Commence with new knowledge

It is time. With June upon us, sort of, the time has come once again for the commencement speech that will never be given, from the commencement speaker who will never be asked to give it, a fact for which young people throughout Newport-Mesa should be deeply grateful.

Be that as it may ? Dean Wannamaker, graduates, friends, families, parents ? settle down, all of you. And to all the young men and women who have worked so hard to get here, just kidding, if only you could see yourselves as we see you at this moment, wearing a satin dress and a goofy square hat with a yellow pom-pom dangling from it, you’d want to crawl in a hole. As you prepare to cross one of life’s most important thresholds, I am honored, humbled and humiliated to have been asked to speak to you, and to share with you virtually everything you need to know about life, love, liberty and linguine (look for either De Cecco or Barilla) in one poorly crafted and seemingly interminable speech. I owe it to you, to myself, and to the kid in the fourth row with the canned string whom I am going strangle if you don’t knock it off, to be totally and relentlessly honest with you.

Many of you are anxious about what lies ahead and what life has in store for you. Not to worry. That’s perfectly natural, and remember: Any anxiety you’re feeling is nothing compared with the fear your parents have that you might decide to live at home.

Speaking of scary things, if one of the things you’d like to do with your life is see “The Da Vinci Code,” don’t. It’s long and dull, and did I mention long? Not even looking at Audrey Tautou for two hours could save it. How this thing ended being so pee-you is beyond me and much more of a mystery than the book ever was.

Wait. There is one interesting thing about it: Tom Hanks’ hair. Can you explain that? I can’t.

Do you know why Leonardo da Vinci was called Leonardo da Vinci? In those days, people were often named for the town from whence they came. “Da” is Italian for “from,” and Vinci is a small town near Florence, so Leonardo da Vinci means, “Leonard from Vinci.” Vinci has a sister city in the U.S., by the way, Allentown, Penn. I don’t know why. Lee Iacocca was born in Allentown. He’s Italian. Maybe that’s why.

But that still doesn’t explain Tom Hanks’ hair.

If you really want to do something important in life, figure this out: Gas prices always go up when crude oil prices go up. But when crude oil prices go down, they apparently have very little to do with the price of gas.

When people ask you, “What’s in a name?” tell them this: Mr. Ed’s real name was Bamboo Harvester. He died in Tahlequah, Okla. in 1979.

Beau Bridges’ real name is Lloyd Vernet Bridges. His parents named him for Ashley Wilkes’ son, Beau, in “Gone With the Wind.” Not only were “Gone With the Wind” and “The Wizard of Oz” released in the same year, 1939, but they were directed by the same man, Victor Fleming. How’s that for a resume?

The Virginia in “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus,” is Virginia O’Hanlon Douglas, an 8-year-old girl who wrote to the New York Sun in 1897 asking whether the happy fat dude in the red suit really exists.

Most of this utterly useless information is called trivia. Do you know where that word comes from? Trivia was the Roman goddess of sorcery.

You like numbers? We got numbers. The average American eats 11.9 pounds of cereal a year; 10% of men are left-handed, 8% of women; 2 out of 3 people sleep on their side, about equally divided between left side and right side. Of those who sleep on their stomachs or backs, slightly more sleep on their stomachs.

Speaking of sleeping, railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt was a chronic insomniac and a believer in the occult. The legs of his bed sat in dishes of salt, which he had been told was an ancient way to ward off evil spirits. When he couldn’t sleep, he’d summon his servants to bring in fresh salt, which proves that just because you’re rich doesn’t mean you’re not nuts.

Lyndon Johnson was not nuts, but he was the first president to wear contact lenses. Telephones were still a novelty during Grover Cleveland’s administration, and he liked to answer the White House telephone personally, surprising callers.

The world birthrate is about 200 babies every minute. Waaa.

Three out of four fliers prefer a window seat to the aisle, and just under 70% of Americans believe they will go somewhere after death, and we’re not talking about Hawaii.

If you want to get married, please do so, but not in January, February or March. Marriages in those months are the most likely to end in divorce.

Do you know where Rocky and Bullwinkle lived? Frostbite Falls, Minn. Do you know what the ZIP Code for Frostbite Falls is? Neither do I, but I do know what the “ZIP” in ZIP Code stands for: Zoning Improvement Plan.

Finally and perhaps most important, your nose is the same length as your thumb, measured from the bottom joint to the tip.

There you have it. I am spent. I have no more to tell you, but I am deeply proud of you, more or less. Go forth and multiply, carefully, and remember, you get a fresh start at life every day, and those Starbucks double shots in the little cans ain’t bad either. One of those in the morning and you will be fully charged. Zowie.

I gotta go.