Transcript
0:10 good morning thank you Sonia thank you president Shapiro my thanks to the chairman of the Board of Trustees William Osborne and provos Dan Linder we've already thanked the parents today but please don't forget to thank them again when you move back in with them and since this is father's Day's weekend let's give it up for the fathers
0:40 out there shall we kids do something nice for dad today like for instance before you introduce your boyfriend ask him to remove his tongue ring and thanks to you the class of 2011 you are what some have called the greatest
1:12 Generation not many but some so far just me and I'm counting on you to not make me look like an idiot by saying it so be great no pressure I am humbled to be standing here on stage with today's other honorary degree recipients with William shabas human rights champion who is here to investigate Northwestern for cruy allowing you to graduate into this job market Dr Barbara lisof the first woman
1:43 to earn a PhD in computer science and I don't know how she could concentrate surrounded by all those notoriously sexy male programmers and of course Opera Legend Jesse Norman though that I'm a fan but I have to say that's something of a disappointment I normally start these speeches by singing Schubert's a Maria but I don't want to steal anybody's
2:22 Thunder luckily those are the only words I know now as you have explained to your grandparents my name is Steven colar but I also play a character on TV who is named Steven colar and I don't always know which one of us has been invited to speak well today I am fairly confident that I am me because I went to
2:52 Northwestern University and my character went to Dartmouth so he was there for graduation last weekend and heard Conan speak it was it was a really good speech but he was hoping it was going to be Leno now I am honored I am honored to be your commencement speaker on this the 25th anniversary of my graduating class any fellow 1986 out there
3:24 today wow wow we need to get more involved I was hoping we were all going to get together later in our leg warmers and put on our sod Walkman and listen to Wang Chong and Mr Mister till the Flock of Seagulls came home but I guess I'll be doing that alone but as honored as I am to be here I am all also a little bit surprised to be your graduation speaker considering that 25 years ago today I did not
3:52 actually graduate I thought I was graduating my family was here we were all dressed up in this ridiculous medieval Garb by the way I didn't realize they had dakron in the Middle Ages but when I went up to get my diploma and the dean Kathy Martin handed me the folder she leaned in and said I'm sorry now I didn't know what this meant but it did not sound
4:23 good I was hoping it was some new form of Latin honorific like sumacum la I'm sorry cuml but when I got back to my seat and I opened the handsome pleather folder instead of containing an embossed diploma there was instead a piece of paper torn from a legal pad that said see me Dean Kathy Martin this is a true story evidently I had an incomplete of which I was not aware so in my graduation photos with my
4:56 family I am holding up a scrap of yellow paper the first person in my family to earn a yellow scrap of paper the rest of them got diplomas so remember just by graduating today on your graduation day you are starting your career way ahead of me be proud of that because Northwestern is a school to be proud of in academics Athletics science Public Service it represents
5:27 Humanity at its best and on Dow day it represents Humanity at its worst now for you parents Dow day is a festival that started in 1972 to honor the armadillo that is the best explanation I can offer I'm sorry today evidently armadillos are honored by drinking Four Loco out of a Super Soaker while dancing to the new pornographers in a drunken Mosh Pit
5:58 filled mostly with national mer finalists northwestern's alumni list is truly impressive this university has graduated best-selling authors Olympians presidential candidates Grammy winners Peabody winners Emmy winners and that's just me and I loved I loved my time at Northwestern I was a transfer student
6:31 wow I was a transfer student from a small all male College in Virginia where I had been a philosophy major but I decided to switch to something with stronger job prospects theater major which reminds me I I I forgot to warm up amidst The Mists and fiercest frosts with barest wrists and stoutest boasts he thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts oh
7:03 what did to do to die to date a minute or two to two a thing distinctly hard to say but hard to still to do for the be at and the dragon will come and he hears the drum in a minute of two to two today at a minute of two to two one breath one breath I not only Lov studying theater I love being a theater major it gave me an excuse to brood publicly to grow a beard to wear black
7:36 at people I didn't just want to play Hamlet I wanted to be Hamlet but I also got a great education while I was here northwestern's academic resources are unparalleled the library contains 5 million books and 100,000 per articles none of which anyone reads because they're not on an iPad next year I believe deing librar is being turned into a Chipotle
8:07 oh now here's an interesting fact a recent poll among private universities found that students at Northwestern have the lowest desire to have sex I think that is possibly because this year Northwestern offered some truly Advanced instruction in human sexuality I saw some photos of the lab equipment and I'm thinking you may have been scared off sex
8:39 forever it might actually have been a stealth abstinence program or a viral ad campaign for True Value Hardware graduates good luck explaining what I'm talking about to your grandmother at brunch still that low sex drive is surprising giving that Evanston is riddled with brothel oh yeah they're out
9:11 there but thankfully this town is enforcing a century old city ordinance that prohibits more than three unrelated individuals from living together lest they reach critical mass and spontaneously prostitute themselves I am all for this law you cannot be too careful in this eon me running a brothel might be the most reliable work out there and before everybody jumps on me I not saying that everybody at Northwestern will become prostitutes obviously the Kellog graduates will become
9:44 pimps I am expecting big things from you people so you have a great town a great school you have a great life here perhaps too great because I see evidence that since I left Northwestern has gone soft and don't go oh what's he talking about you know exactly what I am talking about I am talking about the snow day you were hoping I hadn't heard about that on Wednesday February 2nd 2011
10:16 Northwestern was closed because of snow oh no what's that white stuff coming down from the sky in Chicago in February I'm sorry that is weak let me ask the other alumni here you ever have class is called because it was a little brisk outside no cuz we were wild cats when wild cats were wild cats for Pete's sake it's called Northwestern because when it was founded this was on the edge of the Northwest Territories the first graduating class
10:47 was offered a double major in fur trapping and Frostbite my first winter here this is a true story you can look it up I endured what is still the coldest day in Chicago's history January 20 January 20th 1985 - 27° 83 with the windchill yeah if you weren't careful your genitals would snap off like a graham cracker did Nu close no we went to class
11:20 well not me I was a theater major and I didn't go to class that often but we were supposed to have I mentioned I finished College with an in incomplete and we didn't have cell phones if you made plans to meet someone in a snowstorm and they didn't show up you just assumed they were devoured by wolves and went on with your life and we couldn't text we certainly couldn't sex each other if you wanted to
11:48 send someone a picture of your private parts you had to fax it that's how Kinko's got its name you had to fill out a cover letter and everything it was embarrassing but the clearest example of how this once great institution has failed you students in 1986 our commencement speaker was George Schulz Secretary of State fourth in line to the
12:19 president you get me basic Cable's second most popular fake newsman at this rate the class of 2021 will be addressed by a zoo parrot and a Mortar board that has been trained to say congratulations but I am not here to talk about me I am here to inspire you by talking about me fair warning we are now entering the meaningful part of the
12:50 speech those of you who already have enough meaning in their lives can go do something else maybe try to remember where you parked the rental car this spring I participated in a sailing race from South Carolina halfway across the Atlantic to Bermuda in many ways it was a beautiful Journey Stars Wheeling overhead whales breaching to starboard which I actually think is over here and in many other ways it was horrible we were filthy and tired for 7
13:22 days none of us slept for more than 3 hours at a pop which remembers how Stalin broke his his enemies and how infants break their parents you'll find out now we eventually made it to Bermuda and after a few days there I came back home by plane and looking out the window I felt completely artificial it felt so strange to fly over the same thousand miles of water that we just fought our way across inch by
13:50 inch and the ease of coming back somehow made it that much harder to explain to friends what it was like out there what was lost and what was gained on that Sublime and terrible trip and in some ways it feels just as artificial to fly back after 25 years to try to tell you how to navigate the waters ahead though it's tempting to think that I can because like many people my age I have fantasized about traveling back in
14:16 time and giving advice to my younger self to stop young Steven on a street corner and say break up with her you idiot haven't you noticed that she's nicer to the dog or by real estate or for God's sake don't buy real estate or under no circumstances should you wear white jeans even on a cruise also don't go on a cruise or wear sunscreen having a tan looks nice now but in 20 years your face will look like a catcher
14:48 mitt but I doubt my younger self would even listen to me I'm sure he'd say there's no way you could be me I have a chin plus young me would never respect old me he is in the theater I am on TV a total sellout so to recap so far I am going to try to give you who for all intents and purposes are me 25 years ago some advice
15:19 that I probably won't get right and you probably won't listen to ready let's do this thing okay you have been told to follow your dream but what if it's a stupid dream for instance Steven colar of 25 years ago lived at 2015 North Ridge with two men and three women in what I now
15:49 know was a brothel he he dreamed of living alone well alone with his beard in a large Barren loft apartment lots of blonde wood wearing a kimono with a futon on the floor and a samovar of tea constantly bubbling in the background doing Shakespeare in the street for homeless people today I am a beardless Suburban dad who lives in a house wears no iron khakis and makes Anthony Weiner jokes
16:19 for a living and I love it because thankfully dreams can change if we'd all stuck with our first Dream the world would would be overrun with Cowboys and princesses so whatever your dream is right now if you don't achieve it you haven't failed and you're not some loser but just as importantly and this is the part I may not get right and you may not listen to if you do get your dream you are not a
16:49 winner after I graduated from here I moved down to Chicago to do improvisation now there are very few rules to improv but one of the things I was taught early on is that you are not the most important person in the scene everybody else is and if everybody else is more important than you are you will naturally pay attention to them and serve them but the good news is you're in the scene too so hopefully to them you're
17:20 the most important person and they will serve you no one is leading you're all following the follower serving the servant you cannot win improv and life is an improvisation you have no idea what's going to happen next and you are mostly just yanking ideas out of your ass as you go along and like improv you cannot win your life even when it might look like you are winning for instance I have my own
17:50 show which I love doing full of very talented people who are eager and ready to serve me and that is great but at its best I am serving them just as hard and together we serve a common idea in this case the character Steven colar who it's clear isn't interested in serving anyone and a sure sign that things are going well is that no one can remember whose ideas was whose or who should get credit
18:23 for what jokes though naturally I get credit for them all but if we should serve others and together serve come some common goal or idea for any one of you what is that idea and who are those people in my experience you will truly serve only what you love because service is love made visible if you love friends you will serve your friends if you love Community
18:55 you will serve your community if you love money you will serve your money and if you love only yourself you will serve only yourself and you will have only yourself so no winning Instead try to love others and serve others and hopefully find those who will love and serve you in return and in closing i' like to apologize for being
19:25 predictable apparently the New York Times has analyzed the hundreds of commencement speeches given so far in 2011 and found that the words love and service were two of the most used words I can only hope that because of my speech today the word brothel comes in a close third thank you for the honor of addressing you and congratulations to the class of 2011
20:24 thank you Stephen