Let the Speech Commence

I just came across this and found it extremely entertaining -- it's this year's 2016 Commencement Address at Northwestern University by Seth Meyers, an NU graduate.  It's quite funny and (I think wisely) doesn't get too deep and substantive, but for all that it's a very effective speech and makes some thoughtful points.

A couple personal things stuck out for me.  One oddity is that in telling a story about a friend of his, Meyers refers to the friend's nickname -- Bags.  I sat up quickly, but that was my own nickname from my summers at Camp Nebagamon.  (I still get referred that way, though not much.)  Actually, it was my brother John's nickname, and as his younger brother I was called "Ditty Bag."  But after he left camp, and I stayed on through my counselor years, I took on Bags (or just as often, Bag) for my own.  For those of you who keep track of such things, my brother got the name from Elisberg, the last part of which got shortened to "Beg" and then quickly to the far-more sensible "Bag."

The other thing that stood out was when Seth Meyers refers to being in the Mee-Ow Show.  The big student-produced musical was the fairly famous Waa-Mu Show.(famous because of all the legendary actors who had been in it).  Because it eventually got so well-regarded that it became a bit stuffy and hard to break into, almost like a fraternity for which you needed the right connections and password, a group began a much more low-key alternative, the Mee-Ow Show (the parodyesque name coming from the mascot of Northwestern beign the Wildcats).  

I mention all this because the Mee-Ow Show began my Senior year, and I wrote material for it.  Not sketches, oddly enough, but two songs.  Only one song stayed in the show, but that's by my choice -- when I went to the reharsals, I'd noticed that they'd cut one verse out of the song. Annoyed, I was told that the show was long and they had to make trims.  As you might imagine, I thought this was idiotic.  The cut saved about 40 seconds, and the song followed a mindnumbing 10-minute sketch.  The producer gave me a choice -- I could pull the song if I was unhappy, or agree to live it in, minus the one verse.  Because the song told a story, and without the verse it was sort of stupid, I said cut the song.  I believe that a few years later I heard that that producer was arrested for embezzlement.  And no, I'm not joking...

Anyway, here's Seth Meyer's speech.