Here is the graduation speech and some information about the REAL author. Apparently it
was an internet hoax, but it is still wonderful. I included some information about the
real author below as well...
Here is the original column as it appeared in the Chicago Tribune:
ADVICE, LIKE YOUTH, PROBABLY JUST WASTED ON THE YOUNG
June 1, 1997
Inside every adult lurks a graduation speaker dying to get out, some world-weary pundit
eager to pontificate on life to young people who'd rather be Rollerblading. Most of us,
alas, will never be invited to sow our words of wisdom among an audience of caps and
gowns, but there's no reason we can't entertain ourselves by composing a Guide to Life for
Graduates.
I encourage anyone over 26 to try this and thank you for indulging my attempt.
Ladies and gentlemen of the class of '97:
Wear sunscreen.
If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term
benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no
basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.
Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the
power and beauty of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you'll look
back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility
lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.
Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying
to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt
to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m.
on some idle Tuesday.
Do one thing every day that scares you.
Sing.
Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with people who are reckless
with yours.
Floss.
Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The
race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself.
Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell
me how.
Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.
Stretch.
Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most
interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some
of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't.
Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. You'll miss them when they're gone.
Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't. Maybe
you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding
anniversary. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself
either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else's.
Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it or of what other people
think of it. It's the greatest instrument you'll ever own.
Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.
Read the directions, even if you don't follow them.
Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.
Get to know your parents. You never know when they'll be gone for good. Be nice to your
siblings. They're your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you
in the future.
Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard
to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you
need the people who knew you when you were young.
Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern
California once, but leave before it makes you soft. Travel.
Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too,
will get old. And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were
reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.
Respect your elders.
Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you'll have a
wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out.
Don't mess too much with your hair or by the time you're 40 it will look 85.
Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form
of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off,
painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.
But trust me on the sunscreen.
Here is some info on what happened:
VONNEGUT? SCHMICH? WHO CAN TELL IN CYBERSPACE?
August 3, 1997
I am Kurt Vonnegut.
Oh, Kurt Vonnegut may appear to be a brilliant, revered male novelist. I may appear to be
a mediocre and virtually unknown female newspaper columnist. We may appear to have nothing
in common but unruly hair.
But out in the lawless swamp of cyberspace, Mr. Vonnegut and I are one. Out there, where
any snake can masquerade as king, both of us are the author of a graduation speech that
began with the immortal words, "Wear sunscreen."
I was alerted to my bond with Mr. Vonnegut Friday morning by several callers and e-mail
correspondents who reported that the sunscreen speech was rocketing through the
cyberswamp, from L.A. to New York to Scotland, in a vast e-mail chain letter.
Friends had e-mailed it to friends, who e-mailed it to more friends, all of whom were told
it was the commencement address given to the graduating class at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology. The speaker was allegedly Kurt Vonnegut.
Imagine Mr. Vonnegut's surprise. He was not, and never has been, MIT's commencement
speaker.
Imagine my surprise. I recall composing that little speech one Friday afternoon while high
on coffee and M&M's. It appeared in this space on June 1. It included such deep
thoughts as "Sing," "Floss," and "Don't mess too much with your
hair." It was not art.
But out in the cyberswamp, truth is whatever you say it is, and my simple thoughts on
floss and sunscreen were being passed around as Kurt Vonnegut's eternal wisdom.
Poor man. He didn't deserve to have his reputation sullied in this way.
So I called a Los Angeles book reviewer, with whom I'd never spoken, hoping he could help
me find Mr. Vonnegut.
"You mean that thing about sunscreen?" he said when I explained the situation.
"I got that. It was brilliant. He didn't write that?"
He didn't know how to find Mr. Vonnegut. I tried MIT.
"You wrote that?" said Lisa Damtoft in the news office. She said MIT had
received many calls and e-mails on this year's "sunscreen" commencement speech.
But not everyone was sure: Who had been the speaker?
The speaker on June 6 was Kofi Annan, secretary general of the United Nations, who did
not, as Mr. Vonnegut and I did in our speech, urge his graduates to "dance, even if
you have nowhere to do it but your living room." He didn't mention sunscreen.
As I continued my quest for Mr. Vonnegut--his publisher had taken the afternoon off, his
agent didn't answer--reports of his "sunscreen" speech kept pouring in.
A friend called from Michigan. He'd read my column several weeks ago. Friday morning he
received it again--in an e-mail from his boss. This time it was not an ordinary column by
an ordinary columnist. Now it was literature by Kurt Vonnegut.
Fortunately, not everyone who read the speech believed it was Mr. Vonnegut's.
"The voice wasn't quite his," sniffed one doubting contributor to a Vonnegut
chat group on the Internet. "It was slightly off--a little too jokey, a little too
cute . . . a little too `Seinfeld.' "
Hoping to find the source of this prank, I traced one e-mail backward from its last
recipient, Hank De Zutter, a professor at Malcolm X College in Chicago. He received it
from a relative in New York, who received it from a film producer in New York, who
received it from a TV producer in Denver, who received it from his sister, who received
it. . . .
I realized the pursuit of culprit zero would be endless. I gave up.
I did, however, finally track down Mr. Vonnegut. He picked up his own phone. He'd heard
about the sunscreen speech from his lawyer, from friends, from a women's magazine that
wanted to reprint it until he denied he wrote it.
"It was very witty, but it wasn't my wittiness," he generously said.
Reams could be written on the lessons in this episode. Space confines me to two.
One: I should put Kurt Vonnegut's name on my column. It would be like sticking a Calvin
Klein label on a pair of Kmart jeans.
Two: Cyberspace, in Mr. Vonnegut's word, is "spooky."