have shot
himself a
year earlier. 1985 seems like a long time ago now. When I
had my Class Day,
you students would have been seven years old. Seven years
old. Do you know
what that means? Back then I could have beaten any of you in
a fight. And I
mean bad. It would be no contest. If any one here has a time
machine,
seriously, let's get it on, I will whip your seven year old
butt. When I was
here, they sold diapers at the Coop that said "Harvard Class
of 2000." At
the time, it was kind of a joke, but now I realize you wore
those diapers.
How embarrassing for you.


A lot has happened in fifteen years. When you think about
it, we come from
completely different worlds. When I graduated, we watched
movies
starring Tom Cruise and listened to music by Madonna. I come
from a time
when we huddled around our TV sets and watched "The Cosby
Show" on NBC, never imagining that there would one day be a
show called "Cosby" on CBS. In 1985 we drove cars with
driver's side airbags, but if you told us that one day
there'd be passenger side airbags, we'd have burned you for
witchcraft.
of course, I think there is some common ground between us. I
remember
well the great uncertainty of this day. Many of you are
justifiably nervous
about leaving the safe, comfortable world of Harvard Yard
and hurling
yourself headlong into the cold, harsh world of Harvard Grad
School, a plum
job at your father's firm, or a year abroad with a gold Amex
card and then a
plum job in your father's firm.


But let me assure you that the knowledge you've gained here
at Harvard is
a precious gift that will never leave you. Take it from me,
your education
is yours to keep forever. Why, many of you have read the
Merchant of
Florence, and that will inspire you when you travel to the
island of Spain.
Your knowledge of that problem they had with those people in
Russia, or that
guy in South America-you know, that guy-will enrich you for
the rest
of your life.


....
There is also sadness today, a feeling of loss that you're
leaving Harvard
forever. Well, let me assure you that you never really leave
Harvard. The
Harvard Fundraising Committee will be on your ass until the
day you die.
Right now, a member of the Alumni Association is at the Mt.
Auburn Cemetery
shaking down the corpse of Henry Adams. They heard he had a
brass toe ring
and they aims to get it. Imagine: These people just raised
2.5 billion
dollars and they only got through the B's in the alumni
directory. Here's
how it works. Your phone rings, usually after a big meal
when you're tired
and most vulnerable. A voice asks you for money. Knowing
they just raised
2.5 billion dollars you ask, "What do you need it for?" Then
there's a long
pause and the voice on the other end of the line says, "We
don't need it, we
just want it." It's chilling. What else can you expect?


Let me see, by your applause, who here wrote a thesis.
(APPLAUSE) A lot of
hard work, a lot of your blood went into that thesis... and
no one is ever
going to care. I wrote a thesis: Literary Progeria in the
works of Flannery
O'Connor and William Faulkner. Let's just say that, during
my discussions
with Pauly Shore, it doesn't come up much. For three years
after graduation
I kept my thesis in the glove compartment of my car so I
could show it to a
policeman in case I was pulled over. (ACT OUT) License,
registration,
cultural exploration of the Man Child in the Sound and the
Fury...


So what can you expect out there in the real world? Let me
tell you. As you
leave these gates and re-enter society, one thing is
certain: Everyone out
there is going to hate you. Never tell anyone in a roadside
diner that you
went to Harvard. In most situations the correct response to
where did you to
school is, "School? Why, I never had much in the way of book
larnin' and
such." Then, get in your BMW and get the hell out of there.


You see, you're in for a lifetime of "And you went to
Harvard?" Accidentally
give the wrong amount of change in a transaction and it's
"And you went to
Harvard?" Ask the guy at the hardware store how these jumper
cables work and
hear, "And you went to Harvard?" Forget just once that your
underwear goes
inside your pants and it's "and you went to Harvard." Get
your head stuck in
your niece's dollhouse because you wanted to see what it was
like to be a
giant and it's "Uncle Conan, you went to Harvard!?"


But to really know what's in store for you after Harvard, I
have to tell you
what happened to me after graduation. I'm going to tell you
my story
because, first of all, my perspective may give many of you
hope, and,
secondly, it's an amazing rush to stand in front of six
thousand people and
talk about yourself.


....
After graduating in May, I moved to Los Angeles and got a
three week
contract at a small cable show. I got a $380 a month
apartment and bought
a 1977 Isuzu Opel, a car Isuzu only manufactured for a year
because they
found out that, technically, it's not a car. Here's a quick
tip, graduates:
no four cylinder vehicle should have a racing stripe. I
worked at that show
for over a year, feeling pretty good about myself, when one
day they told me
they were letting me go. I was fired and, I hadn't saved a
lot of money. I
tried to get another job in television but I couldn't find
one.


So, with nowhere else to turn, I went to a temp agency and
filled out a
questionnaire. I made damn sure they knew I had been to
Harvard and that I
expected the very best treatment. And so, the next day, I
was sent to the
Santa Monica branch of Wilson's House of Suede and Leather.
When you have a
Harvard degree and you're working at Wilson's House of Suede
and Leather,
you are haunted by the ghostly images of your classmates who
chose Graduate
School. You see their faces everywhere: in coffee cups, in
fish tanks, and they're always laughing at you as you stack
suede shirts no
man, in good conscience, would ever wear.


I tried a lot of things during this period: acting in
corporate
infomercials, serving drinks in a non-equity theatre, I even
took a job
entertaining at a seven year olds' birthday party. In
desperate need of
work, I put together some sketches and scored a job at the
fledgling Fox
Network as a writer and performer for a new show called "The
Wilton North
Report." I was finally on a network and really excited. The
producer told me
the show was going to revolutionize television. And, in a
way, it did. The
show was so hated and did so badly that when, four weeks
later, news of its
cancellation was announced to the Fox affiliates, they burst
into applause.


Eventually, though, I got a huge break. I had submitted,
along with my
writing partner, a batch of sketches to Saturday Night Live
and, after a
year and a half, they read it and gave us a two week tryout.
The two weeks
turned into two seasons and I felt successful. Successful
enough to write a
TV pilot for an original sitcom and, when the network
decided to make it, I
left Saturday Night Live. This TV show was going to be
groundbreaking. It
was going to resurrect the career of TV's Batman, Adam West.
It was going to
be a comedy without a laugh track or a studio audience. It
was going to
change all the rules.
And here's what happened: When the pilot aired it was the
second
lowest-rated television show of all time. It's tied with a
test pattern they
show in Nova Scotia.


....
So, I was 28 and, once again, I had no job. I had good
writing credits in
New York, but I was filled with disappointment and didn't
know what to do
next. I started smelling suede on my fingertips. And that's
when The
Simpsons saved me. I got a job there and started writing
episodes about
Springfield getting a Monorail and Homer going to College. I
was finally
putting my Harvard education to good use, writing dialogue
for a man who's
so stupid that in one episode he forgot to make his own
heart beat. Life was
good.


And then, an insane, inexplicable opportunity came my way .
A chance to
audition for host of the new Late Night Show. I took the
opportunity
seriously but, at the same time, I had the relaxed
confidence of someone who
knew he had no real shot. I couldn't fear losing a great job
I had never
had. And, I think that attitude made the difference. I'll
never forget being
in the Simpson's recording basement that morning when the
phone rang. It was for me. My car was blocking a fire lane.
But a week later I got another call: I got the job.
So, this was undeniably the it: the truly life-altering
break I had always
dreamed of. And, I went to work. I gathered all my funny
friends and poured
all my years of comedy experience into building that show
over
the summer, gathering the talent and figuring out the
sensibility. We
debuted on September 13, 1993 and I was happy with our
effort. I felt like I
had seized the moment and put my very best foot forward. And
this is what
the most respected and widely read television critic, Tom
Shales, wrote in
the Washington Post:


"O'Brien is a living collage of annoying nervous habits. He
giggles and
titters, jiggles about and fiddles with his cuffs. He had
dark, beady little
eyes like a rabbit. He's one of the whitest white men ever.
O'Brien is a
switch on the guest who won't leave: he's the host who
should never have
come. Let the Late show with Conan O'Brien become the late,
Late Show> and may the host return to Conan O'Blivion whence
he came."
There's more but it gets kind of mean. Needless to say, I
took a lot of
criticism, some of it deserved, some of it excessive. And it
hurt like you
wouldn't believe. But I'm telling you all this for a reason.
I've had a lot
of success and I've had a lot of failure. I've looked good
and I've looked
bad. I've been praised and I've been criticized. But my
mistakes have been
necessary. Except for Wilson's House of Suede and Leather.
That was just
stupid.


....
I've dwelled on my failures today because, as graduates of
Harvard, your
biggest liability is your need to succeed. Your need to
always find yourself
on the sweet side of the bell curve. Because success is a
lot like a bright,
white tuxedo. You feel terrific when you get it, but then
you're desperately
afraid of getting it dirty, of spoiling it in any way. I
left the cocoon of
Harvard, I left the cocoon of Saturday Night Live, I left
the cocoon of The
Simpsons. And each time it was bruising and tumultuous. And
yet, every
failure was freeing, and today I'm as nostalgic for the bad
as I am for the
good.


So, that's what I wish for all of you: the bad as well as
the good. Fall
down, make a mess, break something occasionally. And
remember that the story
is never over. If it's all right, I'd like to read a little
something from
just this year: "Somehow, Conan O'Brien has transformed
himself into the
brightest star in the Late Night firmament. His comedy is
the gold standard
and Conan himself is not only the quickest and most
inventive wit of his
generation, but quite possible the greatest host ever."
Ladies and
Gentlemen, Class of 2000, I wrote that this morning, as
proof that, when all
else fails, there's always delusion.


I'll go now, to make bigger mistakes and to embarrass this
fine institution
even more. But let me leave you with one last thought: If
you can laugh at
yourself loud and hard every time you fall, people will
think you're drunk.
Thank you.


------------------
"He was under more balls than a midget hooker."-Bobby Hill

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