Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! - Everyone & Graduation

Episode Date: June 1, 2022

Comedian Hari Kondabolu and Emma congratulate seniors and stress out over the cap and gown shortage. And Hari graduates with his degree in inspiration.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hey everyone, I'm Emma Choi and welcome to Everyone and Their Mom, a weekly show from Wait Wait Don't Tell Me. This week we're talking about graduation with Wait Wait panelist, comedian, and someone whose fanbase should really call themselves the Condabubus, it's Hari Kondabolu. Hi Hari. Hey, how are you Emma? Hari, it's graduation season, right? So it's the beautiful time of year where you get to find out how many of your high school bullies are going to nursing school.

And the answer is all of them, Hari. All of them are going to nursing school. Did you have a high school bully that went to nursing school, Emma? So many of them, Hari. That's so strange. You know what? Nursing school or not, the U.S. has a major cap in gown shortage. And, of course, supply chain issues are to blame.

Shipments are being held up at every stage of the process. And high schools and universities all over America are being affected. And especially regional theater productions of High School Musical 3, you know, which come on, America, we need that last scene for closure. that last scene for closure. Personally, I think they should ditch the cap and gown thing entirely and just make everyone wear white leggings and sport bras. You know, really humble them

before celebrating them. I mean, why not break tradition? Like, why is that tradition so important that you have to wear a cap and gown? And I'm going to be honest, I don't think the cap and gown is that flattering for any body type. No, no.

It's basically a muumuu and the hat is just... What the hell is that hat the hat looks like someone played a prank on a graduate they're like put this board on your hand you'll look smart my best friend really didn't want to wear a cap and gown he's like that's not how i want to graduate that's not like how i want to look when i graduate i'm like what and he just want he just wanted to wear his regular clothes and part of me respected it like okay you're bucking tradition

the other part of me is like what stance are you taking man what is the point of this what is this for what is the point of you not is it just to not wear and what do you mean this is not how you who imagines graduation without a cap and gown i know you know what i personally love about graduation speeches is that like it's kind of like super equalizing because like essentially you're just asking someone really accomplished to do like a 20 minutes of stand up comedy in front of thousands of people. You know, like my school asked Mother Teresa to come like 10 years ago and she basically they were essentially making her do like a TED talk with a tight five inside of it. Was she alive 10 years ago 20 years ago i don't know what time is harry well why would you tell mother theresa to do anything it's like you can't be like all right mother theresa keep it at a tight 20 all right

malala it's 15 minutes that's i know i know what your story is i know what you went through but this is harvard 15 minutes or someone else is getting you off the stage. You can't tell people anything. And after you is going to be three white men who've all committed terrible atrocities against the environment. Now go, go, go. It makes no sense. It's like Malala, then Henry Kissinger. Like what?

Can you inspire listeners right now with a little commencement speech of our own? Sure. This goes out to all the kids graduating high school and college who might be listening to this. I want you to know that the future looks bleak. And I know that between global warming, global pandemic, the possibility of nuclear war, it almost feels like what you've done here is a waste. That perhaps if you're graduating from college, that the money you've spent is absolutely worthless, and this could have been time spent preparing for the apocalypse to come. But I want you to know that there's something good that comes with the end, and that is

if the world does end, you will not have to pay back your loans. Oh, Hari, I'm physically weeping right now. Oh my God, I'm overtaken. That was amazing. After hearing that speech that he made up on the spot, we wondered if Hari should go into speech writing full time. We wanted to talk to someone who does it for a living. So just to start off, will you introduce yourself to us?

Sure. My name is Sarada Perry, and I am a speechwriter formerly for President Obama. Yeah, that's crazy. I mean, this is maybe a weird question, but like when you're writing for Obama, do you like do an impression of him to like get into his voice? How do you get into his voice? Yeah, there's an element of that. So the idea of getting someone's voice is not really about how they talk. It's actually about how they think. And so when I started working for President Obama, the way, you know, it's not like he's got a ton of time to hang out with his speechwriters, you know, we're not like shooting the breeze with Barack Obama. So the way I kind of did that was that I sort of absorbed everything that he wrote, said, you know, I was watching, you know, all the late night interviews

with Jimmy Fallon, like I was just inhabiting the mind and soul of Barack Obama, which is exactly as creepy as it sounds. But sort of like the best way to do it. Yeah, that's so funny. Was there a part when he started dreaming as President Obama? I wasn't, I didn't like, have dreams that I was him. But I did every morning sort of wake up and look at the news and whatever the news was, I never thought, hmm, what does Sarada think about that? I thought, what would Barack Obama think about that? Wow. I just thought you kind of like reorient your entire worldview to be through his lens in a way. Yeah. It's like method speech writing. You're always in character.

I like that. Method speech writing. I love, yeah. I mean, speaking of his voice, I feel like Obama had a really, or has a really memorable way of talking. Like he had a little bit of dad humor. Were you like responsible for that or like were you like tuning in to like finding the right places to make a joke? We definitely did our best to insert dad jokes. I'm actually pretty good at dad jokes. And so and like I figured out kind of his, you know, his kind of brand of that particular humor. And he often just ad-libbed it, honestly.

You know, he'd kind of read the room and see something funny and then just sort of react. Okay, improv. Yeah, that's great. Exactly, exactly. Well, this week we're talking a lot about graduation since it's graduation season. And specifically about graduation speeches, which is why we wanted to talk to you. Have you ever written a graduation speech before? So many. Really? They are not my favorite speech to write. But yes, I've read many.

Why aren't they your favorite speech to write? So many reasons. So many reasons, Emma. So one is that a commencement speech is a speech about anything. There is no topic. There is no argument to be made. Speakers often make it a speech about everything, which then means it's a speech about nothing. And I think that's just a really hard place to be. And it can be hard to persuade speakers that they don't need to dole out every single piece of life advice they've ever received or every lesson that they derived from their climb up the tech startup ladder or whatever the hell they did. I think it can be challenging to help people really stick to a plan. Yeah, it sounds like a lot of people, when they don't know what they're doing, just fall into a bunch of cliches. Yes. I feel like a lot of speakers want to just say the thing that will make them sound the smartest or the funniest.

What they need to do is say the thing that is the truest to them. What's the one thing you can say to these people? So it sounds like your job is inspiring people to inspire others. Do you have to give yourself an inspiring speech to give other people inspiring advice so they can give other people inspiring advice too? The circle of inspiration? Yeah. I will say I think that whenever I'm working on a commencement speech, the most inspiring sort of step in my work is to call up the university or college, whatever it is, and get information about students. And sometimes I'll even talk to students. That is always a really great experience. I'm a college student. What would you ask me if you

were trying to get an idea of what I wanted? Yeah. So depending on what I was going to you for, it might just be sort of the basics. So tell me, where do you guys hang out on a Saturday night? Who is the toughest professor? Who's the professor that everybody wants to get into that class? All the sort of the color that will inform, especially the beginning of the speech, so that when the speaker starts, they're kind of issuing what we call how-to-hells, as in, how the hell did he know that? Yeah. Well, okay, so we have a draft of a commencement speech our friend Hari came up with. It's just off the dome.

Like it's kind of a first draft, but we were wondering if since you're professional, can you give them some notes on it? All right. Okay, cool. I'll read it to you. So feel free to stop me if you like see something that you want to workshop or praise or something that needs work. Okay.

Okay. Okay. I want you to know that or something that needs work. Okay. Okay. Okay. I want you to know that the future looks bleak. And I know that between global warming, a global pandemic and the possibility of nuclear war, it almost feels like what you've done here is a waste. How are we doing so far? And now let's just all go throw ourselves into the Pacific Ocean. Okay, you're not going to like this next part then, okay? So the next part goes that perhaps if you're graduating from college, that the money you spent is absolutely worthless.

And this could have been the time spent preparing for the apocalypse to come. What do you think about that apocalypse reference? So I actually think that whatever comes next is actually important. So what comes next? Okay. So what comes next is, but I want you to know that there's something good that comes with the end. And that is if the world does end, you will not have to pay back your loans. Where is he supposed to go next? He's got to go somewhere else. Some version of, but seriously, folks, like for all of this, for all of these really hard challenges, there is no generation better positioned to try to fix this disaster than you all, than the one that's in college right now. And, you know, as President Obama always said, you're not encumbered by these old ideas.

And so every generation before us has at least tried. And that is kind of your inheritance. Got to pick up the baton and keep going. Graduation speeches are just always the same generic idea, right? Have you ever done one before? Have you ever had to give one? I gave one at my high school,

Townsend Harris High School in Flushing, Queens. And I have been told that it was one of the best speeches they have ever had. Okay, Bragg, that's awesome. Can you give us a taste? What did you say?

What did I say? I said something about how usually they get people who are aspirational. And the thing is, I'm a stand-up comic so if any of you turned into this your parents would see your life as a complete failure can you introduce yourself to us yeah so uh i'm John or Jonathan Apana. Queens born and raised. Let's go Mets.

Hell yeah. And you were in the graduating class of 2012 at Townsend Harris High School where Hari gave the commencement speech, right? Yeah, I was. Yeah. I had like a really great view because I was one of the band geeks. So I was like, I was in the pit. It didn't really sink in, I guess, until I started hearing like all the speeches that I was like, oh, man, like high school's over. Yeah. I mean, here's our million dollar question. Do you remember anything from Hari's speech?

Yeah. So I remember when they told us that, first of all, this brown guy was going to be giving a speech, not a doctor, not a banker, you know, not some politician, but a comedian. I was like, oh, that's really interesting. Okay. And then out walks this guy with like curly, shaggy hair, you know, glasses. You can imagine how weird this is. I graduated 12 years ago and I'm speaking to you right now. This is very bizarre. And I'll never forget, but like the gown that they

gave him was clearly like either it was mis-sized um or they just kind of threw it on him before he he ran in it was like half off his shoulder he looked he just looked pretty disheveled i don't know what was going on that morning and then he gave this like really like endearing speech about how you know once you go off to college you know you kind of are as a person who lives in new york and kind of grew up in new york you know you're like that diversity that everybody talks about i couldn't know what it meant and i kept hearing the word diversity when i went to school in may and how there would be a surge of diversity when i got to campus and i realized i was the surge they were talking about like when you grow up and live here you don't really realize that because you know everyone around you is like the person down the block from another country.

And you're like, oh yeah, that's just kind of like Queens. This is incredible. They don't have this. They have to figure this out. They have to take trainings. This is ridiculous what we have. And something else that was really impactful was, I remember him saying, he's kind of going through notable alum that went to counts in Paris. And something else that was really impactful was, I remember him saying, you know, kind of going through, like, notable alum that went to counts in there. It's like Jonas Salk, who was, like, responsible for, like, the polio vaccine, you know.

Ira Gershwin, who was, like, the brother, you know, the Gershwin brothers who wrote a lot of musicals. And then he was just like, and then there's me. I'm the most famous alum since, like, of musicals. And then he was just like, and then there's me. I'm the most famous alum since like the 80s. A stand-up comedian is your most famous alum since 1984. Something

is wrong. I guess I took it as kind of a challenge. But it was also kind of humbling and sweet. Most of you don't even know who i am that is weird some of you are looking at me on your phones right now who is this why is he relevant to me right now i don't know like don't rest on the laurels of everybody who came before you know which meant a lot to me and like i said i still remember it yeah that's so remember it. Yeah, that's so awesome. It sounds like his speech actually inspired you.

It did, yeah, it definitely did. Just to know that someone who was in my place, whatever, like a decade ago, was having the same thoughts. Once I graduate, who am I going to be? Who are other people going to see me as? I was one of those kids who had like an identity crisis as a teen uh wasn't really connected to like my culture and my background how I kind of grew out of that was from like higher speech

whereas like you know kind of like get connected to who you are kind of understand how much that actually means um and like how much that'll actually make you like feel better about yourself. I mean, I'm a much more happier person when you know who you are and where you came from. Thank you very much, Townsend. I was glad to do that. Here's my favorite part of the podcast, the credits! This show was brought to you by Wait Wait Don't Tell Me. This episode was produced by Hayley Fager, Zola Ray, and Nancy Seichow,

with help from Lillian King, Lillian's mom, Sophie Hernandez-Simeone This, and the person who invented Trader Joe's Mochi Puffs, thank you person. Our supervising producer is Jennifer Mills, and our 2018 Fergie National Anthem is Mike Danforth. Once again, Lorna White, thank you for helping us with our sound. You're the best. Thank you to Jonathan Apana for your inspiring words about Hari's inspiring words. And Sarah DePerry, thank you for being the most inspirational inspirer I have ever met. Oh my gosh, girl, no.

Thank you to my co-host, comedian, wait-wait panelist, and awesome dad, Hari Kondabolu. That is very specific, Emma. You can see Hari in person at the Den Theater in Chicago on June 23rd through 25th and at the Cedar in Minneapolis on June 18th. Find tickets on his website at harikondabolu.com. That's H-A-R-I-K-O-N-D-A-B-O-L-U dot com. I'm Emma Choi, and you can find me at WaitWaitNPR, and putting down my scissors slowly as I talk myself out of getting bangs. Okay, I'm done. This is NPR.