It’s that time of the year. Graduation. When I say the word, “graduation,” most of you probably think of either your high school or university graduation day. Perhaps the act of walking across the stage or all the focus it took to ensure you didn’t trip up the steps or reach out for your diploma with the wrong hand.
Or if you’ve entered my personal nightmare, you’re all too familiar with the elementary school graduation. Sunday school graduation. Preschool graduation for the love of luke. Hey, look at you! You’ve figured out how to tie your shoes. Let’s have a ceremony during which we’ll hand out a golden shoelace, invite over all our friends and family, and give a sixty minute speech about the significance of knots binding us together in a rapidly unraveling society. Carpe plectere!
Perhaps I’m a bit biased on the matter considering my anti-ceremony sentiment. I’m pretty sure I was hooking into a large mouth bass on the family ranch at the exact moment the emcee for my high school graduation pronounced Johnny Brock and then Heather Brogan before skipping over David Brown. I don’t know. Maybe I was there, and I just don’t remember. I was the salutatorian after all. (I know, I’m a big man. I gave a speech and everything, but I think that was a separate ceremony.)
I was 800 miles away during my university graduation. That much I remember for sure. I had the option to be camping in the Colorado Rockies…or walking across a stage. If that ain’t a no-brainer, I don’t know what is. If it makes up for anything, I did attend my soon-to-be-the-wife’s university graduation a couple years after my own. She was officially becoming a Doctor, so that seemed pretty legit. Legit enough to sleep through a couple of speeches.
These days, any and all legitimacy for these graduation ceremonies has been lost due to our gluttony for pomp and circumstance. We have an award show for everything! I had to Google what the BAFTA was, and it’s been going on for 73 years. Grammy, Golden Globes, SAG, Independent Spirit, NAACP, Oscars, ACMA, People’s Choice, BET, Kid’s Choice, Radio Disney, Billboard, MTV, CMT, ESPY, Miss USA, Critic’s Choice, Tony, Teen Choice, People Magazine, Youtube Awards, The Kennedy Center Honors, and don’t forget about the Victoria’s Secret Fashion show.
The crazy thing is that I haven’t been honored in any of these. Well, except for the Victoria’s Secret fashion show. But that’s for another day.
It’s all become too much. I mean, kindergarten graduation? You haven’t accomplished anything other than surviving your helicopter parents who insisted you have a graduation ceremony and receive a diploma for “completing” kindergarten. At least as a 6-7 year old all you understand about graduation is that it comes with cupcakes.
All you helicopter parents out there, be forewarned. If I wasn’t going to attend my own kid’s kindergarten graduation (cupcakes be damned), I sure ain’t gonna attend your kid’s graduation. And yes, my lack of attendance does reflect that your kid hasn’t accomplished anything worthy of a ceremony. The moment they learn to fix small engines, sell books, code with JS, paint houses, perform complex surgeries, drive a commercial truck, or use rocket science to solve real world problems, you send me an e-invite and I’ll attend the ceremony. We can hold the reception in my backyard. I’ll provide the 100% all beef hotdogs.
At the Desk This Week
In addition to cleaning up Season Three of the Green Ones, I’m also launching Twitch and Die! here on Substack. This is Season Four of the Lost DMB Files. It’s golden, crusty, bloody, lovely stuff. I’ll be serially publishing these 80,000 words for the next few months, and then I’ll loop back and finish out a couple more Lost DMB Files that take place chronologically after Twitch and Die!. Then I’ll take a break until I can get back into this storyline. I’m pretty sure my next project will be using McCutchen as the main protag, and I’ll be revisiting the sort of past-tense, first-person narrative voice I used with McCutchen’s Bones. But I’m thinking of creating a new on-ramp for new readers. So it will probably read like book one of a new series featuring gritty, historical fiction with a modern-western vibe. But it’ll probably be a year before I’m able to start that project.
As for the Green Ones, I should be starting up the final episode of Season 3 by the end of next week…or the start of the week after that. It’s coming eventually, I promise.
If You Wish to Start Reading The Green Ones…
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