If you absolutely can’t wait, here is the speech for Holli’s grad­u­a­tion. Enjoy!

Two golfers were out on the course. One was an athe­ist, and one was a Chris­t­ian. Before every swing, the Chris­t­ian would say a small prayer. “Dear God,” was all he would say. Need­less to say, his score was very low, and after the game, the athe­ist friend asked what his secret was. “Oh, it’s sim­ple,” said the Chris­t­ian. “I just prayed, ‘Dear God’, before every swing.” The athe­ist began laugh­ing. “That can’t pos­si­bly be it!” he exclaimed. “Why not?” replied the Chris­t­ian. “Because,” said the athe­ist, “I said [exple­tive deleted] before every swing I took, and it just made me worse!” “That,” said the Chris­t­ian, “is because God hates you and won’t pay atten­tion to any­thing you say or do!”

[ pause for laughter ]

Fel­low grad­u­ates, esteemed fac­ulty, lov­ing fam­ily and friends, and those appre­ci­ated oth­ers who have come to see us off: I am immea­sur­ably proud to be address­ing the who-gives-a-[expletive deleted] grad­u­at­ing class of Dakota State University.

I’m sure going to miss this place. NOT! Just kid­ding. But, hon­estly, we’ve been here a long time. Who would-a thought, way back when, that we were ever going to grad­u­ate. We are merely sec­onds from walk­ing across this stage and never look­ing back. It reminds me of how things used to be…

[ stroke chin and stare into space ]

My won­der­ful fiance likes to say, when we’re film­ing his Inter­net TV show, Newsbleep.com, that, “There are three types of peo­ple in the world: those who pay atten­tion, those who don’t, and I don’t remem­ber what the third type was.” It gets a laugh like 40% of the time.

What makes atten­tion so spe­cial? Well, for one thing, I gave this speech to my kitchen last night, and I wasn’t nearly as ner­vous as I am now. I’m [exple­tive deleted] bricks out here! It’s not because this room is eleventy hun­dred times the size of my kitchen, it’s because, sud­denly, a lot of peo­ple are pay­ing atten­tion. The “who” of “atten­tion” mat­ters greatly. If that sexy Johnny Depp was help­ing me give this speech, I wouldn’t need that “Yo’ Mama” joke to get your atten­tion. Of course, all his sex­i­ness didn’t save that ship­wreck that was Pirates of the Caribbean III: At World’s End. Am I right?

[ pause for laughter ]

“Atten­tion” is the “cur­rency” of “respect”, and I think I’m ’bout all broke!

[ pause for laughter ]

Pic­ture a lion tamer with a whip and a chair, as the stereo­type goes. As he cracks the whip, the lions around him roar with hunger, eager to attack but fear­ful of his tech­nique. They pic­ture juicy man-steaks, eager to tear the ten­dons and mus­cles from his still beat­ing heart, devour­ing him whole. Now pic­ture those same lions, that same tamer, but the lions are loung­ing in the sun, yawn­ing, tails flick­ing care­lessly, lap­ping water. A lion tamer is worth­less if the lions don’t give a [exple­tive deleted].

As grad­u­ates, we’ll be given spe­cial atten­tion today: on this very stage moments from now, after the cer­e­mony with our friends and fam­ily, and in every job inter­view for the rest of our lives. Being a col­lege grad­u­ate is a priv­i­lege that car­ries with it respon­si­bil­ity. Whether we real­ize it or not, we will for­ever rep­re­sent Dakota State Uni­ver­sity in our actions and our words from this day for­ward. We are now a prod­uct of the atten­tion that we have given and received, paid out and invested, and hope­fully that will show through as we march off this cam­pus to our new futures.

The past is dead and gone. The future is hid­den and mys­te­ri­ous. Today is right now and that’s why they call it the present, because it is a gift.

Thanks.