to all graduates ...

here's one from the future host of The Tonight Show.

obviously you don't need to graduate from Harvard to appreciate it.

-----
Commencement Speech to the Harvard Class of 2000
by Conan O'Brien

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 pornography." "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 to 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.

But 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.

daybreak

i feel like Daniel, being thrown into the lions' den.

speaking of lions ... this always makes me laugh.



then again, who knows? maybe there's another change on the horizon.

the Sims, Philippine Edition

so what about this latest brouhaha back home - a hostage crisis, the second in weeks to happen?

picture this: a 60-year old daycare school owner takes hostage 26 of his own students, inside a bus for 10 hours, demanding to get 'support for his school and improved housing for the poor'. at 7 PM Manila time, the guy, Armando Ducat surrenders, ending the standoff.

my first concern was: did the kids even eat during the whole ordeal?

the answer is, they got fried chicken at the end of the day (Jollibee? Max's?). so this means nobody ate during.

last night, while i was checking news wires as the crisis progressed, i read that Malacanang convened a luncheon meeting to discuss the problem. two things jumped out at me:

- that they were having a luncheon meeting. did they have krispy pata, lechon paksiw, pancit luglug, and puto, while considering options on how to get out of the embarrassing situation? since this is the Internet Age 2.0, news like this get picked up immediately - and i bet you some officials in that meeting were among the last to know. and while eating that crunchy krispy pata, a couple of them probably threw out suggestions to bomb the bus. bomb bus! wooohoooo!

- that allegedly, no one was panicking. that's what Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said - "who's panicking? we are hardly in a state of panic." that's true. i mean, how can you panic when you're having krispy pata and pancit? what, me worry?

other people didn't waste time having lunch, going for the media mileage and goodwill cachet instead - witness the distinguished Senator Bong Revilla acting on his moviestar instincts and negotiated directly with the hostage-taker. even Senator-hopeful and gambling lord Chavit Singson talked to the guy. are they all mahjong and pusoy buddies? c'mon, we need to know these things.

and how about this Ducat guy? alleged historical behavior of the sort notwithstanding (holding a couple of priests hostage because he was unpaid?), he demanded free education for his wards (whom he threatened basically by brandishing guns - an Uzi! - at keeping them in a bus without food for hours) and "unite with President Gloria Arroyo" to "dismantle a corrupt government" ... ehhh? didn't the instigators of the coup de'tat of 2003 demand the same thing? so instead of taking adults as hostages, we Filipinos try to prove a point alternatively by taking helpless kids hostages. if this doesn't work, look out for somebody taking a whole pet shop hostage next time.

so what was he thinking? he knows he's gonna face jail time at the least. jail time, if he doesn't go down shooting, taking a few kids along. really? was he really bent on shooting kids with his "fine" and "Israeli-made"* Uzi? he was allegedly a contractor. was he "contracted" to put distracting news on the headlines, and make a few people look good? everyone loves the Robin Hood type.

* that was the description of Senior Superintendent Danilo Abarsoza. is there an Uzi that's NOT Israeli-made? or are you just trying to impress the press? just asking, sir. and oh, make sure that fine firearm does not end up in someone else's private arsenal. or yours.

with the elections looming on the horizon, the only ones who will remember this down the line would be the traumatized kids. or maybe that ChickenJoy was enough to wipe away the bad memories. oh wait, somebody will make a movie first! i can see it now: "Manila Hostage Crisis: God Save Us!". or at least a "Maalaala Mo Kaya" episode. expect Kris Aquino to interview a few kids. some of them might end up Star Circle Search Batch 2010.


and then we all forget about this crap. until all the pet dogs in Ayala Alabang get taken hostage.

not AppleTV

while everyone else was enjoying their AppleTVs, i went the other way and got a media receiver instead. i did consider the AppleTV, but they were shooting themselves in the foot like Sony by limiting media formats. and since the bulk of my ehem, appropriated media content is mostly AVI/DiVX and MPG, i neither have the patience nor inclination to convert everything to what Steve Jobs deemed playable on his new toy. plus it may not work on my not-HDTV TV. we'll talk again in June, Steve, when iPhone comes out.

so for a few dollars less, i chose the D-Link DSM-520, a sleek wireless media receiver that has been out for about a year now.


recommended layout had it connecting to the TV directly, but since i had my Pelican Pro Selector device, i sent the receiver through that instead. initially i tried using an S-Video cable (against common sense), but that didn't work (boooo!). i didn't have a spare component video cable handy so i used my DVD cables temporarily.

and it works! i just needed to enter my secret 128-bit encrypted network password and we're rolling.


now for testing ... what's in my laptop? ah, a good choice: Pirates of the Carribean in AVI format.


wait ... that's not Pirates of the Caribbean!


of course, 'garbage in, garbage out' applies here ... if you have poorly-encoded media, your output will suck. which also means you go 'wow' when you're playing HDTV-source AVI files (props to revolutionary encoders!) it also doesn't like low level WMVs, or QuickTime MOVs, but that's no big deal. you can also have the option of having several media servers, so you can switch from one pc to another to play your stuff.

anyway, the darned thing works! its not HDTV but now i can watch all that accumulated movies and TV shows of the past 24 months on a bigger screen than my laptop or desktop. which i have been thinking about for a long time now. hooohaaaa!


what, i have to do laundry?!? sheeesh.

thumbing my nose

new iPod entries:

Joss Stone
Introducing Joss Stone


LCD Soundsystem
Sound of Silver


Arcade Fire
Neon Bible


Bloc Party
A Weekend in the City



The Brand New Heavies
Get Used To It


Sugababes
Overloaded: The Singles

oca 2007

picks! for Sunday! i don't know! why am exclaiming! i haven't seen much yet! but i have most of them! most likely i'll watch them! after winners are announced! perhaps! i think i would miss the opening sketch! but there's always YouTube!

Performance by an actor in a leading role:
Leonardo DiCaprio in “Blood Diamond” (Warner Bros.)
Ryan Gosling in “Half Nelson” (THINKFilm)
Peter O’Toole in “Venus” (Miramax, Filmfour and UK Council)
Will Smith in “The Pursuit of Happyness” (Sony Pictures Releasing)
Forest Whitaker in The Last King of Scotland (Fox Searchlight)

Performance by an actor in a supporting role:
Alan Arkin in “Little Miss Sunshine” (Fox Searchlight)
Jackie Earle Haley in “Little Children” (New Line)
Djimon Hounsou in Blood Diamond (Warner Bros.)
Eddie Murphy in “Dreamgirls” (DreamWorks and Paramount)
Mark Wahlberg in “The Departed” (Warner Bros.)

Performance by an actress in a leading role:
Penélope Cruz in “Volver” (Sony Pictures Classics)
Judi Dench in “Notes on a Scandal” (Fox Searchlight)
Helen Mirren in The Queen (Miramax, Pathé and Granada)
Meryl Streep in “The Devil Wears Prada” (20th Century Fox)
Kate Winslet in “Little Children” (New Line)

Performance by an actress in a supporting role:
Adriana Barraza in “Babel” (Paramount and Paramount Vantage)
Cate Blanchett in “Notes on a Scandal” (Fox Searchlight)
Abigail Breslin in “Little Miss Sunshine” (Fox Searchlight)
Jennifer Hudson in Dreamgirls (DreamWorks and Paramount)
Rinko Kikuchi in “Babel” (Paramount and Paramount Vantage)

Best animated feature film of the year:
Cars (Buena Vista) John Lasseter
“Happy Feet” (Warner Bros.) George Miller
“Monster House” (Sony Pictures Releasing) Gil Kenan

Achievement in directing:
“Babel” (Paramount and Paramount Vantage) Alejandro González Iñárritu
The Departed (Warner Bros.) Martin Scorsese
“Letters from Iwo Jima” (Warner Bros.) Clint Eastwood
“The Queen” (Miramax, Pathé and Granada) Stephen Frears
“United 93” (Universal and StudioCanal) Paul Greengrass

Best documentary feature:
“Deliver Us from Evil” (Lionsgate)
An Inconvenient Truth (Paramount Classics and Participant Productions)
“Iraq in Fragments” (Typecast Releasing)
“Jesus Camp” (Magnolia Pictures)
“My Country, My Country” (Zeitgeist Films)

Best motion picture of the year:
Babel (Paramount and Paramount Vantage)
“The Departed” (Warner Bros.)
“Letters from Iwo Jima” (Warner Bros.)
“Little Miss Sunshine” (Fox Searchlight)
“The Queen” (Miramax, Pathé and Granada)

Achievement in visual effects:
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (Buena Vista)
“Poseidon” (Warner Bros.)
“Superman Returns” (Warner Bros.)

Adapted screenplay:
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
“Children of Men” (Universal)
“The Departed” (Warner Bros.)
“Little Children” (New Line)
“Notes on a Scandal” (Fox Searchlight)

Original screenplay:
“Babel” (Paramount and Paramount Vantage)
Letters from Iwo Jima (Warner Bros.)
“Little Miss Sunshine” (Fox Searchlight)
“Pan’s Labyrinth” (Picturehouse)
“The Queen” (Miramax, Pathé and Granada)

gone fishing.

big j

that's my first encounter with an ugly american.


yeah i know its a toy. its called a "Big Trak", and based on Google searches, there's still a lot of former kids out there who profess a love for this electro-mechanical wonder that came out back in 1979.


so why is the concept of an "ugly american" involved in this post? ah, well, back in those days, our landlord's relatives came to visit from America. i used to play with the landlord's kids, and with their new fandangled American cousin(s) in tow, they had to show off stuff to the dirt-poor child who lives in the ground floor. first among which would be this Big Trak, which made beeping sounds and followed commands input in the keypad.

their big American cousin (the male one), whose name is the same as the one of my best mate on the sidebar, also had to show off his karate moves to me, or rather with me as the tackle dummy. and the landlord's kid, who's dumber than a rock, cheered his cousin on, forgetting that when the guy returns home to America, he'll be begging me to play with them again.

so i wonder where the hell is that cousin of theirs now? i never saw them again, up until we left the place and transferred to our current home in Cagayan. he's probably collecting bottle caps and beer bottles for the 5 cent refund he can get from each. or maybe the jerk's a damn CIA agent now and he's monitoring blogs for anything nasty said about him.

darned kids.

you can resist!

taken from a link in a post in our other blog ... but hell yes, can't i eat my Ritz in peace?

Grammy picks '07

ok here i am with my picks for the next hour's Grammy jammy awards. most of my picks will be wrong anyway, but ah what the heck. obviously, my picks are strictly subjective and i'm going with what i listened and liked. which means, i am not picking Biatche. i'm not picking JT because sexy never left. and i'm not picking James Blunt because he thinks he's f**king good enough for Petra Nemcova.

watching? am i watching? hell no, i'm going to pop in The Godfather and check my selections in the morning.

Best Pop Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocal
My Humps - The Black Eyed Peas or
Is It Any Wonder? - Keane

Best Pop Vocal Album
Back To Basics - Christina Aguilera or
Continuum - John Mayer

Best Rock Album
Try! - John Mayer Trio or
Broken Boy Soldiers - The Raconteurs

Best Alternative Music Album
Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not - Arctic Monkeys or
St. Elsewhere - Gnarls Barkley

Best Female R&B Vocal Performance
Be Without You - Mary J. Blige or
I Am Not My Hair - India.Arie

heaven forbid Biatche wins.

Best Male R&B Vocal Performance
Heaven - John Legend or
Black Sweat - Prince

Best R&B Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocals
Family Affair - (Sly & The Family Stone), John Legend, Joss Stone With Van Hunt or
Beautiful, Loved And Blessed - Prince & Támar

Best Urban/Alternative Performance
Crazy - Gnarls Barkley or
Mas Que Nada - Sergio Mendes featuring The Black Eyed Peas

Best R&B Song
Black Sweat - Prince, songwriter

Best R&B Album
The Breakthrough - Mary J. Blige or
3121 - Prince

Best Contemporary R&B Album
Kelis Was Here - Kelis

shit. i ain't picking Biatche.

Best Male Pop Vocal Performance
Waiting On The World To Change - John Mayer or
Bad Day - Daniel Powter

Best Female Pop Vocal Performance
Ain't No Other Man - Christina Aguilera or
Stupid Girls - Pink

Best New Artist
Imogen Heap or Corinne Bailey Rae
(but Imogen was playing with Frou Frou for awhile now so i should pick Corinne)

Song Of The Year
Not Ready To Make Nice - Dixie Chicks or
Put Your Records On - Corinne Bailey Rae

Album Of The Year
Taking The Long Way - Dixie Chicks or
Continuum - John Mayer

Record Of The Year
Not Ready To Make Nice - Dixie Chicks or
Put Your Records On - Corinne Bailey Rae