THE TIME I DIDN’T WANT TO GIVE A SPEECH SO I POSTED AN AD ON CRAIGSLIST
IM NOT A CEREMONY PERSON.
I’m also not a “holiday person,” a “birthday person," or an overly sentimental person. So I was definitely, decisively, not a “graduation speech person.”
But the kind women who ran New York’s Miami Ad School had asked all 11 graduates to deliver a two minute speech at our upcoming ceremony. If you knew these kind women, you knew “no” was no answer.
Despite being a writer, I had no interest in writing a speech. So I did the next best thing. I wrote a Craigslist ad.
I RECEIVED 47 RESPONSES IN 4 DAYS.
As expected, there were a few only in it for the cash.
BUT THEN THERE WAS CHARLIE,
who was graduating himself that month, and so we wished each other well. There was a 27-year-old Emory alumn, Jayden, who enjoys the finer things in life. And there was Leonard Bellazo. Leonard attached an eight minute video filled with Long Island vowels and questionable life advice. By minute six I had heard about the time he threatened to kill a man with a shovel and bury him in concrete. The man he threatened? He was out on manslaughter charges. “Don’t back down from anyone.”
THERE WAS PAULA,
a quirky all around artist who worried her older look would remove her from consideration.
OBVIOUSLY, I LOOKED HER UP.
PAULA!!
BUT MY FAVORITE INTERACTION,
the one that made my semi-joke wholly memorable, was with Rudy—a formerly homeless man who gave speeches on trains in the hopes of making just one person smile. We texted for probably an inappropriately long time about what it means to be human.
47 RESPONSES LATER, I DECIDED TO GIVE MY OWN SPEECH.
And it wasn’t because Henri sent me this horror:
IT WAS BECAUSE
of Charlie and Jayden and Leonard and Paula and Rudy and everything that was emailed and texted and recorded and viewed during those four days the ad was live.
All of us were physically close—less than 20 miles apart. And I had no doubt we would never meet. Yet here we were trading stories and wisdom and wishes. It was all very strange, very intimate, and unexpectedly, refreshingly, genuine.
I really was ready to hire somebody. But at the end of it all, I didn’t find someone to speak at my ceremony. I just found a story that made for a pretty damn good speech.