dennisp.com xmas tome 1999

Ladies and Gentlemen of the graduating class of 1999: ^*
Fuck Sunscreen. You don't give two rats' asses about what I have to say to you, and I give less than a runny shit if you listen, but you have to get by me to get your diploma, and you have to get your diploma to get to the bar, and I have to gas on for awhile to get my honorarium, so let's just put our heads down and punch our way through this thing. Skin cancer is the simplest cancer to cure, and since you're going to be peeling off huge hunks of your skin in order to rid yourselves of the pathetic doodles and cartoons with which you’ve chosen to decorate yourselves anyway, fuck sunscreen. You're too busy lounging in espresso bars, jolting yourselves into some semblance of self-awareness with a bitter poison jazzed up to taste vaguely like a milkshake, to go outside much anyway. A phoenix rising above your ass may look dramatic in your youth, but when the animate canvas of your lower back takes on the inevitable thickness of 20 more years of sedentation, when the phoenix transforms into a plump domestic grouse, you’re going to want to scrape it and its shallow memory away before you receive more comments from your proctologist than you ever got from your friends. That clever Celtic slogan that encircles your biceps will fade and thicken, until it looks more like a drunken Irish slur. You’ll forget what it means, anyway. Live with the fact that you are flaccid, pale, and unhealthy, your chest as fragile as a balsa bird cage, and it’s only going to get worse. You resemble the muscle-beach bastards and babes you watch on MTV about as much as a blob of dough resembles a concrete brick. It’s amazing you claim a shared species. Smoke. Ignite anything flammable and stick it in your face. The glamour of stained fingers, reeking breath, and black sputum more than compensates for your shortened life span. Besides, the statistics on smoking-related fatality are no more convincing than evidence of evolution. Don’t worry about the future, because you lack enough imagination to anticipate it accurately, or the will to alter it anyway. You have about as much chance of controlling your fate as you have of successfully negotiating an inclined sidewalk while chewing gum. And anyway, when the shithammer of destiny flattens the delicate illusion of security you’ve assembled for yourselves, you can always call on your parents to bail you out. They live for it. Do one thing daily that really scares you. Make it something to do with hygiene at least a couple times a week. Cynicism is a good mask for ignorance. Are you a dolt, or simply jaded from the onslaught of relentless commercialism, frenetic yellow journalism, and reactionary ultra-sensitive dogma that inundates our society? My money's on dolt. Sing. Don’t worry about carrying a tune, knowing lyrics, or your blood-alcohol level; those are minor details for people who have a sense of social responsibility. You’re enjoying yourself, so why should you care if you’re annoying your neighbors? You’re about to get evicted anyway, so sing. Care. Care enough to tip your table dancer an extra fiver if she accidentally brushes her tits up against you. Make sure you ridicule her as she walks away with all your money, while you silently yearn for just another 20 seconds of her attention. You’re better than she is, because she works in a strip club, while you only patronize them. Pierce. Here are some suggested places: fingernails, uvula, pineal gland, the webbing between thumb and forefinger, cornea, wrist, prostate, heel. Drill holes into the bone of your skull and permanently attach metal studs. Carve stigmata into yourself. Amputate a minor appendage and mold the stub into an odd shape. Expose internal organs and encase them in clear plastic. Sacrifice yourself on the blasphemous altar of radical fashion. This will demonstrate how creative and individual you are, as are the millions of your kin. Keep a log of your cyber sex adventures. Cringe when you realize that maybe a little more time with a thesaurus - or at least a spell checker - would’ve helped. Throw away old bank statements. You lack the ability to balance a check book anyway. Floss. Stretch. Scratch. Pick. Examine your fingernails. Do this while working your job at the concession stand. Don’t worry about being able to make change. The 11-year-old you’re serving will help if you can’t figure out the cash register. Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. A floor-to-ceiling beer can pyramid isn’t all that bad a legacy, if you think about it. But you won’t. Join a fraternity, the last stronghold of arrogance, bigotry, and sadism still popularly condoned. Dance, unless you are a Caucasian male. Then don’t dance. Stay on speaking terms with your parents. They’ll pretend to not know you ridicule them when they aren’t around. Be nice to your siblings. That way they’ll be forced to lend you money. Stay by your friends, especially those who own a car. Travel. Let me know where you’re going, so I can avoid you. Be as selfish, vacant and rude in foreign countries as you are in your native land, so foreigners won’t consider visiting here. Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you a jerk. Too late. Live in California once, but leave before it makes you shallow. Too late. Apathy is your friend. Embrace it. Elevate the simple act of voting every other year to a great civil accomplishment. Be eco-aware, but not if it forces you to avoid buying something you want. Find inspiration in pop songs, especially those obvious enough for you to understand. If it has a cool sort of hip-hop kinda urban beat, is written in sentences pithy enough for you to retain, is intoned by a clear, deep voice, if it glorifies the specialness of you and sedates your anxiety, if it pacifies your shallow analytical skills, buy two copies and give one to your extra-special friend, the only friend who understands you and your hidden, philosophical self. Accept these certain truths: Yours is the most ridiculous generation so far. You’ve discovered new modes of dress, new public acts of selfishness and ignorance, new ways to scar your bodies, new and freshly offensive music, and new hairstyles - my god, hairstyles - that are more outrageous, extreme, and eventually embarrassing than even my own generation, and that’s saying something. Console yourself; another generation is on its way, and soon enough you can share my disgust. Advice is useless, especially for a generation who has raised Scooby Do to the level of a cultural icon. Your brain is rotten, no matter how many coding languages you command. You can avoid any responsibility by blaming your parents and the slavish free-enterprise society in which we all contentedly wallow. But trust me on the sunscreen. Fuck it.

Download the MS Word version (43K) of the above here.

^*An explanation
Early in 1999, a graduation speech entitled "Wear Sunscreen" accredited to Kurt Vonnegut was circulating the World Wide Web. The text of the speech - slightly altered - wound up as the lyrics of a pop song from Australia. Intoned with Wellsian gravity, accompanied with a milquetoast beat and smooth choral oodling, the tune was a quick hit on FM radio, where I first heard it. For once, I recognized a naked emperor on parade. I doubted Vonnegut wrote the claptrap that comprised most of the speech, and was smug when I discovered I was right. It turned out the speech actually came from a Chicago newspaper column, and had never been presented at a graduation, although I'm sure by now it has, probably by a white female high school valedictorian with long, straight hippie-girl hair. I hadn't experienced such trite, unsubtle philosophy in a pop song since "Desiderata" was a hit when I was in high school (or at least since Harry Chapin died). It haunted me for several weeks. It actually pursued me; I was hearing it constantly, but when I mentioned it to others, they hadn't heard it. I feared it would become overwhelmingly popular, but thankfully it vanished sooner than I could've hoped. Above is my response. I mean every word of it. Merry Christmas.
You can read the original text here.
or play the song (mp3) below.

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