I recently saw “The Wedding Singer” on video and the best thing by far in the movie was Steve Buscemi’s hilarious, self pitying, drunken speech at the reception.
This got me thinking…what’s the most toe-curlingly embarrassing speech you’ve ever had to endure at a public event - be it wedding, funeral or graduation? I’ve been a best man a couple of times and laid a massive egg, even managing to forget the names of both the bride AND groom on the second occasion. The speech at the first nuptials in “$ Weddings and a Funeral” looked slick by comparison.
Abuse, obscenity, amnesia and bad jokes will all score high marks in this section…
I was at a going-away party for a co-worker.
He was surprized at all the warmth in the room, and everyone had chipped in for a few presents and some cash left over.
So he goes on and on about how this is particularly surprizing because of all the rough times he’s gotten from Miss ___ and Mrs. ____ and that grouch Mr. _____.
When someone woke him up that it wasn’t a mud session, he had to slink out, and left his presents behind.
I was a double major in college and the speaker at one of my two graduation ceremonies was Mick Fleetwood, who started with a bit of self-deprecation, wondering why he was asked to speak (echoing the thoughts of all of us), only to go on and on and on about his career and the sex and the drugs and how hard it was putting Rumors together and, well, I don’t remember what else but none of it had any bearing at all on our future or the real world or anything practical (unless, that is, our future plans involved bedding Stevie Nicks). Terrible.
A year later, my sister’s graduation speaker was Steve Allen. Though he always impressed me from assorted TV clips and reruns as both very funny and pretty smart, he came off as simply an old crank who was using this opportunity to spout off curmudgeonly rants against today’s generation and modern entertainment and everything else he didn’t like. His speech resorted to a “short list” of homilies and patronizing “life lessons”, so how long would a decent, well-rounded list last? 10, 12, maybe (gulp) 20? Well, I lost count at 33. Also terrible.
Anything by W (except address before Congress last week, which was actually very well written and delivered well), but in particular when he was debating Gore when he said something like, well if what we just talked about is affirmative action, then I’m for it. I’ve seen junior high school students do better debates impromtu.
A second nomination would be while I was dining at a Mexican restaurant many years ago, there was a large party seated next to us, and it was a going away dinner for some silicon valley mid level manager. He was drunk. “Bill” he said to a co-worker “you’re an asshole, but I love you anyway.” He later went on to give what my dining companion and I still spew drink at recalling as the speech: “Someday, somewhere, I don’t know how, but we will work together again!” You should have seen the looks on these people’s faces! They knew that place would be hell.
The worst speech I ever heard was by Al Gore. It wasn’t too long after the shootings in CO, and he really got on his soap box about that, urging us to keep an eye on our teenage children, yadda, yadda, yadda. Context, context, context. Giving, word for word, you campaign speech as a commencement address endears you to no one.
I think an argument can be made for Dan Quayle’s speech right after he found out he was the VP candidate. That one lame speech set him up for most of the abuse he received as VP.
Although you can put almost any Dan Quayle speech as VP in there.
Believe it or not… Noam Chomsky. He came to talk at my university as part if an annual lecture given every year. Everyone was expecting fireworks, with the local Communist Party handing out pamphlets outside and all the liberal academics and students in attendance. There was excitement in the air. I mean it’s Noam Frggin’ Chomsky!!!
Anyway to cut a long story short instead of the firebrand politics we were expecting, Noam just read off a piece of paper in dull monotone about nothing interesting in particular. It was really, really, really disappointing. After about 30 minutes of this people were trying to silently slink out…
One of the guests of honor at my wedding recalled how he and I had watched the bouncer at San Souci mount a customer dressed only in a see-through raincoat on the hood of her car while we sat in the parking lot smoking a substance.
I personally felt everyone that followed him that evening was a riot.
The best man at a wessing I attended was called upon to give both a toast to the happy couple and a pre-dinner prayer.
The toast wasn’t bad, except that he let slip that the couple had been living together. I don’t think all of the family had previously been aware of that. Neither had the priest, who was sitting next to them.
But he had obviously prepared that speech in advance. I say “obviously” because the prayer, which was delivered impromptu, showed his inability to speak coherently without rehearsing. The prayer (with the names changed) was: “Um, may God bless this food we are about to eat, and, um, oh! and Mark and Jenny, and, um, make it all holy, and, um, amen.”
Our CHEERLEADER Valedictorian decided to read “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.” She gave these fake tears throughout the entire address.
She didn’t even know how to pronounce the author’s (Robert Fulghum) name, so I did what any well-meaning but upset (we were ranked at the end of the first semester… when we actually graduated my GPA was higher than hers) Salutatorian would do, I told her the wrong pronunciation. I then went on to deliver “The Road Not Taken” and compare the graduation to the crossroads described in the poem.
I saw her at the 10 year reunion a few weeks ago, she hadn’t gained a pound.
I think I told this anecdote before, but it fits here perfectly!
In 1999, Mr. Rilch and I went back to the Burgh for a wedding. Paul, the groom, was an Army Ranger*, and so was one of the groomsmen. His brother Bill was the best man; and his fiance Julie was a bridesmaid. Don’t remember the names of the honor attendant or the Army Ranger, so we’ll call him Joe and her Mary.
The ceremony was everything a fall wedding should be, and afterwards, everyone else left to change and find the hotel where the reception was. Meanwhile, the wedding party was cruising around in the limo just blatantly getting drunk.
So they show up and launch into the toasts. Bill holds his liquor fairly well, so he gave a sentimental and coherent toast. Mary recited a love poem, and Julie gave a toast I don’t recall.
Then Joe got the mike. Well, he veered away from the subject of the B and G very abruptly and started rambling about how he had met Paul in Basic, or wherever they did meet, and then went into a riff about how much the armed forces sacrifice and what it’s like to get no sleep and rely on no one but yourself and others in your company “and when you people are sleeping warm in your beds you just remember what we go through for you and our country and you have NO IDEA what we sacrifice…”
Meanwhile, Julie is looking terrified. I follow her sightline to her dad, who’s at the table with me and Mr. Rilch. He fits the old cliche of “his face was like a thundercloud” perfectly, his hand is clenched into a fist; I think I heard him growling. He’s just getting up when Bill pries the mike out of Joe’s hand and says “I think it’s time for the cake!” Later I found out that he’s a Korean War vet.
*The hell of it is, Paul left the Army in August of this year! Although from Heather’s POV, that would be a good thing.
If it were lectures rather than speeches, several of my attempts to deliver talks in graduate school, as a student or as a treaching assistant, would certainly qualify. I was completely terrible.
But instead how about Patrick Wright (BBC personality, author of many notable books) introducing the poet Robin Blaser in April 2000 at a poetry reading I attended in Cambridge (UK). This was supposed to be a brief set of polite/honorific remarks to introduce the reader. Wright begun to talk…and talk…and talk. Blather about Simon Fraser University. Blather about Blaser. Blather about Ezra Pound. Blather about Jack Spicer. More blather. Blather about Blaser’s new opera libretto. All delivered in a completely fatuous style…& delivered at Blaser, who sat there drinking in the praise. An introduction which was supposed to be about 3-5 minutes long turned out to be a 30-minute-plus exercise in the most appalling flattery. What was even worse was Blaser’s evident enjoyment, & the grotesquely self-pleased reading he gave afterward. He read on & on, & at the end said that he’d meant to read from the libretto but had run out of time. Wright, from the audience, begged for just one piece from the libretto. Blaser complied by reading a poem called “Pentimento” which, he pointed out, could be read in the poetry conference programme. I turned to the page…& the poem was dedicated to Patrick Wright.