“Four Score and Seven Years Ago, (laughter) our fathers brought forth on this Continent a New Nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men were created equal.” (laughter subsides).  I first learned that speech when I was nine years old, and it is fitting and proper that I quote that piece here, not only for my own archives, but for my own reminder that American History truly began with Lincoln, with the Civil War and Reconstruction wherein this country finally took its own inventory regarding the equality of those less fortunate, such as people of color, inclusive of women of any color and folks who did not own property.  It is only within that context that the benefits of education serve a culture, country or nation.

Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen.  I see a gentleman in the front row video-taping this event.  Should you wish to keep the camera on, I will now, Sir, give you an option: you can either pay me seven figures for your endeavor, or you can give a copy of that video to my extraordinary wife, Sheri after the event.  She will take your email address; and I warn that she is from a farm in northern Georgia, thus holds hard and fast to honesty and integrity as well as vengeance should anyone betray her. (laughter)

Intro

Two weeks ago, I played golf in a tournament in northern California. The day before the tournament I needed a practice round and went to the course by myself.  I was paired up with a man named Tom Boyle who said he was from San Luis Obispo, named for St. Louis of Toulouse. “Ever heard of him?” Tom asked. My entire Master’s Thesis was on Franciscan art, so Tom didn’t know what he’d walked into. “Matter of fact,” I said, “Louis was born in 1274, died in 1297, was the brother of Robert of Anjou, son of Charles the Lame, both kings of Naples; and Louis was about to ordained king himself, when, even as a nineteen year old, he renounced all royalty, as a Franciscan Friar, to dedicate his life to “love and service” of and to the poor of France, a job that brought him great joy and peace and eventually killed him at the ripe old age of 23.  One of the most beautiful bronze statues in the world is Donatello’s 1427 St. Louis of Toulouse in the Museum of the Franciscan church of Santa Croce in Florence, where I have taught to no less than a thousand undergrads.”  Tom Boyle thought he was playing golf with just some actor… just some orange-juice head from Malibu.  However, my service to Tom was not the protracted tutorial on St. Louis.  But more of Tom Boyle later.

RECOGNITION OF STUDENT AND TEACHER

I am proud to have been asked by the Baccalaureate Program at the City University of New York and my dear friend, Kim Hartswick to address you, the graduates of 2010.  I believe they asked me to this because I, like you all, had the audacity to go back to school as a geriatric approaching senility.  Even if some of you are only in your twenties or thirties I consider anyone over the age of nineteen who has the gumption to go back to college, without the aid of your old man’s AMEX card as a brave geriatric.  To start things off, I pray, so that we may all celebrate each other, yea that we may indeed BOND together in the same spirit of the adult students that we are, by each and every one of you, looking deep within your soul right now, and admit that you, like me, at some point during your journey as an adult college student – asked yourself… “what the hell am I doing?” (big laughter)

Or if you are married or have a significant other, no matter how compassionate he or she may be, admit now, confess now, that while you were burning the midnight oil over that paper or exam, you heard the dulcet tones of your significant other whispering into your ear or bellowing across the room, asking you, “excuse me, but… when will you be finished with all this school crap?” (laughter) My wife, Sheri, says she only asked this on the inside.

If you have never heard these questions, I suggest that you never really attended classes, but spent your time at the corner bar slamming kamakazi’s or Irish car bombs.

I, for one, found, in my re-entry into academy vis a vis Syracuse University for my Master’s Degree and now UCLA for my Phd, amongst many of the educators in academia, not all of them, but many of them, I found a conspicuous lack of the one thing all good mothers teach their children: SOCIAL SKILLS! (laughter from student body; chuckles from profs.)

But I forgive the college educator this short-coming; because college professors are so used to 19 year olds angling and wrangling for an “A” that teachers become a little gun-shy, a bit dubious when someone, an ADULT someone, like me, like yourselves, merely walks up and says, “hey… great class.”  The first time I said that, as an adult Master’s degree student, to a professor at Syracuse University in Florence, the professor looked at me with the suspicion as if she was looking at a piece of sushi with ecoli; then she retreated with sort of a Martha Stewart grumble like I was the guest who just screwed up the apple pie recipe.  And as we all know, Martha doesn’t like that.

However, even as I enjoy ragging on academia, I remind you that your teachers and professors have their own cross to bear; as most of them survive instructing us, under the inauspicious domain of an organization that we may loosely call a “school board.”  I was speaking with a gifted educator, Larry Rosenstock of High Tech High in San Diego this week, and he reminded me, on behalf of you educators, all of whom must work under the chaos of these nebulous organizations… Prof. Rosenstock reminded me to console you with the words of Mark Twain, who said, when the university and high school boards in Missouri refused his book Tom Sawyer, inferring that it was worthless pulp, Twain said, “in the first place God made idiots; but that was only for practice, then God made school boards.” (laughter from faculty)  In fact the renowned educator, Bud Spillane, said “if I threw my school board out the window they would go up.”

SUCCESS

So, as adult students, we forgive the eccentricities of the professors and academia, because as we all know, they have their own political dilemmas.  And no matter what the dysfunction of education may be it is still the best entrée to success.  Now by “success” regarding your degree I do not mean money and a job, although those are earmarks of success in the material world.   And those earmarks demand toil, for which you, as graduates, are ostensibly trained. Remember, it is not the job of education to turn out an “entrepreneur”; college does not usually teach one to be an entrepreneur; it is the entrepreneur who needs the practicality of the college grad to do the grunt work; thus CUNY has turned out YOU for that that toil, and, in so doing, YOU, the grad may one day, become an entrepreneur should you so wish.

However, what I mean by “success,” and, mark me, is Love and Service.  And by “love and service” I am not speaking in the vernacular of the touchy-feely, late 20^th century.

One of the great proverbs for prosperity is handed down in Sanskrit, I believe.  When some wisdom is handed down in Sanskrit or Cuneiform I was always pay attention, because I know it is NOT going to be some New Age psycho-babble; but an axiom that survives the slings and arrows of mediocrity.  THE FIRST LAW OF PROSPERITY in this Sanskrit adage, and notice it doesn’t mention MONEY, or its equivalent, is: Find out what you REALLY want to do in your life… and do that. The caveat is to make sure that what you do… is of Service.

Grad school

Now, some of you shall go on to grad school.  By the way, in the opinion of my dearest friend, Mark Hime, a renowned antiquarian book dealer, is that the board of college standards should remove the Math section of the GRE exams for grad school and replace it with a new exam that simply test’s one’s ability to pay the bloomin’ tuition. (major laughter)

Regarding grad school, I will impart a word of advice.  You may hear of a teacher or professor who has real magic, BUT who may not be teaching EXACTLY the class you have in mind. TAKE THE CLASS! You only need ONE of those magical professors to inspire or transform you FOREVER; I have two – among many great profs – both as eccentric as Ebenezer Scrooge; one professor at Syracuse in Florence, a veritable mentor to me, is, although he might chastise me for this rhetoric… is a gifted teddy bear – posing as a curmudgeon –  named Robert Hatfield.  Rab Hatfield taught me more than I ever dreamed I could learn about Italy or Italian art; in addition, serving as his T.A. for a semester in Florence, brought me an education beyond dreams.  Another professor at UCLA, a young, skin-head, cigarette smoking, savant from Cambridge, who, at first glance, makes one think of a leather boy from the East End of London, is named Pete Stacey.  Whoever heard of a college professor named “Pete?” (laughter). I was told that Stacey was a force of nature so I enrolled in a course on Machiavelli at UCLA.  My thing is Renaissance Art, not political history and rhetoric.  Even my advisor at UCLA, at the time, asked me, “Why are you taking a political history course?”  Well Pete Stacey like Rab Hatfield, lit Roman candles for me (laughter).  Stacey’s grad course on Machiavelli led to another course of his in humanist texts, the humanist texts led BACK to art history, and my dissertation is now inter-disciplinary and it is something I REALLY WANT TO DO! (applause)

I was inspired to return to grad school, by the way, by none other than Dr. Hartswick’s extraordinary wife, Dr. Maria Conelli, present director of the American Museum of Folk Art.  And now, as I approach my dissertation, I don’t quite know whether to put Maria in my will or have her locked up for engendering the psychosis of an adult.  Particularly when she said to me, ten years ago, “Oh, Syracuse has a terrific Master’s program abroad!”  In the midst of my Master’s degree in Florence, when they informed my that I had to audit extra classes and, thus back-pack my way at 7 AM, with hundreds of adolescents, through the throngs of jaded tourists and mosquitoes, two miles to school every morning. And then spend the afternoon reading Medieval Italian with other cranky grad students in moldy archives, I considered putting out a contract on Maria Conelli.  “Beautiful Florence!”  In Italian, that’s “BELLA FIRENZE!”  Well, I wanted to get the bella out of there and go back to my day gig.  Had I not been asked by Rab Hatfield to be his TA the following semester, I honestly would have bagged the whole thing.  After all, I was a “made guy” in the movie biz, folks!  Why was I hanging around bubble-gummers and a bunch of wacky academics?  However both my late mother, Dorothy, and my wife, Sheri said, 1). “You don’t quit.” And 2.) “A little humility is good for you.”  And that is another precept that we take from education; Humility.  Listen.  As recently as a month ago, I thought, “why the hell am I doing this,” during a PhD written exam on Roman Triumphal arches. Four hours in a locked room pounding out words on monuments most of the world has never seen and never will.  But as my mother also said in 2002 when walking her and my wife, Sheri, back to their hotel, I stood on the Ponte Vecchio and yelled into the river Arno, as well as whatever river gods would hear me, “why in hell am I doing this?!!” My mother immediately barked back at me, “Why NOT?… what else you got to do?”

By the way, my two of my three personal recommendations to Syracuse were written by Woody Allen and Gore Vidal. Woody hand wrote in Venice, on Hotel Gritti Palace stationary, “Peter Weller is my friend, a fellow actor, writer, director, musician and a credit to his race.” (laughter).  As if I was a good “white-guy.” (big laughter) Gore Vidal was less oblique: Vidal, typing on a an old Remington wrote, “ I’ve known Weller a long time. He is an extraordinary student… of exactly WHAT… I have no idea.” (laughter)  PAUSE

However, my third recommendation was written by the ex Mayor Richard Riordan of Los Angeles.  Mayor Riordan was the first to point out to me that education is the ONLY portal to the road of solution regarding, the police stations, hospitals and death that await our youth if they feel the only alternative is “the street.”  It was Mayor Richard Riordan, twenty-two years ago, who profoundly transformed me into seeing that EDUCATION IS THE ONLY WAY OFF THE STREET for the youth all over this planet!  You see, for some reason, and I do not think anyone has figured out; if a youth is not functionally literate by the age of “8” the world has lost him to the “street”… to that black hole, that void wherein the usual and tragic end is a prison, hospital or premature death.  Before the age of eight, you almost have bind and gag a child in order for he or she NOT to learn.  They are voracious with learning… after 8, and it may be due to peer pressure or parental interference, we know not, the child is lost if he is not functionally literate.  

SERVICE AND EGYPT

Which means; that “education” is only a synonym for “possibility.” If there is no “possibility” the child is gone, virtually for good, into the dark miasma of “the street.” Thus, EDUCATION IS A GIFT! GIVEN TO US ONLY TO BE OF SERVICE TO GIVE IT BACK, and thus break the bonds of cultural isolation such that brothers and sisters all over, yea the BIG WIDE world, offer one another a hand and a hug instead of a gun shot (applause) and that is not simpy feel-good high jive. Education is the gift of Love and Service, and that is the ONLY end-game, folks!

Tomorrow my wife, Sheri and I are on our way to Egypt to speak at a conference on education and communication, celebrating the re-opening of the Library of Alexandria, the predominant library of the ancient world.  The point of the conference is to improve American relations with the Muslim countries of the world. It was not incepted by the United States.  Muslim countries – countries that believe that this symposium will be of SERVICE to the world, incepted the conference.  And it will take place in Egypt, a predominantly Muslim country. Why was I invited to this, I asked? They could have asked George Clooney.  I can only believe that I was asked because of my commitment to learning.  The first thought I had was, “Big honor, but what difference can I make in Alexandria?”  What difference can I make?  Although a popular question, this query is also a HIGHLY egotistical, almost neurotic question that puts the burden of SELF into the equation.  Inherent in that question is an obligation of more weight than Schwarzenegger could dead lift.  (Let us not forget that the Governorator was many times Mr. Universe.) The more pertinent and moving question to ask, the question that carries with it, not “obligation” but “freedom” is the request; “Please tell me how, this knowledge, this experience, this EDUCATION can be of service to Muslim/American relations?”  If you take nothing away from my blather today, please let this resonate… the ONLY positive result of education is your continuum of Love and Service.  As Buddha said, “if you only handle what is directly in front of you with love and service, the world will handle itself.”

SERVICE AND GOD

Now look, I am not a Buddhist, but Buddha also said, “In the land of truth there is no path.”  In other words, you can accept coaching and advice but each of our personal journeys, if truthful, is personal only to us, thus we must finally have to hack out our own route alone.  But if we do not, at some point in time, have the epiphany that while we hacked our way through your own jungle into this OASIS called “higher education,” and when we leave this seat today to cut our own swath through to whatever lies beyond… if we do not have the epiphany that this is all a Gift, solely in order that we be of service to others… so that those OTHERS can make their own road through their own land of truth… then that piece of paper called “diploma” is as meaningful as a day-old New York Times!

I am also no tele-evangelist either; but I do know that every spiritual tradition since Man walked out of a cave contains the precept of joy on earth as deriving from love and service.  This THING called “college” or “university” or higher education is a gift to us, ONLY so that we may be the instrument of peace and service.  That is it, Baby!  And if you have not had this epiphany yet, I hope that you may one day.  I pray that you may one day soon see, that we are only the CONDUIT for this gift called “education.”  We are not the source… nor are your teachers or institutions. It doesn’t matter whether you call it Jaweh, Allah, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, the Saints, the Good Hindi gods, a sense of humor, karma, dharma, Nature, the Great Buddah, the Great Spirit or fiddle-dee-dee, we are NOT the source but ONLY the conduit; we are only the instruments of love and service; hence “education” is the most powerful tool we can EVER receive and pass on within the context of Service, and it is generated by a Something bigger than us.  If you don’t get this now, or know this in your heart before you walked in here, I hope you see it one day, because as much as the “what’s in it for me” gives one momentary glimpse at ephemeral pleasure, that “what’s in it for me” road is an eventual dead end, brothers and sisters.

Right before I left Los Angeles, day before yesterday, my agent called me about some yummy movie at Universal studios for which the director wanted to meet me.  I must weigh in… 1. Yummy movie offer? That’s a service; entertainment… some loot, good work. OR 2.) Service to Muslim/American relations.  Service to the world, no loot, the perk is I get to take my wife down the Nile.  What to chose?… Well… I do hope the movie offer is there when I return. (laughter) Maybe yes, maybe no.

So school, as an adult, teaches and re-teaches humility.  We, as adults, know there are no free rides; so we’d better learn and re-learn humility, because, I believe that, no matter how old we are; we are always in the overture.  My life has no second or third act!  My life is a one-act play.  I start at the start… of one long ride, in which, through humility I must learn and relearn, DAILY, that I am ONLY a conduit for Love and Service… right up until “The End.”

So back to golf and Tom Boyle.  When Tom found out I was a PhD student, he asked me what I was going to do with it?  “I don’t know yet,” I said.  Then Tom confessed that he himself was an educator, recently retired – a high school math teacher; a performer of great service.  His daughter had just finished college… which had given him a 50 thousand dollar a year raise. (laughter)  A few golf holes later Tom’s voice lowered and let me know that he had been, fifteen years ago, one chapter away from finishing his PhD dissertation at USC… USC!  But he quit, to go into business, to take care of his family and then he began teaching high school… Tom did what he had to do… he’s had a terrific life so far… he’s on a golf course, ain’t he?! (laughter). Anybody on a golf course is having a good time.  But the PhD still gnaws at him.  It gnaws at him because it’s still a goal, yet an incompletion in his life, the finishing of which could and would only bring immense satisfaction, but offer another wonderful and extraordinary avenue of service.  I could only respond, “Tom, I’m 62! You are farther along in your PhD than I am!”  “But what are you going to DO with your PhD?” “I don’t know!” I said.  “But right now they have asked me to be of service in Alexandria, so I will go do that!  But you, Tom! You MUST, you MUST go back to school and get your PhD.  Do it between rounds of golf for God’s sake!” And so now Tom and I are in touch through email, and I am going to beat him up until with emails until he goes back to USC or an affiliate and finishes that PhD. And that is my service to Tom Boyle and to you today. (applause)

Tom, like me, like you, knows, as the great grand-daddy of all educators, John Dewey said, “education is not the preparation for life; Education IS life.”  Very few have the courage of Louis of Toulouse; we are not saints.  If you have any inkling to continue your education as an instrument of service, it will only sing JOY in the journey of your oh-so-short time on this planet.

CONCLUSION

I conclude with George Bernard Shaw who said, a good life is nothing but a serious of INSPIRED follies; the problem, however, is to find them to do…”  Shaw would smile upon this room; for each and every one of us here today has found at least ONE veritable folly of inspiration… we came back to school.  I leave you now to go out into the world and find many more of those inspired follies to do.  One of mine was coming here today and speaking to all of you.  Lastly, I hope among those follies that you may choose, that one may be attending graduate school.  If so, when you are burning the midnight oil over a paper or exam delivered unto you from some finicky but inspiring professor… and get to the point, and you will, where you pound the desk and yell out over the river of your computer, “why in hell am I doing this?” I can only answer, “why not?  What else you got to do?” Thank you for letting me be of service.